Received in an Email.

I got sent this. At first I thought it was an urban legend. I looked it up on the net and couldn't find it so maybe it is true. My guess is that it wasn't really written by a girl from Geelong since Australian schools haven't ever done the Pledge of Allegiance except for singing the National Anthem. (Advance Australia Fair).

I like the prayer though.


BY A 15 yr. old SCHOOL KID IN GEELONG VIC:

New Pledge of Allegiance (TOTALLY AWESOME) !!!


Since the Pledge of Allegiance & The Lord's Prayer are not allowed in most public schools anymore, because the word "God" is mentioned....


A kid in Geelong Vic wrote the attached:-

NEW School prayer :


Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd.

If Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now.

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense - it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the state.

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's "inappropriate" to teach right from wrong,
We're taught that such "judgments" do not belong.

We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.

It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take !!!


Amen

If you aren't ashamed to do this,
please pass this on.
Jesus said,
"If you are ashamed of me,
I will be ashamed of you before my Father."


Not ashamed. Pass this on..

Everything you wanted to know about me and more.

I was going to do this last night but didn't have the time to type it all up.

Annelisa from My Motherhood sent me this quiz in an email. I thought it would be fun to post on here. If you want to put it on your blog, go ahead and leave a comment here so that I can get to know you a bit better.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 7.30

2. Diamonds or pearls? Pearls

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? I cannot remember but you can be assured it was some children's movie that I took the children to see.

4. What is your favorite TV show? I don't generally watch TV.

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Eggs on toast with grated cheese

6. What is your middle name? Angela

7. What food do you dislike? Brussels sprouts and asparagus.

8. What is your favorite CD at moment? Hooked on Classics.

9. What kind of car do you drive? We have two. A Volkswagon 2003 Kombi and a 1995 Toyota Carolla.

10. Favorite sandwich? Chicken, avocado and mayo but I don't have it much because avocado's are so expensive.

11. What characteristic do you despise? boastfulness

12. Favorite item of clothing? My black skirt that I wear to church in winter.

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would love to go on a cruise. I would also love to go to Europe and The States and meet all my online friends.

14. Favorite brand of clothing? The one's I make.

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? My last one was fantastic. Steve took me out for breakfast and the children under Daniel's supervision cleaned up the house while we were gone. The only thing that hadn't been done when we got home was the folding hadn't been put away. I guess we didn't take long enough for breakfast.

15. Where would you retire to? Probably stay here or maybe move into our unit in Adelaide.

17. Favorite sport to watch? Ice skating

18. Furthest place you are sending this? NA

19. Person you expect to send it back first? NA

21. When is your birthday? 1st October

22. Are you a morning person or a night person? night but I know that when I get up early I tend to get more done.

23. What is your shoe size? 7.

24. Pets? lots of chooks, a cocker spaniel called Pepper, a cat called CC, a turtle called crush and lots of little gold fish.

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? I cannot think of anything at the moment.

26. What did you want to be when you were little? I remember in year 5 we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be. I drew a picture of a police women. I suppose I do police my children lol.

27. How are you today? Happy and relaxed.

29. What is your favorite flower? Sturt Desert Pea's and frangipani

30. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? the next school holidays.

32. What is your full name? Therese Angela _________________

33. What are you listening to right now? Tom and Amelia are watching The Magic School bus and the computer is humming.

34. What was the last thing you ate? a finger bun.

35. Do you wish on stars? no

36. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Red

37. How is the weather right now? Warmer than it should be. The sun is glorious.

38. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my mother.

39. Favorite soft drink? Coke Zero

40. Favorite restaurant? Our local Chinese one.

41. Hair color? mid brown with grey in parts.

42. What was your favorite toy as a child? dolls. I loved any doll.

43. Summer or winter? definitely summer

44. Hugs or kisses? depends who from. From Steve, a kiss, from everyone else a hug.

45. Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla

46. Coffee or tea? Very sweet coffee.

47. Do you want your friends to email you back? NA but I would like to read this on other people's blogs.

48. When was the last time you cried? I cannot remember but I do cry a lot.

49. What is under your bed? lots of dust.

50. What did you do last night?treated myself for head lice and played the Wii.

51. What are you afraid of? Offending God or not being obedient to his call.

52. Salty or sweet? Sweet

53. How many keys on your key ring? 4

54. How many years at your current job? 16

55. Favorite day of the week? Friday. Today hooray.

56. How many towns have you lived in? 3

57. Do you make friends easily? I am shy to begin with but find it easy after a while.

58. How many people will you send this too? NA

59. How many will respond? NA

60.Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends? Yes

400 posts.

I was going to do a special post tonight because this is my 400th post. I cannot believe I have posted that many entries.

Alas, I have the lice treatment in my hair and still need to wash it out and it is now 9.44 in the evening so my special post will have to wait till tomorrow.

What does it mean to be pro life?

This is a question I have asked myself a lot this week. What does it really mean to be pro life.

I am not sure how many people know the Duggar family.

The Duggar Family website

This week Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar announced they are having their 18th child.

It is wonderful to read about a family that is so devoted to God and willing to go against the usual anti life culture that our society has.

I go on a couple of message boards. One is for parents of diabetic children and the other one is a Catholic one. I suppose I expected to read some criticisms on the diabetes board since it isn't a religious site but I certainly didn't expect to read it on a Catholic board from people that profess to be Catholic.

Many false arguments have been put forward against the Duggar family. First they are selfish. I really don't know how any mother and father sharing life with so many children could be called selfish. They would have to work mighty hard to have that many children and look after them all. So then others say well no they don't look after their children. A baby is assigned a buddy and the bigger child raises the baby. The parents don't parent the children at all. When told that the children are not in fact raising the babies, but helping out, many will still insist that they are and that the parents are guilty of neglecting these children in some way or giving the older children too much responsibility.

I think that this is all very untrue.

As the mother of a large family my children all have regular chores. They all have to chip in and help. A family with 17 children would have to do it more so.

My children's chores are:

Madeline has to maintain our living room. She is responsible for cleaning the computer table, the TV buffet and lounge chairs every evening. She is responsible for sweeping and mopping the floor as needed and she is responsible for putting everything that doesn't belong in the lounge room away.

Brigette is responsible for hanging the washing and keeping the laundry tidy.

Tom and Amelia are responsible for taking all dirty clothes from the bathroom's and bedrooms to the laundry. They are responsible for clearing the table after each meal.

Christopher helps either Madeline or Tom and Amelia during the family work time.

Our older two boys, Daniel and Sam, both work part time as well as attend school. Because they work part time I probably don't expect them to do as much as the other children. They have a roster where they do the kitchen three nights a week each. I am responsible for this on the night that they are not rostered.

Other chores that they do. I fold all the washing but they all need to put it away including Christopher. Christopher carries it to his bedroom and I help him sought it into the different boxes. They are responsible for making their beds. Brigette tends to help Amelia who still has a little trouble with this and Tom helps Christopher. They are all responsible for putting away anything they get out. If Christopher unpacks a bag of blocks, I will ask him to pick them up when he has finished. If any child watches a video they are suppose to put it away.

All these things are teaching my children how to serve. I believe when children are taught to serve they are happier. They don't look for fulfillment in materialistic things. I know that when I stop serving the family in the way I should, I become unhappy and feel guilty. I also know that it has an affect on the rest of the family and the children are harder to motivate to do their chores. When everyone works together we all feel a bond and the joy that comes from having everything together.

Anyway I digress. The Duggar family would have to manage every detail and expect all their children to do their part in helping the family run smoothly. In giving out these chores and expecting their children to help no matter how much, is not neglectful. It is making them responsible and giving them a sense of self worth that no amount of saying positive things could.

This is what being pro life is. It is bring children into the world and teaching them how to live life. Children need responsibility and a good loving home. To have children and not place responsibility on their shoulders really is what is neglectful. The child that has no responsibility really has no purpose. A child with no purpose has no self esteem. That is most definitely neglecting a child.

I thank God everyday for my 7 children. I am very very conscious that God has greatly blessed me in giving Steve and I all these children.

Suzy Q.

Suzy Q from Sailing by Starlight has a great blog and it just got better. Suzy has had a poetry book published.

I have loved reading her blog ever since I first came across it last year.

So go check out her blog and wish her all the best. But most importantly, buy her book and support Mother of Peace.The book is on my wish list and hopefully I will be able to buy it soon.

Have you ever had a problem with head lice?

Because I have. Last year my three girls all had them terribly. We couldn't get rid of them. I tried every different type of treatment and nothing seemed to work. After a couple of months of trying I finally went to the doctor and got a prescription for some treatment. This seemed to work to a degree but still didn't completely eradicate them.

Around this time, Shirley from seeking Jesus posted a post on her sister's blog about essential oils. She said, if you have any questions, email me so I did.

Shirley sent me a list of oil's and I went and got them. I mixed a couple of different ones in the shampoo and conditioner and put some eucalyptus oil with olive oil onto the girls scalp. After just three days the lice were noticeably less. After a week, I couldn't see any but still kept putting the oil on their heads every other night for another two weeks just to make sure. We were cured and I was very thankful to Shirley. I let her know.

So today I was doing Amelia's hair, just before we left for school I noticed the lice and eggs.

So I am starting the process again. I did Amelia's hair with the oil today when we got home, She has obviously had these for a while because there were lots of adult size ones coming out with the comb. I will do the other girls tomorrow because they both have after school activities today. Tom and Christopher both have pretty short hair and I don't think they have any. I will just put the oil in, comb through and make sure they are not there.

So, if you have had a problem, feel free to email me and I am will tell you any other info you need.

The list of oils that I remember are:

Eucalyptus, Peppermint, lavender, geranium. I am going from memory but I think we put a mixture of olive oil and eucalyptus oil (equal amounts) and rubbed this on the scalp. I put the lavender and geranium oil in the shampoo and the peppermint oil in with the conditioner.

Shirley, if you are reading this, I think there was one other oil and I cannot remember what it was. Can you let us know in the comments section? Thanks

Happy Mother's day.

Today has been a great day for me. I was blessed with some very nice homemade cards, an e card and a breakfast of pancakes with golden syrup and cream over the top.

We went to Mass and spent the afternoon just hanging around doing nothin :::grin:::

I wanted to share a piece with you all that Abbey emailed to me.

When I am old.

When I'm an old lady, I'll live with each kid,
And bring so much happiness...just as they did.
I want to pay back all the joy they've provided.
Returning each deed! Oh, they'll be so excited!
(When I'm an old lady and live with my kids)

I'll write on the wall with reds, whites and blues,
And I'll bounce on the furniture...wearing my shoe s.
I'll drink from the carton and then leave it out.
I'll stuff all the toilets and oh, how they'll shout!
(When I'm an old lady and live with my kids)

When they're on the phone and just out of reach,
I'll get into things like sugar and bleach.
Oh, they'll snap their fingers and then shake their head,
(When I'm an old lady and live with my kids)

When they cook dinner and call me to eat,
I'll not eat my green beans or salad or meat,
I'll gag on my okra, spill milk on the table,
And when they get angry...I'll run...if I'm able!
(When I'm an old lady and live with my kids)

I'll sit close to the TV, through the channels I'll click,
I'll cross both eyes just to see if they stick.
I'll take off my socks and throw one away,
And play in the mud 'til the end of the day!
(When I'm an old lady and live with my kids)

And later in bed, I'll lay back and sigh,
I'll thank God in prayer and then close my eyes.
My kids will look down with a smile slowly creeping,
And say with a groan, "She's so sweet when she's sleeping!"

God Bless All Moms and Grandmas everywhere!

A night of culture.

Tonight I took Madeline, Brigette, Tom and Amelia to see Symphony under the Stars with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. What a wonderful night it was. In Port Augusta this year we have the Port Augusta Re Imagine's festival. It is a year of events, performances and workshops.

I did hear the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra play when Steve and I went to the Festival theatre (nearly 14 years ago) to see Jesus Christ Super Star. I haven't ever been to a concert with just the orchestra like this.

The last number they did was Tchaikovsky’s immortal 1812 overture, with fireworks in the background. I have never experienced anything like this. It was a wonderful night and will be one that I can imagine myself telling our Grandchildren about.

Friday funnies.

Kelly put this up on DCF and I liked it so much I had to post it here.

Slideshow of Amelia's birthday

Which Harry Potter character are you?

Intelligent and insightful, you are a gifted individual, who although may sometimes be buried in academic affairs, is friendly and welcoming.

Madeline would be happy with me being Hermione Granger since she is her favourite character in the books.

H/T to Within Me Without Me for this quiz.

Happy Birthday Amelia.

Tomorrow Amelia turns 7. Here is the pinafore I made her today.

Happy Birthday Amelia. Your dad and I love you very much and we are glad you are a part of our family.

Mum and Dad.

Super busy.

It is only two days till Amelia's birthday and I am trying to make a pinafore for her so I don't have much time tonight to post.

It is tasty Tuesday and I could post a recipe but I wanted to link to Kalona again and tell you all go and make her King Ranch Chicken. We had it last night and it was a huge hit.

Sunday.

We had such a nice warm day yesterday. Daniel went and played footy with Tom. It is so great to see brothers playing together.

May is a special month for Mary.

Today I started a new book with Tom and Amelia. One of our RE resources is Catholic Mosaic so today we got out the book Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue and read it.

This is such a beautiful story and teaches children the need to pray the rosary and use it to fight spiritual fights. It talks about the evil of abortion and about being a knight for God.

After the story Tom and Amelia wrote out the prayer Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue. We don't have any colour ink in our printer at the moment but when we do I am going to print of this prayer card and Tom and Amelia can glue it and laminate their own prayer card. Maybe we will make one for everyone in our family.

A little bit of fun.

This morning while browsing the web (instead of doing what I should be doing) I came across this little gem.

how many of me

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

luckily you people don't have to put up with another Therese.

How many of you are there in the USA?

A busy day.

I had my big cooking day today and will finish of the main meals tomorrow. It is a big job but I am seeing the benefits of cooking all at once.

The food bill is much cheaper. We don't need to dash out and get some take away because I am just too tired to cook or cannot be bothered.

Steve spent a good part of the day working in the backyard. We are still having some warm weather so it is nice to spend time outside working on the yard. Our next big project for our home improvements will be putting in a pergola and landscape around it. We have to save a bit of money before we can afford to do it so we are working on smaller projects at the moment. Tom and Amelia are going to do a vegetable garden as a part of their home school curriculum. They are going to grow zucchini, pumpkin and broad beans. We also want them to look after a couple of pots of herbs. We planted some basil today and hopefully we will get some parsley as well.

Things you might need to know one day.

DID YOU KNOW?

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won't have to

pick the little "stringy things" off of it. That's how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store.

If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil.

It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating.

Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef.

It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of

spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints

in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste

of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simply

chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them

in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350

for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yummm!

Reheat Pizza

Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low

and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on

the cooking channel and it really works.

Easy Deviled Eggs

Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

Expanding Frosting

When you buy a container of cake frosting from the store, whip it with your mixer

for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes

with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

Reheating refrigerated bread

To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in

a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food

moist and help it reheat faster.

Newspaper weeds away

Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers,

put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and for-

get about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not

get through wet newspapers.

Broken Glass

Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can't see easily.

No More Mosquitoes

Place a dryer sheet in your pocket.

It will keep the mosquitoes away.

Squirrel Away!

To keep squirrels from eating your plants, sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper.

The cayenne pepper doesn't hurt the plant and the squirrels won't come near it.

Flexible vacuum

To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel

roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in nar-

row openings.

Reducing Static Cling

Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt

or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose.

Place pin in seam of slacks and ... ta da! ... static is gone.

Measuring Cups

Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water.

Dump out the hot water, but don't dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such

as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

Foggy Windshield?

Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of

your car . When the window s fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

Reopening envelope

If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside,

just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals

easily.

Conditioner

Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It's cheaper than shaving cream and

leaves your legs really smooth. It's also a great way to use up the conditioner you

bought but didn't like when you tried it in your hair.

Goodbye Fruit Flies

To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass, fill it 1/2" with Apple Cider Vinegar

and 2 drops of dish washing liquid; mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the

cup and gone forever!

Get Rid of Ants

Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it "home," can't

digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works

and you don't have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS

The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the

house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the

dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the fil-

ter after every load clothes.) He told us that he wanted to show us something; he

took the filter over to the sink and ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a

mesh material ... I'm sure you know what your dryer's lint filter looks like. Well ...

the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn't go through it at all! He told us

that dryer sheets cause a film over that mesh that's what burns out the heating unit.

You can't SEE the film, but it's there. It's what is in the dryer sheets to make your

clothes soft and static free ... that nice fragrance too. You know how they can feel

waxy when you take them out of the box .. well this stuff builds up on your clothes

and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to potentially burn your

house down with it! He said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long

time (and to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out and wash it with

hot soapy water and an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months.

He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?!

Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn't know dryer sheets would do that.

So, I thought I'd share!

Note: I went to my dryer and tested my screen by running water on it. The water ran

through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in the mesh screen. I washed it

with warm soapy water and a nylon brush and I had it done in 30 seconds. Then when

I rinsed it ... the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn't any puddling at all! T

hat repairman knew what he was talking about!

Thanks to Jean for this.

First day of the month.

Since it is the first day of the month I am putting my list together for my oamc.

I am trying a couple of new dishes this month.

King Ranch Chicken from Kalona

Cheese stuffed Italian Meatloaf

Easy Pantry Pasties.

I am really looking forward to tasting the King Ranch Chicken and the Italian Meatloaf. The pasties will be for Amelia's birthday which we will celebrate next Thursday. I will make some sausage rolls as well.

9000 visitor's.

Sometime yesterday I got my 9000 visitor to my site.

I thought we would have a competition again.

Can you guess when the 10000 visitor will come to my blog? I am going to give away two prizes. First the person that can guess the closest date and time. Second if the 10000 visitor comes from your blog, you will win something too.

My sitemeter is at the bottom of my blog. You are welcome to look and see all the stats before making your guess.

Mothers rule and flylady.

As all you regular visitors here know, I have been working on a Mother's rule and Flylady to help me make our house a bit less cluttered and the house work more manageable.

I started putting together a control journal. In my journal, I have written up my morning routine, our home school program, afternoon routine, my zone cleaning routines, a how to do oamc, a one page calender for the month that has all our bills written in their due date, what we will eat for tea that night and any unusual appointments that we don't do regularly. I have taken on Lynn's and Sarah's idea and I am planing on decluttering, beautifying and deep cleaning a room each month. The plan is written up in the control journal and I am also using Flylady's monthly inspection idea to help me write a list for each room.

The other thing I want to put in the control journal is a write up of each area that Holly speaks about in her Mother's rule book. For those of you that are not familiar with Holly's writings, she speaks about the five area's we need to look after as a mother.

The five area's are:

1. Person
2. Partner
3. Parent
4. Provider
5. Prayer.

So far, I have prayed and talked with Steve about the person and partner.

1. Person: I am trying to eat a better diet and drink less coke (one of my all time favourites). I am drinking more water because I am not drinking so much coke. Our meals are much better since I am doing the oamc so that has become a bit part of our routines. I am also making an effort to spend more time in personal prayer and getting to daily mass.

2. Partner. Having young children and teenage children in the house makes it hard for Steve and I to get time alone. We also haven't been praying together as much as we should. We have started to make an effort to go out for a coffee or a meal at least once a fortnight. During the holiday's we went out twice. Once out for tea and on the weekend we went out for coffee. We are also making a bit more of an effort to pray 5 decades of the rosary together each day.

Any other people out there put together any control journal or mothers rule? I would love to hear your ideas in the comment box.

Therese

Last day of the holidays.

Today is the last day of school holidays. Tomorrow it will be back to the grindstone for all of us. I have looked at my mothers rule today and changed a few things that will hopefully make our days run a bit smoother. I am increasing Tom and Amelia's religion lessons and I am going to try and take them more to daily mass.

Today at mass we were really happy to see some friends from Millicent. We lived there for a couple of years when Steve started teaching. After mass they came back and had a coffee with us and we caught up on all their news and news from other families down there. It was great to catch up with them.

Just for fun.

Thanks to Leah and her lovely fiance for this silly nonsense.


$4490.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.

Friday Funnies.

I got this joke from Leah at Lowdenclear

The Perfect Husband.

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club.

A cell phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands free speaker-function and begins to talk. Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

MAN: "Hello"

WOMAN: "Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"

MAN: "Yes"

WOMAN: "I'm at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $1,000. Is it OK if I buy it?"

MAN: "Sure, ..go ahead if you like it that much."

WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2008 models. I saw one I really liked."

MAN: "How much?"

WOMAN: "$60,000"

MAN: "OK, but for that price I want it with all the options."

WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing .... The house we wanted last year is back on the market. They're asking $950,000."

MAN: "Well, then go ahead and give them an offer, but just offer $900,000."

WOMAN: "OK. I'll see you later! I love you!"

MAN: "Bye, I love you, too."

The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room look at him in astonishment.

Then he asks: "Anyone know who this phone belongs to?"

Anzac Day.

Today is a public holiday for Anzac Day. Anzac stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

The 25th marks the landing of the Anzac's at Gallipoli.

Read more about it here

Tagged.

It must be the season.


Leah from Lowdenclear tagged me for this meme.

1. The rules of the game get posted on the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about himself.
3. At the end of the post, the player tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read their blog.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Brigette was just about to celebrate her 1st birthday. Daniel would have been at school most days, Sam at kindy 4 afternoons a week and I had Madeline and Brigette home full time. Steve was studying teaching full time. Life was pretty busy all around with the 4 children. It seems unbelievable to me to think that Tom, Amelia and Christopher weren't a part of our family yet. It is hard to remember sometimes what it was like.

Five things on my To-Do list today:
This will be tomorrow since it is nearly 9pm here.
1. Cook some muffins
2. Continue going through the children's clothes.
3. Go to Mass.
4. Cut out a pattern for Amelia's birthday dress.
5. Start preparing Tom and Amelia's school work for next term.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Pay off all debts.
2. throw a party.
3. Travel to meet all my online friends.
4. Give to a charity like Children with Diabetes.
5. renovate our end room and build an extension on our house.

Three bad habits and qualities.
1. I procrastinate all the time.
2. I judge on appearances.
3. spending way too much time on computer.


Five places I’ve lived
1. Rostrevor (suburb of Adelaide)
2. Holden Hill (another suburb of Adelaide)
3. Millicent (country SA).
4. Port Augusta (Country SA) and I don't have a fifth place but we did live in two different houses in Millicent and two different houses in Port Augusta.


Five jobs I’ve had:
1. Shop Assistant at a handbag shop.
2. Cafeteria assistant at a university.
3. Shop Assistant at a fish shop.
4. Office worker at Philips.
5. SAHM. I definitely like this one the best.

five books I recently read.
1. My visit to Hell.
2. Harry Potter at the Chamber of secrets. (we are still reading this one).
3. The Bible.
4. Devotion to the Sacred Heart.
5. designing your own classical curriculum.

5 People to tag.
1. Adrienne from Adreinne's Catholic Corner
2. Lisa from Episcopollyanna
3. Cathy from The Daily Grotto
4. Fr. John Speekman from Homilies and Reflections from Australia
5. Marco from Third Blog from the Right

All you want to know and more.

I have enjoyed reading many blogs that have had the 7 facts meme so I thought I would have a questions post.

If you have anything you want to know about me, my family and the Australian way of life, now is your chance to ask away.

Pass out the word.

HT to Totus Tuus Family





Go here to sign the petition and tell HBO that we will not tolerate this kind of hatred and slander against the Catholic Church.

Girls Day Out.

Today I took the girls to Port Pirie to buy our winter shoes and underwear. We had a great day out. We left home around 11. Port Pirie is just under a hour away from us so we got there just before 12.00. I don't know the town very well but I thought I would be able to get us to KMart but I drove around and couldn't find it so we drove into town and asked at the Tourist Information. They gave us a map and showed us the way. They also had a photo gallery open so we went in to take a look. I didn't realize that we weren't suppose to take photos and I started clicking photo's of the girls looking at the pictures. This girl came out and said to me, excuse me can you please not take some photo's in here, these pictures are under copyright. :::oops::: I did delete those photos.

After the Art Gallery we decided to go and get lunch. McDonalds was just around the corner from the Tourist Info so we went there. It was packed. I have never seen a place with so many people lined up to be served. We changed our minds and decided to head over to KMart and go to KFC which was next door for lunch. We had lunch did our shopping and came home. We got back around 3.30 or so. It was good to spend sometime with the girls.

Mothers rule on Mondays.

Today has been a very productive day in clearing out the children's clothes. I have started with Tom's and Christopher's. These two always seem to have difficulty finding clothes that are clean and matching so I didn't think they would have too much to give away. I think I am wrong. I was shocked to see that Tom has 4 good shirts. I didn't realize I had bought that many for him. He only has one good pair of shorts that would be suitable for wearing out but since summer clothes are just about at an end, I will wait till next summer to buy or make him another good pair.

I will need to either make them or buy them a couple of pairs of jeans for winter but everything else is in good supply. We have an excess of jumpers and just the right amount of skivvies. They will both need some new socks.

Yesterday I was reading at Sarah's blog this post about decreasing laundry. I like her idea about having all the same pairs of socks for each person and a different colour for each person. We are going to do this too. Tomorrow I am taking the girls to Port Pirie because KMart have 40% of underwear this week. We are going to get everyone their own colour sock and make sure all their pairs are exactly the same.

I am also hoping to finish of going through Tom's and Christopher's clothes and then I will move onto the girls on Wednesday. I think their clothes will take me quite a few days to go through. They have probably twice as many as the boys. They also have a lot of extra toys and things in their room and I really need to clear them all out.

7 facts about me.

Well everyone seems to want to know 7 things about me. I was tagged for this by Muddy Mama Thanks MM for the tag.

1. I am excessive in everything. I am seeing just how much as I declutter our house. It isn't only in material things that I am excessive, it is also in cooking. I never cook small amounts. I cook large quantities.

2. We live about three and a half hours away from the town both Steve and I grew up in.

3. I did ballet as a child and really loved it.

4. I hate anything that requires lots of stamina like running or working out.

5. I walk twice a week with some girlfriends. We walk nearly 5 km in 50 minutes.

6. One day I would love to go to a Latin mass.

7. my favourite genre for reading is Mystery.

I tag:


Melissa from Almost Catholic Momma

Karen from Gem of the Ocean

Mary Ellen from Grandma's Musings

Rachi from Just another day

Marty from Marty's

JoAnn from The Creamer Chronicles

And Lynn from Signs and Wonders

Just too tired.

I have had a long day. I have baked and washed and cleaned. It has all made me too tired to post tonight. I was going to do Muddy Mama's tag tonight but it will have to wait till tomorrow.

If you want to do this meme, leave a comment in the comment box and I will tag you.

Therese

Friday Funnies.

I have looked and searched. I cannot find a funny joke that makes me want to laugh a good belly laugh.

Many blogs I visit have lots of good jokes so post them in the comment box. Give everyone a good laugh if you can think of one.

Tonight.

Steve and I went on a date.

We went out to tea and then came home and watched a suspense thriller movie called visitation. If any of you know the book by Frank Paretti, that is the book that the movie is based on. It was a bit scary at parts and had lots of false beliefs about God and demons.

It was good though to have a night to ourselves and talk.

Therese

Melissa Hackney.

The latest from Kathy at The Daily Grotto

FROM KIM BURKE IN SENECA FALLS:

Melissa has been moved to ICU. They have put her on a ventilator. It is confirmed that she has a brain infection.

She is having seizures every 2- 3 minutes. Doctors have said that if she makes it through this, she will most likely have some type of brain damage.

Right now there is no decision on what they will do about the bone marrow transplant. They will first have to get her through this and go from there.

Ask everyone to pray for God's will and strength for the family. God Bless!"

PLEASE JOIN ME IN SAYING A CHAPLET OF DIVINE MERCY FOR MELISSA.


Thank you for your prayers, and posts on your blogs for Melissa and family.

Something to make you smile.

I received this picture in an email. It is soooooo funny I had to share.

Thank you everyone.

Thank you everyone for your prayers. Tom is now home and has no ketone's. We will be checking his pump and site every night now and making sure it is in. We will also need to look into getting some adhesive to put over the site and make it a bit more secure.

Tom.

During the night sometime Tom's pump came out. We don't know what time it came out, we just know that he went without insulin for a very long time and has become very dehydrated. He is now at the hospital getting rehydrated.

I would appreciate any prayers you can offer for him.

Thanks
Therese

Pray for Melissa Hackney.

Things are not looking good for Melissa. Please click on the title of this post and you can get the latest from Kathy.

Thanks Kathy for keeping us updated. I will be praying for Melissa today.

New ISP.

We have changed. So for all of you with a Sitemeter my internet address will be Adam instead of Bigpond.

We found a cheaper option for internet that was faster. We had the slowest broadband and when we looked at the prices of other internet providers and saw we were able to have a faster rate for a cheaper price we decided to change. I am now looking forward to watching You Tube videos without waiting while it buffers and carries on.

Here is a favourite song of mine by one of my favourite Christian bands.

having fun.

We had such a fun day today. We went to my mothers house and helped her a bit. We then went and did some shopping. After shopping we went to Hungry Jacks for lunch and meet my two sisters and brother. Since my mother lives in a unit we don't have family lunches there much anymore. There is just too many of us to have lunch there.

After leaving my dad we went with our friends, Mark and Di for a walk. We went to feed the ducks and geese and walked around a nice park. it was a great way for the children to walk of all the excess energy they seemed to have from going out for lunch.

Above is a photo of my mother with 5 of our 7. (unfortunately Daniel and Sam had to work so they weren't with us).

Here are some other photos from our day.

more flowers.

Kathy from The daily Grotto has kindly passed on another beautiful bouquet of flowers to me. Thank you Kathy for passing them onto me and making my day.

Now it is my turn to pass them on and make someone else's day.

Kalona from Knocking Everywhere

Shirley at Seeking Jesus

Leah at lowdenclear

Anne at Ineffable Twaddle

please pass the bouquet on to other bloggers that you enjoy reading.

Therese

First Confession.

Last night Tom went to the church for his first confession.

There were about 20 children there from our local Catholic school as well.

Afterwards we went to Hungry Jacks for desert to celebrate. I asked Tom, what has happened to your soul now that you have made your first confession. He said, I have given it a bath. I thought that was very cute. I said, yes, it has been bathed in Sanctifying Grace.

Mothers rule Monday.

How much is enough? I keep on asking myself, how much do we really need?

In our western culture, we are encouraged to have more of everything. We are encouraged to be selfish and not go without things. Over lent while I was going through our stuff, I realized how much money I have waisted buying "bargains" and never using them.

While going through all our stuff I read with interest a post that I cannot remember but I think was at Lynn's blog Signs and Wonders

Lynn spoke about decluttering and cleaning out a room a month. She started with her laundry and decided to downsize all the clothes that her children had. Her children were allowed 3 daytime outfits and 2 good outfits. (I think). I cannot find the post so I cannot make sure.

After reading this I started thinking how much is enough? How much do we really need?

While thinking this I had all the things that I have grown up hearing going through my head. I was thinking, you can never have too many clothes. Better keep it in case you need it in the future. It is true, we do need to be prudent and sensible. We need to look after all our needs but I think we don't have as many needs as we think we do.

In a family like ours, I wash everyday. We would average 4 loads everyday. With washing everyday, I don't think my children need the amount of clothes they have. They all have draws crammed full of things. Because the clothes are so crammed in, they cannot find things when they need them. They also will say wow, I forgot I had this. Hearing these two things alone make me think they have way too many clothes. So it is time to downsize significantly. I think of all the decluttering, this will help the most.

At the end of this week, we have two weeks holidays. I am going to help all our children work out what is necessary and what isn't. I am going to bag up all the unnecessary extras and take them to St. Vinnies.

I am looking forward to see if it makes much difference or not.

7 things you don't know about me.

Shirley at Seeking Jesus has tagged me for this meme.

These are the rules:

1. When tagged place the name and URL on your blog.

2. Post rules on your blog.

3. Write 7 non-important things/habit/quirks about yourself.

4. Name 7 of your favourite blogs.

5. Send an email/comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged.

1 I am about 8 KG heavier than I was when I had Christopher 3 years ago.

2. I am a procrastinator most of the time.

3. Without a list, I cannot get anything done.

4. I use to loose my keys all the time but now I am making it a habit to put them in my handbag whenever I get home.

5. I love seafood.

6. My dream holiday is a cruise on QE2.

7. I love watching It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas.

So. 7 people to tag:

Amber from This Catholic Journey

Kathy from The daily Grotto

Jean from Catholic Fire

Swede from Catholic Ponderer

Leah from Lowdenclear

Gopher Mommy from A Mother's Love

Marina from Stumblin' and Bumblin' Along

Busy busy busy.

Today Steve had a sick day. He has a bad headache, earache and swollen glands. He will probably feel rotten all weekend. If you could all say a little prayer for him that he feels better soon I would appreciate it.

We have a busy weekend planned. I am doing all our main meals for the month and freezing them.

We will wind back the clocks as day light savings finishes this weekend. I love the week after day light savings finishes. It is really easy to get up early in the morning.

Next week will be the last week of term one. We will be on holidays for two weeks. I am going to sew curtains and make winter clothes for the children during the break. Sam and I will have our eyes checked and see if we need a new set of glasses and we will spend lots of time together as a family. I am really looking forward to it.

Stem Cells again.

I mentioned in my post about stem cells that I was finding it difficult to find information on who supports embryonic stem cell research. Today I received an email from the American Life League answering my question about who fund this research so wanted to pass the information on.

In 2005 ALL researched organisations that supported:

• fetal tissue, cell or organ use when that tissue is acquired from direct abortion done at any time during nine months of pregnancy
• Human embryo research and/or experimentation
• Human embryonic stem cell research and/or experimentation
• Human cloning

here is the link to their research

from that link:

American Diabetes Association:

National Office
1701 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
703-549-1500

"The American Diabetes Association applauds this morning's statement by Majority Leader Frist announcing his support of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. By easing restrictions and supporting research that uses embryonic stem cells - while also implementing strong ethical guidelines - this legislation provides hope to the more than 18 million Americans living with diabetes." (emphasis added)

Copy of News Release issued July 29, 2005 mailed along with cover letter on December 22, 2006.

The American Diabetes Association also issued a press release on April 13, 2007, "American Diabetes Association lauds Senate for passage of Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act." The release applauded the Senate's decision to pass S. 5 "which will accelerate stem cell research by easing existing funding restrictions and supporting research that uses embryonic stem cells, while maintaining strict ethical guidelines."

See comments under ACSH and CAMR.

For JDRF:

120 Wall Street, 19th Floor
New York, NY 10005
212-785-9500

The JDFR position paper on stem cell research can be viewed online and reads, in part:

"Embryonic stem cells hold tremendous promise for the treatment of life-threatening and debilitating diseases such as type 1 diabetes."

There are also a number of links to press releases, newsletter articles and legislative update memos which reiterate JDRF's support for human embryonic stem cell research.

JDRF is a member of both ACSH and CAMR.

A friend posted this article to me:

Dr. Robert Goldstein on stem cell research

I wonder if all the facts Dr. Goldstein puts forward about Embryonic stem cell research is true.

Happy Birthday Di.

My friend Di turns 40 something today.

Happy Birthday Di. I hope it is a great day for you.

My night.

Do you ever feel like a taxi service?

Here is what my afternoon is like on a Wednesday after school.

At 3.10 I leave to get Daniel, Sam and Brigette from school.

Tom and Amelia start musical theatre at 5.00.
Daniel starts football training at 5.15.
Brigette starts musical theatre at 6.00 and Tom and Amelia finish then.
Brigette finishes musical theatre at 7.00
Tom, Amelia and Brigette start Scouts at 7.00.
Tom and Amelia finish scouts at 8.00
Brigette finishes Scouts at 9.00.

As well as these things tonight, Brigette wanted to go to Big W. for some school stationery and I needed a few things so we were at the shops inbetween Tom and Amelia's musical theatre lesson and Brigette's lesson. By the time we had finished at the shops, it wasn't worth going home.

I am glad there is only one Wednesday a week. It is nights like this that I am glad I have all our main meals in the freezer. I am also glad that Steve is home just after 4pm and able to do the dinner preparation and look after Christopher.

Tasty Tuesday. Potato Pancakes.

I haven't done a recipe for a while so I thought I would share this one.

This recipe comes from Exclusively Foods. They are one of my favourite recipe sites.

The recipe is for Potato Pancakes. They are really yummy and very filling.

Here is the link to the recipe with photos.

Ingredients:

1 small onion.
625 potatoes (about 4 small ones).
1 large egg.
2 tbspns self raising flour.
salt and pepper to taste.

peel onions and potatoes. Grate both and squeeze excess moisture out of potatoes. Mix onions, potatoes, egg, flour, salt and pepper.

Heat oil in heavy based frying pan over medium to medium high heat. Drop scant 1/4 cup mixture into pan and flatten.

Cook potatoes for 4-5 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. If they are cooking too fast, adjust heat.

This mixture makes about 9 pancakes. We triple the recipe for our family.

I wouldn't mind trying this one day with zucchini either. I am sure they would be pretty yummy too.

7 years ago today.

Tom was diagnosed with type one diabetes.

It was a big shock to all of us. He had been sick for about a week. I had noticed that he was drinking more than usual and that he seemed hungry all the time. On the Tuesday before diagnosis he started vomiting. I thought he had just picked up a bug. About 48 hours after this, I was talking on the phone with my mother. I wasn't really concerned about the vomiting, I was concerned though that his outer limbs were turning blue. When we held his arm, it would turn white and take a count of 5 to return to the blue colour. My mother convinced me that I needed to talk to a doctor at least. I phoned the doctor on call and got advise about what to do overnight and told to bring him in the next morning.

The next morning I took him to the doctor. She was very concerned about his limbs being blue and an awful nappy rash he had from the high sugars and frequent urinating. She weighed him, gave me a script for some cream and told me to keep his fluids up and to bring him back the next day. In the 24 hours that followed we gave him lots to drink and when we went back the next morning he had lost over 1 kg in weight. (Around 2 pounds). It was at that point that I knew he had something seriously wrong with him.

That afternoon he was diagnosed and we were flown down to Adelaide with the Royal Flying Doctors.

In the last 7 years, diabetes has had an affect on every aspect of our lives. We need to plan everything for Tom. Before the pump, we had to have him eating at the same time everyday. He had to eat a snack in between meals. We couldn't go anywhere without something to treat a sugar low. We never know when a sugar low is going to happen and sometimes we don't know why they have happened.

I was told when we were in Adelaide, there would be a cure for diabetes in Tom's lifetime. There has been huge leaps made in discovering a cure but many people are looking for a cure in the wrong area.

I would love there to be a cure for Tom and for him to never have to rely on a pump or injections again. I don't want it through immoral means though.

Many people think that diabetes can be cured if more money is put into embryonic stem cell research. I will not support any charity that is putting their money into this type of research no matter who they are.

An embryo is a human being. To get an embryonic stem cell, an egg is fertilized and the nucleus pulled out. This kills the young baby. If scientist were to come up with a cure from an embryonic stem cell, Tom would probably be healthy, but it would be at a cost to another human. No one should die, so that Tom can live life without diabetes.

The world has become so desensitized to what human life is and I am shocked at the amount of people that think an embryo is less than a person that is born. All life is valuable, whether it is an embryo or and old lady sitting in a wheel chair. We all need to care for everyone and give all the same rights (even when they are small and we haven't seen them face to face).

An argument I have heard is there are many frozen embryo's that parents are not going to use. The parents have their two children, don't want anymore so they ask for their frozen embryo's to be defrosted and thrown away. Many people think that these embryos should be used for research since they are going to be thrown away.

This is like saying, all the Jews that the Germans have in concentration camps are going to be killed by them so lets take them and do experiments on them since they are going to die. This would rightly cause an uproar. The same uproar should be happening for our most vulnerable. Babies that cannot defend themselves need us to speak up and against embryonic stem cell research.

I have tried to find out the charities that give money to Embryonic Stem Cell Research. I know that JDRF did support it in the past. I have emailed them and haven't received an answer yet as to whether they still do. I have had trouble finding current details of where JDRF spend their money now.

I have come across this group though that state they don't spend any money on Embryonic Stem Cell research. The group is called Children with Diabetes. You can visit them here

Are you coming to WYD?

For those of you that are flying into Australia in July, here is a video to prepare you for what it is like when you land here.




This weekend Daniel had a weekend away with the pilgrims for WYD from our diocese at Pikina. We went over there today for Mass, lunch and a talk for all the pilgrims. Daniel is the only child of ours old enough to travel without a parent but Steve is taking Sam and Madeline too. They are all looking forward to going and I hope it will be a positive experience for them all.

Happy Birthday Madeline.

Today my eldest daughter Madeline turns 13.

Happy Birthday Madeline. We are really glad God blessed us with you and that you are a part of our family. We hope you have a great day and year.

Mum and Dad.

Friday Funnies.

I wasn't going to post a Friday funny this week but yesterday Annelisa from
My Motherhood sent me the following joke and I thought this was perfect.

Installing New Husband.

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance --

Particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed undesirable programs such as AFL 5.0, The Ashes 3.0, and Golf Clubs 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. I've tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail!

What can I do?

Signed, Desperate

.........................................................

Dear Desperate:

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an Operating System.

Please enter the command: "http: I Thought You Loved Me.HTML" and try to download Tears 6.2 and don't forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5,Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1.

Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-in-law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources).

Also, do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.

We recommend Food 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,

Tech Support

A tale about some chickens.

When we first moved here we wanted to get some chickens so that we would have fresh eggs. Steve told a lady that he worked with and she gave us a mother and 4 babies when they hatched around this time last year. from those four babies only one survived. We then bought 5 chickens from a lady in Willmington. The five of them were aged between 1 and 2 (according to the lady we bought them from). These chickens were laying about an egg a day between the 5 of them and we weren't too happy with that. We asked Steve's parents to bring us 5 more from Adelaide so that we could get a good egg supply from them.

So to start of with we had one black chicken, her baby chicken and 5 bantams. (7).

Soon after we got the bantams, one disappeared. I was a bit worried that the dog and cat had killed her but we couldn't see any feather's around anywhere so I just assumed that this chicken had found greener pastures and taken off.

Boy was I wrong. This little chicken (the only one laying eggs from all of them) had taken off to hide because she was sick of us taking her fertile eggs.

About three weeks after she disappeared, Amelia was out in the backyard and came running in the house. She was shouting excitedly and I thought oh no, we have a snake in the back yard. She came in and said to Steve and I, we have baby chicks. I said we cannot have any baby chicks, we don't have a rooster. Steve went out with her anyway and our little chicken that had disappeared was sitting behind a fence with 5 baby chickens.

From those 5, one died so we ended up with two roosters and two chickens.

The two roosters and two baby chickens are now mature. One of the bantam's we had, never laid any eggs and continually sat in her little box. One day she got out and we saw 10 eggs that she was sitting on. We left her and when 4 eggs had hatched she took these babies and left the eggs. Our black chicken got in the box and sat on the eggs. She hatched another three babies. About two weeks after this one chicken came out of our shed with another 6 baby chicks. (we hadn't even noticed that she was in hiding because of all the chickens running around). The last one isn't a very good mother and doesn't really defend her babies the way the other chicken's have so now she only has three babies. I don't think a mother can take care of more than four (well they haven't been able to at our house anyway).

So, from the 5 original bantams we have 3 left. One brown one, one black and white one and one yellow one.

The yellow one had the first 4 babies. She had 2 roosters and 2 chickens. We chopped the head of one rooster to stop the roosters from fighting (and because one attacked Christopher). Fortunately Christopher wasn't too badly hurt but it scared me enough to say off with his head. (from this lot we have 3 chickens and one rooster)

The brown one has 3 yellow chicks. (another 4)

The black and white chicken has 4 baby chicks. (5 all together here)

The black one that the lady Steve works with has one grown chicken and 3 baby chicks. (another 5 here too).

Total chicken's/roosters from our bantams = 18.

We also have 4 Isa brown chickens that Steve's parents bought from Adelaide. Over all we have a total of 22 chickens/roosters.

Maybe we will have a dinner party at our house in 6 months and serve some chicken. Maybe we will keep them all and get lots and lots of eggs. I don't know what we will do but this should help out with our food bill a bit.

Some flowers.

I have received a bunch of flowers from three other excellent bloggers.

1st from the lovely Adrienne at Adrienne's catholic Corner

2nd from Shell at Thinking love, no twaddle

and 3rd from Kathy at The Daily Grotto

Thank you all you dear ladies for passing on these flowers too me.

Now I will pass them on to some other people.

First to Erin at Seven Little Australian's because all pregnant women should receive flowers often.

Second to Vicki at Deo Gracias because new houses also need flowers.

Third to Marty at Marty's because Adrienne says that men need flowers too and I agree.

Fourth to Deb from UKOK because she is so generous with making awards for others and passing them on.

Our Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend has been good. We had our friends Di and Mark come to stay for a couple of nights. We did intend to go to the Easter Vigil on Saturday night but circumstances didn't allow so we went to Sunday Mass instead.

We spent a fair bit of time at our foreshore redevelopment this weekend. We went there on Saturday for a bbq, Sunday for a play and again yesterday for afternoon tea. The children went swimming on Saturday but on Sunday they just spent their time playing and building sandcastles. The weather was perfect. It wasn't too hot and we had a nice pleasant breeze coming off the golf.

Today everyone is back to school and we are all feeling very refreshed after our 4 day break.

Happy Easter.

Yah. Easter is finally here. I am looking forward to reading and catching up with many blogs that I have missed over lent.

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Easter.

Therese.

Preparing for Easter.

We have had a good week this week. Last weekend I was kept pretty busy doing our once a month cook. I have it all done now and won't need to cook main meals for another three weeks. I want to do a bit of baking though over this week and make some pumpkin damper, some Hot Cross Buns and some date muffins.

We have our friends Di and Mark coming with their children to stay for Easter. I want to have plenty of healthy snacks so that we don't overload on Chocolate too much. Tom and Amelia will be having quite a few cooking lessons to get all the goodies ready.

The school week went well this week and Tom and Amelia know our routine well now. This week I am going to make more effort to get to week day masses with them. I haven't gone nearly as much as I would have liked over lent.

As well as daily mass this week I am also giving up my computer time and spending more time in prayer. I will miss everyone but it won't be long and blogging will be on a daily basis once again. I will also catch up with all the wonderful blogs out there that I haven't read much over lent due to limiting time on computer. Comments are still welcome but I won't be moderating them till next Saturday.

I hope everyone has a blessed Holy Week.

Therese

New blogs that I like.

You might all remember back a while ago that Aussie Coffee Shop was banned by Fr. Tim.

That banning lead me to a heap of excellent blogs that I read regularly now.

There are also quite a few others that I read that haven't been banned. I am sure though, if Fr. Tim were to read them, they would be.

These blogs are blogs that I like to read and I am sure should be included in the banned blogs.

Marty's

My Motherhood

The Daily Grotto.

Fr. John Speekman

All these blogs are excellent reads. I highly recommend them all.

A long weekend.

This weekend in South Australia we have a day off for The Adelaide Cup.

Growing up horse racing was a hobby of my fathers so often the whole family went to things like Oakbank and The Adelaide Cup.. I cannot recall an Easter that we didn't go down to Oakbank on the Easter Monday. The part my siblings and I looked forward to was going on the sideshows.

So tomorrow we South Aussie's get a day off and I might watch the race on TV if I remember. For the next three weeks we have short weeks. This week we have the Adelaide Cup, next week Good Friday and the following week Easter Monday. The children will have two weeks of school after Easter and then we have two weeks holidays.

Melissa Hackeny.

UPDATE ON MELISSA HACKENY

I posted a couple of weeks ago about Melissa and asked for prayers. Tomorrow Melissa is starting chemotherapy. Above is the link to Kathy's site with all the details. Please pray for this young girl and her mother.

Back at home.

Tom is back home and full of energy. The doctor's are mystified. Hopefully this is just a virus that has given him some ketone's and it won't reoccur. Thank you for all your prayers and a special thanks to Easter for posting my request at one came back.

Therese

Tom.

Tom is back in the hospital with blood ketone's again. He isn't as high as he was three days ago but this is a worry to me. We have no idea what is causing this. Usually when a diabetic has blood ketone's they are either dehydrated or have high bsl's. Tom doesn't have either. Please pray for him and for his doctor's that they can find out what is happening and help us solve this problem.

Therese

So I missed posting yesterday.

And I had so many things to blog about, I just had too many other things on and before I knew it the day was gone.

I have to say Thank you to Adrienne from Adrienne's Catholic Corner.


She has passed on a bouquet of flowers to me. I will think about the blogs I want to pass it onto and do it next weekend.

Our home schooling week was much better last week except for the day that Tom had to go to hospital. Sam stayed home from school to look after Amelia and Christopher while I was at the hospital and Amelia spent most of the day making Easter decorations.

We have got our Religious Ed program called Catholic Mosaic. What a great resource this is. We will be learning about the liturgical year and reading up on all the saints each month. One of the books we got was the Story of the Cross for children. We will do the stations one night a week as a family with this book.

Thanks for all the prayers.

Tom is now home. Ketone's are now negative and he seems much better.