Not a happy bunny

I don't like taking the kids to the doctor only to be told that there's nothing seriously wrong with them... It makes me feel like I'm THAT paranoid mum. Which I'm totally not.

So when I rang up on Mon for an appointment for Carys for her chesty cough that seemed to be getting worse and they couldn't give me an appointment until Fri am (which later changed to Thurs am) and she seemed to be doing a little bit better as the week went on, my heart sank.

I'm glad I did this time though.

Turns out she has conjunctivitis in both eyes.

And crackling in one of her lungs.

I'm not going to order a chest xray yet, says the doc, but I want to see her again in a week.

Crackling apparently could mean bronco-pneumonia.

Well, now I know why she's not a happy bunny and screaming the house down when her nose runs or her eyes itch.

Drumroll please....

We have a winner...


picked out of the Christmas bowl in true bloggy high tech fashion!










By Princess Belle/Carys....













Its....





Cecily! Of Cecily.Mostly.

Ironically, probably the entrant who lives postally closest to me with the exception of perhaps one!!

Congratulations Cecily!!! Please send me an email with your postal address so I can get them to you quickly!!

Thanks heaps to everyone who entered and reassured me that I wasn't just a Billy No Mates blogging into the void. I hope I'll be able to do more giveaways in the future.... but for now its just nice to know you're out there and reading! Thank you, thank you, thank you!


Right off to start my November project of making Christmas presents. A bit late I know!

The I Heart Revoloution New Trailer

Very moving and inspiring.

oooh and I forgot one final dilemma

All men, single women and those allergic to birthing stories should look away now...


Dilemma number 5:
Having been through two births, I am not looking forward to the whole shoving a rockmelon through a hosepipe concept and the associated pain thing. I'm the girl who will be asking for an epidural toute de suite. A friend mentioned something I've never heard of called Epi-No. Quite a wierd but possibly logical concept, it involves inserting something up your jacksie and pumping it up every day little by little for four weeks before the birth until you get to 10cm dilated so that when you give birth all your muscles are so used to it that it reduces tearing or the chance of an episiotomy.

Yes, all of you who are cringing, you are the people who should have heeded my warning at the top of the page.

Sounds attractive doesn't it? Here I am laughing away as I write because it just does sound so bizarre when you put it like that, but I tell you, anything that does what that claims to do is highly attractive if you've ever been a woman giving birth...

Back to my dilemma... It doesn't claim to reduce or eliminate pain but it does prepare your pelvic floor muscles for birth and if you're anything like me, right now you're going Meh? Do I even still have pelvic floor muscles? It could be just a gimmick, but my friend swears it was the best thing since sliced bread. And it did cost $180 dollars and only available from certain chemists or on the internet. Sound dodgy? Or sound like a revolutionary invention that's making its debut?

Either way, I think I might just keep dibs on that anaesthetist standing by.

PS, I've just looked it up on the internet and am slightly reassured by their website. Very professional looking website and it seems the Epi-No was invented in Germany! Oh dear, I am having to delete all the things that I want to blog and make me laugh but sound 'Too Rude Darling'.

Oh hurrah!

So glad to see that I am not the Billy No Mates I thought I might actually turn out to be! Hurrah, hurrah! Thank you to all those who have entered the giveaway!! Keep spreading the word, I'll close entries in 24 hours time - 12 noon on Tuesday 24 Nov Sydney time.

Now, for an invitation for advice... My dilemmas for today:

1. what do you do when you pour boiling water into your cup of coffee only to find a beetle ressembling a raisin floating in the top? Assuming that it comes from the kettle, do you disinfect the entire kettle before using again? Do you simply spoon out the beetle and drink the coffee dehsi-style? Do you chuck it out and pour yourself another cup safe in the knowledge that the kettle has a filter so the beetle was probably only sitting in the spout of the kettle and was boiled alive and so therefore sterilized anyway?
2. what do you do when one child is obviously genuinely sick, and the other one is flopping around but you don't know whether she is just faking it because she's tired and doesn't want to go to school? Should you give her the benefit of the doubt given that last night was so hot she didn't sleep very well? Should you make her go to school knowing she doesn't have temperature and that she does often complain of feeling sick before school? Do you keep her home until mid-morning and reassess the situation? How do you know when your child is faking it?
3. what do you do when your eldest suddenly perks up around 10.30 but you cannot be arsed to go through the palaver of getting three people ready to go to school when you don't feel crash hot anyway? Do you make yourself take her to school regardless of the fact that she'll probably end up being there for only four hours? Do you give her a 'Grace Day' and just write off the rest of the day?
   
4. what do you do when your youngest (who had bronchialitis 5 times in her first year of life) has a chesty cough which is progressively getting worse? Do you take her to the doctor to get antibiotics when you've lost track of how long she's had it for, knowing that she should go only if she's had it for five days? Do you just wait it out knowing that most likely the doc will say there's nothing much she can do about it and rest and plenty of fluids and she's had so many antibiotics already that it won't do much to give her more?
   

What would you do?

Christmas Giveaway

** Giveaway now closed!** Thanks to everyone who left comments... Watch the blog for the winner.

To celebrate the upcoming festive season, I'm doing my very first giveaway! We give so many presents to other people, here's one just for you... or if you're stuck for a pressie for someone, this could be the answer!

These two rectangular cushions are perfect for supporting your neck while sitting/lying on the sofa watching all those Christmas movies or just being generally decorative. Made from 4 different 100% cotton fabrics in deep, rich, spicy colours, they will give a lovely Christmassy feel to your lounge or bedroom but also extend easily beyond the holiday season.

These have been made in a smoke-free, pet-free house. The cushion inners are made from plain cream calico stuffed with siliconized polyester filling. The cushion covers are 100% quilting cotton and have zips. They measure 40cm x 25cm.

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post. If you don't have a google account, don't worry, just click on the 'Anonymous' button and leave your comment. I know lots of people don't want to leave their email address online so if that's you, please also send me an email at sophblanc@hotmail.com so that if you win, I can contact you!

To get additional entries into the giveaway you can:

1. become a follower and let me a comment to let me know (sorry, this will only apply to followers joining after this post.)
   
2. mention the giveaway on your blog and then leave me a comment to let me know.
3. link to it on your facebook status and then leave me a comment to let me know.
   

(Secret fear: that I'll be a total billy no-mates and no one will enter. So please, come and enter and let everyone you know about it.)

P.S. I'm taking entries from anywhere in the world!!

Happy Christmas!

An alien stole my brain

Yes, that's right. An alien ship landed somewhere in Sydney in the last month and has been systematically sucking my brain out of my left nostril. Or was it the right?

Resistance was futile. Perhaps it was the Borg.

I have no conscious thought left. No sense of humour. No motivation to do anything that doesn't involve lying on a couch and eating quantities of sugar in order to have the required energy to get up and move to the bed. My body is literally a husk. Harvested and rejected for any known useful purpose. My one desire is to stand in front of an open fridge or freezer (although to be fair most of Sydney probably feels that due to the 41 deg heat).

I began to feel sorry for myself yesterday when a friend asked Do you have air-con at home? Rats. I wasn't feeling sorry for myself up until then.

I took the kids to school this morning, thought vaguely about going and buying Mr Fantastic the shirts and undies he needs and knew I didn't even have the energy for a quick half hour trip to the shopping mall, despite the attraction of mall air-con.

I went back home, sat like a lump on the sofa for an hour reading and chatting to a friend (briefly) on the phone, then ate a sugary cupcake with lots of butter icing and went to bed for an hour in the vain hope that the cracking headache would go away.

Dragged myself reluctantly out of bed but only because I really had to go for some blood tests today and to buy a birthday present for a child's birthday tomorrow. Had to drink glucose and wait for an hour before I could have the tests. Thank you God for their air-con but I really could have done without the paint fumes and a bed to lie down on for a kip would have been very welcome.

It hurt. So she had to stop, let me lie down and finish off on the other arm. I cried. I just didn't know how I was going to get home again. I did though. Walking at 'Husk Pace'.

Two ham toasties later my energy is coming back slowly and the headache is fading slightly.

Two girls asked me yesterday how long I had left to go. Too long I answered, then: Two months. Depressingly I realized afterwards that I actually have 3 months to go.

Even more depressing is that the house is literally a tip but and I would love to get on and clean it but its a rare day when I have any energy at all to even hoover for 10 minutes. And if I do then that's all I have energy for that day. I've stopped inviting people round because I can't stand the state of the house and can't do anything about it.

Coffee out with a friend exhausted me the other day. I did an hour's clothes shopping for the girls afterwards and my body literally shut down for 6 hours. After which I was really cranky for a further hour before feeling more normal again.

Moan, moan, whine, whine. I know.

So here I sit in my knickers with my preggo top tucked into my bra for maximum coolness (I'd take it off except the neighbours might see me through the window), covered in toast crumbs and drenched in sweat, spouting rubish. Time for another hour's sleep (and perhaps a cupcake or some Whitaker's choc) before I have to brave the scorching heat again and pick the girls up. Bit worried I'm going to forget to put my shorts back on again.

The Wisdom of Solomon

Remember that chap from the olden days? The king God gave extra amazing wisdom to? The one who, when two prostitutes who roomed together were fighting over one baby, each one claiming that it was her's, said: Hey I know, let's cut it in half!

Canny chap. Of course, if you don't know the story, one of them said, Great Idea! Let's do that. The other one said NO! Don't, give it to the other girl. And of course Solomon says, We'll give the baby to the one who wants to give it away rather than kill it, she's the real mother.

Well, Solomon's wisdom is still working. This morning, the girls were fighting over a toy, both claiming they wanted to play with it and had it first. If you can't agree then let's put it in the confiscation box I said.

Great idea says Amelie. (Sound familiar?)
No! says Carys.

Ok, I say. I think Carys really wants to play with it whereas Amelie doesn't. So how about we put the timer on and Carys can play with it first for 10 minutes and then Amelie...

So far we've been doing that for about a half hour.

It struck me as wierd how similar a situation it was. Without the whole 'Let's kill the baby' thing going on I mean. Some things are timeless.

I'm loving these $7 roses at the moment. Loving that they only cost $7, loving that I found a way of making them look gorgeous and a little bit different from my usual style of plonking them in a vase.









I've been sewing again... finished off the insides for these rectangular cushions... Not sure what I'm going to do with them. I think they'll be presents for someone or perhaps I'll have to find a way of selling them... There are four fabrics and no two cushions use the same combination of front and back but they all look gorgeous together. Very Christmassy but in an unusual way. Or... perhaps a Christmas giveaway! Never done one of those before! Hmmmm let me think now.... (watch this space)












And its been on my mind to make us some cushions for our lounge so with a bit of spare calico after I cut out what I needed for Christmas gifts, and the fabric donated by Cecily and her aunt-in-law, I made these 33cmx33cm cushions. Each of the bigger prints has the same smaller print on the back. Am using them as a trial to see whether pink is the best accent colour for our lounge.












I'm really enjoying sewing at the moment, its so relaxing. I went through my boxes of fabrics that I haven't looked at for a while. I thought they contained only old clothes that could be cut up but I was really surprised and delighted to find long lots substantial pieces of cloth that are a lot of fun that can easily use for cushions, bags, quilts and table cloths.

This afternoon I experimented for the first time with doing quilting (you know, those freestyle squiggly lines you find over a posh quilt). Its harder than it looks but I reckon with a bit of practice it could get easier. I've been putting off finishing Cary's quilt because I didn't know how to do this part but found a tutorial on Simplify which explained how to do it. Perhaps my next thing after the 2-3 mummy bags I've started this afternoon (in order to have gifts in reserve for people having babies) will be to finish Cary's quilt properly and start Amelie's so that their room can be just a little bit smarter looking.

Streetworx needs your help.

They say that there are only 7 degrees of separation between you and any other person in the world. Well, let's give that theory a test shall we?


Our friend Daniele Maisano started a charity called Streetworx which works with at risk and disadvantaged kids, some living on the street, some just really struggling to make it through life. Through different programmes, like dance or sports like golf (Daniele is a Pro-Golfer himself), they give mentor kids and give them a hope and a future.

Daniele is looking for 40+ volunteers to help out at an all-day fundraising event in Sydney from 6am on the 7th December 2009. Big name celebrities like Michael Campbell, Geoff Ogilvy, Nathan Hindmarsh and Jimmy Barnes are all taking part so in addition to helping Streetworx out, it'll be an exciting event to be a part of.

How can YOU help?

1. Can you volunteer on the day at the rego table, with marshalling or with shepherding celebs?
2. If you can't volunteer, do you know other people in Sydney who might be able to help? Email them this link or cut and paste it into an email and send it to them, they can leave a comment here with their email address and before it gets published, I'll send them Daniele's phone number/email.
   
3. Do you have a blog? Please blog about it to spread the word. Again, link people who want to volunteer back here and I'll pass on Daniele's contact details.
4. If you work in Sydney, spread the word at work.
5. If you work for a big company, point them to the website www.skinschallenge.org.au so that they could sign people up to play alongside celebs. It's a fabulous team bonding experience.
   

So many things we can't affect but this is one fun way of really making a difference in the youth of Sydney's lives so come on, get emailing or get volunteering. Spread the word. Surely with our contacts and contacts of contacts etc we can hit all of Sydney.

No more twist...

I feel a bit like Beatrix Potter's Tailor of Gloucester muttering... No more twist, no more twist! Amelie's school was supposed to be going to the IMAX today but its been cancelled and instead they are going to have a morning out at the park tomorrow dressed up as 'The Way We Were' and exploring what life was like in 'the Olden Days'. Remember all those questions you had about the 'Olden Days'?

Instructions to parents were, children could come dressed up as pretty much anything from the 'Olden Days', suggestions included - settlers, convicts, 70s, 80s etc... It'll be funny if kids come dressed up from the 90s... Do they count as the 'Olden Days' now? Gee, that would make me feel really old!

Due to a complete lack of inspiration on the 70s/80s front, we decided to go as First Fleet settlers. Apparently there 47 women and children were aboard the First Fleet and by the time it landed in 1788, there were 54! 7 babies were born on the trip!! They were all convicts, soldiers or crew I think and one of the child convicts was a 13 year old girl called Mary who had been sentenced to 7 years transportation for possession of a horse that didn't belong to her. A bit of a harsh punishment I reckon! She might have been borrowing it from her friend for the morning's market shopping intending to return it later!!

Anyway... back to stitching. I decided I'd have to make a costume. The week has been ticking by and I've been knackered so today was the last opportunity for me to make it.... panic alert. LML strikes again.









I'm absolutely stoked at how the outfit turned out. I used my very last twist (or in my case elastic) on the sleeves and the bottom of the blouse, hence the Beatrix Potter ref. I think this is one of the best things I've ever made.

I was amazed when I looked at my stash of cloth as I didn't know what I could possibly use to make the costume but these just leaped out at me. The blouse and skirt are made from material Cecily very kindly let me pick out as a gift from the stash that her aunt-in-law had bequeathed her. The apron and hat are made out of about a metre of calico that I bought on sale at Lincraft for $3/m. The ribbon was left over from when I made an Angelina Ballerina costume for Carys (stapled ribbon to her little slipons).

I guessed at almost everything, measuring lengths from the pirate skirt and top that I made last weekend as Amelie was at school all day and the bonnet was a bit of an experiment but worked out brilliantly! I'm so excited too about the top - its the first time I've made something with raglan sleeves.

I'm not sure which joy is greater:

a) achieving the look I wanted to achieve for her,

b) actually successfully making things

c) having exactly the right material at hand for the period of costume or

d) seeing her so pleased with it that she won't take it off all afternoon. Woohooo!

(are you wondering about the enormous scab on Amelie's face? She and her friend were playing Prisoners at school and her friend had her hands pinned behind her back, Amelie tripped and grazed her lip! )

The Julie/Julia/Sophie Project

I can almost hear my mother-in-law killing herself laughing and thousands of other less jolly French housewives waving their rolling pins with a cry of Sacrilege! Tonight, inspired by Julie/Julia I've made Boeuf Bourguignon! I almost couldn't because I had forgotten how to spell bourguignon (that's terrible for someone who studied French at University) and couldn't find it at first on (gasp) taste.com.au. Sorry to all the Frenchies but getting through all the French recipe terms was just too much for me tonight.




We're having a school friend coming round for dinner. She's down from the north for a conference and is popping round for the evening. I think. I haven't heard from her recently so I think she's still coming. Or else, much like Julie in the movie, our family are going to be having a rather posh (and I hope unusually tasty) dinner all to ourselves.

I hope I haven't massacred it too much.




It didn't get off to a superb start when I realized that I didn't possess the required casserole pot to cook it in and figured a heavybottomed saucepan and a pyrex dish with some tin foil over the top for a lid would suffice.

Here's Taste's recipe and mine -

Take 1.2kg chuck steak diced into 4cm pieces and fat trimmed off
(or roughly 1kg of diced beef of unknown cut from the supermarket)

and coat it finely with 1/4C of flour (put meat in a pasta dish, tip flour over it and flump it about with your hands like wads of marshmallow til its covered. Make mental note to cook it for much longer than the 45 mins the recipe calls for just in case the meat is really tough).

Preheat oven to 200 deg C. Put 10g of butter (or a small lump) and 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the casserole (saucepan) and set it on stovetop to heat.

Place 1/6th (or half) of the meat in the casserole (saucepan) and fry until brown all over
(until one or two sides are browned and the others look ok. Scratch worriedly at the bottom of the saucepan which is starting to look like its got a hard crust on it.)

Fry all the meat in a similar way, adding butter/oil as needed and then setting aside on a plate until later. (Add second half of the meat and add more butter/oil. Give up trying to brown it when the second lot starts losing water and looking grey-brown and pasty with a saucey aura around it. Hope for the best and set it aside with the half-perfect other lot of meat. Put kitchen towel under the meat to soak up any extra oil or sauce. Wonder briefly if this will stick to the meat.)

In the casserole dish, fry 150g mushrooms until golden and set aside. (Who the heck weighs mushrooms? Give up on the saucepan and start using a non-stick frying pan. Fry all the mushrooms you would like to see in your dish and set aside in a bowl until later.)

Again, in the casserole dish (frying pan) lightly fry 12 eschallots (meh?) or spring onions (ohhhh! that I can do), 200g of bacon bits and one peeled and sliced carrot until golden. (Let's face it, only chefs who have subordinates who spend their lives doing nothing but chopping and prepping can realistically achieve this. Instead, frantically slice the spring onions and carrots as fast as you can, jiggling the pan and hoping that it golden actually means black bits. Accidentally forget the bacon.)

Add 1 C of Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon (mmmmm, think about tasting a glass but resist) and 1 1/2 C of beef stock - preferably home made (home made beef stock, you are kidding me aren't you? 2 stock cubes crumbled into almost a pint of hot water should do the trick)

...and stir with a wooden spoon to loosen the sediment in the bottom of the casserole dish. (Pour the wine into the saucepan, tip the spring onions and carrot in as well, hurriedly make the stock and pour in, scraping as much of the yummy brown stuff off the bottom of the pan).

Add the beef and the bouquet garni to the casserole dish. (Quickly hack off a bit of light uncoloured cheesecloth from the sewing room and stuff it generously full of celery leaves, parsley and thyme that you bought specially. Search the cupboard for the peppercorns you were sure you had before giving up and adding a dash of pepper straight to the saucepan. Tie cloth together in a bundle, removing half the ingredients you originally thought you'd need, and hope that its a tight enough not not to come loose in the mix).

Place cover on casserole dish and put in the oven for 45 minutes. (Transfer everything to pyrex dish and cover with tin foil. Just after placing in oven, remember that you forgot to fry and add the bacon bits. Use 300g instead of 200g because its too much of a faff to keep 100g in the fridge by itself only to go mouldy. Find three lonely mushrooms at the bottom of the bag, wonder why you didn't originally fry those, add them to the bacon and then pick them out when finished frying. Add the fried bacon very gingerly mixing it in gently so as not to spill bourguignon over the sides of pan. Re-place in oven and cross fingers.)

After 45 mins, open oven and add mushrooms to casserole dish, re-cover and leave to cook for a further 20 mins. (After 45 mins, poke meat and decide it needs another half hour at least. Re-cover and set timer. After a further 30 mins, decide it could do with another 15-20 mins. Then add mushrooms, wait 20 mins and serve.)

Serve with Pommes Anna. (Forget Pommes Anna, whatever they are. Decide it'll taste good with carrots, asparagus and rice. Taste sauce and sigh with relief that despite the massacred recipe, it is actually delicious. Wait for guest and hubby.)

Look what I found in our local fruit & veg shop!! I almost cried. I have so missed goats cheese here in the Southern Hemisphere. Even though its on the pregnancy banned foods list, I'm still going to eat it tonight with a piece of turkish bread! Yummo.

Expensive treat though. This tiny little thing cost $9!!

Don't know what my friend will say, she's also preggers and a doctor! Perhaps I'll have to scoff it in secret after she's gone. Planning on having a nice glass of Shiraz too so I'm really pushing the naughty boat out tonight.

Balance beam

Wow. Love this youtube clip of somebody called Francis Chan speaking at something called the Challenge Conference. Never heard of either of them before but its very thought provoking. Found it on Megan 's blog Whatever.

Grateful

Last week was pants. So pants I don't really want to blog about it. So I won't.

Remember that movie America's Sweethearts? I feel a bit like the guy in that who follows his gurus advice saying frantically: I'm grateful for the stars, I'm grateful for the moon, I'm grateful for the grass...

But seriously, I really AM grateful for:

• A lovely school mum (recently given birth) who gave me two GIANT sacks of maternity clothes. Enough to kit me out for the rest of the summer. My tops were starting to be uncomfortably tight and show an unattractive strip of white stomach with low lying maternity trousers on. So yay for Heidi and all her mates who gave her their maternity gear! Enough really nice clothes for me to kit out my pregnant neighbour too! Woohoo.
• the sun coming back out today so I can get several loads of washing done. Sun makes you feel much more cheerful!
• unexpected money coming into our house including a voucher for Thierry's 5 years with his company.
  
• plans circulating round my head, little seeds of hope, perhaps one of them will turn out to be a God plan and come to fruition.
  
• pulling up giant weeds is so satisfying and easier than it looked.
• a great date night with Mr Fantastic on Saturday night. Went to see the Time Traveller's Wife (lovely but sad and a little confusing with parts that are potentially a bit wierdy-custard - 40 something man visiting his 'true love' as a six year old!), ooh and coffee pudding and a chance to talk uninterupted at a restaurant we haven't been to before. Looking forward to dinner there one day soon.
• chatting with my brother Will and then with Mum and Dad. I miss them a lot. Apparently another sibling is off jet-setting in Athens watching his brother-in-law run a marathon. It seems a world away.
  
• taking the phone off the hook. rest. peace. sanity. hearing God.
• sewing without pressure. Realised that LML sewing is not much fun.
• chocolate tim tams and marshmallows. Can't get enough of the sweet stuff at the moment. Off to make brownies in a minute.
  
• Bones. The series.