Author: johblogs

Mum’s Cooking

The cool change has made us all tired and hungry. This morning at work people were ravenous and heading off to all directions to chow down. I ate lunch about an hour early myself. I’m sure the chocolate fundraiser sales in the staff room went through the roof.

My wonderful mum is cooking at my place lately because they are having their kitchen renovated. Tonight she made a roast and I arrived home from work to the divine smell of roasting meat and veges. It was heavenly.

There is just nothing like your mum’s cooking. My son refuses to eat potatoes, yet will eat my mum’s, even mashed! On occasion I have managed to get a roasted potato into him, but never a mashed one. I am his mum, so I wonder if he will ever come to relish my cooking as much. To be honest, as a kid I didn’t appreciate the goodness of it.

The tradespeople were coming this morning to install it, so long as it wasn’t raining. When I woke up today and saw the rain, I must admit I thought, the delay to their new kitchen would mean more of mum’s cooking for me. Selfish aren’t I? It wasn’t wet enough though, so they went ahead. I’d say by the weekend this lovely time of having dinner cooked for me each night will be over!

Anyone else need to use a kitchen whilst they renovate theirs? I don’t eat much.

Recent good reads online

Robin Good: Online Social Networking And Education: Study Reports On New Generations Social And Creative Interconnected Lifestyles
Must read for parents who are concerned about their children’s Internet behaviour/habits. It’s not all bad! I’m sure I’ve said it before, but ‘Repetition Leads to Discovery’ Robin Good is great reading!

The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss: Don’t Like Meditation? Try Gratitude Training. (Plus: Follow-up to “Testing Friends” Firestorm)
I have recently purchased Tim Ferriss’s book “The 4-Hour Work Week”. This post about gratitude is great. I have actually tried this and found it to work, always good to be reminded to start doing useful things again though. I especially liked the ‘follow-up’ part as well.

Duncans TV Ad Land : Highmark Challenges Bullying with Punching Bag
If you are a parent or teacher at some stage you could be faced with a bully or a bullied child. It’s painful stuff. Highmark is an American Health Insurance company which obviously understands the far reaching consequences of this in the field of health.

Christine Kane : Watch Your Language
I frequently need to be reminded about this one!

Healthy Living Lounge has two great Feng Shui articles as follows:
Nine Sure Signs the Energy in Your Home is Stressed
Nine Things You Don’t Know About Your Child’s Bedroom
There are some great tips for making or restoring your home as the nurturing place we all need it to be.

Namowrimo Abandoned for Beach

I concede defeat. If you look at my stats, there is very little hope for me. Last year I predicted my inability to do it and didn’t try, this year I am quite willingly surrendering. It must have been beginners luck the first year and I feel doubly successful in my original effort now that I appreciate what it must have taken. I take my hat off to all those who are soldiering on with it and will now be a supporter from the sidelines.

My weekend went in directions I didn’t expect. I was too leisurely on Saturday, although thank goodness I did clean my house! Often I put that off till Sunday as well. I enjoyed it all very much though and feel no regret for the price I have paid.

On Sunday after his work, my son suggested we get out of the house and go to the beach. So we did. He brought a couple of friends and Rhonda called and decided to join us. We took our work with us, study, unfinished essays, corrections were all packed up and away we went. Driving there, about an hour away from home, the sky was dark and rain spits were disheartening on the windscreen. Rhonda in her car was thinking I was mad.

We arrived at the beach, whilst most were packing up to leave we enjoyed a couple of hours of swimming and lying in the gentle afternoon sun. It had been hot and muggy at home, yet was clear and still warm on the sand. The sea was refreshing and I enjoyed playing in the chilly waves. We then went into town and the six of us ordered a variety of yummy food and sat out on the street table and satisfied our after swimming appetites, tasting all the variety and laughing a lot. The sun was setting as we drove home and the world was beautiful. As we came through the hills the air smelt of eucalyptus’s and the thunder storm we could see ahead.

It did my spirit good. I’ll write the novel another day. Now I need to get moving for the busiest time of my year. Corrections, report-writing, Christmas shopping and mega birthdays (including my own!) all loom in the next month. This time next month I will be in WA with Jane, so I need to be effective in my actions and letting go of NaNoWriMo is the first step.