Madhouse Mumblings (aka Shaft St S#!%)

School holidays, maybe that's why I have more time to post - or Dayna guilting us all into updating more regularly LOL

It's been an eventful week. Monday involved more tidying attempts in the living room before visiting Julie-Anne and Mitchell. Julie-Anne had gone outside Sunday night to find a wild duckling following her cat. The kids had a great time playing with it while I helped Julie-Anne with some decluttering. I left her with 2 full bins, luckily it was bin night. Tuesday we had lunch with Nanna, Mum, Clive, Damien, Oscar, Carolynn and Jarrad at the Stadium (Schweppes Centre) just down the road. We came back here for coffees and to show off the tv unit. Wednesday was another day in the girls' room, I got rid of a lot of the stuff under the beds. In this case "got rid of" means either "stored in my room" or "moved to another part of the house". Having said that, I filled a couple of bags for the op shop and put them in the boot of the car as I went. Then I had to take it all out to go to the supermarket because we ran out of pet food and milk, so we did the week's shopping. Then the bags went back into boot...

Thursday I went and looked at the bunks/loft with storage style beds. They are awesome! The people selling them had a trailer and I chatted to the woman while her hubby and Jared packed up the beds. He followed us home and helped us put it all into the entrance (which I'd also tidied up by storing stuff in the laundry, did I mention we have too much stuff) We were home by lunch time so I took the girls' old beds apart and started cleaning walls before we visited mum. Mum made a comment about painting while the room is mostly empty like we did when we moved Jared in to the room that had been Carolynn's. It sounded like a lot of work... but she was right, I hate the colour of every room in this house. It's dirty white. Every wall in every room is the same, except Jared's room obviously, it's now a nice pale apricot. And now the girls' room is pink. I took the paint from mum's that was labelled "Brew" (Peach Blossom, laundry and bathroom had been crossed out). I added some pink I'd had mixed up to paint the dolls house (still not done) and went to work. I did ask Ian first, but I told him I was going to use the same colour as Jared's room... it's far more pink. So I did the cornice with more pink. If Ian isn't happy I'll paint over it when (if?) we move out.

Trinity slept on the floor in the living room and Daria slept in with me Thursday night. I started the second coat on Friday morning before taking the girls to the Botanical Gardens to meet Julie-Anne, Mitchell and some of Mitchell's friends for lunch. We took salad, cheezels, biscuits and sipahh straws (milk flavouring). Between the other mums we had chicken and salad rolls and the mums got coffee. It threatened to rain but over all it was a fantastic day. Until we went to leave around 3pm. Julie-Anne's car wouldn't start. I stayed with her while she waited for the RACV. The guy said it was probably her starter motor, he couldn't jump start the car, and he offered her a tow. It would be free to their East Bendigo shop where they'd put together a quote, or between $88-95 to tow to a place she chose. She rang her dad for advice and he said he'd hire a trailer and get the car home so they can work out what to do. Trinity sat in the car playing with my phone while Daria and Mitchell rode Mitchell's scooter up and down the path. We got home at 6pm after a drive to pick up a borrowed tent and drop the 5 bags of stuff at the op shop on the way home. Thankfully during my busy run-around morning I'd thrown apricot chicken into the crock pot so I did a bit of rice in the microwave and tea was done. I did the second coat on the walls after tea, it's not a great job but it's a vast improvement on how they looked before.

Saturday saw me finish the cornice before breakfast, then we had to start thinking about packing the car to head to Ballarat. Pat and Bree have an amazing new house/property and threw a house-warming party. Sophia and Marius had 3 friends each staying. The plan was to camp out, they have a big paddock behind them and in the middle of that was a bonfire. We set up a tent in the back yard, it's huge too. In the end the girls (Sophia and friends) stayed in their tent and we slept in ours - everyone else ended up inside, including Carolynn and Jarrad. Marius and his friends didn't like the wind. It was a very cold and windy night but the girls still thought it was fun - if scary. Sophia and her friends are around 14-15, and our Jared was the only teenage boy - he certainly seemed to enjoy the attention from 2 of Sophia's friends LOL

Sunday we headed to Tamara's. She was pretty stoked, and had lasagne, chicken, salad, garlic bread and a huge amount of fruit. We had lunch and tried to work out what's wrong with their laptop before heading home a bit after 2pm. We got home and moved the parts of the girls' bed in to their room and put it all together, with some help from Carolynn and Jarrad. We ordered pizza for tea and watched last week's episode of Dr Who, then it was bedtime. For me as well, I was asleep by 9.30pm.

The girls are asking what we're doing today - more cleaning up!

Will try to update next week!