Happy Birthday Dad!

Yesterday was my Dad's 75th birthday. So we all gathered at their home for a pot luck dinner on Friday night, though we served it in courses rather than as a buffet.
D&M provided crab and avacado dip, seafood soup and the hugest oysters you have ever seen! We provided some garlic bread and a course of Peking Duck, a recipe I have always wanted to try. A&P provided a beef and pasta dish topped with pastry. It is a maltese dish and it was lovely. I couldn't finish mine and had it for lunch next day when I was hungry and it was good.
It was a huge success and we all had a lovely time. It has really been way too long since we did this. We all slept over as they live out of town, and had a recovery breakfast the next day. We took the camper to use as a bedroom, and it rained 3 times during the night. So it took a few hours to dry the next morning. So we folded newsletters for M and washed the sheets in the camper and aired the doona.
Saturday was a quiet day, we went to the harbour for a coffee and watched the Young Endeavour sail into the harbour. It was a beautiful day for it as well.
Sunday was spent working at home, KISA mowed the lawn and I cooked up some soups for the weeks lunches. I made Pumpkin Soup For Son 17 and recreated Dad's seafood soup he made for Friday night. I also cooked up some bananas our neighbour grew into a banana cake for KISA to take to work, and some muffins. We were going to visit Jdubya's son in his new home which he has bought for himself at 19. We took the muffins to share. It didn't take long to figure out what to buy him for a housewarming gift, so later that day we bought him a small patio set of a table and 2 chairs for his balcony.
We finished the day sharing a bottle of bubbles on the deck watching the sunset and listening to the parrots squabbling in the palms. They are deafening, but right on 6.00pm they stop. Dead. Like someone turned off a switch!

My New Job

As from today I have a new full time job. I have been doing it for 30 years really, but yesterday was my last day at the shop. I am now officially a housewife, home maker, home executive, what ever one calls my job. And I couldn't be happier.

I feel liberated, which is an ironic expression for a feminist!! But I am. When I did my arts degree, I was a rabid feminist. So how did I get to this position where all I want to be is a full time homemaker?

Well, part of it is because I am of a certain age where I want to 'slow down" and get out of this crazy whirlwind we all live in and contemplate my navel for a bit. Without all the other stuff that was happening when I wasn't working before. And the other part is about choice.

I am still a feminist, however, as my friend Kate defined feminism while we were procrastinating writing an assignment in 1997, feminism is about having a choice. Or as she defined it:

"A feminist is any woman who asserts her right of self determination"

So I am still a feminist. I am just exercising my choice to be a housewife. It is a great time that we live in where I have that choice. I think KISA would love to have that choice. Although he does have the choice really. If I had his earning capacity, I think he would take it. I have offered many times to be the main breadwinner, but he doesn't want to live on a librarian's salary. So it is my good fortune to be married to him at this point in my life when I want to make the choice today, and I am grateful for that.

I may go back to another paid job in the future. I may not. I am a little worried if I change my mind about being a full time homemaker will I ever get another job? I am nearly 50 and despite all the rhetoric about needing to work till we are 70 we baby boomers face real age discrimination in the workforce.

Then there is the social pressure, that "what do you do?" question and the implication that if you don't work you are either privileged (which I am but not in that sense!) or weird (which I am in most senses) or something. For now, I intend to be the best at the job I have chosen now, to enjoy it for what it is, and to relish the freedom and independence it makes me feel.

Hockey Club Reunion

Souths Womens Team 1976

South's Mens Team 1975

On the weekend it was the 50 year reunion of the old hockey club I used to play for in the mid to late 1970s. TBS came up from Brisbane to join in the celebrations, as T is a life member of the club. He has done of lot of work in the late 70s in building up the membership and being a star fullback. I wasn't really a star anything..;-). Since our time the club has grown and prospered.

It was great to see everyone and catch up on old times. It really brought home to me just how many years had passed and I mostly felt quite old. Everyone else looked old to me so I imagine I did to them too! This is a few of the men from that original photo today.

There a few of the original ladies in this group. The weekend consisted of a meet and greet on the Friday night and a cocktail party on the Saturday night with a breakfast the following morning. KISA really didn't want to go to the cocktail party, so put his hand up to sit with Miss S at home and watch Over the Hedge and Ice Age on the Saturday night. I only went to the cocktail party but TBS went to the other things too. The rest of the time we spent with TBS hanging out and relaxing. We did a bit of "tourist in your backyard" by going for a walk along the riverfront on Saturday morning.Who is that skinny bearded guy following us in Wood Street????Here he is again!! He kept following me, so I took him home. That beard kind of grows on you.Here is the beautiful Miss S and Pooh who goes everywhere! Some graffiti which is very good. The girl in this painting reminds me of Son 24's partner, the divine Miss R.

We found these steps that were discovered when they were doing some work on the riverfront. They go back to the late1800s when Mackay was just a bunch of tents on a swampy riverbank.The view of the hill we live on from the river side in town.We had coffee at the new water park, which KISA and I had yet to see, it only having been open for just under a year or so! It would be great if it wasn't blowing a cold south east and some brave kids were swimming there. This is the bit for the little kids near the coffee shop.

A big highlight for me will be catching up tomorrow with an old friend from those days who actually couldn't go to the reunion itself and we are meeting up tomorrow for a coffee. It will have been nearly 30 years since we caught up.

Instead of going to the Show

Today is Show Day here and as such it is a public holiday. We were supposed to go to Townsville to get a warranty repair on the car, as the Local Land Rover Dealer is no more. However, they phoned lated yesterday afternoon to say they couldn't get the required part. So we had the day at home. KISA spent the morning doing work at home, and I suggested a drive and a picnic. We packed some lunch, got a coffee and headed off for the old road south to Rockhampton. Just because it had been thirty years or so since we had turned right in Sarina! Pretty country, we followed the signs to Middle Creek Dam, which we had never heard of. It was a pretty spot.

How's that for some real estate, see that white house off in the distance? Mountain at the back and lake at the front!

The Sarina Water Ski Club uses this spot, small so only two boats at a time are allowed. It was very peaceful today. This was us today. KISA is growing a beard. I am growing one too - on the top of my head. My hair looks like a toilet brush at the moment, can't do anything with it!

I am in love with my pressure cooker

I have been pondering getting a pressure cooker for some months now, but hesitated because of the cost and whether it was worth it. I have been making my own stock for over a year now, being a great believer of the nourishing effects of bone broth, and have you read the ingredients label on a packet of stock cubes lately??
So yesterday, I came across this great deal of a Scanpan pressure cooker that had two bottoms, a big one and a smaller one for the price of one. There was one left and within a few minutes, it was mine!
So today I have made two batches of chicken stock, out of the leftover carcases of two BBQ chickens lurking in the freezer and $3 worth of chicken "frames". That would be raw chicken carcases, but I suppose Woolies finds the word"frames" less confronting to their delicate customers than "carcases". I think you are going to eat meat, and we do, you should confront where they come from. But that is another post.
Usually my chicken stock takes about two and a half hours to cook up, these batches took thirty minutes from start to finish. So I made two as I couldn't put as much water in them due to the fact you shouldn't fill your pressure cooker more than 2/3 full. The stock I got was more concentrated though, and very tasty.
I used the smaller one to do the prep for a lamb shank dish we are having for tea, and if one of the lamb shanks hadn't have been too big for it would have pressure cooked them too. But they went into the oven.
I can see a lot of soups and stewy things coming out of the kitchen soon!

I'm A Lumberjack And I'm OK!

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay
I sleep all night and I work all day

I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavat'ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea

I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I love to press wild flow'rs
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars

I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I'd been a girlie
Just like my dear papa

I have been singing this song for the last 6days. Because KISA has a new toy. We went to Eungella Dam for 5 days and nights this last week and he had a great time keeping us in firewood with his new chainsaw. And axe.

He also made me a new chopping board from a log up there. It is

some sort of red hardwood, probably red gum. It will look really good once it is sanded and oiled. It already works as is though. T

T and T were in town, as they are touring about Queensland in their Jayco Eagle, and joined us up there for a couple of days. They brought Tim Tam and Gemma, who were in doggy heaven. Lots of places to roam, cow and horse poo to sniff and (shudder) eat, and a whole lake to swim in. Every hour or so. Tim Tam is half Shitzu and half bald chinese dog. Luckily for her she got the hairy genes. She is also a nosy parker who has size issues. She doesn't realise she is a tiny girl, so kept getting up close to big animals like this, just for a look see. Gemma is much more sensible. The older one, and a farm dog. A lovely soul. When it all got too much, she just dug a hole by the fire for a nap. Tim Tam wasn't the only nosy creature. Some critters have no boundaries! About a second after this shot was taken, T got quite a start!

It was a busy weekend. Absolutely exhausting really. We cooked over the campfire every night. Also made a loaf of bread in the camp oven. All food experiments turned out well. The food seems to taste better outside!

We were kept entertained by the other campers. The young boys of the neighbouring camp held the Inagural Great Weed War of 2009. This went on for 3 days. We are not sure who won, all of them I guess as they had a fabulous time.

We also had front row seats for the Post Peak Oil Donut Races.

We took Gemma for a walk and she tried to round up this chair some bored camper with a chain saw made out of a tree stump. She growled at it for quite a while.

This is our camp from the side, featuring the new improved bathroom in the foreground.

The sunsets were not as spectacular as the last trip, though we were treated to this one on our last night. On Saturday night we had gale force winds, and we barely slept, expecting to be picked up and flown into the lake at any moment!

We packed up and left this morning, feeling as though we could have stayed another five days. We were out of food though and both have work tomorrow. The weather was shaping up to be beautiful, and the dam peaceful as all the weekend crowd was packing up as well. T

and T

stayed on, lucky sods. One day it will be us.

Happiness

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have."--Frederick Keonig