Busy being a Mum again!

We have had both the boys home lately and life has been a little busier. We have certainly enjoyed being a family again. You will notice we didn't dress up for this photo! KISA and I were coming home last Sunday and spotted our neighbours across the road getting ready to leave for their wedding! We thought how typical an Australian wedding it was as a ute was the wedding car. You can't see from this pic but it is adorned with white ribbon. Notice the summery dress the bride is wearing. It is midwinter here!

I have been a bit crafty lately. I made this tablecloth and napkins this week. Have never been able to find a cheerful tablecloth that matches our kitchen. Everyone seems obsessed with brown as a decorating colour. I did brown in the 1980s. Never again.

Also finished this afghan rug this last week. I have been crotcheting it most winters for nearly 20 years I think. It is a full single bed size. I am giving it to Son 24 and the Divine Miss R. Son 17 will take it home with him on Sunday.

This is a close up, though the colours are brighter, they look a bit washed out under the flash.

Son 17 and I went out to lunch today as he is off to Brisbane again on Sunday for Semester 2. This is at the Eimeo pub. He had a steak with Dainne sauce and I had the garlic prawns. It was very nice, must bring KISA up here. Didn't spot any whales though I did last year from up here. It has been nice having him home, the month went very fast.

On the 4th July, KISA's nephew and his partner had a baby girl. So we are great uncle and auntie. They named her Jessica Marie. It is just a coincidence but she has the same name as both our daughter and my mother. I just cried. She is beautiful though. Welcome to the world sweet one.

Return to Eungella

Every year since 2002, KISA, Jdubya, George of the Jungle and Son 17 have made an annual trip up the mountain to Eungella for a winter mini break. We think we have only missed one or two years in all those years due to Jess's illness. So this year, as Jdubya, who has now moved away to the south coast of NSW, and Son 17 were both in town on holiday, we made one last trip for old times sake. Chances are we may not get another chance, and the boys are now grown up making their own lives. We had a great time. We had to make a few changes. The place we usually stay was getting too expensive, so we stayed in a different cabin, a newer one on the escarpment. This young kookaburra was the meet and greet. This is the view from the deck. As it only had 2 bedrooms, KISA and I set up the camper on the lawn next door as a spare bedroom. Son 17 was exhausted after all the work of preparation, packing up, the drive up the hill, unpacking and setting up the camper. So he had a little nap before dinner.Our meet and greet kookaburra. He was totally unconcerned about us, even stayed long enough for KISA to touch him before he took off. He was unimpressed we didn't feed him and ignored us after that. The late afternoon light as we look down the valley. This is the view from our camper spot. Next morning KISA cooked some bacon for breakfast at the barbeque with the best view in the world. Jdubya helped..sort of.When he wasn't slaving over a hot BBQ plate he was torturing his friends with descriptions of the best BBQ in the world. After breakfast we all piled in the car and went for a drive to the lookout at Mt Barker overlooking Eungella Dam. We did some CSI work and ascertained there had been some sort of party up there involving a 22 rifle, smoking, alcohol and a McFlurry. Hmmmm...nice day though. The view, you have seen it before but it doesn't get weary for us.

Here we are, we don't often get our photo together as it is usually just us!

After the lookout it was time to cut some firewood. Son 17 was adept with the chainsaw. We won't mention the log splitting back at camp.

KISA cut some more, even left his foot uninjured though in this picture it looks like he will cut it off.

Another lumberjack in the family. Need to work on the log splitting though.

On the way back to the cabin, we stopped at Broken River for a coffee and a bit of stone skimming at the old swimming hole. You can see the stone skimming the water in this picture.

Thanks to KISA's expert photography and the camera's capacity to take a million photos a second, we were able to get some action shots. Each one of these was at the precise second the stone left their hands. George has the best style I think.

You can even see the stone in this one.

Son 17 has a style all of his own. It is identical in all three stone throws we got on the film. You can see the stone here too.

We went back for some sausages and onions (lots of onions!) at the best BBQ in the world for lunch, to be followed by tennis and touch footy.

KISA and Jdubya have found that now the boys have grown up they are a little harder to beat at the usual games. In fact they were impossible to beat. We chopped some wood (ahem) and built a fire and sat around it till dinner time. We attracted some other campers who came to share our fire. We left them in charge of it around 7 and went to the chalet (local pub) for tea. It was quite nice. KISA and I had the soup, and Son 17 a steak, George had a chicken Kiev, Jdubya has chips and gravy as he had overdosed on cheese and biccies by the fire. There was a blues band from Sydney playing that was quite good, and the boys played a couple of games of pool. Then back to the cabin for The Poker Game, which was won by Son 17. We owe him a $5 dollar scratchie after some little bet on the rules with KISA. Turned out he was right. The original alcohol fuelled bet was Son 17s life against our house (KISA) , but in the morning it was rewagered on a $5 scratchie. Which we lost. So we keep the house! (Phew)

Next morning, early, KISA, Jdubya and I ventured out in the freezing morn to visit with the platypus. It was very calm at the platypus pool, apart from the 20 or so tourists who also wanted to visit with the platypus. We watched this little blue kingfisher catch several bugs for breakfast.

And saw several platypus, which are very hard to photograph, so this is he, the best I could do.

It was frosty in the shady bits, a rare sight in our climate. KISA was happy..

Looking back towatrds the bridge over Broken River, early morning frost on the roadside.

After breakfast we had to pack up and go. We were home by lunch time. After a quiet afternoon, we were treated to a beautiful sunset off the deck. July is the best month for sunsets here.

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!