Sporty Mim

Jemima has had a plethora of sports carnivals over the last two weeks.

First was the swimming carnival, in which she got a few ribbons and had a great time, doing races like the 'seal' race (pushing a ball with her nose), crawling race, barrow race, match the card race......





Then came the Marathon (Preppies got to run up the street and half a lap of the oval). Mim came first, she was ecstatic!! (There are only three girls in Prep, so she had a one in three chance of coming first).

The following day she had the Athletics carnival, in which she won 8 ribbons!! 8!!! She was over the moon. "I'm the fastest runner in Prep!" she keeps telling me.

And this afternoon was her first day at "Active Afterschool Activities", in which they do various sporting activities. Today she learnt to do cross over skipping, so has been practising that outside for over an hour.

Mamma Mia! What a weekend

I'm home at last from a weekend in Melbourne.

After dropping Mim at school, I joined Anne and Janelle in Jane's car. We made it to Melbourne just after one thirty, having stopped in Ararat for a coffee and stretch.

Anne was in Cougar mood, which afforded much hilarity on the trip. She even made contact with a Botanical Gardens worker (ute with no ladder) and a Hire a Hubby (ute with ladder) - I guess you had to be there though!

The rooms at the Paramount Aparment were..... adequate. We had three two bedroom apartments for the eleven of us. In the first apartment, the phones didn't work and one of the bedroom doors was locked, so I had to go ALL the way downstairs to reception (two sets of lifts and one security door) to advise them (twice). The second room was rather dingy, my water bottle froze in the door of the fridge, we couldn't get the foxtel to work, there was no alarm clock/radio/dvd player in the rooms, the hairdryer didn't work and the soap dish fell off the wall. Oh, the window didn't seal properly in my bedroom, allowing in the stinking heat and noise of the traffic. Only one small air conditioner in the apartment, it was fine for cooling the lounge room but no cool air made it to either bedroom so it was uncomfortable to sleep (the other girls pulled the double mattress out to the lounge room the second night). Won't stay there again.

Anyway, Janelle and I went shopping in one direction and the other girls headed in the other direction. We found Big City Chic, for plus sizes and browsed. I heard the other customer in the store, so I was had an idea of her condition... but Janelle went up to the counter to speak with the salesgirl and the other customer whipped around and snarled "Fuckin' queue jumper!" Janelle was horrified and apologised, she had thought this woman had already been served. The customer then said, "oh, don't worry, I've just got Tourette's". I'd already heard her walking around the store going "Fuck!", "Fuck you all!" "Aaaarghhhhh!" so I'd figured she had Tourette's. The saleslady apologised afterwards as well, the lady was a regular customer there.

We then caught the tram out to HarbourTown at Docklands and met Tracey and Janelle had an amazing shopping spree. I think I'll have to hire Tracey as a personal shopper!!



Friday night we dined at Dion's Greek Restaurant, naturally I had my favourite - Arni Lemonato. The food was divine, as always. Afterwards, we wandered the streets wondering if we'd go to a club, but instead decided to go back to the hotel for drinkies. It was almost 2am before I got to bed.



I was up and at the pool at 7.30am to do some laps. It was only a small pool, it was heated and the tiles felt slimy so I only spent 20mins there. Then I got dressed and walked up to the Queen Victoria markets to have my borek! Spicy Lamb Borek, only $2.50..... yummmmmmmmmm!

The Mamma Mia Matinee performance started at 2pm. As I was a tag on, I was not seated with the other girls. They were all upstairs on the balcony, and I was up the back and on the side. But it didn't matter - the view was still good and the performance was brilliant! The set was very simple and the choreography was tight. I can understand why people go and see the performance again and again.

After the performance was over, a few of us went and dined at Docklands whilst the others went to a Japanese restaurant. It was lovely watching the sunset over the harbour. Then the two girls and I jumped in a cab and headed for the Casino to watch Burn The Floor.



We had a booth near the front, so we had dancers right next to us a few times. It was a great show, very fast paced in the first half and a bit more balanced in the second. Not only were the dancers amazing, but the vocalist was spectacular. She could have given Shirley Bassey a run for her money!

I had planned on staying at the Casino for some dancing after the show, but decided that I needed to lose the high heels so we went back to the hotel. The other girls arrived back (after stopping off at the Continental Cake Shop for dessert) and we had more drinkies before finally going to bed (at 2am, again).

I was up early again on Sunday morning (when will I learn to sleep in!!!!) and Janelle and I walked the length of Bourke St and then back again, stopping for a white chocolate mocha at Gloria Jeans. After check out, a few of us had breakfast at a lovely little cafe (really good Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon) and then I caught a lift home with Tracey (in her Peugeot, Michael's approved method of transport).

It was a great weekend, and I'll definitely be in for it again next year.

Random Photos

Somebody loves her dog!


I can never sleep alone!!


Mason and Noah, collecting plums (and eating them) on the night that they slept over.


Margaret and the girls


Mim at the local pool, looking really cute in her new bikinis


Caitlin learning to sew under Margaret's instructions


Mim cleaning her room

My cooking endeavours over the last two months

I've tried a few recipes over the last two months, but the nicest (and the richest) would have to be the Brownie Mosiac Cheesecake from Smitten Kitchen . I used the proportions of her recipe, and it made two! It was so rich that you could only physically manage a small sliver at a time.



I also made some plum jam from the multitude of plums that dropped off only one of the plum trees. I collected a full bucketload but only used less than a quarter of them in the jam.

from this

to this
the end product

There's a world out there, besides Vickery Bros!

Kylie (Mac's mum and the HR person at VickeryBros) related a conversation that Charleen, the carer, had told her about:

Mac: So what truck does your dad drive? (Mac's father drives a truck for Vickerys)
Mim: He doesn't drive any truck!!
Mac: Well, what does he do at Vickery Bros?
Mim: He doesn't work at Vickery Bros! He's a teacher at Monivae College!

Charleen told Kylie that a blank expression came over Mac's face, he didn't realise that there could be a world outside of Vickery Bros!

It's a small world!

Jemima had a student teacher on Friday, Miss Rachael. She helped out in the classroom, but more especially, she was able to take a group when they went swimming.

I arrived at the pool at 2.20 ready to collect Mim and Mac. They were still swimming, playing with Mrs Taylor whilst Miss Rachael took a group of the less capable swimmers. They were in the pool for an extra ten minutes, during which time Michael arrived, home from the Yr 12 retreat that he'd been on. Mim was very excited to see him.

Whilst she and Mac were getting changed, the Prep teacher, Mrs Waldron, introduced us to Miss Rachael. Rachael just stared up at Michael and said, "You taught me!" Appears that she was a Casterton Secondary College student six years ago!! As I always maintain, you can't take him anywhere without him meeting/knowing someone.

Mrs Waldron told us Mim was a wonderful student, though they sometimes 'lost' her in the other Preppies as she was always the quiet one and the others were always talking, lol! She makes up for it at home though, certainly makes her presence felt.

First fortnight of schooling over

Jemima has survived her first fortnight of school. More importantly, so have we, LOL!

She still gets Wednesdays off until the March long weekend, and finishes school an hour early until the end of February.

Her first Wednesday off, she was invited to play with Mason. I'd put her ballet dress in her bag, in case she wanted some "girly" time. Janelle told me that it was very cute, Mim had decided to clean out the cubby house and wash the dishes that were in there, and had roped Mason into drying them. She was wearing her ballet dress at the time. When Barry came out of the woolshed, Janelle called him over see what his son was doing. Barry's comment? "He's only doing it because of what she's wearing!" LOL!!!! I had to laugh, and told Janelle that she should put on a French maid's outfit and see if that'll get Barry doing all the housework for her!!

We've still had some 'moments' after school. Not quite the crying spree of the first day, but there's definitely some attitude happening that needs to be knocked on the head fast! She was better the second week, maybe it was because they did swimming for the last hour of school and that was a good outlet for her. She is getting really good at swimming, using her 'big arms' and breathing to the side. The swimming carnival is in two weeks time, so I'll have to try to get some time off to watch her compete.