It’s been a pretty good week around these parts.  Those bloody Canadians finally went home, the weather has been cracking and I’ve watched some telly: in MKR two dickheads got kicked out, and WIN has some unreal* new local ads for me to enjoy**.

But wait, there’s more, here are the hits:

1.  This yoghurt.  Are you eating it yet?  If you aren’t, what are you waiting for?  It’s bloody beautiful.  I don’t usually like products derived from cow’s pus, but this stuff is the business.  Trust me.  They even have a coffee flavour, which sounds rank, but is strangely delish.  Get onto it.

Buy this for the family to share, then eat it yourself in one sitting. Stuff ’em, you pay the bills, right?

2.  This view.  This is what I see every time I haul my lazy arse upstairs.  Not a bad reward.  I am surprised and grateful almost every time.

Check out my pez

3.  Have you got one of these babies?

Take my word for it: GAME.CHANGER.  The Canadians cooked us magnificent pulled pork in it, and since then I have cooked three meals (butter chicken, chicken curry and lamb invention) and the evil geniuses HAVE ACTUALLY EATEN THEM.  Like I said, game changer.  Whack it on at 9am and there you go.  And don’t take any notice when the recipe says to brown the meat first, it’s bullshit, just chuck it all in and Bob’s your uncle.

4.  Now don’t get me wrong here, I still think Lego is the scourge of the modern world, partly because I am scarred from having to ‘help’ make so many airplanes and boats with instructions longer than a some novels I’ve read, but mostly because a tiny piece will always get left behind, and that piece will then wind up stabbing the sensitive part of my foot.  In the middle of the night.  But this little vignette I found today tickled my fancy.  It’s a band, and I like how the back two dudes wield an axe (guitar) and a telescope (microphone).  At the front is a DJ and a drummer.  Made me smile. I guess it’s true what they say about small things…

5.   A new app on my phone, free of course (because cheapskate) called MemeMaker I have been amusing myself and astounding my husband with HILARE memes.  Mostly about the cat (pussy jokes abound) and mostly too crook to let anyone else see, but well worth the money (which of course was no money, so #winning).

*Shithouse

**Piss myself at

So there you go: I showed you mine, what are yours?

Look

There is so much amazing in the world right now.

What a time to be alive.

And what a gift and a surprise it is to actually be alive.  That the glint in the eye of our parents and our parents’ parents (ad infinitum) coincided precisely with ovulation, desire for offspring, health and age, for us to even be conceived, let alone survive, and be wind up sitting here, devices at the ready, to read and type and post and tweet and like.

What a joy to be able to look out the window and see the frothy whitecaps, whipping over that big blue, all the way backbackback to the fuzzy horizontal line where two blues kiss.  To see so much sand that it looks to be one whole lemony-beige thing and not scattered grains, straining out to the points either end.  To see the goldeny-green of the cane sashaying forward and back at the breeze.

So many thing to marvel and wonder and be in awe of.  Cars that stop you from getting speeding fines by keeping their speed constant, and then park themselves.  Whole CD collections that you carry around in your pocket.  Slow cookers to gently coax your food to readiness all day whilst you sit by the pool, a pool that cleans itself of algae and leaves.  A vast information source that can tell you the weather, the age of that kid from the Henderson Kids and the recipe for donuts that you lost when you chucked out the donut-maker box six years ago.  A thingy to cool down your wine instantly and without a fridge (cos Lord knows you can’t wait).  Apps that allow you to make cat memes, so you can share pussy jokes with people you’ve never met, but call your friends.

So much room and light and air and breath around us.  Our skies are so high and so grand.  The spaces around us so generous, we never need to touch, should we so choose.

So much stuff, that each of our houses are full with it.  Stuff that seems to multiply at night and come wriggling out of cupboards and drawers with the morning light.  Entire lifetimes would not use all the stuff up.

What a strange, abundant, fast and marvellous time and place this is.  There is so much to gape at.  Mouths wide.  Eyes open.

If only we would share it.

Unit Two has just started violin lessons.  Yes I know: NERD ALERT.

So you can imagine our wonder and relief when My Friend John posted THIS on the Book of Faces yesterday.  Okay, so they aren’t violins, but they’re close enough.  Our ragbags were freaking out… Unit One was stamping and air drumming.  Unit Two was air-violining.  (Yes, unfortunately in our house, this is now a thing.)

Why doncha fire up your Apple TV, turn up the surround sound and watch these two crazy crowies rock out.  If you have time, and are feeling all romantic, watch With Or Without You.

I wonder if those dudes got laid afterwards…?

Here endeth the blog. (Sorry it’s a short one, but I have to go and watch the bi-atches on MKR)

Are you watching MKR? (I swear, this is my last night)

At school this morning there was a cute toddler playing next to the sand pit.  She had those chubby little legs with no knees that really don’t flex properly, so she waddled around with that helpless, defenceless, gait that new walkers have.  She had milky skin that the sun hasn’t really fluttered over yet.  Her Mum had wrangled her hair on top of her head into a spiky blonde whale spout.  She ate sand.

I watched her from my vantage near the play equipment of death monkey bars (not yet banned) as she swelled in confidence, and slowly moved further and further from her mother.  She checked over her shoulder from time to time, but she was separating.  Becoming a little bit less of her mum, and more of herself.

And, in that very instant, as I watched that puffy nappy-clad bum climb up and up and into the sandpit, I lost all my oxygen.

I looked over at the mother who was chatting with some others about the coolchange/homework/whostocksthebestchillijam and I saw that she missed it.  She missed the moment when her little girl realised she was her own person.  She made her own choice.  She chose her own path.

Sure, there will be more.  There will be fights and disagreements and negotiations and compromises that number the hundreds (and yet they will feel like millions).  Where they will pull apart, and come back together, like a piano accordion.  Sometimes they will make a strange music of their very own, and sometimes it will just be a bloody big gush of hot air.  Yet this moment, this very moment passed in a beat, and she missed it.

Just like I probably missed the moments my own children become their own selves, and a little less of me.

And that made me lose my breath.

I’m outing myself, right here, right now:

I love SYTYCD.

I love a lady who runs funny, dancing in her nightie to a bit of Lana.

I love pops and krumps and jumps and pumps.  (Or whatever you call them.)

I love genres and passion and chorey and chemistry and the journey.

I love that they think their lives will change.

I am a bit cross that Jason isn’t on any more.  Ahhh, Jason.  We were the perfect match, both of us a little bitchy, a little bossy, a little bit mouthy.  Until I found it was apparently unlikely that we would be betrothen.

Thanks to SYTYCD I now know everything about dance.  I can predict how the judges will judge.  I can tell when Carrie will cry.  In fact, I think I probably could go on the show myself by now, such is my turn-out and arm-styling.  I think there is a place for a new genre: 80s dance, replete with White Man’s Overbite.  And I’m a natural.

Before you mock me, let’s be completely honest: it is better than the Winter Olympics.   Quite frankly, I’ve had about all I can take of all that cold and the curling.  The curling was funny at first, but now?  Not so much.  However I would invite them over to sweepmop my floors.  We have white tiles, and one big hairy furball who sheds all the time, leaving a trail of grey hair all over the joint.  And we also have a cat.

So now you know.

Now you must excuse me, Graham Norton is about to start, the furball has absconded to another room to watch gold medal ice-hockey or some shit, and I have a secret Tim Tam stash to inhale whilst I practice my plies.

Do any of you even like the Winter Olympics?

And who will win SYTYCD?

It’s been a great week on the Sunshine Coast.  I can’t tell you too much right now, due to possible future blog fodder (I can’t use all my ideas at once you know), but The Canadians have been here, and we have done all things touristy.

So here’s the HITS:

1.  THE WHOLE SUNSHINE COAST.  We have been from Nambour to Noosa, Maleny to Maroochydore, Bli Bli to Boreen Point, and all the ridiculously named places in between, and every place has it’s own charm and point of difference.  Imma feeling pretty blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the world, and I’m so pleased The Canadians came and went, to help me see the place through tourist eyes all over again. This joint is bloody beautiful.  You should visit.

2.  Valentine’s Day Dinner.  I’m a definite non-romantic on the day (a bit of: don’t you tell ME what to do, calendar), but this VDay we decided to have a little celebration in our ‘party arena’ with the neighbours… Plus it was fun to force some romance on Twin Two and his bride.  We may have had some wine, just to toast St.Val of course… we’re not lushes you know.

I got my BabyMac on and made some watermelon loves

3.  Sisters-In-Law.  I have two now, and both times, within seven minutes of meeting them, I felt like I had known them forever. It eases my heart to see my brothers with such gorgeous, whip-smart, funny chicks, who fit right in to our little niche.  Smart guys, my brothers.

4.  Some fun news for the blog…. I can’t say much -because who knows what crazy ideas these kids are gonna come back with-  but I can say I am VERY EXCITED at what may happen over here in my little part of the Interwebz, in this Year of the Horse (I’m told it’s all about fast moving energy and quick decisions, and less about having a long face)… Anyway, you might, if you’re all well behaved, get a chance to read more about the behind the scenes stuff here in Asherland.   Maybe.

5.  Friends.  Just friends.

I’ve got some rippers.  Some of them are far away in Mextoria, but somehow they know just when I need a pep up.  Some are next door and open their house and their generous hearts to my visitors.  Some are people I haven’t met IRL, (weirdly), I met them on here, or Twitter, and yet I feel like they know me and I them.  Some are gallivanting around Australia, but still care about what’s happening in this little part of The Shire, and some ARE COMING TO VISIT NEXT MONTH, and then I’ll see them in Sydders just after that.

Cheers to friends.

Happy Weekened RRs

What are your hits?