So here they are, my hits of the week…

1.  I lost my Bean Hunter coffee cup a while ago.  Spewing.  So if you’ve found it, feel free to drop it in to me.  In the meantime I go this baby from the bookshop in Eumundi.  It’s by Keep Cup.  It reckons that it would take about twenty take-away cups to make one of these, so I guess I’d better not lose it before then.  I’ve had five so far.  Seriously though, don’t you love these cups?  I love drinking my hot bevvies out of an adult sippy cup, and I like to imagine myself all New York-y when I drink on the run.  Not sure if the colours are NYish though. There was a black and grey one, but hey, I live at the sunny end of the continent.  We do colour..

2.  I’ve mentioned my day-time writing space before, but do you wanna check it out?  This is the view:

And this is where I sit:

Nath constructed a kick-arse bar table and six stools up here- it took four blokes and my brother to get it up here.  For a while we wondered if the balcony would actually hold it.  Anyway, I call this place the iDeck on weekends, but during the day it is Top Deck: World’s Best Treat.  (Nath calls it Bar Up, but that’s another story).  It is perfect in Winter- a slight breeze, but the walled-in sides keep you warm, and it gets the arvo sun.  Right now I’m sitting here in a singlet.  In the WINTER.  Once, I mentioned to Nath that we should get some lighting up here, and quick as a flash he was off to Bunnings to get these:

The dude is an idiot.

3.  Catching up with friends.  Do you have different friends for different things?  Seems I do.  And this week I got to catch up with two different types.  1. My piss head mates.  They are our ‘before kid’ mates.  Poor things, ‘cos now we are hopeless at playing like we used to, but we can bring it on the odd occasion.  2. An after-kids mate.  In fact, so ‘after’ that she still has a rugrat of her own making, in tow. So we do take-away coffees and parks, to avoid the disapproving stares of cafe owners (Yes, I’m looking in your general direction Eumundi, and NOT at the Boho, which was unfortunately closed), where we can talk about the world and our lives and solve many things.  Hey there friends: you make me ol’ heart swell, you do.

4.  Afternoon tea, arriving unbidden from a patient.  If you are a parent at STM, then you’ll probably guess who popped in with this date loaf- all packaged up in cello like it was from a shop, and tasting even better.  If you still can’t guess, think: adult onset ADD, think: brings you soup when you’re crook, think: can organise your entire school holidays to the very last minute.  She handed it over with a breezy, “It’s a bit dry, but you won’t mind ‘cos you don’t bake.”  And she is RIGHT.  On both counts.  She KNOWS me.  Thanks luv.  Just what the (pretend) doctor ordered.

5.  I know I already told you about Pene and the astro-charts that she has been doing for our family, but my goodness, can I stress again how good they are?  I got Liam’s done this week, and it was eerie, listening to someone describe your kid with words that your brain had been hovering around.  I think I mentioned last time, that I got them done not as some “Let’s predict the future” thing, but more to get some clarity around the kids I have.  Maybe what motivates them, what makes them tick.  I’m a sucker for any sort of personality profiling, and this felt like another version of that, but with more personalised detail.  Pene said she can do consults over the phone, so you don’t have to be a Sunshine Coast local to have a go.  I took notes like I was in an embryology lecture, listening to the miracle of a life unfold.  Good darts.

STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS

Pene, the astrology consultant to the stars me has just messaged me (perhaps she predicted she would be on the blog, or maaaybeee she just read it) and said she would give 20% off to any  From The Ashers blog readers.  Ring her now on 0414562162 or email her on penelopy.walsh@gmail.com and book in before she changes her mind (I think she’s a Leo or some such and they’re always changing their minds*).  Seriously, do it.  Use this code: ALISONisGROUSE** to redeem your offer***.

*Might not be an actual astrology fact.

**Also might not be a fact.

***There really is an offer though.  Pinky Swear.

Well that’s about it… Happy Long Weekend everyone.  I hope it’s relaxing and fun and you get to have a good belly laugh at least once, oh, and that the horrible couple get kicked out of House Rules.

…From The Ashers xx

I blame the telly.

Specifically (un)reality television.

House Rules to be specific.  They made it look possible, and weirdly, even kind of fun, to renovate things.  And by renovate I mean tear shit down.

So on the weekend, we thought it might be fun, or something, to do shit around here.

Trees were cut down, fences were painted, new greenery was planted.  Sounds easy right?

Cutting down trees?  It’s not like the movies with a chop-chop here and cry of “Tim-berrr” there, and it falls.  Oh no.  There are ROOTS and STUMPS left behind.  And that screws up what you want to do next (which is, interestingly, to plant more trees).

Painting fences?  Do you know how hard it is to paint a rendered fence a different colour?  Bloody hard, that’s how.  You have to get your paint brush into all the tiny divots in the wall.  And don’t EVEN talk to me about paling fences that have gaps in the palings and you have to get a teeny tiny brush in between.  When it’s dark.  And raining.  And you are painting it dark grey, sorry, Monument.

Sweet baby cheeses, I can hardly move today, but wait, there’s MORE.  I had to go to the garden place today- and, I shit you not, it’s bigger than the MCG- to find more plants.

I do not know what plants look like.  I mean, I know what the word ‘plant’ means, but I have a pretty loose definition.  To me, it means: green, growing-thingy in the ground.  Some people call the things I know as plants, weeds.  I say: expand your definition (and thus decrease your work-load).

Anyway, I had instructions typed in my phone, of quantities and brands and measurements.  (Who knew plants came in measurements?).  The plants over at the plantatorium were not grouped in any type of sensible order.  There was not a category of: Plants that Alison might want so let’s put them close to the carpark so she doesn’t hurt her elbow any more than she already has when she has to carry them.  No.  The plants that I wanted were spread out over three suburbs.

Eventually, and with three trips back to the main office for further compass directions, I had my purchases.  They did not fit into my car. They had to lie down. They did not like lying down.  Neither did they did not like having their bamboo stakes removed.  And the back of my virtually new car did not like all the tan-bark-soil than spread itself around with wanton abandon.

When they got home, I found that the ground that was to house these plants looks like lovely soft sand, but it is not.  Oh no. It is full of the roots and remains of all of the plants that have come and gone before.  Plus some bits of concrete and rogue building materials.  And did I mention MASSIVE BLOODY ROOTS?

I toiled and toiled and actual sweat came out of me and I almost got a blister and now it is done.

Until tomorrow when I have to paint in-between the fence palings.  With a tiny brush.

Remind me not to go on telly.  My language about  the ROOTS is appalling.  I may have done that thing, when you say the word twice.  Like ATM Machine.  But about the ROOTS

So yeah, I’ll be the one in the tent.

Have you ever been inspired by (un)reality telly?

What have they made you do?

…From The Ashers xx