tv free week

last monday nite we decided we weren't gonna turn on the tv for a week. it just always seems to be on in the evenings if we're home so i convinced zac that it'd be a good thing to just go without it for a week. i didn't really find it hard at all. i think i just leave it on sometimes for background noise and half the time when i actually try to watch a show, half way through i think of something better to do and just leave it on while i get on the computer or read or do puzzles or something.
i think it was a bit more challanging for zac (who technically cheated by setting the vcr timer to tape the new simpsons and the family guy-- but he hasn't watched it yet). my only challange was the football last saturday. i listened to the last quarter of the melbourne-geelong game on the radio but i wish i could have watched it on tv (and i couldn't cheat and do it becuase zac would have been back home before it finished on tv).
today is the first day we agreed to turn it back on. i'm sure as soon as we get home from cooking for fnb (and birthday drinks to celebrate my bday after) the simpsons tape will go on. 8)

it wasn't all traumatizing

last nite we were talking with some friends and we started talking about our preschool experiences. i don't remember too much about preschool, just what the playground looked like and we had some kind of jungle gym thing inside too. all the experiences i do remember though were bad ones.
one day we were having veggies and dip. the teacher explained beforehand about just dipping the veggies once so we don't spread germs. at home me and my brother would each have our own bowls of dip so we could dip all we wanted and i automatically dipped one of my veggies into the bowl a second time without thinking. all of a sudden everyone was pointing at me and calling out to the teacher "shawna double dipped!!" over and over.
another experience was on a windy day where i hid in a cubby house thing to get out of the cold. after a while i noticed no one was coming through the cubby house anymore and i looked out and saw the yard was empty. the gate had a latch so kids couldn't open it so i stood at the fence screaming and crying until they heard me. the worst part was that my mom was there as one of the parent volunteers for the day and i was horrified that she didn't notice i wasn't inside (although she was in the kitchen doing work and probably came in before the kids and went straight to the kitchen).
the other thing i remembered was making soap holders out of the bottoms of plasic bottles. the only reason i remember making them was that while we were doing it my eye was going blurry on me. one of the teachers noticed my eye looked funny and soon all of the teachers were gathered around me examining my eye and saying it looke like pink eye and they would have to call my mom and have her come get me. i had no idea what it looked like and thought it must be really bad if they all could tell there was something wrong with my eye and they had to call my mom right away.
the other "traumatic experience" i had was going to a farm. i loved farms and animals and thought the trip was great, until we were milking the cow. everyone got to take a turn milking it and at one point someone must have pointed the udder the wrong way and i got squirted with a bit of milk. most kids that wouldn't be too much of an issue but i HATED milk and the fact it was on my face disgusted me (i might have even cried!).
despite all my traumatic experiences in preschool i acutally liked it for the most part. unfortunately the bad memories are the ones that stick out.

"secondhand insomnia" and why zac is great

last night for the second nite in a row i was having trouble sleeping. zac hates in when i can't sleep cuz that makes him not sleep (secondhand insomnia as he put it). after i'd been laying there for a couple hours (i probably should have got up and read or something by that point but the bed was warm, the house was cold) zac realized he wasn't going to sleep either unless he got me to sleep. i'd already gone through one of my instrumental cds twice and that didn't work. zac asked if i thought if he played guitar that might help. i was willing to try it (and i think he figured playing it would get him relaxed to sleep too). he got up and got one of his acoustics and sat on the end of the bed for probably 15 min softly picking at the guitar. almost immediately my brain slowed down and i got to a relaxed state by the time he put the guitar down and came back to bed. it worked really well. i felt bad that i kept him up though (and he kinda had to put me to sleep) cuz he had to get up less than 6 hrs later for work but i slept for another 3 hours after that.

when winter is good

you've gotta love a winter day where you can garden in a singlet (tank top), drink coffee at an outdoor cafe with just a long sleeve tshirt on, and bike into the city and back without the wind from riding making you cold (and the reason we went into the city didn't happen--a free instore gig at a record shop--but it was such a good day for riding it didn't matter). melbourne is definately a good place to live.

just another day at work

wild action came to work last week. i acutally went in 1 1/2 hrs early to see it. it was a really good presentation and i even got to hold some cool animals.
that snake (a python of some kind) was only a teenager-- she's gonna get much longer!
25kg crocodile-- she was pretty cool. i think her name was jackie(?). it was funny cuz when chris (the "wild action guy") came the week before for the other group of kids he brought a much smaller crocodile. everyone that was there for that presentation got a shock when he said he was gonna bring the crocodile out and brought out this one (about 5 times the size of the first one)
unfortunately this week isn't quite as good as that day. my usual co-worker has been off sick for a week now so i've had to take over running rest time stories as well as creating an afternoon program for the week. VERY exhasting. hopefully she'll be back on friday.

we feed the world

the other night (after the bbq) we went to see we feed the world which was playing as part of the international film festival. it was really good (other than both me and zac were falling asleep for the first half of it we were so tired from the wedding-- we had to try to keep our eyes open though cuz we needed to see the subtitles). its a documentary made in austria about food wastage around the world. even though i know a bit about food wastage its shocking when you see footage of gigantic dumptrucks pouring FULL loads of completely edible 1 day old bread into a landfill or see the horrible conditions that chickens are kept in so they can raise as many as possible on the farm. i don't know how anyone could walk out of the cinema after seeing what the chickens go through and go and eat chicken again. its horrible! the documentary ended with an interview with the ceo of nestle. it made me never want to support nestle by buying any of thier products again (not that i really buy much anyway). definately a good doco though and i'd highly recommend it.

wedding

yesterday was zac's cousin's wedding. they had an anglican ceremony at st. pauls (huge church across from federation square and flinders street station). the men all wore kilts and they even had a bagpipe playing out front of the church (which attracted a lot of tourists who wanted photos of the bagpipe player and even the wedding party) zac's little second cousin (how cute is he in his kilt?)

the uncle of the bride (zac's dad) zac's sister looked amazing in her bridesmaid's outfit (even if it did need constant readjusting and she couldn't wait to get it off)
 

put guys in kilts and they think they can dance traditional dances (to 80s music-- although even if it had been scottish tunes on bagpipes i don't think they'd look any better)


today was the "gift opening family bbq" (a nice way to wind down the weekend). we arrived and i noticed a sign on the front door saying "welcome mr. and mrs. c & j wheeler"
i couldn't figure it out cuz zac's cousin's name begins with "m" but we just wandered through the house to the back. later we were all out front watching the bride and groom as they tested their car with newly attached cans on the back and "just married" in shaving cream on the windows-- very north american. when we came in some other family members started questioning it and as the mother of the bride walked in we were all staring at the sign on the front door. she got pretty embarrassed and ran to grab a texta to change the "j" to an "m". to her defence though-- her and her husband's intitials are j and c (but not the last name wheeler).

melbourne winters

even though melbourne winters are cold (compared to most of the rest of the country) its great that even during winter we have days like these where we can sit in the backyard and listen to "summer music"(the waifs) and drink summer drinks (i've had this bottle of of some tequila/fruit juice mix drink sitting in the fridge since mid-autumn waiting for a nice summery day to drink it-- no more summer days came. i decided today was good enough to enjoy it). i'm only wearing 3 layers on top in this pic (the least i've worn in a while-- i think its about 15C)

memories in music

in the past couple weeks i've read posts on a couple of blogs about certain smells bringing people back to very specific memories. i think music does that a lot too. i have a collection of soft music cds that i listen to when i go to bed at nite and every time i put on michelle tumes "listen" cd it takes me back to the oregon coast on sunny late spring afternoon. 2 friends and i headed down there while we were staying with one of them in salem. one of my friends bought the michelle tumes cd at an outlet shop on the coast and we listened to it as we drove along the road watching the waves crash on the beach next to us.
i also have a tape labeled "california mix". on it are all the songs that we heard 7000 on the radio the first time i ever went to california. me and 3 friends got bored one afternoon and we'd always joked about going to california for coffee (cuz people thought it was crazy that we drove 5 hours to portland, oregon for dinner-- more than once). we got in the car decided to drive to california (about 10-11 hrs to the northern border). my friends car didn't have a tape or cd player so the entire trip we heard the same songs over and over on every station from vancouver to sanfrancisco (18 hrs down there, drove around, got coffee, walked on the beach, drove over the golden gate bridge, 21 hrs home along the coastal hiway). even though i'm sick of all those songs the tape reminds me of the fun trip we had.