16 July 2010

Graffiti by omission

I wish I knew if there is a proper term for this... it's something I noticed a lot when I first moved to Sydney, especially on trains: people deface signs by scratching out or subtly changing letters to make them humorous.

E.g. on trains: "at night time, rave with the guards under the blue light" (where "rave" used to be "travel")

The other month I saw a cracker on the side of a van - I keep seeking it parked near my home, and I'm surprised it hasn't been fixed...

Originally, it would have been:
"Decrease your home loan costs. The broker with nothing to hide!"
Now, it reads:
"Decrease your melon costs. Broke with nothing to hide!"
Made me chuckle!
Have you seen any graffiti by omission lately?

02 July 2010

Week 5 (?) of bad sleep and our conversational ability is degraded somewhat...

After what seems like many weeks now of bad sleep - due to Astro-girl finally getting colds after a dream run of not, and the rest of us catching them too and feeling generally like cr*p - we are exhausted! 
Sick babies have trouble breathing through their noses, and there isn't much you can do but get up to them and give them a hug when they cry, wipe their little noses, give them a drink, or give them something for their fever if they have one. E-chan has been sleeping through his sister's wakings, despite sharing a room with her, and waking us up on separate occasions most nights. So despite a only being woken once last Saturday night, lately it's been more like 3 times a night. On average. Leaves you running on reserve most days, scatty, feeling like you have mountains of stuff you should be doing, but just can't.

This is coupled with end of financial year mahem at C-chan's work, resulting in long hours, with variable coming-home times. We're lucky if he's home for dinner with us one weeknight a week, and even then we're usually more than half way through our dinner before he gets home. I'm pretty fed up with it all.

The other morning C-chan left for work, and said good bye. I replied:

"Right, see you later tonight, when at least one of the kids will probably be in bed already, the house will be a mess because I won't have managed to clean up dinner or the toys yet, your dinner will be cold, and you can complain about having to do housework after such a long day at work, countered by my complaint that I haven't managed to even get to half the housework so don't you start, before Astro girl wakes up and screams for 2 hours straight".

We both had to agree that this pretty much sums things up lately. Things go in phases with kids, and usually there are many good weeks that go by without much reflection that they are indeed good. But gee, would be nice for this phase to pass by soon.*

*PS last night we only had one waking, yay!

Repeated mistakes...

  • Tissues in pockets going through the wash; little fluffy bits of white all over out clothes. Not just once, but 3 times in a week!
  • A lack of accumulated accessories to wear - particularly belts, shoes. This is purely because I don't have the time on my own to shop for them,.
  • Managing my son's egg and sesame allergies at parties. Oh man, we have been spoilt by having a group of friends who are allergy-aware, because about 3 of the little boys have egg allergies, and a few of them have multible allergies. I find cashews are easy to avoid. But the suprise hommus sandwiches on the kiddy tray, next to the cheese and ham sandwiches? Didna notice! And while E-chan is fine with eating some cooked egg, say in cake, without much ill effect, I forget to ask about the likelihood of raw egg being somewhere in the mix. Raw egg white is a no-no. Result? Mess requiring buckets and mops. When are we gonna learn? C-chan and I clearly need a pre-party battle plan, but are so scatterbrained of late we just don't get around to it. At least he is all better after a dose of antihistamine, and we managed to take that along with us.