If you didn't laugh you would cry...

We are heading off to the big smoke for a few days of catching up with people who are in town, seeing 'Salina's father's family and old friends.

We are coming back on Thursday - a day I thought was New Years Eve.

So to that post where I said we would be at South Bank on Wednesday? Yeah, me and a million others.

Better luck with my organisational skills NEXT YEAR hey?

Cheers - see you next year.

Call to Brisbane

On Wednesday, weather being fair, we intend to make our theme park du jour South Bank.

If you want to catch up, email me at jeanie in paradise at yahoo dot com. Only leave out the spaces and insert symbols where they are required.

In other news, Paradise is cloudy, and it is not just because I have to finish the washing and pack everything by tonight. (Don't tell my inner environmental conscience, but I have a dryer).

I will be back before the year is through.

'Salina and the Santa saga...

This morning, I actually awoke before 7am.

How is that for progress, a child who lets you sleep in until 7.30 on Christmas Day, and not because she hasn't been up from 5am!

And then she pulled the same again yesterday - Boxing Day - I am liking this 9 caper.

Great present.

But today I was up before all.

And I regarded the festivities we have had and are having.

Christmas is Summer is perfect beach weather here. We have been taking advantage of that.

As usual some presents are FAN-bloddy-TASTIC and some are duds.

What comes to mind is the fat red fella, and how he went this year (and years past)...

I was never going to be pushing the whole "Santa" boat when I had a baby. Unfortunately I didn't get that choice - not because her father was a Santaphile but because she was the first grandchild and there were many pushers who didn't want the flagship child to be thus neglected.

Unfortunately Santa has had to fit within my budget and so her Santa sack has not always been as brimming with material worth as those children in other households. But its the thought, isn't it?

One year Santa sent a carousel that wasn't set up before the morning of, and it took several hours for Nana and Mum to realise that not all pieces shown on the cover were included in the set - just the bits to make it all connect and work. I do hope those elves got a good talking to.

This year, Santa apparently made several visits.

On Tuesday 'Salina and I went shopping and she found an adorable (italics hers) stuffed toy dog that attaches to a harness and lead and by pressing a button on the lead (judiciously) it makes a cute (again, italics by 'Salina) yapping sound.

She bought it with her own money (due to some embargoes imposed by the adult members of the household regarding stuffed animals) and was very busy in her room afterwards wrapping the darned thing. Not an easy task - the lead is solid so the shape is not of the "easy-wrappping" variety.

She made herself a card - and signed it from Santa.

This brought a whole new dimension to the fable that is pushed as the jolly red guy.

Of course, the big guy also had procured other items for the indulged girl, so he cannily mentioned the "dog he had put into the real world for her to find" in his other cards.

But he didn't get her the right CD.

And the stocking stuffers were a bit hit and miss. The staples didn't fit any of her staplers. There were no decent toys.

The "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" turned out not so much to be the DVD so loved (because it is the best of the Harry offerings) but a CD-ROM game - which she had seen and heard of and its reputation was one of "great" - except her computer doesn't think so (darned old-fashioned hand-me-down non-gamer machine) and so it again falls into the whole carousel category of Santa gifts.

Sigh.

Good thing she loves him and overlooks his inadequacies in the field of gift-giving.

The update that wasn't

I have several draft posts in my dashboard.

One about going mustering after years of not.

One about working as a team in the yards.

There are also the unwritten drafts in my head.

One about the lack of preparation for Christmas.

One about rearranging 'Salina's room.

One about a rather intriging opportunity the new year may give me.

Yesterday I didn't write a post about the non-day I had thanks to the sort of migraine that makes you throw up all day.

And today I fear I will not write a witty and insightful post about failing to update you all on the minutae of my life and philosophy - because the "to-do" list is long and the time is short.

Just a quick reiteration of my apologies for not visiting and leaving comments, for not being that witty and insightful person that I aspire to be and for once again leaving you with a post that says - nothing...

As my reports cards always said "must try harder".

The town mouse in the country house...

Oh this country girl has become a bit citified, it seems.

When you go to the property, the unwritten rule is that you leave your keys in your car. That way, if it is required to be moved, anyone can do so.

I grew up with that rule and respect it to the extent of remembering to return my keys that I automatically palm on leaving the drivers seat.

My daughter is a city girl who loves to visit the country. But she has a different rule ingrained - always. lock. the. car. on. leaving.

Now, I am adamant that I have told her there was a exception to the rule once you hit the dirt, she is adamant that she understands this exception and did not do so - BUT she was the last to go to the car to get her purse out - so it was either her or Mr Nobody (who does have quite a record here on the property, if I remember my own childhood rightly) (or indeed the animals have not only learned how to hold the handle up but got over that whole opposible thumb thing) but...

You can see where this is going, right?

Indeed - the bad news is, there is no local RACQ to come and rescue the damsel, and in this day and age of cars being built to keep the people breaking into cars out of cars I am not as quick to reach for the wire coathanger as I once was.

The good news is, it only takes a few phone calls, the organising of my sister's brother-in-law's wife to rendezvous with V in a tyre store 200km away and then somehow get another hook up between my sister's brother-in-law's wife and my mother about 50km away for the spare key to get to me before I head back.

Easy, eh?