Summer Project

We are researching caravan parks in preparation for The Great Camping Adventure, which hubby has thrown up for consideration over many months with mounting excitement (not a shared sentiment though).

The resident kuniang (Pampered Princess) is being reluctantly co-opted into an outing that is bound to involve pesky mozzies, summer flies, minimal hygiene, inclement weather conditions and other unmentionables.

What kind of holiday is one without a 5-star resort, pool and luxury spa?

It used to be 2-2, with Beth and I being on the same side (the Dark side, some might say!).

She has somehow fallen under the spell of outdoorsy Dad's tempting tales of going bush, camping under the stars and all that boot camp stuff and straightaway fell to unpacking the tent he had just bought.

She even tried to read the instruction manual, but failed.

And asked me for help.

Which of course was no help at all.

Dad finally came to the rescue.

Father and Daughter eventually worked out how to peg the tent, and got it set up all ready for The Big Day.

In the meantime, Beth and Jordanne can have fun with their new cubbyhouse!

Maybe I should organize a couple of play dates between now and when we go camping...

The Gingerbread Man Comes To Play

Day 7 of the school hols.

Last night, we were at our friend Kathleen's for a dinner-cum-meeting for her impending one-year missions trip to S Africa. God has spoken to her and she will be volunteering at AIDS orphanages in Pretoria with Operation Mobilisation.

My job in 2010 is to be Kat's accountability and morale support star. To encourage, hold her to account, let her know the church loves and remembers and is praying for her. To do everything I can to keep up her spirits as she goes on her life-changing adventure.

I don't think I'll ever have the courage to do what she is doing. Scott Wesley-Brown's song Please Don't Send Me To Africa has long been my silent prayer whenever CA (teasingly) suggests that God might send me out as a missionary. :-(

The forecast for today is 39 deg.

Beth and I did our shopping straight after dropping Jordanne off at daycare, while it was still reasonably cool.

Couldn't help noticing the disparity between our dressing and other shoppers'. They were in tank tops, shorts, sun dresses. Beth had on a long-sleeved T and trackies, I had on a polo shirt and jeans. In our family, we do take SunSmart-ness to an extreme. ;-)

We bought a nice piece of salmon from the fishmonger, and a kilo of chicken thigh fillet with which to cook Hainanese Chicken Rice. (The authentic way is to use a whole chicken, but you're not getting this squeamish chef to handle a WHOLE chicken any time. Gross!)

Things to accomplish today:

• Bake gingerbread girls and boys.
• Cut Beth's fringe.
• Take Beth for her last swimming lesson of the year.

We actually ticked them all off!

At Safeway, we found writing icing that came in a convenient pack of four colours. Of course, Beth chose to use all the colours on her creations. At Beth's insistence, I tried my hand at icing, but my gingerbread boy came out with a wobbly grin.

The fringe came out crooked, in spite of many attempts to fix it. Don't you just wish kids would sit still when they need to!

The Leisure Centre pools were packed. The school hols have begun in earnest, and everywhere there were hordes of school kids splashing around and screaming like they had so much to ventilate, anxious parents surveying the masses of moving bodies to see that they still had their kids in sight, instructors vainly attempting to make themselves heard above the din...

From my vantage point, I could make out David (Beth's instructor) holding out a hoop and Beth doing a funny twist as she swam through confidently. It's beautiful seeing her enjoy swimmming and doing so well that her instructor asks another student to copy what Beth has just done.

Who would've known the terrified toddler who wouldn't put a toe in the waters off Gold Coast 6 years ago would grow to become a water baby?

Corner Block: To Live Or Not To Live (On One)

My aunt who's visiting from Sg just gave me her take on why not to live on a corner block.

"When it's windy, your house gets very cold because the wind can come in from any direction. Plus, you have a huge backyard with few trees to screen out the wind. If there are houses on either side of you, the wind comes in from only the front or back. Your house stays warm."

She was comparing the livability of my place with my cousin's. She considers my house cold (notwithstanding the recent insulation job) and my cousin's two-storey townhouse nice and warm as it's sheltered on both sides by houses and there are mature trees in the backyard.

Just another of those things we learn only from experience...

For The Longest Time

This has to be the longest week EVER.

I've just survived - barely - a week without the Internet.

Couldn't access email.

Couldn't surf.

Couldn't do i-banking.

I gave up on Tue and paid $2 at the local library for 30 min of email access.

We switched from Optus to iprimus last Tue and I'd naively thought the transition would happen in no time at all.

But I didn't know I needed an iprimus modem to get online; in my ignorance, I didn't think to ask the customer service folks when I finally managed to get through to a human.

They were very professional and courteous, but the subject of did-I-have-an-iprimus-modem as opposed to did-I-have-my-own-modem (which I do, two in fact) never came up.

So it wasn't till very late, after they'd sent me the welcome CD with the terms of service etc etc, that I made the connection between my broadband-less woe and the missing modem.

But all that's forgotten.

My modem arrived this afternoon. The courier guy had a bemused look when I opened the door; I guess my bedhead and spaced-out expression made it obvious what I'd been doing just before he rang the bell.

I'm never the most tech-inclined person, but today, I persisted in opening up the box, reading and re-reading the instructions, popping in the installation CD, following the online prompts and even - amazing! - troubleshooting by instinct when the green light on the DSL port didn't come on after the one-minute waiting time.

It took 20 mins, but by golly, I've done it, and I'm online AGAIN. So proud of me. :-)