And puppy makes 16!

What do you do when your friends think you are a Crazy Cat Lady?

You head into Mad Animal Woman territory by getting a puppy, of course!



This is Jenny, she's 5 months old, and she came through SA Dog Rescue, a local not-for-profit dog rescue group.  Her mum came to the rescue from an animal hoarder, and was already pregnant, so we don't know what the dad was - mum is a Fox Terrier / Italian Greyhound, with the same massive bat-wing ears!

Darling Daughter (age 4) keeps telling people Jenny is a Fox Terrorist, which given her propensity for chasing the chickens and chewing on pretty much everything (lego, tiles, shoes, iphone cables, fingers, plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, bones, etc etc) it's pretty appropriate.  I seem to spend half my time picking up poo (she's ALMOST house trained) and the other half saying 'that's not a puppy toy!'.

Isn't she boootiful???

The other IKEA chair hack

As before, the chair was found in As Is for a third of the RRP.  But it came with boring old fabric on the seat.

For this hack I got assistance from my Darling Son (age 7) who thought the staplegun looked like pretty good fun and wanted to have a go.  Other than jamming my finger in the mechanism in his initial enthusiasm (ouch), he did a pretty good stapling job, and before you could say 'chickens' we had another awesome IKEA hack completed:

The photo is probably a bit wobbly because I was still nursing an injured finger at that point! Yes of course it's chicken fabric - what else could I possibly use?  So this chair is for my red and white bedroom, to sit at my sewing desk.  Now to actually clear off the desk so I can sew at it.  But that, dear friends, is another story...

I am a dummy

My DD (darling daughter) and her DD - her darling dummy.

The dummy.
The noo-noo.
The soother.


The pacifier.
The binky.
The comforter.

The bane of my bloody existence!

We started off so well, DS only had a dummy from about 4 weeks to 10 months, he threw it out of his cot himself and it never came back.  DD on the other hand has been very very very VERY keen on her dummy since a tiny wee babe.

And now DD is getting on for 5 and still obsessed with it. *sigh*  To be honest I find I don't have the mental wherewithall to stand the crying if we took it away.  We've done books about it, talked about giving it to Santa at Christmas ('nooooooooo, Mummy!'), 'leaving it in England' when we went in July, giving it to a baby, getting rid of it when we get our puppy, getting a really cool present from the Dummy Fairy (she's real, I swear), all sorts of things. 

We've had periods where she's very good about only having it at home, or in the car, or even just in bed, but then she started kindy, then we went to Europe so she needed it for the flight, and all the travelling, and then we were in a car crash, and then back in Australia, and more kindy, and here we are.  Stuck with the little bugger (the dummy, not the DD!).

DD starts school in July, so it will definitely be gone most of the day, most days of the week at that point.  I'm hoping that might break her of it!  Wish us luck...

Mummy FAIL (then win)

Seriously, you couldn't make this up - here's what happened to me today....

The lovely Adelaide City Council guys and little ol' me, dredging Torrens Lake.  As you do...

As per usual, Wednesday is walking group day.  But as it's school holidays here in Australia, I had DS (age 7) with me as well as DD (4).  We're 3/4 of the way around our 4.5kms circuit of Torrens Lake in the centre of Adelaide, I'm carrying a friend's dog (don't ask), DD is running ahead and DS is helpfully pushing the empty stroller (buggy, pushchair, pram, whatever you call it) for me.  All is fine and dandy in the summer sun, it's a beautiful day, 30C, lovely jubbly.

Next thing I know there's a splash and I see my (empty) stroller sinking like a stone into the lake...  with my bag hooked onto it.  My lovely Belgian tapestry chicken bag that's got my car keys, phone, wallet/purse, drivers license, DD's beloved Blankie, etc in it!  Note to self - don't let 7 yr old push stroller vigorously right next to the lake where there's no fence - this is a mummy Fail.

Cue hysteria from the kids, with DD carrying on in an Oscar-worthy way, hands raised to heaven, tears and snot streaming from her, yelling 'Blankie, Blankie, this is a disaster!', and DS crying because his new Swiss Army Knife was also sitting on the stroller seat.  Shouldn't have let it fall in the lake then, mate :-(

What to do in this pickle?  I wasn't going to jump in the lake, it's filthy (and quite deep there), not to mention I had  the kids going bananas with me.  Thankfully, my gorgeous friend B kept a cool head, phoned my hubby, and phoned the City Council, who dispatched a (not very) Rapid Response Team to help.

Hubby took the crying kids away for lunch and B stayed while the guys got a long pole (a remarkably difficult process, they had to go away and come back again twice) and started dredging for the stroller.

But wait, there's more!

Half and hour later, no sign of pram, City guys go away, B drives me to my car and I use hubby's keys to get us all home.  Commiserations, etc with the kids.  Me and B joke about getting dive tanks, as my hubs is a PADI scuba diver.  A couple of hours later, we discuss with B's hubby, who promptly goes down to the lake with a big hook on a rope and within 10 minutes RESCUES MY SHIT!

This is a great chicken bag! 

The only unrecovered item was the Swiss army knife, easily replaced.  Blankie has now been washed and returned to very happy little girl, my car keys are drying out, and we'll see if my phone recovers - at least I've now got the SIM. Thankyou thankyou to M, B, and all concerned!

See, I told you you couldn't make this stuff up - it's never a dull moment here!