WOW II

There was a queue.

Damian Ryan was there too.

They waived to the crowd.

Then they had a media huddle.

 They were mobbed by the crowd.

 They were hi-fived, 

...and mobbed some more.

There was a Red one,

And a Blue one...

And a Purple one.

And of course we can't forget the Yellow one.

The local area command was called in for crowd control. (LAC also handed out balloons and bracelets to the pre-schoolers in the audience).

Welcome Wiggles On Wednesday...W.O.W.

They came to put a smile on the faces of some children affected by the recent fire storm. 

They presented Serge Rosato, the principal of the school with a new guitar to replace the one he lost when the family home was destroyed. 

Not only did the children smile and get in on the act, but so did the parents.

Thank you to the Wiggles for helping with the emotional recovery of our children.

And afterwards...while Yellow Wiggle, Purple Wiggle and Red Wiggle signed autographs for the pre-schoolers, Blue Wiggle rushed off incognito, carrying his own guitar, to meet other obligations.

Footnote:

Although the children at St Thomas Aquinas School range in age from five to twelve years of age...the Wiggles made it age appropriate for all the children by introducing 

Justin Bieber and 1 Direction into their act...ingenious...

Also, the Wiggles were once known as the Cockroaches...yes that's right...and during the eighties the Cockroaches played to adoring crowds consisting of many a teacher in training...so as you can imagine - some old memories were revived for a number of the school teachers present this afternoon.

WOW

Besides the fact that today is Wear Orange Wednesday...we have another WOW surprise coming up...I will keep you posted!

WOW

Cookathon

November is turning out to be quite a 

cook-a-thon.

For Little Miss Six and my niece (who turned fifteen)I baked a rainbow cake which they shared...

For our Second Son I baked the now  traditional Black Forest Brownie cake. He turns forty next week but we had a group celebration last Sunday.

I tried my hand at making macarons...a big fail...but hey, I mis-read the recipe (which I'd studied for a whole week prior), and it's a miracle that they turned out as well as they did. I will attempt again sometime in the future I guess. I would have to admit though...I'm not a macaron fan and don't really understand what the fuss is all about.  But our son is and I thought I'd make some for him.  He said they tasted quite good...even though they got a big fail for appearance.

I also made boeuf bourguignon (beef burgundy) for our group celebration and vanilla ice cream just because and because I've fallen in love with home made ice cream. 

Have you ever tried avocado, raw cacao powder and maple syrup all mashed together and served as a dip?  Delicious.

Somewhere in amongst all that we had an engagement party...did I mention?

Well, it was last month actually...our Youngest Son proposed to the love of his life and she said YES.

 It was a Halloween themed party and everyone was encouraged to come fancy dress or to wear orange.

Our family being of Dutch decent...seemed to opt for the orange option!

Mr Honey Pie's talented niece made the cake for the engagement as well as for a double 

Baptism!  Yes, Little Miss Six and another of my nieces (Little Miss Seven) were baptised last Sunday.  The priest that baptised them, by sheer coincidence also baptised our Youngest Son twenty six years ago...Father Paul was flabbergasted when we told him.  He is quite new to our parish and our family was overjoyed at him being able to celebrate a second (or is that a third?)baptism with us. 

And...do you know what?

I'm secretly dreaming of a really, really boring week or two ahead...

My Favourite Things

Yesterday, we started unpacking the car after we self evacuated because of the fires.

I'm not sure if we're a bit ahead of ourselves because the fires, although 'contained' are still burning.  The forecast for today is another hot day with total fire bans.

Before the big fires of October, someone advised me that it's a good idea to take photographs of everything in the house in case of an insurance claim.  Of course you then have to make sure you take the camera with you or transfer the photos to 'the cloud'. 

Stories are already hitting the press about how some insurance claimants are being told to list every item (e.g. toys) when putting in claims for contents, even though everything was destroyed.

I remember my parents having to do exactly that same thing some thirty odd years ago after a major house fire.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, they were under-insured and received a full payout for their contents.  The building insurance claim, though was a completely different story and the payout received was a pittance.  But that's another story.

Going back to the days before our self evacuation last month, the items I was most anxious about facing the prospect of losing were my African violets.

Yes...I know...but all I could think about was the time I had invested in these little living things...we humans are strange creatures.  I wasn't even worried about all the quilting paraphernalia I was leaving behind, even though I did pack a quilt or three.  Strangely, even though I've made many, many, quilts, I only own three or four and these were great for packing around fragile items. 

I couldn't pack the violets because it just wasn't practical.  At one point I was going to give them away to a little coffee shop in town to hand out to customers who had already lost their homes but I just didn't have the time to do this.  

Happily, everything survived, including my African violets.

After this experience, I realised time has changed my perspective on material goods and my obsession to list every item in every collection we own has passed.

After all...if we were to lose every vinyl record in our LP collection would we replace every single one? In fact would we even bother to replace any? 

I know that once upon a time I would have.

But not anymore.

 Above is about a third of my African violet collection.

On the top shelf of our display cabinet stand some little sailing ships. Three of them were hand carved and assembled by my Dad.  In my opinion they are irreplaceable.

People in the community are now talking about 'stuff'... "it's just 'stuff'" is now a common phrase overheard in the street...spoken, written...

More stuff...some sentimental...the magnifying glass belonged to Mr Honey Pie's parents.

A newer collection of stuff - and still growing.

Stuff is replaceable, lives are not.

As a community I know we are thankful that during this recent disaster, no lives were lost.  It could have been so much worse.

Halloween

This is how my day panned out today:

0700 hours wake to an aching body and an episode of vertigo even before lifting my head off the pillow. Drag myself out of bed and drink a glass of water with the teeniest pinch of Celtic sea salt to counteract the vertigo.

0715 hours yoga nidra 

0745 hours load up the washing machine with another lot of what seems to be never ending dirty laundry which, I remind myself, will have to be pegged up indoors to avoid it smelling smokey.

0800 hours turn the sprinkler on the thirsty herb and vegetable patch because, despite a sprinkle of rain in the past 24 hours, my plants seem forever needy for water in this climate of low humidity, high wind and high temperatures. 

0845 hours make myself an affogato...sort of entree breakfast.  Follow this with half a fresh pineapple and freshly picked blue berries. Turn off water sprinkler.

0900 hours call my Grand daughter's school to see if they will accept a box of thirty copies of my sister's self published children's book: Ursula The Flying Unicorn. 

 I'm informed that they have been inundated with donations and I would  be better off taking them to the Baptist Church in Springwood.  The Salvation Army has agreed to host a toy drive initiated by an out of the area school and will be delivered to the church tomorrow.

0930 hours Shower

1000 hours Move carved Jack O'Lantern pumpkins outdoors in preparation for tonight's Halloween Trick or Treat.  Poor pumpkins are melting before my eyes after being carved out by Mr Honey Pie for a party last Saturday. They are quickly approaching their use by date. Into the car, I load books and  funnel web spider (discovered on driveway last Sunday by Mr Honey Pie).  

Lock up house and head off to Baptist Church to drop off books to be donated.  Meet some lovely people at the church working their little hearts out to help anyone affected by the recent fires.

1130 hours Arrive at Mum's house to meet up with mystery person which Mum had informed me about at 2145 hours last night when she phoned to asks if I can be there when they call this morning.  Meet Mum, she still doesn't know who is calling in this morning...thinks it's someone from Sydney Water.

1205 hours Man arrives at Mum's house.  It turns out he is a property developer who is looking at buying up land affected by the North West Growth Centre. Not quite what I expected but quite helpful all the same.  Although bad news is that Department of Roads and Maritime Services are cutting up Mum's land so badly that the developer is not interested.

1245 hours lunch with Mum at a cute cafe (a church-to-cafe conversion) not far from Mum's house.

1330 hours drive to Windsor to drop off above mentioned funnel web spider, 

drive up the mountain, quickly shop for individually wrapped chocolates and lollies, rush home, invite Daughter and Grand Daughter to dinner.  Eat cake while I make up twenty trick or treat lolly bags for expected trick and treaters later on in the evening.

Happy to report...some little neighbours arrive, attempt to scare us out of our wits, collect some treats and leave happy, with little Miss Six joining in her very first Halloween Trick or Treat Adventure.

Happy Birthday Gorgeous Girl

Little Miss Five Turns Six....and a return to some sense of normalcy...by celebrating with a crazy tea set.

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