A breath of fresh air..

Should be what I'll be experiencing in another week or two. Having just undergone endoscopic sinus surgery to remove polyps and re-bore the blocked sinus tissue, I'm still feeling a bit like my face hit a brick wall, going full speed ahead. I must say for once though, the pain meds given certainly took care of the pain. In fact I couldn't feel a darn thing, not even my feet on the ground or any form of reality for that matter. Could never be an addict, as I just couldn't function, so off the meds I came and reality hit big time, with a good sized dose of Ouchhh!
Panadol found the middle ground for me and today I was finally starting to feel better. I'm sure it's going to be well worth it in the long run, but right now, not something I could easily recommend to anyone considering the operation, but I'll keep you posted.

Back to Basics - Washing Powder

Even before the diagnosis of ADHD for our son, we had started trying to reduce the amount of chemicals, preservatives, additives, colours in our diets, by carefully reading labels, totally eliminating some food items and making more homemade food etc.
In the course of doing this I read many interesting books which also offered advice on removing some of the nasty ingredients in other household products, not just food. The following is a recipe I came across for your own home made washing powder. I added some pure essential oils for fragrance and it's just lovely to use. It' also very economical too.

2 cups grated pure soap (I used sunlight pure soap - box of 4 bars cost $2.42 and 1 bar = 2 cups grated)
1 cup borax ($8 for 1kg, so this goes a long way)
1 cup washing soda crystals (found in supermarket cleaning products isle)
1 500gm box baking soda
Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend till it's a fine powder.
(I added my oils directly onto the washing soda crystals immediately before blending. In my first trial batch, I used Eucalyptus which was nice and fresh. The last batch I just made I used Bergamot, patchouli, lavender and Orange - Yumm)
It makes about an icecream container full and you only need a scant tablespoon per load of washing in top loaders (1 heaped tablespoon if clothes are very soiled, less for towels etc) and 1 teaspoon in front loaders. Give it a try.

My latest toy..

I'd heard about them, even seen them in a catalogue, but it wasn't till I saw it demonstrated that I said 'Yip, I want one'. Yeah I know, I'm a gadget junkie (I'm the same with kitchen appliances), but this is really cool! Really!! It punches through CD's effortlessly, no heating or soaking in hot water. One easy squeeze and it's done. Great with chipboard too. Setting eyelets is silent too, and just as easy. It has inter-changable setting fixtures so you can set different sized eyelets and even snaps. The guides mean you can punch a series of holes all at exactly the same distance in on the paper for a perfect line. It's one flaw is that you can't use it to punch holes or set eyelets very far into a page, so no good for say mounting a journal block in the middle of a 12x12 layout, but for that, I can just fake it. (Place eyelets on the journaling box, but adhere the actual box with adhesive). It's not goodbye to my regular tools and hammer yet, but I can certainly see this baby getting some serious use soon.

Feast or Famine

Can't believe I haven't posted for 2 weeks. It's been hectic. I signed up to do the Real womens Duathlon in March; Started training; Brother got married - in Hawaii, very, very short engagement, rush to get mum and dad sorted to travel to Hawaii for the wedding; Currently trying to arrange venue etc for post wedding party in NZ in March for them; Kids started new school, different stationery requirements and uniforms to sort; Camp issues took up quite a bit of January and several hours so far of February; ACC review/dispute in progress; Mortgage and insurance rates up for review; Surgery date advised - due to cancellation, just 10 days notice; Business orders flowing in too. All good, (well except for the new mortgage rates), but why is it always a feast or a famine? I guess it keeps life exciting sometimes huh?

Ah, what's another one?...

Ever heard the saying "if you want a job done, give it to a busy person"? Well I saw this from a different angle yesterday. A friend of mine had phoned to ask if Jayden would like to come over and play for a couple of hours. Now for those that don't know my boy, he's pretty full on (recently diagnosed with ADHD, which explains a lot) and whilst we love him dearly the occasional break away is cherished, but very hard to get as there are not many people I know that would offer to look after him. The funny thing is, sweet Kelly has 3 'full on' boys of her own. So I said to her, "Are you sure Kelly? He's a handful and pretty full on and you already have 3", to which she simply replied "Ah, what's another one?" Jayden had an absolute blast of a time, Kelly said he was well behaved the whole time and is welcome back any time. So what did I do with my time? I took Taryn and we got all the back to school gear, paid some bills, did some banking, finally went and chose the paint for her bedroom makeover then went for a coffee (well iced chocolate actually), just the two of us. How lovely that was! Thanks a million Kelly!