Saturday 22 January 2011

Back To School

Well, the 4 kids are back to school in 2 days!! Yippee!! :)

Two weeks ago, I decided to change the girls primary school. I have been wanting to change their school for a few years now but I hate change and it takes me forever to make a move. I hated to move the girls away from their friends but I know that really, the change is for the best. No more school bus, I will be able to walk them to school, plus the new school is public and starts at 9am instead of 8.30... so hopefully that will mean that mornings aren't so frantic. Plus, academically, this new school is supposed to be better than the one they are currently at. I bought their new uniforms this morning and then this afternoon I went to get their books. Got all the stationary but sadly, none but 2 of their text books are available anywhere.... The new principle did say not to worry if I was unable to get all their books straight away.... so I am trying to not freak out and hyperventilate about it.....Got all the boys stuff for high school on Thursday, so that is not a problem.
The only other thing of interest to mention, is the fact that my sister is a single woman again and she is living it up to the full. I already blogged about our night out seeing The Hard Ons in October for Halloween.... that was to cheer her up, as she was devastated that her idiot husband had left her and the kids. But now she is loving the freedom and she was excited to tell me that she saw that "Flares" nightclub is "happening" the night before Australia Day.... apparently it is an occurring event.... which is very interesting to me.... My sister would love to go, but sadly, I am too strapped for cash with all the money draining things that has been happening for us lately... Ailani's 7th birthday, Christmas, New Years, Kale's 16th birthday, back to school costs for 4 kids....plus we are having an Australia Day BBQ with Kale's girlfriend's family.... so I can't go to Flares..... maybe the next time it comes around... I might be able to convince the husband that I am only doing it for my sister's benefit..... which I am.... but Flares used to be one of  my favourite nightclub venues.... tho back in those days, it was truly "Flares" ... they played 70s disco, cool disco like "Knock On Wood"  by Amii Stewart,  'Turn The Beat Around' by Vicki Sue Robinson, 'Rusputin' by Boney M, 'Feels Like I'm In Love' by Kelly Marie and the like... I would always dress accordingly... in a purple jump suit or purple flares. The Flares of today plays alternative music from the 80s.... the kind of stuff I danced to when I was a teen. So basically... my music is now considered 'retro' which is funny... coz when we thought of retro music, we thought of The Doors, The Loved Ones, Shocking Blue, The Easy Beats, The Monkees and the like...
getting back to my sister, she used to wear a Doors t shirt all the time, until some ****er stole it and everything else off our clothes line way back in the day when we used to live together after we moved from Hervey Bay to Brisbane...


Tuesday 18 January 2011

Turning 16 in the 2011 Floods

Our eldest child turned 16 last week....
Eventful enough... I think he will always remember it.... Our city of Brisbane and alot of other areas in Queensland had some horrific flooding. The footage on the TV, when we actually had power was devastating.
Thankfully we were not inundated with flood waters, we weren't far from them, but luckily, safe and dry but we had no electricity. Kale's best friend was unable to come because he was cut off by flood waters but Kale's girlfriend was able to get here OK. And because Mum leaves everything to the last minute...we were without a present to give him on his big day!  I had planned to go to the shops the day or 2 before to get his present but all the shops were shut because of the Brisbane river flooding in the extreme! I told him that his girlfriend was going to be his best present and he said that that was always going to be the case anyway.... awww! Young love, so sweet! So it was a bit of a laid back birthday for him. Leading up to his birthday, I couldn't help but think of my own 16th birthday.... I had been telling everyone that I had had a memorable birthday and that I wanted to make sure Kale had a good, memorable birthday and I was fussing about the party plans and he got frustrated with me because everything I suggested seemed lame or for dinosaurs like me and not what he wanted, so in the end I gave in and let him have his laid back birthday.... he just wanted his best friend and his girlfriend here.... well, unfortunately Danny was unable to come but Kale got his girl and he was happy. I went and dug out my dusty diary from 1986 and flicked through it looking for my youthful recollections of my 16th birthday party and ended up disappointed..... I had thought that for my 16th birthday I'd had a Punk Party.... I had remembered my cousin coming up to Hervey Bay from Brisbane and all my school friends and Sister 'pogo' and 'slam dancing' to the Dead Kennedys, The Damned, Sex Pistols and the like. We had ripped stockings and tartan mini skirts with lots of safety pins and I had the most awful haircut imaginable. My cousin Phil had an old army disposal jacket on, such great memories.... but my diary told me a slightly different version..... it wasn't my 16th birthday party after all.... it was in the same year but it was actually my Sister's 21st birthday party! I read the whole silly diary and there wasn't even a record of what I did for my 16th birthday! So that made me feel slightly better that I didn't give my son a huge 16th birthday party.... blah! lol...
We have had rain, rain and more rain for weeks and weeks on end (hence the flood) but the last 2 days of the peak of the flood, it was fine, beautiful weather. The day after Kale's birthday, the flood waters had started to recede and some shops that had been unaffected were able to open again, so I was able to walk to my local shopping centre and get him an iPod touch as a belated birthday present. It was a complete surprise, he had no idea what I'd planned on getting him, so I said before he opened it .... "If you don't like it, fake it"  obviously he was SO happy... I said... "are you faking it?" and he said "No!" biggest grin on his face. It's nice when you can make them happy .... and lets face it.... teenagers are hard to please sometimes...
Turns out that for my 15th birthday party, I'd had a 1960s party and all my friends wore dresses with full skirts, gloves, shoes and pointy bras that we'd bought from op shops (thrift stores).... so maybe that's why I didn't have a 16th birthday... because I'd had a big party the year before.... we'd listened to Roy Orbison, Elvis, the Beatles, Herman's Hermits, The Easy Beats etc and 'twisted' and 'jived' the night away.... what a transformation in less than a year, lol!!
Anyway... here is the layout I made about the mixed Christmas CD I burnt on Christmas Day...

The highlight of the CD were the first 2 songs on the list, especially the Ramones, of course.... they actually have a few songs that mention Christmas one way or other... in 'Danny Says' ......
Hangin' out in L.A. and there's nowhere to go
It ain't Christmas if there ain't no snow
Listening to Sheena on the radio
Oh-ho oh-ho 

and in 'We're a Happy Family' (I love hearing Joey imitating 'the father' or whatever, saying.... "where are my safety pins, what did you do with my safety pins, what is this"  so funny! :) )
We ain't got no friends
Our troubles never end
No Christmas cards to send
Daddy likes men

In 'I Wanted Everything' ...
I heard about the Easter bunny
Presents under a Christimas tree
It was dreaming and fantasy
There was no Mom or Daddy
I wanted everything

and in 'My My Kind of A Girl' they sing...
I think we'd look pretty good together
Walking through a winter wonderland
And this time I think it's forever
I hope your parents understand
Well, a 'winter wonderland' certainly isn't Christmas for us here in Australia, but still, it is a universal image of Christmas time.
and in Planet Earth 1988 they sing...
Guerrilla armies rule the street
No more christmas or trick or treat
Is this what the future will bring
I pray for peace more than anything

If there are any other songs I have missed... please let me know...
oh... and just tonight... looking at youtube, I see Joey had a solo EP album called 'Christmas Spirit...In My House'...... bugger, I need that..... good thing I am going into the city the first Friday the kids go back to school.... I'll be popping into Rocking Horse Records again.... if they have it... thinking I might have to order some of these things... *sigh*
Anyway... I need to get to bed... my eldest daughter has a friend over for a sleep over... they are not ready for bed, but it is almost 1am... but I can't stay up... too old, lol....
Goodnight.   :)

Saturday 1 January 2011

Happy New Year!

It's New Year's Eve and instead of grooving to good music, my husband is forcing me to watch a 'Planet of the Apes' marathon. Bugger.... so I am sitting here, in the dark, on the other side of the room with headphones secretly placed on my head listening to music...
Benefit of the Doubt by Crystal Set  and .... to go with my New Year's Eve drink of choice....
Bad Gin by Blue Ruin .... just some nice 80s tunes..... :)  ...also... Stranded by The Saints
When You're Down by The Headstones  I Don't Mind by The Hitmen and Slave Girl by The Lime Spiders and then I have to veer over to For Always by The Stems..... awwww! and awww again... At First Sight by The Stems and I have to peek at the Ramones... You Don't Come Close and tonight, I can't stop singing this... Locket Love and of course... my favourite that always makes me smile... Where Did She Come From by the Hard Ons. Every now and then I get up to do a bit of work in the kitchen, making curried egg salad, garlic cucumber salad, coleslaw... and I put my new purple MP3 player in my ears and listen to some more music. Not a bad New Year's Eve after all.  I remember many moons ago when there was a Planet of the Apes marathon on TV, my friend Wolfgang had a party and before the other guests arrived and before the movie started he challenged me that I couldn't  drink 3 of these 'shots' of alcohol.... God knows what was in them and never one to back down from a challenge, I downed them all and promptly passed out. When the Planet of the Apes movies came on he desperately tried to wake me up but there was no waking me.... I always thought I'd missed out on a fun night... but now come to think of it, I missed out on nothing, lol. Tonight, our eldest son was off with his girlfriend, so it was just the 3 kids, Rob and I lighting sparklers and letting off poppers, covered with glow in the dark bangles. Ailani was happy to hold the sparklers this year. Got some nice photos, will post them when I get them onto the computer. The eldest son got home about 1.30, we were all up still, so I got some photos with him,

 Hoping 2011 is a fantastic year for all... I am optimistic that it will be a good one for me.
Christmas was good... extremely wet... but good, it was not the huge effort it usually is. I had Mum here helping, plus she insisted buying cooked chooks and she brought down 2 cooked legs of pork, so there was only the baked vegetables to cook, even tho we had more people than normal, it was quite a restful Christmas. I made a special mixed Christmas CD for the day... I am doing a layout about it... the song that I listened to the most on the big day was... 'Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)' by the Ramones! Such a fabulous song! We seemed to have endless rain around that time, tho it is lovely fine weather at the moment, hope it holds out. Anyway, I have to get to bed, it is 3.18am and I need some sleep.
Happy New Year!!!!