Halloween

Only 1 More Day

Now for some Halloween treats-

Only 2 More Days

I Actually Went Out!! TWICE.

Big week this week.

Went to this...

"Paul Young, and the lead singer from Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley: two of the biggest names from the eighties, together on one bill! Performing all their hit songs and some new favourites: Gold, True, Wherever I Lay My Hat, Everytime You Go Away and many more!"

As you can imagine it was fabulous and hilarious and a great night was had by three chicks who can't quite get over the 80's.

Then 3 days later Surfer Boy and I celebrated his birthday at this...

Tex Perkins proved that even singing bad 80's tracks he still is a 'Rock God'. They were brilliant.

The Palms at the Casino is obviously my venue of choice now.... hmmm maybe Bonnie Tyler in November?

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Hug your family

It seems like this week, everywhere I turn I'm hearing these awful stories of people losing loved ones or getting terrible diagnoses. Cancer that grows and spreads silently in seemingly healthy people, until one day they get devastating news.... It strikes fear in my heart on a daily basis. It's so unfair, so random, and so cruel for all involved.

That's why I try very hard to never take my life or family for granted, but some days it's hard to stop and think about all that we have to be grateful for. We all have off days (or weeks, like this one has been for me!), and we all get busy and frustrated and short with those we love.

Today I am going to hug my family extra tightly. I am going to eat well and go to the gym (for the first time in months) and try to lose some of this weight that has crept back on while I wasn't looking. I am going to count my blessings.

These pictures were taken by my friend Lauralee last weekend, and they are a reminder of all that I have to be grateful for.







Hug your families tightly. Life is short, but sweeter when we add more sugar! :)

10 things I've learned at the mall

1. Just because you can fit into a certain size of clothing, doesn't mean you should.

2. The people who decide to put kid-traps like rows of gumball machines and quarter-operated rides near the mall exits should be drawn and quartered.

3. There are two kinds of people who eat Cinnabons: skinny people who don't gain weight no matter what they eat, and fat people who just don't give a shit anymore.

4. Teenagers are herd animals.

5. Old Navy clothes are cheap for a reason. Namely, they don't fit right and their fabric tends to be so thin you can actually see daylight through it.

6. They put eau du crack in the Yankee Candle scents. I know they're overpriced, but I cannot stop myself from buying them!

7. The "family room" restrooms are disgusting. I can't think of a more vile place to breastfeed or change my infant. I'd sooner use the mens' room.

8. I've never been cool enough to work at The Gap.

9. No matter where you park your car, you will be at the furthest point away from the store at which you actually went to the mall to shop.

10. Nobody wants a gift from Things Remembered.

That is all.

Sunday Night, so relaxing

Tonight at 7.30pm, just as I was getting ready to sit down and soak up the A.R.I.A.s, Surfer Boy suggested we see what our new cupboard (salvaged from his sister's house) would look like in the kitchen...



Thank god I had the forethought to tape the A.R.I.A.s as there was no stopping him and now at 11.30pm we have a completely rearranged kitchen minus one built-in and a missing wall!!! He really needs to get another hobby.






Now I am finally on the couch with a cuppa, a block of Belgian mint chocolate, and The Veronicas are doing their usual fabulous job of performing live. Gabriella Chilmi is a credit to Melbourne and I need to buy Melinda Schneider's album, Be Yourself.


Australian music is tearing it up.

Worst dog owners, ever.

DH doesn't want me to tell you this, but he never reads my blog (boo!), so shhhh.

We just spent an hour looking for our dog. DH put his dinner out and was cooking up some hotdogs and mac n' cheese for us; I was trying (and failing) to take a nap on the couch while the boys played GeoTrax. Typical exciting Saturday night at casa de Bev, don'tcha know. When Fritz didn't come running for his dinner and he wasn't in his usual sleeping spot at the foot of the stairs, it occured to us that we hadn't seen him in a while.

The search began, and I got more and more worried as the minutes passed. It is dark and cold tonight, and he never strays from our yard, and always comes when we call for him. Tonight, nothing. Dh drove up and down the main road and returned empty handed, then I drove off down the street as well, windows down, calling his name.... I was really worried that I would find that he had been hit by a car since he's mostly black and it's very dark tonight. I was already imagining making flyers and calling the police, trying to remember his full tattoo number....

When I got home, DH had cracked the case, and now we are dying of embarrassment. You see, this afternoon we went to a local farmstand to meet a friend who was going to take some family pictures. Since Fritzi is a family member, we decided to take him with us. We had a great time, ran a few errands, and came home around 4:30. When we got home, DH carried in the sleeping baby and BS and I grabbed our packages and came inside.

Fritz was in the back of the minivan for over two hours, quiet as a mouse.

I am SO embarrassed! He is fine, of course, but to think we were out there calling and calling his name, and he was 10 feet away in the car and didn't make a peep! At least he was warm enough in there, and the back windows were down so he had fresh air... but MAN. This is bad dog parenting, for sure. We were thinking of getting another dog next spring but now we're pretty sure we have our hands full with the family members we have presently!

So there you have it - one of my most embarrassing moments.... Please don't call the cops to report our neglectful ways!

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Rabbiting On

This is my formal apology to Lou and Ali and everyone else who reads my blog on a regular basis and are sick of waiting for me to post again. I beg your forgiveness and promise to make this a really long post to make up for my slackness - I have no idea what I am going to write about but I'll start with being a full-time worker!

Darling brother hopped a plane to Bali with his glowingly pregnant wife and left me in charge of CHALK. Surfer Boy took the week off to be a house-hubby and off I trotted feeling very grown up. It was fabulous. For the first time in years I got to spend more than a single day in my own business. I had the chance to potter around with the merchandising, check out new wholesaler catalogues, order new stock, all without I interruption (oh except for those pesky customer things).

Day One gave me a new appreciation of fathers returning home after a day at work. I was buggered and the last thing I wanted to do was help put the kids to bed, I just wanted to veg out on the couch. I was wrecked.

Day Two saw a welcome change which I put down to wearing sensible shoes for a day of standing around all day on concrete - huge improvement. By Saturday I was fully into the swing of full-time work and not quite ready for it to end. I felt like a fully-functioning member of society.

I think Surfer Boy also enjoyed his week. Not only did he manage dinner and school lunches but we had a freshly baked cake almost every day!! Astonishing. In 14 years together I have never seen him make a cake. He did comment after Day One that although he had a list of things he wanted to get, he didn't have a chance to get any of them. He couldn't understand where the day had gone, eaten up with school drop offs, cooking, housework etc. I think his idea that I swan around all day having coffee with other ladies was well and truly debunked.

All in all we came away from the week with a new appreciation for what the other does. Well worth it.

29 degrees today in Melbourne and my most favourite kind of night - warm and still. The kind of night that is made for fairy lights and bbqs and good friends, or just sitting on the verandah watching the world go by with a good book.

Signing off as it is just too nice to be sitting at the computer - promise I'll post again SOON.

Nestlenookie, indeed.

I'm having some post-vacation depression, folks.

Jim and I try to get away each Columbus Day weekend to celebrate our anniversary, which is 10/6. Last year we didn't get to go because, well, I'd just had a baby. This year, it would have taken a team of draft horses to keep us from going! My in-laws arrived on Friday and we left a trail of dust and Cheese Nips on Saturday morning as we sped away from the house. Hey, we just like Cheese Nips.

Anyway, we, and by we, I mean *I*, had researched resorts and inns in VT, NH, and the southern coast of Maine for months, and I found one that honestly had everything we wanted: scenic, private, outdoor & indoor hot tubs, spa pool, flatscreen TV & DVD player, balcony, horseback riding... you name it. The only bad part about it was their extra cheesy name: Nestlenook Resort. BWAH! I mean, really.

BUT... the place is awesome. Amazing. As in, we have found the place that we will be booking every year from now on, forever and ever AMEN. Unless, of course, we get the opportunity to go to Vegas again. :) That's a deal-breaker.

The room was outstanding. King sized four-poster bed, gas fireplace, mountain views from the French doors:

Privacy galore, and this tub in the bathroom:


Uh, yeah. It was that awesome.

We slept well (no 5:30 wake-up calls from the baby!), ate well (Filet Mignon medallions, anyone?), and submerged ourselves in hot bubbling water three times per day both Saturday and Sunday. Oh, and when I say it was private - well, imagine a gorgeous pool and outdoor stone jacuzzi with NO ONE else there... all weekend, no matter what time we went down. I don't know where the other guests were, and I don't care. It was all ours!

Here are some pics from their extensive "Victorian" grounds:

Yes, that is a swan peddle boat, and hell yeah, we did take a ride! I laughed my butt off while doing it... a couple on the shore even laughed and took our picture, and I didn't care. Screw 'em! Their loss. Swan peddle boats are da bomb!



The theme of the weekend was us waltzing in past crowds and getting seated at restaurants, etc. Here is Jim beckoning me to join him on the abandoned, uncrowded peddle boat. He was singing a song from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, if I remember. "Come with me, and you'll be... in a world of sweet imagination..." *sigh* He's a funny dude.

This had to have been the busiest tourist season in northern New Hampshire. There were mobs of people in North Conway (it took over an hour to drive the few miles through town!), but at Nestlenookie... it was peaceful. Quiet. Serene.






Sunday morning we went to a very popular (and thus, crowded) restaurant for their jazz breakfast buffet. In keeping with our theme, we were told the wait was 45 minutes unless we could find two barstools. We walked into the bar and found... two empty barstools! It was like there was a ray of sunshine following us all weekend! Divine! We had an outstanding brunch with the best Bloody Mary I've ever enjoyed, and best of all... the dining room was crowded with families and screaming kiddies, but the bar was adults-only and lovely. Huzzah!

Later that night, we saw a gorgeous sunset from our private balcony:


It was hard to leave the Nestlenookie Resort, I'll tell you. Just two short days and we felt pretty refreshed, as if we'd been on vacation for a week. Of course, maybe that's because we haven't been on a real week-long vacation in over 3 years. Ugh.

The ride home was excellent, too. We took the picturesque Kancamagus Highway over the White Mountains:






So, there you have it. This is why I'm dragging ass at work this week. I cannot believe it will be another year until I get to go back. I wonder how long I can get the in-laws to watch the kids next year.... :)