Wednesday Round-up

Phew! What a day.
Wasn't that how yesterday started? Well...in a moment of deja vu....
Phew! What a day!

8.30am saw the property valuer arrive with his little measuring wheel. Why was that intimidating? I have had whole classes of sixth graders out on the Oval with their measuring wheels and never felt quite as intimidated as I did at the door this morning.

Scene: The front door, lower level of the house consisting of entrance hall, garage and Den and Second Son's double bedroom with ensuite ($20 000).

Me: Good morning haha, come in, hahaha, what do you want to look at first? Oh THIS room?hahahahaha Well that's Sleeping Beauty.......we'll give him a chance to make himself decent and then....
(quick detour through double garage: re-emerge into hall and offending doorway to find Sleeping Beauty looking like a train wreck half way up the stairs)
Me: hahaha, oh you're up! great so we can look in your...
Valuer: Oh I only need a quic....
Me: YOU WANT A LOOK?????? of course you do...
V: well really, I only need to
Me: IN HERE NOW, LET'S SEE WHAT WE HAVE.........
V: yes, yes, very nice
Me: (for G*ds sake please look interested...do you know how long it took him to clean this room?????)

So that was first thing this morning.

After he left I think we all wanted to collapse in a pile of relief and exhaustion. In the model of the 'perfect wife and mother' I was presenting to the bank however, I felt the need to finish the liquidising and freezing of my pumpkin soup (mmmmmmmm) as well as feeding the five thousand with a variety of egg and bacon breakfasts. (none of our family simply has bacon and eggs.....there are a number of peccadilloes and this restaurant caters for all of them :-(....)

In truth, I was so relieved and yet 'powerless' (they'll let us know tomorrow) I had to do something I had control over...ie cook. An interesting paradox as Himself does most of the cooking because cooking generally throws me into a quandry of indecision.

OK. So now I am cooking....cleaning the kitchen (getting the fat out of every little crevice in the routing in the cupboards...a carry over from yesterday and more in the control freak department) and helping Small Boy enlarge/laminate and attach an original 'logo' to his scooter........when the window man arrives to look at the kitchen window winders which are essentially knackered. (like everything else in the house)

In the middle of this I get a call from another tradesman.....glazier this time. Windowman goes (back Fri)...cook Small Boy something...quick sit down to look at blogs before out to friends for afternoon tea...another phone call...........it is SISTER IN LAW...who lives in Western Australia....here for a few days and wanting to come to dinner tonight!!!!!!!!! With kids!!!!!!!

Now I have to say that I view the visits of my sister in law with delight. She is a gorgeous person; gentle, talented, self effacing, a wonderful mother and she allows me an insight into my husband's psyche. As a late in life couple, Himself's parent were already dead when I met him; he has one brother who lives in Adelaide (but whom I strongly suspect is Asperger's and fails to turn up for dinner whenever he is invited) and a sister in Perth (opposite coast...3 hours by plane) so I never see him in his 'native environment' as it were.

We were all tickled pink. Small Boy was doubly excited when he heard his cousins would be coming with his Aunt!! Playmates have been thin on the ground this week. What shall we eat??? I had already decided (boy I am brave) to defrost a chicken that night so I simply took out another. Problem Solvered (copyright) I was due at a friend's house for afternoon tea at 2.30pm, back around 5pm with veggies, Himself could put the chickens on...all seemed rosy.

Until I checked the oven. (I was in such a control freak baking frenzy, I had this MAD idea that I could get a slow cooking banana cake into the oven and be back in time to take it out of the oven!)

The oven was cactus.
Turn knob. No light, no heat, no nothing!!!!!!
We tried the usual trick which involves taking the fuse out (everyone log out of your computers; we're switching off the power!!!!!) to no avail. Quick change of plan. The chickens will be cooked in the Webber BBQ and I will take the fuse up to the local electrical store on the way to my afternoon tea date, after which I will pick up BBQ fuel as well as veggies and be back in sufficient time to get the BBQ up and running for their arrival at 6pm and dinner by 7pm. Maybe.

In typical chaotic fashion, we staggered through this process. Auntie M and cousins duly arrived, there was much rejoicing and photography, BBQs smoked, I went to do baked potatoes for the Webber only to find we had run out of alfoil (good grief), try the fuse thing again, still nothing, experimentally twiddle a manual/timer knob....oven bursts into life........great, now to bake the potatoes in the oven .......oh no, that's right, still no alfoil....OK I'll do the 'roll them in olive oil, salt and rosemary' thing........except that they're massive baking potatoes.......ok I'll parboil them and then cut them in half and do the 'roll them in olive oil etc' thing.......great....I think.....no wait, now should I put them on a baking sheet or in a baking dish?........euch all the baking dishes have rusted, ravaged bottoms........that's OK I'll line it with alfoil.......wait, that's right........still no alfoil.

Aren't you glad you're not inside my head all the time? It's very staccato in there. You can see how the whole cooking thing stresses me right out. As it turned out I lined the baking dish with baking paper and under Auntie M's soothing reassurance the potatoes turned out fine. As did the chickens but of course they always would as they were under Himself's control.

It was a lovely evening catching up on all their news. The most exciting thing for me is that Auntie M is a photographer again! She has recently gone back to work as an interior designer and taken up photography again. She has a bigger lens than Himself!!!!! (scary) She asked him if he would design her a business card or a compliments slip that she could put with the shots she has been doing recently for the school. Himself sat down and in less than 30 min had come up with a logo for her and a range of card options with a variety of colour schemes. He really is VERY clever.
Here they are poring over the task and refusing to look at the camera!

So this morning I am feeling a little low. It could be the rain (should be happy about that) and the overcast skies. It could be that I am babysitting two 9 year old boys. It could be that there are only 4 days until school goes back and I have not finished marking. It could be that the glazier hasn't shown up........or it could be that I don't get to see my lovely sister in law for another 6 months or so. I so wish she lived in Adelaide.