Illness and Chicken Pox

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The kidlet has been sick for two weeks.  Luckily she’s finally back at school today.

Two weeks ago she had the whole week off school because of weird tummy pains and high temperatures.  She could have gone to school on the friday, but it was their athletics carnival so I decided to keep her home.  After a whole week off school I didn’t want her first day back to have her sitting outside in the cold weather all day.

Last week she went to school on monday.  Went to school on tuesday, and then I got the phone call to come and pick her up – she’s vomited.  Right outside the front office.  Nice!  LOL!  Luckily she didn’t make it inside the office, at least outside it can be hosed off.

So I brought her home, dosed her up on panadol.  She had eaten breakfast on Tuesday morning, and didn’t eat a meal again until sunday.  Five days of just water.  Lying on the lounge or bed all day, sleeping, upchucking every time she tried to eat.  There were a few occasions where I nearly took her to ER.

On Sunday she said she felt better, so ate a pancake for breakfast.  Ate lunch.  Ate afternoon tea and played with the neighbour for awhile.  Ate dinner – well, half a dinner.  She had the steamed vegies and mashed potato.

It was a long weekend here so no school on monday and the kidlet ate all day, including a roast chicken dinner at night and went back for seconds!  So she’s back at school today and fine.  From lying there looking terrible on saturday to fully recovered by monday.

And the Chicken Pox?  That would be me.  For the second time.  I had it as a kid and gave it to my entire pre-school.  And now I have it again.  Not Shingles, but actual Chicken Pox.  It’s a mild case but still itchy and tiring.  So after being confined to the house with a sick child for two weeks and suffering from cabin fever, I now have to stay here for another week.

Thank goodness for the internet!!!

He’s Home!!!

DH arrived back home last thursday night.  He pointed out to me on the weekend that I’d posted about running, but not about him getting home…  guess I was too excited to do that!

So far he’s slept a lot and watched a lot of DVD’s.  Catching up on six months of constant working and long days.  He’s off work for all of May and then goes back to work to a new position in June.

It’s so good to have him home! 

Honey Cleanser and Almond Scrub

Along with making my own soap, I’m now making my own cleansers.

Honey Facial Cleanser is a recipe from the book Bodyworks: Restoring Wellbeing with Homemade Lotions, Potions and Balms (Murdoch Books): Restoring Wellbeing with Homemade Lotions, Potions and Balms (Murdoch Books)

60ml runny honey

125ml vegetable glycerine

40 ml liquid castile soap

Mix all together and pour into a clean pump type bottle.  Keeps in the shower without needing refrigeration.

To use, simply rub over wet face and rinse off with water.

Note:  Liquid Castile Soap is true soap, not the liquid detergent you buy in the supermarket.  You may need to order it online from a Soap Making shop or might possibly be available from a Health Food Shop or organic supermarket.

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Almond Scrub is a recipe I made up myself.  It’s very loosely based on a product from Lush.  Works brilliantly!

2 Tblspn ground almonds

2 Tblspn clay (Kaolin, Bentonite, or similar cosmetic clay)

1 Tblspn vegetable glycerine

1 tspn sweet almond oil

5 drops lavender essential oil (leave out if you’re allergic, or you can substitute another essential oil)

Mix all together well and store in a plastic container (for safety reasons, you don’t want to risk dropping a glass jar in the shower!).  Leave for 24 hours before using.

To use, wet face, break off a small piece and scrub skin gently.  Wash off with water.

To be honest, the colour of this scrub reminds me of baby poop!  It ends up a yellowish khaki colour and the texture is, well, chunky….  LOLOL!

Homemade Soap

I made this soap last year, and only recently realised that I hadn’t posted about it!

All made by me on the stove!  I think I now have enough soap for us for the next few years!  LOL!  It was pretty easy and good fun.

The basic recipe is a mix of oils, I’ve used all vegetable oils, with Caustic soda added to saponify the oils.  Then they have spices, clays, essential oils or synthetic fragrances added to make the different varieties.  I did have one failure, tried making a coffee soap and it ‘burnt’ when I added the caustic.  Smelled like a coffee pot that had burnt dry so had to throw that one out.

I started making them using tupperware as the molds, then swapped to using 75mm pvc pipe which works a treat!

Centre (grey) is shaving soap with bentonite clay.  Works better for shaving than plain soap.  I made a heap of this in plastic jars for DH to take overseas on his deployment and the rest of it I’m using.

Clockwise from top: Solid shampoo bar, spice (cinnamon, clove and nutmeg), chocolate, Eucalyptus (can’t smell it though), Sweet Vanilla Sugar, plain basic soap, a mix of some small bits and failures all remelted and molded.

And then there were Eight!

I have “Sucker” writ large on my forehead. I can’t see it in the mirror, but I know it’s there. And any stray animal in my vicinity is granted the ability to read and understand that here stands the biggest sucker around.

On Friday the 13th we found a stray kitten at the neighbours. He was there in the morning and still there in the afternoon. We asked around the houses in the street and no-one knew whose he was. I rang the pound and they said I could drop him off that afternoon, they’d try and find him a home.

And all this while, Dian is pleading to keep the kitten. Eddie said no. Dian emailed him an impassioned email with eight reasons she needed to keep the kitten. She spoke to him on the phone. I took photo’s of Dian and the kitten asleep together, and emailed them after he had said no, so they wouldn’t sway his decision. And in the end he changed his mind.

As I write this, the kitten – now called Friday – is asleep on my lap. He has a purr to rival Suzy’s, which was always one of the loudest I had ever heard! The two cats get on reasonably. Suzy is learning to share her space and Friday is learning that she doesn’t like him jumping on her. He chases the chooks (chickens) and gets squirted with water. Sleeps on Dian’s bed. And is the sweetest, friendliest cat I’ve ever met!

So our pet count is now at eight. Four chickens, two cats and two guinea pigs.  Full house!

And did I mention it’s only 38 days until Eddie comes home?

Saying goodbye to a wonderful friend

A very good friend of mine went into palliative care last monday.  She’s been my good friend, confidante, teacher, mentor, advisor, support and strength for eighteen years.  She taught me to have confidence in who I am, to see life in a positive light, to see the best and have belief in people, how to laugh and enjoy living.  I owe her so much.

For seven years she has fought cancer.  She has done everything she could to beat this revolting disease and in the end it has won over her body.  Her mind will never be conquered.  Even when I rang her and asked how she was she answered “Great”.

I heard that she went into palliative care last tuesday and flew down to see her on the thursday. Thursday was a good day/bad day. I started it on only about 4 1/2 hours sleep, which was not good but unavoidable.

I arrived at the Palliative care unit just after 9.00am I was able to spend about three and a half hours with Paula, just holding her hand and talking.  I went down there thinking that I had so much to say, and in the end what mattered was simply:

Thank you

I love you

I’ll miss you

I’ll see you again one day

And a lot of swearing and crying in private over how unfair it is. She’s only 52 and will never see her sons get married, know her grandchildren or any of the other things that she should still have time to do. And they won’t get to meet an amazing lady.

I didn’t fly out of Melbourne until after 6.00pm, so had a bit of time sitting in the Virgin Blue lounge (almost as good as Qantas Club) before the flight. I was emotionally and physically exausted by the time I got home and am still feeling quite wrung out for a few days.

Update: Paula passed away two weeks later on 22 Jan 2009.

Business Update

It’s been an interesting few months business wise.  I realised during October that there was no way I could continue working two markets in coaching, complete with two websites, two newsletters and two very different audiences!  At the same time I was coming up to exams at school, working four days a week on a contract position within Defence and looking at being a single mother when Eddie deployed!  Can you say “Overwhelm”???  LOL!

Anyway, I ended up emailing both my ezine mailing lists to say I was taking a sabbatical until January.  It was one of the best things I’ve done business wise!  Taking a sabbatical gave me enough mental and emotional space to sit back and really look at what I was doing.  I had pushed so hard all year to keep everything going that I was working crazy hours just to do the bare minimum, and that not very well.

In December I made the decision to close down one of my websites and coaching markets.  I’ve been finding it difficult to work with this side for quite a while, my focus has been on coaching Work at Home Moms, yet I didn’t want to end it as that site/business had been my ‘baby’ since I started coaching.

Well, it’s done.  I sent the email out yesterday to announce the closure, I’ve altered the website so it is notifying anyone who goes there and as of 10 January I’ll have the site diverted to my other website.

Which brings me to the really cool news!  I’ve got a new business website!  It’s for Work at Home Moms/Mums/Mothers who are beginning to build their online (and offline) business.  I’ve called it WAHM Biz Builder and it will be based around helping work at home moms whose businesses aren’t bringing in huge amounts to build their business.  I’ve seen a lot of coaching businesses who have high priced tools, however very few focus on helping the new WAHMs build their businesses.

There’s not much on the site at the moment, I expect to have it finished by mid january.

Teacher’s gift

It’s the last day of school for 2008 tomorrow!  And they have two days of teachers strike for the first two days ‘back’ in 2009!

This is what we gave Dian’s teacher as a thank you gift/Christmas present.

The bookmark was woven by Dian (with a little help from me), using a weaving loom that I have had since I was her age!

I made the notebook cover to fit a standard A5 notebook, so it can be easily replaced when the first book is used.  There’s a zipper pocket for pens and the inside cover is done with contrasting fabric.  A strip of elastic is attached to the back to close the notebook.

This was quite fun to make, the hardest part was working out how to actually make it!

He’s gone

My man left this morning.  He should arrive in Iraq about the time we’re having breakfast tomorrow morning.

Sometimes I forget that as unemotional as he seems, he really does have a soft side.  Watching him tear up  this morning as we said goodbye reminded me that he really does feel things deeply.  It’s also nice to know that he’s sad and will miss us too!

After seeing his plane off, Dian and I went and had morning tea with a friend and did some shopping for doll’s house furniture.  The dolls house was brought in to the lounge room only yesterday, I’ll have to post more on that later when the camera batteries have charged!

And now he’s going again

Well, Eddie is now being deployed again.  This time however, he’ll be gone for six months.  I can’t say exactly where or when he’s going, however I will update you all when he’s left.

I can say that he’ll be gone for Christmas and Dian’s birthday in January.  Sigh.