Anzac Day

Anzac Day is pretty special in this family.

My Father in law is a returned service man who is 89 years old next month.

My children have rarely known an Anzac Day where they haven't been involved in some way.

One year we were lucky enough to have their RAAF aunty come for the march.

The little bloke walked with her that year.

Our sons have always marched with either their school or the Scouts.

Our Daughter was a Girl Guide and in this town they have always provided the Anzac Biccie morning tea after the march and ceremony. This year she marched with her school.

There was a huuge roll up for the children in the march and I believe this is because it wasn't in school holidays. Schools had services on Tuesday which reminded the students and encouraged their involvement.

Pa rode in an old car with some other Returned servicemen.

Our little bloke had the special honour of laying the wreath for the scouts.

I remember a few years ago there was a great concern that Anzac Day would diminish as the years wore on and there were fewer diggers to participate.

I see no signs of this.

Until I met my husband I had no real reason to participate as we did not have any family medals to march with. It was a great extra day off for me. 

My mother and I used to watch most of it on the Television.

It was also a long trip into the centre of Sydney to watch the diggers go by.

It is a lot easier in a small town.

I am so pleased to see all the crowds come out to support the Anzac ceremony and honouring those who have served.

2012 Australian Whipcracking titles

We had a big day yesterday.
All the hard work practicing and maintaining whips paid off.
Our daughter retained her
Juvenile Australian Whipcracking Title.
Yay.



Her little brother is now in the same age grouping and so is competing against kids who could be almost 4 years older and stronger than he is. He placed 4th in the Juveniles.



Our eldest son bravely competed in an extremely tough field of Juniors.



Well done kids!
I'm so proud of the way they will sit the whole day, not want to go off in the show ground and are really happy to catch up and talk with the other competitors who have come from all over the country.



They are always keen to talk about the history of the sport with the older, over 45 whipcrackers.
I'm so pleased they are keen to learn as much as they can.
And of course they are obsessed with checking out and drooling over everyone else's whips. There are some magnificent, finely crafted whips out there.
I have no technical knowledge in Whipcracking.
The only input I have is the ironing of the clothes.
And the gathering of all the gear and packing.




And organizing accommodation
And feeding us
And getting them there on time.
-Well, their dad is so much better at that than I am!
I'm always late.




I shouldn't be with this being the arm party yesterday-
Plus we had some fancy boot watching on my behalf




They did a couple of media bits, you may have seen them on the channel seven and nine news.













Good day all round!
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Xoxo j

Fame and 'The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be!'

Yesterday we had a nice brush with fame, we participated at a fundraiser here in town to help the Salvation Army raise funds to help support people after the major flooding in February.

We had an area for Whipcracking. We positioned ourselves right in the middle of the oval. All afternoon there was a constant stream of kids and adults trying their hand at Whipcracking.
I had a few nice surprises from the children that I teach, some are quite good!

I am so sore today after all of the crouching, kneeling, lungeing and of course the upper arm workout from the actual cracking. I guess it helps with the weight loss regime(10 kgs/22 pounds lost since January!)

Then towards the end of the evening some stars from a very popular TV show had a lesson from the kids. The poor girl was terrified! Probably as she didn't have any sleeves on.

The boys were quietly confident.

All three got the whips to crack in the end, so success!

It was very good of them to come and support our community.

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2 weeks ago, straight after my colour job, I decided that I am going to go my natural colour!

Grey!

And grow this highly processed, thinning at the crown, chestnutty colour out.

The kinks are from it being tied in a bun of sorts at the back of my neck all day!

Mostly it just has a nice wave.

I'm always telling the hairdresser to turn the old grey mare into a chestnut or bay filly!

But its the other way now!

Except I don't want to have anymore bleach or dye on my hair to transition to grey, for a while.

So I am now sporting a shoulder length, straight across the bottom, non layered bob.

So to assist in this transition to grey, I have been sourcing some hats and berets, mostly from eBay.

So cheap!

Helen Kaminski has some great woollen styles.

I am quite comfortable in a hat, so through winter, grey hair growth will be a breeze.

I wore the grey one yesterday and did not feel the need to take it off at all.

I've knitted 3 hats/ beanies/ caps as well this last week to add to the supply.

 

I may get sick of the grey hair, but am hoping that stopping the coloring will help with my fine hair breaking off and/or falling out. I have also changed shampoos to redken intra force which apparently helps eliminate the build up of calcium in the scalp causing the follicles to push the hairs out, and also, grow thin weak hairs, highly likely in my case as I have bore water with a high mineral content. People travel from all over the world to bathe in the mineral waters here. So I'm also doing a final rinse with distilled water. It is so soft already!

I also have an appointment with the doctor to have my thyroid and bloods tested.

I believe, surely, I have all the bases covered!

Perhaps I will grow hair like Sarah Harris from UK vogue, but more likely it will be like Lauren Ezersky all wirey and scary.

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We had a visitor the other night.

He was sitting on the Whipcracking accuracy stand right outside the window. It's not to be confused with an owl, its a shy Tawny Frogmouth or mopoke.

I love them, they catch mice and probably snakes too at night time. I'm pretty sure that we have a whole family of them here at our house.

Yay!

And then these guys are taking over the place like the Adams family live here

Morticia Adams has left the house!

My view -right now

I've noticed the sun has moved further south whoops!! NORTH!! DAH on the horizon,
Autumn/Winter is on its way.
We don't really get more than a few weeks of autumn or spring, so winter is on its way!

Week in review

This last week I have been contributing to the March photo a day on Instagram set up by fatmumslim.

It is a lot of good fun and I am able to use lots of the photography apps and filters I have on the phone. I have also been adding to the whatiwore hash tag. It's fun searching all the hash tags and seeing what other people are creating.

These are my Red Phoenix Emporium (link on the right) necklaces that I have matched up to my outfits this week. I wore black and white on both Thursday and Friday! Most of my wardrobe is Black so I guess it should dominate.

On Monday I had the fall on the lawn like an old pensioner. No harm was done, though at the time I thought I had broken my ankle. It was fine.

Later that night I found the bruise. Well I have photographed it in a ghoulish manner all week. Then I have used some of my apps and made it look horrendous. I won't share those here, only frightening my kids with them.

I have been slathering it with this arnica cream and hirudoid cream all week.

I am really happy with how quickly the hard lump inside has gone and how the bruise is dissipating. I do not want a calcified lump in there. I can't stand touching behind my knees so this has been really weird to massage it and rub the creams in. It's on the inside of my thigh just above the knee.

I worked out that the lines in it on the second day were from the creases in my pj pants while I slept in the night. Laying with it on the down side I think the blood in the bruise settled on he surface of the skin. Makes sense to me!

Well I will share one doctored photo......

Ewww!

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