Melanie

So people keep asking when I am going to have another baby. Interesting as I don’t go around asking non-child encumbered people when they are going to have a baby but apparently once you’ve had one you’re fair game.

I have been looking after my friends little boy, 4 year old Kaleb, for a few hours a couple of days a week.
It has become clear there is no way I could handle 2 full time children. They are cute and Kaleb and Harrison play together but …. well …. as I said one is more than enough.

I go through stages of saying I will have another one but right now its a no.

Also 4 year olds ask a lot of questions.

Constantly.

So I went away, to stay for a week at my parents, obviously with Harrison pants in tow as we kind of make a set.
Anyway, then I got sick. Virus sick. So we came back 3 days later then originally planned.
Which would be fine if it wasn’t for the extraordinary amount of things that pile up, waiting for me to return.
An inbox which i have to slowly sift through to delete the spam “sizeable fuckstick for Adrian” (Creepy because I know an Adrian and am not entirely sure what a fuckstick is but it sounds like something I would call someone who was tailgating me) and reply to the real emails.
A rather alarming amount of actual mail (!!!) some that I need to respond to, some I can store away (Harrison’s Christmas present) and some I can file under R (for rubbish because although I am quite sure I would like $55,000 I am not sure that I want to sell my soul to Reader’s Digest for it!)
Then i have phone messages to deal with, groceries to buy, laundry to launder, a garden to organise and plant and general tidying and sorting to take care of.

And now it appears our new DVD player has done exactly the same thing as the last one! Not impressed!!!!

Basically I can cook.
I love to cook. And I love to bake. There is something very satisfying about baking. I like to experiment with different recipes. What I normally do is follow a recipe exactly the first time, then, if I think it’s a keeper, I’ll play around with it.
Yesterday I made banana choc chip cookies. Apparently they’re delicious. I don’t know, I don’t eat bananas.

Here is the recipe:
Sift together 2 1/4 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp baking soda.
In a separate bowl beat together 1 cup sugar (I used white sugar), 150g softened butter or margerine, 2 eggs (or if you have a kid who’s allergic to eggs then use 2 x egg replacer) and 1 tsp vanilla.
Add wet ingredients to dry.
Stir in 1 cup of mashed bananas (4 small bananas) and 1 cup of choc chips - or sultanas.
Bake at 200 degrees for 12 - 15 minutes. Mine were done in 12 but it does depend on your oven.
They have a soft spongey texture not chewy like some cookies.

Well, I’m not quite a 1950’s housewife, Dylan doesn’t come home to a spotless house, warmed slippers and a roaring fire.
But he does come home to a nice cooked dinner.
My biggest problem with being a housewife is that I am not, by nature, a tidy person. My house is clean, there are no plates or glasses accruing a pile of mould and dead flies. I guess i mean my house is disorganised. This could be because we moved house 3 months ago - I had our last place in a state of semi-organisation. I knew where stuff was, boxes were labelled and away in wardrobes.
Now our “spare room” has become a no entry zone. Well, you can enter but nobody knows if you will come out again. Possibly maps and compasses should be handed out at the door?
So my mission is to sort out the stuff in the spare room. the problem I have is that I don’t have anywhere to put the stuff that I sort out! What is lacking in our house is storage facilities. And a maid.

obviously I am now married (for nearly 6 months!) and Harrison is 2 1/2!!!
Currently he is driving his mummy a little bit nuts. If you have never been chased into the toilet by a 2 year old wielding a plastic dinosaur and growling you won’t know where I am coming from.
Don’t get me wrong there is nothing more rewarding then motherhood - except, you know, maybe getting paid more then $78 a week would be good. For some reason Harrison has decided that the answer to everything is “no”. Actually the reason he has decided this is that he is a 2 year old.
So a week or so ago our DVD player decided not to go anymore - as we had only had it 7 months (and I’m excellent at holding onto receipts) we took it back to Dick Smith on the weekend. Leeanne was not very helpful - well she eventually was but she was still rude and obnoxious! (Leeanne was the counter staff person who “helped” us.)
So they did replace it - but she didn’t want to - she wanted to send it away to get fixed which would take 2 - 3 weeks! I said that she would then have to come to our place and entertain a 2 year old until we got it back. Clearly this wasn’t what she wanted to do.

So anyway … retail people … it’s not that hard to be polite. It’s not that hard to put a smile on your face. It’s not that hard to not get shitty the instant you see someone coming through the door with a faulty product!
I should know - I worked in retail for a number of years and NEVER had a complaint about my service!