Happy Easter

 The little girl on the left seems to have missed out.  I hope we shared with her.

That's me second from left, with my sister and brother, and our eggless cousin.

Some handy hints

These are taken from the Laurel Recipe Book and Household Guide, as shown in a previous post.

1. Ink stains can be removed from linen by covering with freshly-mixed mustard.  Should be left an hour then sponged out.
2. To brighten a rusted needle, push in and out of a piece of sandsoap.
3. When pram tyres wear, take them off and replace inside out.
4. Flat irons will get hotter quicker, and retain their heat longer if covered while on the stove with an inverted baking or biscuit tin.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_(appliance)#History_of_flat_iron
5. The small brown sponges frequently found on sea beaches make effective pot cleaners for the kitchen.  Being rough in texture they remove scraps but do not scratch the surface of the pots.

Housewife's Lament

The sink is piled high full of dishes

   The rubbish bin's filled to the top

The basket is full in the laundry

   The floor needs much more than a mop

The breadbox is empty;  the ashtrays are full

   You could all sign your names in the dust

The bathroom's a mess; the kids have missed school

   (We slept in and were late for the bus)

There are toys clothes and papers all over

  How does just one family mess it?

What does a housewife do all day long?

   I decided today not to do it?

                                                by  Suzanne Brenzi

Quotes

The main advantage of being famous is when you bore people at dinner parties, they think it's their fault.

         Henry Kissinger   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger

If you can't be a good example, then you will just have to be a horrible warning.

       Catherine Aird   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Aird

No woman in my time will be Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary.

     Margaret Thatcher  1974  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

      W.C. Fields    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._C._Fields

Did you know?

There are ten human body parts that are only three letters long:-  eye, hip, arm, leg, ear, toe, jaw, rib, lip and gum.

Another one of my creative ventures.

The biscuits and coffee are all soap.

 Faith can move mountains,

 but you have to keep pushing while you pray.         

It's Easter bunny time

 My two sons, many Easters ago.

Clever headlines

• Enraged cow injures farmer with axe.
• Safety experts say school bus passengers should be belted.
• If strike isn't settled quickly, it may last a while.
• New study of obesity looks for larger test group.
• Grandmother of eight makes hole in one.
• Queen Mary having bottom scraped.

Senior moments

I've had a couple of them this week.  The first was at the supermarket.  I never use eftpos for my groceries, but I hadn't been to the bank, so I gave it a go.  Keyed in my pin ... rejected.  I was sure I had it right.  The woman on the checkout was very understanding (probably my grey hair), and told me to take my time.  Then it hit me - new card, new pin!  Not even really new.  I'd had it a few months, and used it a few times in the ATM. 

The second was even better.   Warming my husband's coffee in the microwave, took it out, grabbed a teaspoon, and scooped a spoonful of coffee.   Just managed to stop myself before I poured it into the sugar bowl.

Short short

First Love
Anna felt confident as she entered the office, but she hadn't counted on her interviewer.  He was tall, dark and very handsome, and the memories came flooding back.  James Duncan was someone she thought she had forgotten.  Her first love, her first kiss.  But then he had done something so unforgivable, so dreadfully embarrasing, that she knew she never wanted to see him again.   But here he was, looking at her with that smile she remembered so well.  And he remembered her.
"Anna Johnson.  You've certainly changed since we were in Mrs Pelham's grade three class, when I tied your shoelaces together!"

Did you know?

• Penicillin mould under a microscope looks like tiny paintbrushes.  The latin for paintbrushes is penicillum, which is also where the word "pencil " came from.
• Loud music makes termites chew faster (what a waste of research money finding that out!)
• Spider silk, by weight, is stronger than steel.
• An octopus has three hearts.
• Cleopatra was Greek, not Egyptian.
• Dr Seuss invented the word "nerd".

Photo from email

 This must have been the original ride-on mower

Ten reasons why hugging is perfect

1. No batteries to wear out
2. Low energy consumption
3. High energy yield
4. Inflation proof
5. Non fattening
6. No monthly payments
7. No insurance requirements
8. Non taxable
9. Non polluting
10. And, of course, fully returnable

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.



More 1950's Autographs

I called on my sweetheart, her name was Miss Brown
She was having a bath so she couldn't come down.
I said "Slip on something, come down in a jiff"
She slipped on the soap and by gee she came quick.

Little dog
Busy street
Big lorry
Sausage meat

Not every man can be a poet
Not every sheep can be a goet

Such literary talent is unbelievable!

Definition of an intellectual

Someone who can listen to the "William Tell Overture" without thinking of the Lone Ranger.

From emails

If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model.

• I've got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish, and my paint job is getting a little dull.
• My headlights are out of focus.
• My traction is not as graceful as it once was.
• I slip and slide and bump into things even in the best of weather.
• My whitewalls are stained with varicose veins.
• It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed.
• But here's the worst of it - almost every time I sneeze or cough, either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires! 

More mangled English

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for next day.  During that time we regret you will be unbearable.

From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
Cooles and Heates:  If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the tap in a washroom in Finland:
To stop the drip, turn cock to right.

How many?

Apparently there are 92 English words that can be made from the letters in planets.  I've been trying on and off for six days, and so far I've come up with 76.  I've figured out they aren't counting plurals, because there would be a lot more than 92 if the words I've found that can be pluraled were pluraled (is that a word?)

Another recipe

Here is an icecream recipe from this very old recipe book.  It's a beautiful creamy icecream, not like that white stuff you buy at the supermarket.  It's well worth the effort if you love icecream.

Aussie Ice Cream

1 oz cornflour

1 pint milk

4 ozs sugar

2 eggs

1/2 pint whipped cream

Blend the cornflour with a small quantity of the milk till smooth, then add the rest and put it into a saucepan with the sugar.  Boil for three minutes, stirring all the time.  Take it off the fire, add the yolks of eggs and then cook gently for a moment.  Let this cool, stir in the whipped cream and the whites of eggs stiffly beaten. 

I made the icecream, then used some of it to make this Icecream Soap. 

Aussie Ice Cream and my original icecream soap

My published "works"

For the past forty-five or so years, I have been sending letters and photos in to magazines.  Some have been printed - and paid for - a lot more haven't.  Here are a couple of the early ones.

My son, aged 3, was thrilled with his coloured potato - potato and pumpkin mashed together.  But when he asked for a second helping, he asked:  "Could I have it blue this time, please?"

My sister-in-law was amazed to find me ironing on an extremely hot day, but when I was able to relax in the cool of the evening, she was doing her ironing, and still feeling hot.  Which of us is crazy?

This one is from thirty years ago.

I have five children, one working, one at high school, one at primary school, one at kindy, and one at home.  Their ages are 16, 14, 9, 3 and 2.

Follow your dream - unless it's the one where you're at work in your undies during a fire drill!

The Essentials of Life

1. Air
2. Food
3. Water
4. HUGGING
5. Clothing
6. Shelter

Hugging is all natural

• Organic
• Naturally sweet
• No pesticides
• No preservatives
• No artificial ingredients
• 100% wholesome

My poetic children
Many years ago, when my two youngest were just learning to write, they both wrote me lovely poems.  I hope they won't mind if I share them, as they are really special. 
I've copied them both exactly, spelling and all.
This first one was written inside a large heart. 

Mums are nice

Mums cook rice

Beutiful

pretty

Mums

This one was written as one long sentence.

Mummy

Skys are blue, ponds are green, But when I think of you, you never seem mean!

Such cuties!

Short shorts

Revenge

Jessie aimed carefully.  A perfect shot!  All the arduous weeks of practice had finally paid off.  Kevin had at last paid for his snide remarks and condescending comments.  Tonight he had realised that she wasn't as meek and mild as he'd thought.  Two more shots, a whoop of joy, and it was done.  Revelling in the look of shock on Kevin's face, Jessie held aloft her Lower Littlesworth Darts Champion 2011 Trophy.

Quotes

"Our young people today now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for older people, they argue with their parents, gobble their food, have terrible manners and tyrannise their teachers.  What kind of awful creatures will they be when they grow up?"   Socrates  500BC

"Half our mistakes arise from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel".  anon.

"The best way to convince a fool that he's wrong is to let him have his own way".

                                                                                                               anon.

Another of my soaps 

My icypole soaps. 

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

Fun and Games

Spoilt dogs
Fun and games at our house this morning.  I was going grocery shopping, but when I picked up my keys, the dogs thought it was tata time!    While I was putting bags in the back seat, Little dog jumped into the front seat, and wouldn't come out.   I went round to the passenger door to get him out, and Big dog jumped in through the driver's door (yes, I should have shut it first).  Little dog jumped out, but Big dog, a 40kg labrador, decided to do a 360 and leave the way she came in.  By then I had shut the driver's door, so when she realised she couldn't get out that way, she tried to squeeze between the bucket seats into the back seat.  So I had to open the back door and let her out.   THEN I went shopping.

Little dog and Big dog chomping their bone treats.

The Carrot Farm (part 2)
The carrots were brought to the shed in a trailer, towed by a tractor.  One day, one of the young lads drove up to the shed, backed up to the ramp, and then realised he'd lost his trailer somewhere between the harvester and the shed!
While we were waiting for carrots to be brought up to the washer, we'd do some cleaning up, then just stand around waiting and chatting.  One day, a new boy was on the tractors.   When he arrived at the shed, we told him we didn't want any more carrots, and he should take them to the farm tip.  He drove off, and we thought he was just going to drive around the shed to stir us up.  Unfortunately, he thought we were serious, and dumped a whole trailer load of carrots.  I don't know if the boss ever found out, (Hi Luke, if you're reading this), but it was never mentioned.
One day the boss took a carrot out of my bin, and asked what was wrong with it, because it was a perfectly good looking carrot.  Then he took a bite, and spat it out.  I told him I was so good at my job, I could spot a bad carrot even if it looked good!

My daughter and her friend checking out the carrots at the farm tip,

20 odd years ago.

Quotes
"He knows nothing; he thinks he knows everything;  that clearly points to a political career".
                                                                 George Bernard Shaw
"Want a thing long enough.......and you don't".
                                                                Chinese proverb
"Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake".
                                                                  Napoleon
"If you're going through hell, keep going".
                                                                Winston Churchill

Red Cars
I normally go shopping on a Wednesday, but had to go Friday this week.   I found out something very interesting about Friday shopping days.   There were more red cars in the car park Friday than I ever see on a Wednesday, so Friday must be red car owners shopping day.  Most of them were bright shiny new red cars, but there were a lot of darker reds, metallics, and older cars.   Just read (red, get it?) this through, and it doesn't sound as interesting as I thought it was, but I'll leave it in, just in case someone has a queer thought process like mine.

Did you know?

• The earliest evidence of carrots being used by humans dates from 3,000 in Afghanistan.  They were purple outside, and yellow inside.  You can still buy or grow these "gourmet" carrots today.
• All polar bears are Capricorns, because they're all born December/January. 
• There is actually a word for being afraid of peanut paste sticking to the roof of your mouth - arachibutyrophobia.   http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/arachibutyrophobia.html
• The name Hitler was listed 22 times in the New York phone book before WWII - after the war, there were none.
• Dolly Parton once lost a Dolly Parton lookalike contest.

Success is getting what you want; happiness is liking what you get.

Fun At Work

The Carrot Farm (part 1)
I worked for many years on a market garden, which was known locally as "The carrot farm", because carrots were the main crop grown there.    When I first started working there, almost 25 years ago, the work wasn't too hectic, and there was time every so often to have a bit of fun.   I worked in the shed, standing at a conveyor belt picking out the reject carrots and binning them.   It was a pretty boring job, so one day, when one of the garden workers turned 21, all the shed crew put on party hats just before smoko.   When the garden crew came in, we all started singing happy birthday.

Another time we came to work all dressed up.  The day before we'd been talking about not having to spend money on work clothes, and our boss said "so that's why you come to work looking so awful".  So we decided to surprise him.  Stockings, high heels, teased and sprayed hair, our best dresses, and makeup.   There were a few double-takes when the garden crew came into the shed!   We had to get changed at smoko, though.  It was too hard trying to work in high heels on a mesh platform.  OHS would have a field day if we did it today.

This is what Guilderton Farm looked like from the air.



Quotes

"The trouble with bucket seats is, everyone doesn't have the same size bucket".
 Opal Smith

"Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity".
 Thor Heyerdahl    http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/thor/

"We all want to live long, but none wants to be old".
 Benjamin Franklin    http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/info/index.htm

"Any idiot can face a crisis - it's the day-to-day living that wears you out".
 Anton Chekhov   http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc6.htm

Some funnies

Walking through the village cemetery, I noticed a man at a graveside in great distress.

'Oh, why did you have to die?' he sobbed, over and over.

'Was it a close relative?' I asked.

'No,' he replied, 'the wife's first husband'.

Two men are getting dressed in the gym changing room.  One puts on a girdle.

'Good heavens, how long have you been wearing that?' his friend asks.

'Since my wife found it in the glove compartment,' the girdle-wearer replies.

Did you know?

• The patron saint of snake-bite victims is St. Domenico.
• The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.          (At last, a name for my problem!)
• Marco Polo was Croatian.  His real name was Marko Pilic, and he was born in Dalmatia in 1254.
• Indian Ink was invented in China.
• The Spanish word for the animal sloth is perezoso, and the Spanish word for deckchair is perezosa.  Makes sense to me.

Some of my novelty soaps

I found a teeth icecube mould in the $2 shop, so I bought it and made soap teeth.

These were made in a square mould.  I just kept adding layers.

The black is scented with aniseed, and the coloured bits are scented with Jelly Bean fragrance oil.

Talk is cheap, because supply exceeds demand.