Our toilet is blocked at the moment… not nice. We have informed the real estate but as usual nothing had been done about it. I got fed up with the blockage and went into the shed to bring in the big guns, the plunger! That will take care of it or so I thought. Picture this, here I was plunger in the toilet plunging up and down, up and down, up and down then “pop”. I fell backwards with only the handle of the plunger in my hand. Oh no, oh don’t tell me..yes the plunger head was firmly stuck to the bottom of the bowl. I poked and prodded the head with my plunger handle but the stubborn thing wouldn’t budge. Ok time to get the rubber gloves involved, naturally I chose my husbands gloves for this dirty job. My gloved hand slipped into the toilet (I was praying at this moment that the gloves didn’t have a hole in them) I reached down and pulled the plunger head off the bottom. Success! Well not really since the toilet was still blocked and all I had done with the plunger was add big black rubber streak marks to the toilet. With only one toilet in the house and a blocked one at that I fear “floaties” are going to be a common occurrence.

Well earth hour is over and I’m back on the computer!  For all of you who have no idea what I’m talking about that’s just too bad.  Oh O.K I’ll tell you, it’s just an annual event when we (the individual) can help to reduce our carbon footprint by turning the lights off between 8pm and 9pm. I registered and participated, how about you?  Anyway getting back to what I wanted to say, I’m back on the computer and at 9:04pm I got an e-mail survey about Earth Hour.  That was quick!  Four minutes after Earth Hour finished….four minutes!  These survey companies are quick off the mark.  They wanted to know if I had heard about it, what I did, blah blah blah.  Well I did it BUT only because I wanted the 20 entries into the prize draw that just between you and me probably doesn’t even exist. I must have sucker written all over my face I don’t know why I even bother with these surveys… it’s the lure of a prize I guess.  Oh and I do like winning but I’m getting off track here.  I just wanted to say that I hope during Earth Hours when all those lights were off not too many businesses were broken into and YOU personally feel better about participating.  Now time to fire up the Nintendo wii and make up for that lost hour!

I read a new article today with the headline “Excess SMS a sign of mental illness”.   I knew it!!  I always knew it and I’m sure my sister will agree with me on this comment…  I always knew my mother had a mental illness!  That phone of hers is constantly “chirping” with sms’s…it drives me crazy.  “I love you…I love you more”  SMS’s back and forth with her husband.. I KNEW it wasn’t normal!  I knew she would someday suffer RSI from her constant texting but a sign of mental illness is like a cherry on top.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother I’m just glad I can now  have her diagnosed and perhaps medicated.  Do you think there will be drugs available for this mental illness?  Perhaps similar to the drugs prescribed for ADHD……there’s nothing wrong with a few sedatives after dinner!

Yesterday (after the kids had gone to school) my husband and I got ready to head into the city.  Nothing flash just visiting a specialist in order to determine what type of specialist I need…sounds crazy doesn’t it!  Anyway we were at the train station buying our tickets when Luke looked at me,  then his eyes went up and down over my body.  I knew what that meant…oh no we did it again!   I gave his body the once over and yes it was true…we did a Kath and Kel.  We were both wearing white sneakers, the same colour blue jeans, salmon coloured tops and baseball caps!  Oh my goodness, we looked ridiculous and there was nothing we could do about it.  The train was due any minute and we had to catch it to get to the specialist on time.  The only thing we could do was walk tall and proud and pray we didn’t bump into anyone we knew!

I think we all dreamed of running away to the circus at one point in our lives.  To a five year old the lifestyle looks incredible, sweets, animals, acrobats and clowns…what more could there be?  How about piranhas, snakes and slavery?  That’s what these two Bulgarian sisters aged 19 and 16 were forced to contend with.  All their circus dreams turned to nightmares as they were held in slave style conditions sleeping in trailers previously occupied by animals.  Being paid 100 euros a week to swim with flesh eating piranhas and having snakes thrown at them…causing injury!  Sound attractive now?  They have now been rescued from this circus in Southern Italy and I’m sure they are happy for their freedom.  I just wonder if anyone is going to believe their resume details?

Do your kids play Cops and Robbers? Good guys and bad guys? Do they have a tendency to pick a superhero over a villain or vice versa? I wonder if the mother of an unidentified bearded hypnotist ever noticed her sons preference during his childhood role playing games? If you haven’t read this story it’s a good one:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/look-into-my-eyes/2008/03/24/1206206967665.html

In short this unidentified man “of Indian appearance” told the cashier of a store to look into his eyes and some how managed to get the cashier to hand over change of $1369 from a simple purchase of milk. He also had a female companion who distracted other customers in order to pull this little trick off. Had these two thieves been practicing this? Were they under the illusion that they had super powers? It’s hypnotist guy and distraction lady! My children role play superheros but if I was to take a guess I’d say these two shady characters preferred the role of the villain.

Do you want free make-up and more? It’s easy and it’s on the web. There are numerous companies who give away sample products in the hope that you will purchase the product sometime in the future. It’s all advertising and marketing but it won’t work on me. Television adverts don’t bother me and neither to Internet adverts.. just give me the freebie and I’m a happy girl. There are whole websites set up to redirect you to free competitions and free sample products. You must understand that someone out there is most likely getting paid each time you click on the link to get your sample but who cares? As long as I get my free item that’s all that concerns me. You will be asked to enter your name, e-mail, postal address and sometimes your phone number but it’s not usually a mandatory field. Don’t be scared off by this it’s so that they can add your e-mail to their mailing list for special promos, newsletters etc. I simply fill in the details and then once I receive the first newsletter I click on the “opt out” link at the bottom of the e-mail…easy! I’m not a make-up kind of girl but I have used this technique for free tampons, cereals, tea, cooking sauces, sunscreen and much much more. America seems to offer the highest number of free samples but here in Australia we can get our fair share of freebies too. Go on start searching for free samples… I know you want to.

I read a blog by Monkee  about his “stink eye”…basically an unfortunate experience in which the lawn mower kicked dog poo into his eye.  That’s gross but it got me thinking about my “gross out” moment and instantly my stomach started to churn.  Let me explain and perhaps your stomach will churn in sympathy.  Have you ever tried to squeeze a blackhead on your back?  It’s difficult so assistance is required.  That’s where I enter this very unfortunate set of events.  My mother had a BIG ingrown blackhead on her back that needed squeezing so being a good daughter I stepped up to the plate…oh how I wish I hadn’t!  I leaned in real close (first mistake) then used my two strongest nails to apply pressure (second mistake).  It didn’t seem to want to come out so I opened my mouth (third mistake) to say so when all of the sudden… WHAM….POP…OOZE.. that huge blackhead was flying through the air and yes.. you know it…right into my mouth!  That thing was so huge I felt it land on my tongue!  So there you go, that’s my gross out story.  If you have a better one I’d love to hear it.

It’s O.K to laugh at a fart joke. You don’t have to be six to find humour in a normal bodily function….the louder the better. My husband once walked past me, aimed his arse in my direction and let rip! The sad part of it all was that I was in mid sentence and had my mouth wide open at the time. I just so happened to be sitting down doing up my shoelace so my face was arse level….gross! He thought it was hilarious but I’m just waiting…waiting for the right time to strike back. I’ll get him, don’t you worry about that! You may think this subject is disgusting but I challenge you to watch this very short clip and see if you don’t laugh…..it’s a ripper!

I never thought I’d still be doing homework at the age of 30 but that’s precisely what I was doing the other night.  Let me explain, you see my seven year old came home from school with a note saying that she needed an Easter bonnet for the Easter parade.  No problems,  I’ll buy some cardboard tomorrow and we’ll whip something up.  Then I realised the note clearly stated the bonnet was due the next day!  It was 4pm I had no car and 3 children to look after, there was no way I was getting to the shops for supplies.  One day’s notice didn’t seem fair to me but who’s going to argue with a school?  So that night I found myself with crayons and paper sewing little hand drawn eggs and two big rabbit ears onto the tattered remains of an old mens hat.  I was staying up late doing homework!  I thought I had outgrown that stage of my life but obviously homework is one of those things that comes full circle back into your life, again and again and again.