Holy Crap it's Hot

That's what was registering when I hopped in the truck yesterday to pick up the kids from school.

So like the dedicated little blogger I am, I threw the truck in park, left it with the door open in the middle of the road, and ran back in to get my camera.

But it's a bit deceiving.

After I drove for a few minutes it dropped to this.



Whew! For a minute there I thought it was really, really hot as opposed to just really hot.

One Hot Momma,
A

Excuses, Excuses

Ok, Ok, so I'm a tease. I had you pumped up, didn't I? Only to let you down. I felt your disappointment screaming at me. The guilt has eaten me alive. Therefore, I'm staying up a bit late, despite my exhaustion, to make it up to you. My hope is that you'll forgive me for not posting yesterday as promised. In my defense, I had forgotten about my RCIA meeting last night. Since not going would have meant disappointing God as opposed to you guys, I erred on the side of eternal salvation and went to my meeting.

Forgive me.

And you'll probably be further disappointed since there will be no pics of the kids in this one. Except for this:


But this post isn't about the kid...it's about what you see on the wall behind the kid.

A Cicada.

This is what a Cicada looks like:




But let me start at the beginning. When picking Grace up from school a couple of days ago, I saw these:


And like any easily wigged-out American living in an area where lots of things creepy crawly can actually kill you, I asked the teacher about them.

It turns out they are holes where, each year here in Central Australia, Cicadas come out of the ground to do their thing.

"Their thing" includes shedding some God-awful ugly shell, drying out and mating. Only to have their eggs containing future generation, somehow end back up in the ground.

But this isn't a lesson in the life cycle of Cicadas. Truthfully I'm not very interested in the who, what, when, where and why of the whole process. This is what interested me:


Yes, that's a big pile 'o bugs. The children at the preschool gathered them up. Truth told, they are mostly just the shells of the Cicadas that have infested the preschool grounds. *Note slight exaggeration with "infested".

But some of them aren't. Some of them are unshelled, or partly shelled.

Poor little Cicadas.

They've been the most fascinating things to those kids since....well since forever.

Poor little We can't catch a break and had to pop out on the preschool grounds Cicadas. Even worse off were the ones who had their wings burned by popping out in direct sunlight in the middle of the Australian summer...and then got captured and crushed by four year olds.

The next day that pile was a big pile of crushed exoskeletons and bug parts. Nothing funner than crushing bugs, I say.

But although I wasn't fascinated by the entire life cycle, I was fascinated by that part of it I witnessed.

Here's one popping out:


And here's one a bit further along in the process:


I'll have you know that to get this shot (for you) I crawled into a Cicada infested play tunnel on the school grounds. That's the kind of thing I do for you guys.

I'm sure you would appreciate it if you weren't shivering at the grossness of it all.

Finally, I'll leave you with these:






That's Caleb. He takes the Cicada's home to feed to his pet lizard. Caleb's pet lizard is two feet long.

Told you those babies couldn't catch a break.

Thankful I wasn't born a bug,
Angie

PS - Got so many things in the cue to share. Check back tomorrow.

I Ought to be Insulted

In yesterday's post I neglected to mention the numerous ornaments that the kids have made over the years. So I decided to highlight a few that are my favorite.

Take a look at these. They were made at Martinez United Methodist Preschool (MUMPS) in GA four years ago. The kids look so little. My little munchkins!

Here's Cole:


And Brady:


They even made one for Gracie:


Aren't they smoochable? They all thought the pics of "when they were little" were cute too. But then they're never ones to argue about their cuteness. They know they're cute.

Then, after those all made it on the tree, we ran across this ornament:


And, in keeping with the theme, they asked "Mommy, was this you when you were little?".

What?

Sure. I was born sooooo long ago that they didn't even have cameras. Grandma had to paint my likeness right on the ornament. Wasn't I a good looking kid?

As I said...I ought to be insulted.

Older than dirt in my children's eyes,
Angie

PS - I worked hard today gathering some photos for tomorrow's post. Make sure you check back. It's gonna be good!

Sausage In Australia Makes Me Sappy

To be sung to the tune of John Denver's "Sunshine on my Shoulder".

I've missed sausage. "Sausage" here is like a not-so-tasty hotdog on steroids. My life has been sadly lacking Jimmy Dean for over a year now. Do you know what that can do to a person (other than unclog their arteries)? So imagine my surprise when, at our Breast Cancer Brekky, I tasted ground sausage in one of the breakfast casseroles. I had to polish off the plate just for confirmation, but sure enough, ground sausage!

After being pointed in the right direction, I hit the butcher before Thanksgiving, in search of my sausage. There it was, in the corner refrigerated cabinet.

Labeled "American Sausage".

It sounds like a movie. If "American Sausage" were a movie, it would probably be a raunchy comedy. Or maybe it would be one of those stupid America is a war-hungry, world-dominating, self-serving country movies.

But that's a whole other thing.

Thanksgiving morning brought with it the beautiful smell of sizzling sausage. We had a bit for breakfast and used the rest in my new, not-so-good-not-so-bad, stuffing recipe. Mediocre, despite the sausage.

And I cried. Sausage made me cry. The scent whacked me in the gut with the force of a heavy-weight boxer. It made me feel homesick and sorry for myself.

But it also forced me into a more festive, Christmasy (and yes, in my family that's a word) mood. Because, let's face it, it's hard to be festive in sunny, 100 degree weather. So I became thankful for that sweet smell of sausage.

And I was hooked.

I went back to the butcher and bought $23 worth of sausage sliced into patties. Yesterday we had sausage sandwiches. This morning we had sausage, egg and cheese burritos. Tomorrow I'm sure we'll have sausage butt. Which means all the sausage we've eaten will go straight to our butts.

Speaking of festive moods and things we are thankful for...Thanksgiving was spent cooking, cleaning, eating and unpacking Christmas stuff. I knew that throwing in the tree was taking on a lot, but I needed all the mood boosting I could get.

Besides...the kids were bugging the crap out of me.

When the tree was up, lights on, popcorn strung and draped, we set in on the ornaments. Our tree is smaller here and last year we had a hard time fitting all of our ornaments on. So I left a few off.


Grace unwrapped all of the ornaments - that was her favorite part. Cole and Brady put them on the tree - the bottom half. I re-distributed according to tree gaps. But since we have ample ornaments, the tree quickly became gapless, weighed down and begging for mercy. In short, it's bursting and beautiful.


As the kids grow older and more aware, they have started with the "Is this my ornament?" question. Which took us on a long walk down memory lane...my walk being a bit longer than theirs.


The problem is, I find it difficult to get rid of any ornaments...ever. Even the cheap crappy ones remind me of my first Christmases on my own. Each holds special memories. I can remember buying beautiful, matching, expensive ornaments from Christmas Around the World. Then I can remember buying inexpensive, shiny ornaments in the same color scheme to help fill out the tree. I had to save money but still coordinate. Christmas Around the World was not cheap.

Then there are those from when Jason and I first married. Thus began a tradition where my wonderful Mother-In-Law (hi Mom) began buying us annual ornaments. And she made sure that each was signed with her name and the year on the back along with some X's and O's...because she loves us.


Then we added to the family. Not once, but three times. And they also receive ornaments annually from Grammy. And of course we began our own tradition of picking out one each every year to decorate with. Then we add on the occasional ornament I run across and just "have to have".

That leaves us with many, many ornaments. But instead of being stressed by the amount like last year, I found myself saddened that, one day, I will have to give them up. I began looking forward, instead of backward, to the time when our children will leave. And on their first Christmas away, I'll have to sit alone and divide our ornaments in order for them to start their own tree, their own traditions. Surely I'll cry and curse the speed of the passing years. Or maybe I'll have glass of wine and toast a job well done. Either way, it will be bittersweet.

And eventually I'll have to give up at least 3/4 of those suckers.

So this year, I looked at our ornament stash and smiled at the years behind us and the years ahead. I remembered where each ornament came from and envisioned where it would eventually end up.



And I stuffed the hell out of that tree!

Stuffing turkey butts and Christmas trees, wishing we could have been with you this Thanksgiving,
Angie

The Outback

In Wonderland

Injured.



Inane.



Independent.



In Cognito.



In the picture?



OK, so I'm good but not that good.

And let's be honest, it's not easy to get a picture of Cole. He's like the wind.

But I'm like Martha.

Well, I would be if Martha cooked with Betty-in-a-Box.



By the way, Jason isn't really hurt. Or at least any head issues he has wouldn't be helped with an Ace bandage.

Love to all,
Alice

A Superb Christmas Performance

Notice that we didn't dress up. Last year we were a bit overdressed. This year there were actually a few girls in dresses. They get crazy with the celebration here in Alice.

Mary and Joseph. A striking couple, don't you think?





All in all our evening was great.

Chicken Fried

No pics tonight! Sorry, just a few random thoughts and updates about, you guessed it...ME!

So ask me how proud I am of myself right now! Go on, ask!

How proud are you? you ask? Well let me tell you! Tonight I was able to accomplish something for the first time ever. Something I've attempted in the past but never succeeded at. It's bugged me for years. I've felt a void. A sense of inability that has stuck with me throughout my married life.

I confess...I've never been able to fry chicken.

But tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I actually fried chicken legs for my family that were not burnt on the outside nor bloody in the middle. (Well, the second batch didn't really count - the oil had gotten a little hot so they were browner than I (meaning Jason) would have preferred - but they were edible).

Yes, I have done it. And my success brought with it a form of pride, the likes of which I have never known.

How sad is that?

Unfortunately, along with pride it brought with it a very messy kitchen and an oily, chicken fried smelling house. But sometimes sacrifices must be made.

On another note. For those of you who don't know, I had an appointment yesterday with the traveling Orthopaedic MD. I say "traveling" because there is no Orthopaedic MD in Alice Springs, so once every couple of months, a couple of these guys will fly in from Darwin or Sydney to see us poor soles who live in the Timbuktu of Australia.

There is good news and bad news that came with my meeting. I prefer to concentrate on the good news but I'll give y'all the bad news first. The bad news...I probably never really needed either of my two knee surgeries. They resulted from two surgeons who thought my swelling and pain issues probably/maybe could be attributed to mechanical issues in my knee. Since the swelling still had not left my knee three months after surgery, and since we knew the surgery was successful and there were no further signs of complications, we decided to take a closer look.

The first step to taking a closer look meant draining the fluid from my knee. Unsure if any of you have had this done before. If not, good for you. If any of you have, you can attest...it ain't fun.

The worst part isn't the actual draining. No the worst part is setting eyes on the size of the needle they use.

Why do we have to look? It's like trying to catch a glimpse of a bad car accident. You know you really don't want to see but you rubber neck and slow traffic up anyway.

And aside from the needle that looks like a turkey baster, having them stick the smaller needle way down into the heart of your knee to administer something for the pain isn't my idea of good time.

But after three months of swelling, I'm past the point of caring. I just want that nasty stuff out of my knee. And (believe it or not) my excitement is building. Just a little more to go, a bit more and then...

Uh-oh! Dry tap.

What the hell now? What do you mean there is no fluid on my knee? Why, then, is it the size of a rockmellon (aka cantaloupe)?

Well, here's where we get to the good news. We now have new information! I didn't have fluid on my knee all this time. I had a condition called Synovitis, or some such. It's inflammation of the lining in my knee. This is indicative of some sort of arthritic issue, not mechanical.



What you talkin' 'bout Willis?




(Ok - so I had to throw that one pic in.)

So, although I'm frustrated that I probably had two unnecessary surgeries, I now (hopefully) am on track to finding out the actual problem.

Can I get an Amen?

Amen. Thank you.

So next I'll have a battery of blood tests done to test me for everything from Lyme Disease to Erectile Disfunction.

Just seeing if you were paying attention.

Lastly on my list tonight, an update on those three smart, most wonderful and lovable, big pains in the arse children we proudly call ours . In two "sleeps" time, Gracie will portray Mary in her pre-school Christmas program. Brady is running a fever tonight and "really, really" wishes her Mom would learn how to braid her hair. And Cole has defeated all opponents on his Avatar game using a combination of Air Bender, Earth Bender, Water Bender and Fire Bender combat attacks.

All's well and normal on the home front.

Love to all,
A

Blog Thumbing

Blog Thumbing - Continuous accessing of new blogs through blogroll clicking.

Or some such.

That's an Angie term.

You should try it sometime. It's an easy way to waste a few hours of your day.

Just check out someone's blogroll and click away.

That's how I found Gitzen Girl.

I believe there are certain people put on this earth with problems, illnesses and issues to inspire others and help us all to recognize and count our blessings in life.

She is one of those people.

If you can find the time, read her story and some of her posts. Guaranteed to give you a more pleasant outlook on life!

Spreading the love,
A

Photos From the Car

Gracie took this one.


And I took this one.


She needs to brush.

And before we passed out from the heat, I took this one.



And yes, despite the dust and dirt (it's the glue that holds our truck together) , you can see that the temperature thingy is registering 105 F.

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you.

To be completely honest though, it only registers that high when the truck is sitting. When we're moving it registers lower. It only registers this when we're driving around:



Whew! And here you thought we lived in an oven.

Excuse me while I wring out my socks.

A

The Man In Her Life

Little girls love their fathers. As a friend and I were discussing earlier today, the love for a Father is very different than the love for a Mother.

Momma's get a you'll do anything for me/wipe my ass/I can never commit a sin kind of love.

Poppa's get more of a worshiping love.


Face it ladies. Men have a way of making you feel like loving them is cool. Like you want to be in their club. You want to be down like that. Hip like that. It's the same whether we are daughters, girlfriends or wives.

From your first boyfriend in Kindergarten to the man you agree to marry, girls are blinded by male perfection.

Or should I say sucked in by our misperception of male perfection?

It starts with our Father and moves on to other men as our life goes on.

I'm not saying little girls don't love their Mommas. I mean, what's not to love in a Momma? We're the ultimate in care-taking. We're just not as cool as a Poppa.

Poppa's can be harsh speaking and way tougher than us Moms. But despite the fact that Momma's are generally the ones to nurse them through their sick all-nighters, wipe their snotty noses and cook most of their meals...


we still can't quite measure up.


But I'm not bitter or anything!


Feeling a decided lack of appreciation,

Angie

Gasp, Wheez, Choke!

A day in the life of a dust storm in Alice Springs.

The "it" Words and Other Brady Things.

You can double click to get a closer look but I'll save you the time. That says "My arm pit". It's not actually a sentence though is it? I mean she could have added "is smelly" or "itches" to the end.

Noun and verb. Subject and Predicate. Or some such.

And with this one I'm picking up a pattern. Ya think?



I guess she'd have to be a real goofball to draw anything else seeing that there was a high of 104 today and no clouds in the sky.

It just proves she's a logical thinker despite the heat and dehydration.

And lastly...


Mrs. Guzman's Transition class - 2008 swim training. The little red head in front is ours.

She seems real smart until she decides to make the drowning signal in water that only goes up to her shoulders.

Goofball.

Mother of the year,
A

PS - Hey, I'm on a roll. What the hell? Might as well check back tomorrow!

What I Have In Common With High-Class Hookers

It's not the money.

It's not the looks.

It's a love of fine lingerie.





Breast Cancer Brekky at one of My Girl's houses.



Sporting sexy bras and fightin' booby bumps,
Angie

PS - Make sure to check back tomorrow!

The Wee Hour Walkabout

Walkabout - Australian for going on a walking trip.

We're nothing if not crazy.

Us Cavanaghs, we know how to have a good time.

But I think this time the rain made us a bit giddy. You see, we can count on one hand the number of times we've seen rain here.

That was up until a couple of weeks ago. A couple of weeks ago, everything got wild. It started to rain. We've had rain off-and-on for the past two weeks. It's so refreshing.

So our Todd River (the one that runs through the city) is normally dry. As is shown here with this photo of Cole. He's standing in the middle of a dry Todd River.


Please ignore the fact that he looks a bit like a special needs child. Meaning no offense of course. I think it has something to do with the position of his legs.

But I digress.

So, low and behold, we receive a call from our neighbor Friday night. The Todd River is flowing...yes, flowing. And the bridges are closed.

Well, you must understand. People here ask you all the time "have you seen the river flow". And we have to say no. It's obviously the "thing" here to see the river flow. There is even a saying that if you see the river flow 3 times, you're considered a local and will be here for good. Or some such.

As if.

Meaning no offense of course. I mean it my Australian friends. I love your country. But I love mine more. And I'm just a bit homesick.

But I digress.

So when Jason came to bed at 2:00 Friday night/Sat morn, we got to talking about how it stunk that it was the middle of the night and we weren't getting to see the Todd River flow.

Then it hit us...we could go now!!

So this is my family at 2:30 am after being dragged from their cozy beds to "go on an adventure".


This is my family walking down the street...at 2:35 in the morning.





And here's our flooded bridge.






And the river runs!




And it was quite obvious that the southern never leave the house without makeup motto doesn't apply to a wee hour walkabout. I didn't look too good.



I probably had some serious halitosis going on too!

Live from Alice Springs,
A

PS - I happen to have it on good authority that there will be another post tomorrow! Check back!