Fruit & Veg

My mother always told me to Eat my Greens but I think I would prefer to see beautiful MRI scans of them instead.

I have never heard of a Jack Fruit before but it is real and huge!

I could feed the family for a couple of weeks off this baby!

Here's what it looks like inside.

I could sit and watch these all day but sadly I have stuff I need to pretend to be doing.

The original blog for these images can be found here.

http://insideinsides.blogspot.co.nz

 

or if you would like to take a quick look at 20 images try here

http://offbeat.topix.com/story/11415-20-mri-scans-of-fruits-and-vegetables-these-are-both-mesmerizing-and-vaguely-terrifying

 

 

School Trip

I got to go on a school trip today with Miss L and I actually learnt something. 

Her School is using Science as the learning theme this year so we popped down to our local Museum to do some experiments.

There was an experiment which involved baking soda, vinegar and water and anyone who bakes knows that these react in a way to cause the liquid to bubble and expand which all the kids loved especially as once pop corn was added to there jars they could see bubbles carrying the kernels to the top.

Then they got to do another one swapping out the vinegar for citric acid and creating a bubble reaction inside a sealed plastic bag which was cold to the touch, then the same experiment but using damp rid (Calcium Chloride) instead of citric acid which created the same effect of bubbles rising up and expanding the sealed bag but this time it was very hot.

All the kids loved doing these experiments but were even more excited when the last one was demonstrated and it involved lighting matches. This is where I learnt something ( which I may have already known & then forgotten which is the beauty of memory loss) If you add baking soda and vinegar to water, wait for it to bubble then put a lit match into the top of the jar it will extinguish the flame....... how do the ancient scientists ever even manage to discover this?

 

I bet it must have been a type of sorcery when it was first discovered but not as cool as the tricks Dynamo does because we all know he is a wizard! 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2348940/Dynamo-opens-THAT-bus-trick.html

If you would like to try the final experiment the kids got to do today this video will show you how to make a baking soda & vinegar rocket.

 Please note it would be best for an adult to do the mixing and capping of the film canister as it can pop pretty fast. Best mix is  1/3rd of a tsp of Baking Soda and add 1Tbsp of vinegar.

Cause I'm Happy!

Yes today I have been singing that one line from this song over and over in an attempt to cheer myself up. I love how everyone is getting their boogie on in the video as that is something I enjoy doing although not so much in public these days.

I have not really done much in the fortnight since finishing my last job and figured I should make use of having a down day to get shit done and have managed to perk up even if spending the afternoon up-dating my C.V  and searching the job websites saw me doing a bit of sad clown face and mental Emo-nalising.

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/emo/images/13789212/title/sad-emo-fanart

My new camera strap from SOOC helped stem the crying and I am hoping a coffee with a friend while Miss L is at Judo and a much needed haircut will see me back to my usual perky self tomorrow.

I am also going to try my hardest to add an image to the blog every other day as I really need to start getting back into trying to incorporate some of myself into everyday.

With the wiggle of my nose!

As a child I loved watching Bewitched and I dream of Jeannie on the tele and wished very hard most school holidays that I could magically clean up my room the way they did. More recently I have been wishing the same thing again but now at least I have every day to get it done rather than spending the first few days off school avoiding, crying about and then finally getting the job done so I could enjoy my holiday.

I have found that while I was working things just seemed to get put in a pile to be seen too later and we all know that later can take a very long time so over the 7 months I was on contract those piles got pretty big.

We had a big sort out of clothes and toys just before Christmas as I wanted to make sure Miss 8 was not wearing clothes that were to small for her and all the rest got sorted into piles of good to sell, good for the Hospice shop and good for the school or in the case of those 3 sizes too small undies the rubbish!

Click for Funny Valentines Cookies

Our Extractor fan is way past being useful so I spent all day cleaning a greasy film from everything and really wished I had searched using my awesome homepage from the LBF for some easier ways to clean things as it took so long I no longer have the energy to vacuum up all the crumbs / dead flies I wiped onto the floor :(

I felt like this after I had finished

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/07/23/GA2010072302473.html

 

Okay maybe it wasn't that bad but after not being cleaned on a regular basis it was pretty gross! Next time I am definitely going to hunt out something better than dish-washing liquid to clean it with.

Are you having a big clean up now the kids are at school too?

I can smell the Sea Breeze from here!

I recently posted about an image I had printed onto canvas, this was done through McCrae's Pharmacy in Fielding by the fantastic team working away in the Photography department.

It is 120cm x 40 cm so is quite large even though it may not look it and the colour is lovely, you can order your canvas from there too if you are local and have it shipped directly to someone as a gift for an extra charge (needs to be paid for before canvas is printed).
Even if you are not local I am sure they could organise a payment method to suit you as they provide an email printing service. I am sure they would welcome any query's on their face-book page

It has been strung up and hung by my darling hubby, and looks fantastic although now I do wish I had gone a bit lot bigger!

Kriss Kross will make ya!

JUMP JUMP

and we could all do with a bit more of that in our day.

I recently spent a long expensive visit to my GP who recommended I take an easier approach to exercise until I have a recent blip in my health under control.

Not really something an overweight woman with an large midriff (which I like to call my sad dog) who has only in the last couple of years got back into the swing of regular exercise wants to hear.

Image from http://thebarkpost.com

I have had a day or too to ponder what I am going to do and am stumped so I guess I will have to hope I get a chance to discuss my options at an appointment next week. In the mean time I have found out that bouncing on the tramp for 10 minuets is equivalent to a 30 minuet run. So getting a trampoline has now moved up the list over new running shoes, sorry feet :(

I am also crossing my fingers and toes and eyes in the hope that we win said Trampoline so Miss L and I can exercise together. I think it will also be great for her to build up leg strength for Skating and practice her moves for Judo.

Please help us win by reading my posts from this link, I would be ever so grateful.

http://www.familytimes.co.nz/turning-back-home-blog/

Bringing Memories to life

I recently posted some photo's I took just after New years on a day trip . One was of the sea viewed from the dunes. It was an overcast day and the tide was coming in so the ocean was all moody and rough just how I like it.

It reminds me that even on a stormy day the world is only as beautiful as you want to see it and a photo does not need to be pretty or perfect in order to evoke emotions and memories that are happy.

I had this photo made into a canvas to hang in my bathroom as it is a room I find myself in at least twenty times a day as it is a walk through and it had a large wall space crying out for something to rest your eyes on.

 I love the moodiness of it and every time I look at it I remember that even though it was not the best day/time to visit the beach we still had a good time.  I think this is a better reminder of my family than a portrait.

 If you have any photographs that you love to look at that remind you of times spent, I whole heartedly recommend having them put on a canvas as a permanent reminder!

A Bouncing good time

As most of you know I enter a lot of competitions and have won my fair share of goodies over the past few years. Its not hard to do these days as most competitions just require you to enter using an email address or by providing some of your personal details to go on their database.

Some competitions however require you to give a little bit more time and effort and those competitions are the ones I love as it takes more than a few strokes of the keys to enter.
The past month or so has seen me giving more than just personal details to win a competition, it has required me to get back on the horse ( in this case the keyboard) and move my fingers in a slow arduous manner that is my terrible typing style to blog on a regular basis.

I have become a bit faster as the time has gone by but find I really do struggle when I have been tapping away for a good 10 minutes only to look up and find nothing on the screen because I forgot to click the cursor in the right place.

I don't really have a main theme to my blog, some days its photo's of things I like, other days it just me having a rant, sometimes it my own personal opinion on things that affect me and also you.... if there is any you's out there? According to my stats my blog readership has definitely picked up on a daily basis but I have no way of knowing if that is enough to help me win.

What is it I am trying so hard to win? a Spring Free Trampoline from Family Times for my daughter who squeals with delight whenever we visit friends with tramps and would dearly love one to bounce around on till her heart is all jiggled out!

They are a great family oriented free publication for parents in New Zealand and offer a wide range of advice for those with kids of all ages. Make sure you check them out, and if you get a chance make sure you vote for the blog you like the best here.

Who pressed the magic button?

For months I have been trying to get certain functions to work on my Blog and it seems that at sometime today someone has finally pressed the Magic Button!

 

Now that I have a lot more time in the day after my job finishing last week I was planning on being able to take my time and post at my lesiure. Thanks to the magic button I have been able to get a few posts organised and can now (fingers crossed) scheduled posts to publish automatically I just hope the magic button does not lose its sparkle before the first one goes live.

I am now searching for the money button or the some-one else fold that washing button if you find one please share :)

The Haves & the Have nots.

Well it seems the election year is off to a cracker start and the prominent party's are starting to unveil the policy's they think will swing voters with a big one being education. 

National want more managers overseeing the little guys on the pole making sure they are working efficiently and most likely to what ever standard National has decided the children must learn by this year, and most importantly not squandering the money allocated per pupil to finance schools and to do this they will only be spending $359 million.

I would much prefer to go with the Greens policy this time round , at a mere $90 million they want to provide free after school care, a free lunch, and nurses in every school. Of course there would need to be limits set on who is eligible but imagine all the new jobs it will create and the hungry belly's it will feed and the self worth of all those children it will help, children who will one day be taking care of us.

I for one want those children to grow up healthy and happy knowing that their country cared enough to put them first rather than create new higher paid jobs for people who already have one.

Lets make sure we look after the future generations not with our words but with our actions!

Get yourself enrolled to vote now because a vote not made is a vote wasted. This is the best time to let your opinion matter!

http://www.elections.org.nz/

Cheesecake Please!

I work with a lady who sits down to morning tea and opens the paper or what ever new magazine is on the staff room table straight to the horoscopes page.

In seven months I had not ever really noticed her doing this, but in the last two weeks I have been aware of it everyday. In my twenties when newspapers where everywhere I probably spent a bit of time obsessing over the daily forecast but as I have grown older, more settled and most likely because I am now able to access news in different formats I don't really think about Horoscopes until today when a post on Wired caught my eye.

It was a twist on the traditional star based Horoscope and instead featured my favourite food

CHEESE.

It is my birthday soon and as I am not that fussed about sweet cakes but  I would love a "Cheese Cake" like this,

http://gushevents.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/say-cheese/ 

 

 

 

 

Or this

http://www.weddingbells.ca/planning/cheese-wedding-cakes/attachment/cheese-cake-2/

 

or even this

http://www.hungryhappenings.com

but am not really that fussed about the Buffalo Mozzarella recommended in my horoscope. I think I would actually prefer a sweet cake to that for a birthday treat. Some thing like this perhaps.

http://userealbutter.com/2009/04/27/cheesecake-recipe/

 

or this as I love almonds

http://antioxidantcafe.com/blog/coffee-and-cream-cheesecake

Well I think I have made myself hungry again and its only a freckle past a hair past breakfast.

I hope your Cheese horoscope is a tastier morsel than mine.

The Cycling Debate!

Recently there has been heated debate about the cycleway being a waste of money.

IMO it is awesome and I would love to be able to one day cycle the length of the long white cloud without the fear of dying.

On my days off work I try to bike to as many places as possible.

My hairdresser now asks if she should bother styling my locks before I leave or will I just be squashing her hard work with my helmet, the staff at the pet shop help me squash the dog biscuits into my bag and I can always get straight into it at the gym as I have already warmed up by biking 3km to get there.

I drive to another town not quite 20km from where I live for work so am also a motorist and yes I too get pissed off at how some people ride. There's the biking in the middle of winter at dusk guy who wears his helmet on his handle bars and has no lights dressed in his dark overalls topped only by the serious cyclists riding two abreast on the far side of a blind bend in the road where anyone with common sense would not even go on a bike let alone risking a rear ending at 100KPH.

As a cyclist the thing that grates me the most is the behaviour of motorists at intersections and round-a bouts. I am careful at intersections as waiting a bit longer is not really going to make much difference to my day, but I get really peeved about people who feel the need to try and overtake just so they can turn left in front of me, or those who think that they can beat me when they should give-way to the left, they are idling and I'm doing close to 40kph. Thank god I have done a cycle safety course and know how to stop in a safe manner when at speed!

Thankfully for me I like my life and want to make it home every time I go out on my bike just as any motorist does so I try to make sure I pay close attention and am aware of and can hopefully avoid dangerous situations but for many people every-year getting home doesn't happen and that makes me sad!

I for one would be happy to pay a toll to use a cycle lane if it meant I could be safe away from traffic and able to get to my destination not having to worry about high speed collisions. I would even cycle the 35km round trip to work everyday if I had a safe alternative to biking on the open road. I would think that people who hate cyclists (as many claim in their comments) would be happy to see us off the road as it is now and far away from any  possibility of being an accident waiting to happen.

My husband recently got us some new bike lights called Monkey Lights

they are super bright and there is no way a motorist would be able to say they did not see us on the road although I do think there might be a possibility of it causing a few crashes due to rubber necking drivers trying to catch a glimpse of our cycling coolness!

follow the link below to watch a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OptX6mYjONY

Smack That!

I am determined to have a fan installed into our dining room as I believe it will help with the horrid amount of flies we have to deal with in our kitchen/dining at night. Something like this!

Visit lightinguniverse.com

There is nothing worse than spending the evening with the feeling that something is crawling on your head let alone trying to cook dinner while being dive-bombed by mating pairs too busy making Love to watch out for me.

After spending days killing them with my Whacker and still finding hordes of them covering the bench in the morning I finally succumbed and bought one of those automatic sprayers. I really don't like the thought of it spraying continuously especially as the only space we can install it is above the doorway we use the most.

Miss 8 thinks we should buy one of those electric tennis racket things so it will be awesome fun to kill the flies, I personally like to get up in the morning so I can get them all while they are cold and sluggish, although I probably look crazy wandering around in my P.j's yelling take that you dirty buggars! lol

A Jar full of Gratitude

I have been seeing lots of post on Pinterest and Facbook about writing down all the things you are grateful for during the year and storing them in a jar to read at Thanksgiving.

I personally don't think we should wait till the end of the year to share what we are grateful for, I like to address things as they happen mainly because I have such a shocking short-term memory but also because sometimes it feels along time in between feeling that way.

Some of the things I am grateful for so far this year

- My family because we are still together and happy (most of the time).

- The Boss for sticking up for me even though I finish work soon and it would have been easier to back the staff member he will be working with for a long time.

- The doctor who actually listened instead of making assumptions based on my age/weight and his personal opinion.

- I am alive, generally healthy and able to live a pain free life most days.

Years ago I was unwell but no matter how bad things got there was always some-else who was much worse off. I came across this blog not long after the woman who writes it had something terrible and tragic happen in her life and reading it makes me think really hard about how grateful I am for the life I have and how I want to be the type of person who keeps on going no matter what.

For these two I am most grateful! 

A drop in the Ocean

We went for a trip to the beach today and it was awesome, not necessarily in the way most people would imagine though.

Sure there was plenty of sand, the weather and the water were of a perfect temperature it was everything you could ask for on a day trip.
Thanks to the latest gale force winds (the day before) and us turning up right on high tide made for an exciting time racing away from the rolling surf and crazy drift wood!

image property of NJC Imaging

I love it when the beach is all rough and moody and it seems Miss 8 had a great time too! We took in a little rest to watch the Local Surf life saving team dropping surfers out past the break.

image property of NJC Imaging

It was a really nice way to spend one of the last days of our holiday.