30 October - My new favorite

Ok, so a while ago I Blogged about loving Pepsi.

Well now it's Pepsi Next that i am loving.

Simply because it tastes almost the same but has less sugar so it makes me healthy. I think I should drink more and get even healthier with every can!

29 October - Cupcakes

Last night I complained that all I felt like were chocolate cupcakes.

So imagine how impressed I was when I got home from work tonight, to the smell of fresh baked cupcakes, and just in time to help Grace lick the mixing bowl clean!

And they are every bit as delicious as they look.

28 October - Blackhawks Up...

This morning Grace and I met Nathan and Maddie for a play at the 'awesome' park, which then turned into a picnic morning snack.
When we left, I thought we would have a quick drive to see the helicopters that we had been told were parked on the ovals at Duntroon.
What an awesome decision that turned out to be, as we arrived just in time to be allowed to climb in and sit in the helicopters while the crew were preparing them for takeoff.
So Grace got to sit in the back of a genuine Blackhawk, as well as in the cockpit of a smaller 4 person copter. She was so impressed.
Then I was told that they were all about to take off, so we were asked to move of the oval, but only just to the edge.
So we got to sit about 20-30m away as 3 of the smaller copters, followed by 2 Blackhawks took off. The noise from the Blackhawks was phenomenal, as was the wind when they lifted up, that almost made us fall of our seats, and blew my cap off!
AWESOME!

27 October - A Bricklayer I am not...

Spent the day in the front yard today, putting in a new edge for the pebbles, to separate them from the area we will grass later.
It's been a while since I laid bricks, and I remember I wasn't good at it then either...it seems it's not something that improves with age.
But the end result is a decent looking garden edge, and I managed to get it reasonably straight at least.
Now we just have a cubic metre of pebbles to move, followed by a LOT of weeding, so we can get some grass down.

26 October - Beautician in Training

Tonight Grace decided that I really needed a few hairs removed.

I was a little concerned, as you can see, especially when the tweezers found my nose!

25 October - The Youth of Today

Really, they have no idea...

I saw this posted on a for sale site, and couldn't help but laugh.

I love the whole explanation, but in particular, I'm impressed with that last line of "REMEMBER I MIGHT NOT SELL IT".

I really felt like replying with "Forget $360, I will give you $800 for it...but REMEMBER, I MIGHT NOT BUY IT"

24 October - Tax Time

Got my tax bill today...

Even though I know it's coming, it's still always a shock to open it and see the amount they want...

23 October - Helping kids, one marriage at a time

Today I received this most bizarre letter in the mail, requesting my donation to help stop child marriages.
Normally stuff like this arrives about poor, starving kids (like 'My Friend Dorian' who only needed a dollar a day).
But this one really took me by surprise.
I especially like how they made it look like a lovely wedding invite.
Very tasteful, given the subject! NOT

22 October - Shopping

This afternoon we went to Target to look at some clothes for me, and of course, toys for Grace.

Except Grace only made it to the jewellery section where she spent approximately 15-20 minutes closely examining every necklace!

21 October - Swimming

Grace and I went swimming this morning at the Tuggeranong pool.

I had never been there before, but Grace pretty quickly showed me where we needed to go and which pools she liked.

And we had to have a half time snack by the window so Grace would stay warm, and watch the birds outside.

20 October - Nesting

Today we discovered a small wasp nest being formed under our pergola.
There was one wasp sitting on it, and he wasn't to pleased about me taking his photo.

It always amazes me how perfect the hexagon shapes are...

19 October - Dinosaur Diapers

Tonight before bed the easiest way to convince Grace to change her nappy was to let her give her dinosaurs nappies as well.

I didn't expect her to be so particular though. She even told me to "hang on" while she got them all sorted for their photos!

18 October - Bargain night

Woolworths had ice cream packs on sale for $20 today, so tonight I went to buy a pack.

Imagine my squeals of delight when I scanned them at the checkout to discover an even better deal, with a promotional discount! $0.01c.....wooo hooo!!

I only need to buy another 1998 boxes of them to get one free.

Now I wonder how we will go on an ice cream only diet for a few years...

17 October - Wild Hair

Grace had her hair cut last week, and it does look a lot neater, but....

Give it some serious static on the trampoline, and it's still pretty wild!

16 October - Snakebite

Since Nathan had a  slightly failed, flat home brew experience, we told him to use it to make the most delicious drinks ever, Snakebites!

And since it's his birthday today, we bought him some ingredients and instructions.

Now we just need an invite to try them out...

I admit, I had forgotten about the thumping headaches you get the next day until I started reading peoples comments on forums about them!

It's true, Snakebites are dangerous!

15 October - Firefox

I've been having some issues with Google Chrome on my PC lately, so somewhat reluctantly I decided to give Firefox another try. The newest version was released last week and it's better than ever before.

Thankfully, all the handy plugins I used on chrome are available for Firefox, along with a few even better ones. So far, I'm liking it a lot.

I also installed it on my phone, since it automatically syncs my open pages, bookmarks, history etc, with my desktop version, which works perfectly!

14 October - Dinosaur Trees

Last week I forgot to put the lid on Graces clamshell with the sand in it, so it filled up with water pretty fast.

Though Grace loved playing with her dinosaurs in the water, it was dirty, cold and messy, so today I emptied it out, and put some new clean sand in for her.

She was pretty happy with it, and spent quite a while 'planting' her dinosaurs head first, like trees.

13 October - Tickle Time

After Grace had a bath this morning, she was in a crazy mood, and tickled us and squealed and generally went crazy...

The photos are of me trying to calm her a little (with a few tickles thrown in!)

12 October - Gifts From Hobart

When I got home tonight, there was a parcel in the letterbox for Grace!

When I took it inside, she was so excited and kept telling us it had a lady bug inside.

So she was extremely happy when she opened it up to find some lady bug stickers! Plus more stickers, a book to stick them all into, and a bunny rabbit egg cup.

Thanks Nan Rose and Opa Martin!

11 October - Freebies

Artist Guitars, which is the awesome online shop that I use to get guitar supplies, has provided me with quite a few freebies and discounts in the past year for various reasons.

Recently, they asked people to post a photo of their favourite Artist product on Facebook, to get a $20 voucher.

Instead,I posted a link to my 2 previous blog posts about Artist products.

And today, imagine my surprise to receive a free $35 gift in the mail.

But can anybody guess what it is exactly?   ;)

10 October - East Hotel

Today I went to look at Canberras newest apartment hotel, to see if it is suitable for CCSBT meetings next year.

All I can say is Wow.

The conference facilities were impressive, but the rooms and pricing was amazing.

Every room has a fully equipped kitchen, including coffee pod machine with complementary pod refills.

Very nice...

If ever you find yourself in need of a hotel, or nice restaurant in Canberra, this is the place...

9 October - More Storage

My 32GB microSD card arrived today.
So impressed, my phone now has loads of storage, and I can transfer all my apps and photos to the external card now.

Can't do that cool shit with an IPhone eh?

8 October - Dancing Dinosaur...

Leah arrived home this afternoon, and Grace was pretty excited to be going to the airport to pick her up.

We got there early, so Grace could watch the planes, and even 'blue dinosaur' had to come with us. When he wasn't watching the planes, 'blue dinosaur' seemed to be doing a lot of dancing while Grace reclined.

I wonder if he liked 4chan during the 80's.

7 October - Whales

Yesterday afternoon Grace and I met the Merrys for a look at KMart,
where Grace spotted some whales, and quickly grabbed one in each hand.

From that point they have really not left her side. She slept with them, ate breakfast with them, bathed with them, played with them, and this afternoon told me they needed a swing outside.

We were heading to the park, but surprisingly she told me they had to stay in bed, and would not be coming to the park with us.

But she insisted they needed a swing at home first.

Less surprisingly, they did come to the park with us, and of course, she has now gone to bed with then again.

6 October - Signs

At Toys'R'Us this morning I noticed an interesting sign.

The table is wrapped with signs saying 'Book Sale', but from one end with someone doing some creative overlapping (whether it was deliberate, who knows) you instead get this...

4 October - Tree Hugger....?

Tonight while Leah got her licence sorted at the RTA, Grace and I had a short play in the gardens.

Initially, I thought she was liking the trees and hugging them, until she told me they were in her way and she was going to push them over!

When she couldn't just push them, she turned around and tried to back them out instead!

Not too sure she will turn into an environmentalist!

5 October - Graces Faces

Today, a couple of times I have asked Grace to smile for the camera.
Each time I got a totally different, ridiculously fake and stupid looking face.

Which I find hilarious! It's exactly what I would do, and I'm nearly 40. I guess there are some things you start early, and just never grow out of.

3 October - Chicken

Tonight I tried a new recipe with chicken, curry and Greek yoghurt.

The Chicken was delicious, if I do say so myself.

Not so sure about the lime quinoa seeds instead of rice though.

2 October - Winner

On Facebook, Rolfe Mazda have had some competitions lately, to win some merchandise.

Of course, being the winner that I am, I won one of them, with no idea what I had won.

Turns out it was a $50 voucher for Mazda merchandise. So now I have to choose what I want.

Socks maybe?

1 October - Call me Cake Boss

Today I attempted to get Grace excited about baking some cup cakes using a mould/tray we bought a while ago that shapes the cakes like bugs, butterflies and beetles.

She was excited for about 1 minute before she wanted to do something else.

I couldn't even get her to lick the mixing bowl....

But I was excited that my bug, butterfly and beetle cakes turned out pretty well.