More bed bugs. Sixth pest treatment. Liquid chemical on carpet (again) and gas throughout house. Had to vacate today. Washing didn't get done. Massive backlog. Kids still lovely but with crazy behaviour. Currently waking an hour before dawn. Dog still stupid. Blood pressure medication no match for pile of stressors higher than pile of washing to be folded. Too tired and depressed to say much more.
Dear Givinya,
I'm a SAHM to 4 lovely boys and I think your Smoochy Girl is really cute - can you give me tips on getting that elusive girl?
Mum 2 4 Boys.
Well thankyou for your overwhelming response to the new Givinya De Answers service we offer here at Killing A Fly. I will attempt to answer your questions but it may take some time to work through them. I'll start by dealing with this tricky issue first:
Dear Givinya,
I have been reading your blog with great interest for some time now, and this morning was reading Exodus Chs 7-11. It occurred to me that (although a plague of bed bugs is not specifically listed) there could possibly be some little naughty in your life, or some part of your life that belongs to God that you have not fully given over to Him.
Just Wondering?
It started with sunshine. Good! I'll wash the woollen doona!
Mistake.
By midday it was bucketing down. I put the doona in the washing machine to spin it. It put the machine badly out of balance and frightened the kids. I took it out and draped it over some spare space in the cluttered house. It sits damply there now, smelling like sixteen wet sheep.
I received some very bad news today that was so bad I can't blog it just yet. It was eerily similar to the worst of the ghastly events posted on 11th October 2007. Yes, THAT. The event that scarred me so deeply that I began blogging. And all about a stupid dog.
I was dealing with the stress of The Ghastly Thing by pottering around the house when I smelled a strong smell. That can never be good.
First let me say that saving a used pregnancy test is a silly thing to do. A baby is the best proof of a positive pregnancy test. You don't need to be saving something you peed on two years ago. That is gross. Don't do it. Besides, kids can do weird things with objects they're not familiar with. And sunscreen makes a good paint.
Canvases are everywhere for the artistic child...
So that was slightly bad. I was filling a bucket with warm soapy water when I received a phone call in relation to That Which I Don't Want To Talk About Yet. Sonny Ma-Jiminy and Smoochy Girl were being too loud so I took the phone into another room to talk. When I came out, I saw that Sonny Ma-Jiminy had become bored and "re-organised" Daddy's clothes which had been neatly stored in those jolly cardboard boxes that are our chest-of-drawers until the bed bug problem is 100% sorted out.
Never leave it there. Always look further.
Did I mention that it had just been raining hard?
So what have we learned?
1. It will rain if you put something difficult-to-dry on the line.
2. The smell of sixteen wet sheep is not good.
3. In fact, even if it reminds you of the beach, any strong smell is bad and it is your cue to run fast. Preferably, run AWAY fast.
4. No matter how happy you are about a positive pregnancy test, you must throw the thing out after use.
And yes, despite what I've told you today, I was happy about the positive pregnancy test, and I would be again. No wisecracks about that. I love these crazy kids.
But maybe not the dog.
Oh, by the way, you never did get around to describing the Great Rubbish Bin Debacle referred to on the 4 November last year!
Is that a light at the end of our tunnel? We have a new bed! Look at it!
It's new, it's bed-bug-free, and it's OURS! We might not have to sleep on the floor or the couch or the air mattress for much longer! I never thought I'd see the day.
That single-bed-shaped object on the slats is Sonny Ma-Jiminy's mattress topper. I've done a lot of washing of sheets, blankets, doonas, doona covers, mattress protectors, mattress toppers, pillows, pillow cases and clothes recently. And it is therefore I who the farmers have to thank for the lovely rain we've been receiving. No problems - don't mention it. My house is filled with sheets, blankets, doonas, etc., draped over things while attempting to get dry.
Now I'm afraid that as the bed bugs leave our lives, so too will the blog posts. By my count, the number of posts I've made about these bed bugs has now exploded violently into double figures. It's kept me posting, it's kept you reading, and now I'm worried that both will stop. What do you want me to talk about now?!? I haven't flashed myself recently, and I've run out of one-eyed fish!
What will I blog about now? Maybe I'll just have to post pictures of my kids hating the post-bath crazy hair. Here's Smoochy Girl, plus crazy hair, minus smoochy.
Today was the first of two days of a totally awesome workshop entitled "Sound Management: Working with Children with Speech Impairment" presented by Assoc. Prof Sharynne McLeod. It is this year's Speech Pathology Australia National Tour, and I'm attending it! Long-term problems with bed bugs can stop you feeling like a proper person with a profession and a brain. It's good to be reminded. I'm loving it and learning heaps of things that I'll be able to use in my practice.
Today we spent some time on phonetics which gave ME a buzz, because that's always been a part of being a speech pathologist that I've enjoyed and understood quite well.
One of the activites involved all the participants being given a piece of paper on which was a symbol for one of the non-English consonants. You know, slurpy, spluttery, clickey sounds that you get in other languages, but it hurts the mouth of a English speaker when they attempt to say it. We had to describe the sound, and then attempt to say it into a microphone, making it sound like we all had either a strange vocal tic or a bad case of phlegm that we needed to share with the group.
"Umm, it sort of looks like an exclamation mark but it's a postalveolar click, a bit like (clicks loudly into microphone.) This sound is found in Sesotho." The group makes an appreciative mooing noise.
"Well this is a, err, an 'n' with a little dippy thing. It's a retroflex nasal: NNYAHR," (participant practically swallows own tongue,) "... which is produced just in front of a palatal nasal: NNYAH, but with the tongue tip retroflexed. This sound is only found in Norwegian." We moo again.
"I've got this 'c' with a squiggle underneath," ("Cedilla," mutter all the French speakers) "... it's a voiceless palatal fricative ... it sounds like HHCHCHCH ... it's found in German, Norwegian and sometimes Greek." The participant hands the microphone over quickly, hoping nobody notices that they just spat great globs onto it.
"I can't say this," an anxious participant says. "Have a go," Sharynne encourages. "Well, mine is this weird symbol: it's a voiced velar fricative, and I can't really say it..." (anxious pause) "... it's a bit like ... GHGHRRGH ... sort of ... and ummmm, it's found in Vietnamese and Greek." (Relief!)
All good clean fun. Unless you get the microphone just after someone has tried to say a voiceless palatal fricative into it.
The bed bug bites continue. Five pest treatments later, we're still getting bitten. We have narrowed it down to Sonny Ma-Jiminy's room now, as it is only the people who sleep in his bed who get bitten. Which is everyone except Smoochy Girl, given that Sonny Ma-Jiminy's is the only proper bed in the house. It's sort of a treat to sleep on it, even if you get the odd small elbow in the back.
We have evacuated everything from his room. Well, nearly everything. And it seems that the word "nearly" is the clue to the "ploblem", as Sonny Ma-Jiminy himself would say.
A few assorted items remain, presumably treated with Ficam powder well enough to kill all bugs remaining on them. Of these assorted items, the following are my list of "Usual Suspects" lined up on the back deck:
Objection, the judge cries. We don't find against EXHIBITS! You must name a DEFENDANT!
IF we don't get bitten tonight, and IF we don't get bitten tomorrow night, and IF we don't get bitten for a week or 10 days after that, then (and only then) will our lives return to normal. We will tentatively bring our new bed into our house. We will wash every single piece of linen we use on it in tea tree oil (thanks mommastantrum!) We will wash every piece of clothing in hot water and dry it in the sun or in a hot dryer. We will inspect each and every book that is returned to our shelves.
And perhaps we'll sleep with one proverbial eye open for a while.
I have never followed television soaps very closely. Since I've had children though, I've been completely oblivious to whatever is going on in Ramsay Street and Summer Bay. But tonight I watched Home and Away, because Sally Fletcher was leaving.
She just ... left. Unless some salacious piece of information comes to light in subsequent shows, she just moved away. Pffft. Just like that. No explosive death, no car-crash death, no shooting death, no wedding-day death. Just moved away. Wow.
I remember watching Blue Heelers when I was younger (much younger). My best friend and I had an unbreakable date with the TV to watch the latest in the saga of terrible crimes in the sleepy Australian outback town Mt Thomas, often travelling up to half an hour to each other's houses to watch it together.
Then when it was announced that Lisa McCune was moving on and therefore her character Maggie Doyle was leaving the show, I was quite devastated. Maggie can't go, I thought. Well, at the very least, Maggie can't DIE. That would be out of the question.
Months before Maggie's departure I heard an interview given by someone in the know. Maggie is such a well-loved character, he said, that she won't be killed off. She will leave in some other way.
Good, I thought. Just as it should be.
As Maggie's final days in Mt Thomas drew closer, ads for the episode seemed to show images of her in a possible death situation, (despite her intention to start a new life in Melbourne in the Witness Protection Program.) I thought this was ridiculous, as she most certainly would not be dying. They're just teasing us, trying to get more viewers to watch to boost their ratings, I reasoned.
The night for Maggies' final episode came, and my friend and I got ready. How would she go? What would happen? How would she escape the sinister events shown in the ads? Were the ads a complete hoax after all? Ooooh, the intrigue!
What a dark episode it was. As Maggie's situation became more and more dangerous, I telepathically begged her to forheavenssake getoutofthere! Save yourself, I silently cried, you have a touching farewell scene to come! You have to be safe and happy before you start your new life in Melbourne!
Then: horror of horrors! Maggie was shot by a nemesis whose face, name and details I must have erased from my memory. Get up Maggie! Save yourself! Run away! Remember the wonderful farewell and the exciting future ahead of you!
She drifted in and out of consciousness. Odd, I thought, for a person who will be well and happy by the end of the episode and rolling off into the sunset. She must be about to make a very stunning recovery. (I reiterate at this point that I was much younger then, and more apt to idealise.)
She had dragged her body across the floor, trailing dark blood behind her. It was looking grim, but I still thought she could make it.
Then PJ entered the scene and cried as he held her. Don't sit there sobbing you fool! She's not going to DIE or anything! They'd never kill off a character as popular as Maggie, don't you know how these things work?! She will be alive and well soon, and she'll need you to help her to the hospital! C'mon!!!
But PJ sat there weeping like a lost little puppy. "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Noooo!!!!!" Stupid PJ. If only he'd stop going on as if she's going to die! He needs to start helping, not sooking there on the floor with her!
Well Mags, you're going to have to do it yourself. Just hop up now and head off down to the hospital, there's a good girl. You've only got 10 minutes until the end of the episode - that's not a lot of time to get patched up, make a full recovery, sort out something with PJ to make sense of the fact that you're leaving the show and he isn't, tie up loose ends with your job, sort out some new job in Melbourne and head off into the sunset to make a new life for yourself ....
Ooo.
Ooooohh.
Oh. Oh heck.
She's really dead. Fully, completely dead. Oooh heck. I didn't see that coming. NO, SERIOUSLY I DIDN'T! Because they couldn't possibly kill off such a popular charact...
Hm. Seems they did. Oooh.
So a decade (= a lifetime) later when Sally Fletcher leaves Summer Bay just like *that*, pardon me for being sceptical. I still think that tomorrow's episode might see her body washed up in the waters of Summer Bay, or her plane bursts into flames just after take-off, or she's driving out of town and - I don't know - her HEAD drops off or something.
You just can't trust these writers. They never let our beloved characters leave a show without killing them off.
The oven is clean. Well, half-clean. It's still old, unreliable, and its door doesn't shut properly. My husband says he will buy me a new one (aww!) when we get our kitchen "done up". But hey, at least it's half-clean!
I used a product I hadn't used before called 'Easy-Off Oven'. It must be related to 'Easy-Off Bam', which is a cleaning product with the silliest name I've ever heard but with an advertising catch-cry I will never forget:
BAM! And the dirt is gone!
I was really hoping that 'Easy-Off Oven' would work in a similar fashion:
