I like this comedian...go on... have a chuckle

Saw Zoe Lyons at civic theatre newcastle last week. Thought others might need some lightening up....

Hope ya enjoy.

Watch "Dave's One Night Stand - Zoe Lyons" on YouTube

Are feminists scared of monsters in the dark?

In the past few weeks I have begun wondering about the future for women in this country. Sounds deep but it really just comes from trying to raise my two children, a girl and boy in a manner that provides them with equal oportunties and outlooks. So on one hand we have a female prime minister who is making gender speeches in government, brave, but probably not my main concern as a wife, mother and employee, as I hear lots of people in my area are losing jobs, closing businesses and downsizing investments etc. You see, I'd love us to have a great female  running our country, but I'd equally love a great male running it. I  like to think I am an activist for womens rights merely by the way I live, the choices I make and the way I speak. But for some reason I don't feel my decision about who runs this country in the upcoming election is a case of me choosing womens rights over mens rights.

On the other hand I am absolutely disgusted that women in our country cannot feel safe walking home from the pub after a few drinks because some crazed sex fiend is on the prowl despite already raping a disgustingly huge number of female victims and is known to authorities. A recent ABC article i just read about a high profile murder in melbourne enraged me, and makes me worry for my daughter as she grows up. She is currently happy, relatively fearless, innocent and confident.  This will probably change as she grows and I have to teach her to be fearful, untrusting, and nervous, because our authorities cannot protect her from monsters that roam our suburbs seeking victims. Its ironic, because last week I finished having a discussion with her when she was afraid to go to sleep and I quote what I said: "don't be silly, there's no such thing as monsters, they're not real darling...". Hmmm, so when do I tell her that she needs to never go out alone and to watch her back because there are monsters out there?

Mr Xtreme strikes again....

My husband is a funny man. He goes full hammer all day long from one project to the next at the speed of lightning. People have called him Mr Xtreme.
He is a passionate, physical man who goes a million miles an hour on a slow day. Even after sustaining a quite a bad physical injury which has left him with a significant disability he still achieves more than me on a good day.The result of marrying a high achiever is that lots of stuff gets done around the place, but you rarely have down time. They also expect you to achieve grand things whilst they've been at work, and anyone with two small kids at home knows you achieve stuff-all most of the time, or they make it look like you did nothing all day, as the place is in a constant state of disarray!

Another problem with this type of person is that if you accidentally get in their way while they are going hell for leather is they may clobber ya. You know whats coming....so I wife-ily delivered some food to him in the garage the other day, whilst he worked on a vintage car he's got and as I walked past he dropped a diff(a huge metal thing that goes in a car....) on my foot and then blamed me for doing it. Admittedly I am generally a clumsy type of person; but this is no reason to assume I did anything on this occasion. I was left with a huge bruise and no apology. Some kind words followed that interaction!

Also I have gotten used to being blamed for error. If something is scratched or broken he enquires loudly 'what happened here', or 'what did you run into', or 'when did you do this'....its a lot of pressure. The one advantage to having children is that there is always someone else to blame, so that even if I have had a blunder I can avoid a frown in my direction by claiming one of the tiny savages did it....and they are far too cute to punish.

Mr Xtreme does gives everything 150 per cent. Unfortunately his effort doesn't always giveback the same joy. In fact he has nicknamed himself 'Luckless'; Which provides me with quite a lot of humour when it doesn't bring me to tears. Something that should only be a simple task often becomes disastrously tricky. If he has any sort of accident it is never small, it will be tragic.

This is probably because he embarks on grand feats. I am never surprised to peer out one of our windows and see him sawing a car in half, or scaling a ladder with leg in plaster, or finding him tied to a 10m tree with chainsaw in hand....I'm not always pleased, but I am never shocked. I have also just realised that 14 month old savage is going to take after clever daddy. I walked in to see him sitting on top of the bar fridge the other day....he only just learnt to walk. Resembling a small hulk like creature he scales any obstacle and wrecks anything in his path.

Quick healthy Breaky ideas for hyperactive sugar loving savages

Simple and definitely been done before ....but a fave in our house. I puree dates and dried apricots after soaking in hot water and freeze in ice cube trays. Cover with a plastic bag.  When faced with morning hell at our place, I pop one out of the freezer in with the oats or weetbix, water microwave for a  minute then a splash of milk on top, and the savages inhale it. No sugar needed. Also works great with banana and yoghurt mixed together for a snack.