Cath Wood

Moving to Wodonga

2009-05-29T11:06:00.005+08:00

In October last year, my daughter Casey auditioned for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus. We were delighted when she was selected, and flew into preparations to relocate to the other side of the country. The logistics were huge.

On Australia Day 2009, ie 26th of January, she and I climbed into our little car and drove across Australia, arriving in Albury/Wodonga 5 days later.

Our house was unfinished at that time, so my husband Cam has been very busy since then getting it completed and preparing to relocate to Melbourne, where he will be working this year. It is now over 4 months since we have seen him and my son Tom, who will remain behind in Margaret River, having just left school and gone out into the big wide world as an independent lad.

We have met some fabulous people and a group of us, all new to town and the circus this year, go bushwalking together most weekends.

Albury YHA, Victoria

2008-10-10T18:16:00.001+08:00

My daughter and I stayed at the Albury YHA for 2 nights recently. The hostel is not in downtown Albury however we had a hire car so that was not of concern to us. When first arriving we were a little confused because it's part of a caravan park rather than exclusively a hostel. However we found that to be a bonus because the hostel part itself is small and the grounds are lovely. There are 6 rooms and one toilet upstairs, and toilet/shower blocks plus a kitchen downstairs. The kitchen is called a guest centre and is available to all in the park, though we didn't see many using it. Most caravans and the cabins would have their own kitchens and televisions, so there would be little need.

The thing we noticed straight away was that the hostel was very clean. Our room had 4 beds but we were the only ones in it. The carpet was grey and the blankets were grey, but everything was clean! There was none of that grot factor that you sometimes see in a hostel.

The kitchen was what really sealed the deal though. The kitchen was clean! Ye gads. I have stayed in lots of hostels and continue to do so because a) I don't see the point in spending a lot of money for somewhere to sleep when a bed in a room will do, and b) I like the interesting people I meet at hostels. Often, however, hostel kitchens can be slightly feral places. Not this one.

I made a comment to the friendly lady who was busy cleaning in the morning. “Gee, this hostel is clean!” “No it's not, we've just had a busy patch and the whole place needs going over!” she replied. “Just look at those windows!” Said windows looked pretty good to me.

An unexpected bonus was the provision of bathmats in the shower block. Each day a fresh stack of laundered, folded bathmats appeared, with a laundry basket for the used ones. Given that our carefully packed bath towels got left in the car before leaving for the airport in Perth, we were particularly grateful for the bathmats, which served a double purpose.

All in all I'd give it a thumbs up. I always enjoy a well run ship and the staff at this hostel are very friendly, helpful, and onto it.

A summary of the 30 lists of 30 things

2008-09-28T09:49:00.000+08:00

I wanted to get back into my blog, so during the 30 days of September I set myself a challenge. Every day I was to post a list of 30 things.

I fell behind a bit at the end, but I have nevertheless finished the challenge a day or two early because I will be away from my computer for the next few days.

The 30 lists of 30 things were:

1. 30 things to be grateful for
2. 30 festival CD’s
3. 30 things we cook for dinner
4. 30 things to do to get fit
5. 30 ways we make our money go further
6. 30 cool, free or low-cost family weekend activities
7. 30 things I love about camping
8. 30 of Casey’s designs
9. 30 things about raising children
10. 30 great things about being an egg donor
11. 30 cool circus tricks you can learn even if you’re an old dog
12. 30 people I know
13. 30 jobs that would be fun to try
14. 30 jobs that would NOT be fun to try
15. 30 more people I know
16. 30 random things
17. 30 vegetables growing in Margaret River right now
18. 30 places I’d love to visit
19. 30 references to 30 on google
20. 30 words
21. 30 things I can see from where I’m sitting
22. 30 thoughts from Monday
23. 30 things about seeing Mamma Mia!
24. 30 things from our local paper today
25. 30 books in my bookshelf
26. 30 circus kids
27. 30 more circus kids
28. 30 words, 2 sentences, 1 desperate blogger
29. 30 things we snack on at this time of year
30. 30 documents on my desktop

30 x 30 = 900 things altogether! Phew!

30 documents on my desktop

2008-09-28T09:46:00.001+08:00

The 30th of 30 lists of 30 things

I vow and declare that documents will be properly filed away, yet here is my computer desktop, littered with an archeological trail of the last year or so.

1. Projectionists roster.
2. Projectionists contact list.
3. Trapeze weeding party invitation. This was my daughter’s document – she invited a whole lot of friends to work on the circus festival site for a few hours in exchange for some flying trapeze fun in the afternoon.
4. Bus directions for Cam for a trip he took.
5. Sydney to Hobart article for Cam’s workplace newsletter.
6. Bus directions for Tom for a trip he took.
7. Letter to Tom’s teachers about an absence from school due to a bad back.
8. Tom’s Yr 12 profile form for the school yearbook.
9. A quote from one of Tom’s English Literature texts. We were practicing quotes one night and this one seemed like it might be useful at some point in the future. “Silence! One word more shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee.”
10. L plate – I made this up so that we could print it out (on yellow paper) to go driving, after one of those we bought fell off and was lost.
11. Map of the Busselton gym club where we had to pick up the gear that we bought.
12. Our itinerary for our Melbourne trip, including lots of maps.
13. Christmas gift list from 2007.
14. Document showing who will receive Christmas hampers.
15. Hamper notes detailing what was in the hampers, to give to each recipient.
16. Spare letters – my keyboard lost the plot and I couldn’t use the letters j and d. While I was waiting to get it sorted, I had to copy and paste these two letters whenever the auto-correct function didn’t put them in for me. Fun fun fun!
17. Letter to Margaret River Shorts asking for a different presentation format next time.
18. Notes about a cleanse and detox.
19. Notes to mother-in-law who was coming to hold the fort while Cam and I were away.
20. Computer issues June 2008, for Tom to fix.
21. Rummy rules.
22. Sudoku grids.
23. Document detailing our charitable giving for September 2008.
24. A letter to the shire about some vandalism.
25. How to make tofu.
26. How to make Tempeh.
27. How to make cottage cheese.
28. Panforte recipes.
29. Tapioca recipe.
30. Honeycomb recipe.

30 things we snack on at this time of year

2008-09-28T09:43:00.002+08:00

30 things we snack on at this time of year

The 29th of 30 lists of 30 things.

Just over half of these snacks are home-made or home-grown. They’re not all super healthy, but they’re not too bad.

1. Apple cut into a corkscrew shape with our apple gadget
2. Mandarins
3. Oranges
4. Strawberries
5. Kiwi fruit
6. Rockmelon
7. Bananas
8. Olives
9. Popcorn
10. Yoghurt with honey, fruit or jam
11. Sprouted mung beans
12. Dried apples (home grown)
13. Dried apricots
14. Sultanas
15. Fruit leather
16. Dried banana
17. Dried pawpaw
18. Peanuts
19. Almonds
20. Date slice
21. Choc chip cookies
22. Anzac biscuits
23. Muffins
24. Pikelets
25. Rice thins with hommus
26. Crackers with olive tapenade & cottage cheese
27. Tinned tuna on crackers
28. Leftover dinner of various descriptions on crackers
29. Packet potato chips
30. Packet corn chips

30 words, 2 sentences, 1 desperate blogger

2008-09-28T09:39:00.000+08:00

The 28th of 30 lists of 30 things

The documentary put me behind the 8-ball, and I’ve been scrambling all week to catch up.

1. It
2. Is
3. Very
4. Difficult
5. To
6. Catch
7. Up
8. When
9. You
10. Have
11. Fallen
12. Behind
13. And
14. Each
15. List
16. Of
17. 30
18. Requires
19. So
20. Much
21. Thought.
22. This
23. Is
24. Probably
25. Cheating
26. But
27. That’s
28. Just
29. Too
30. Bad!

30 circus kids plus 30 more

2008-09-28T09:38:00.000+08:00

The 26th and 27th of 30 lists of 30 things

Here are 60 names of kids I’ve worked with in the past few months. It’s quite an effort learning lots of new names at once when they include this selection.

1. Ethan
2. Aeodhan
3. Alby
4. Aloha
5. Ollie
6. Indigo
7. Ava
8. Arabelle
9. Mia
10. Maia
11. Amala
12. Amali
13. Amelia
14. Aala
15. Layla
16. Leilani
17. Lilo
18. Malia
19. Mischa
20. Mjuri
21. Neve
22. Cohen
23. Kiva
24. Kallan
25. Kelsea
26. Keely
27. Koopa
28. Clay
29. Carys
30. Caspian
31. Jayden
32. Jed
33. Jarra
34. Diego
35. Dusky
36. Deha
37. Riley
38. Reif
39. Ratu
40. Rain
41. Blaine
42. Bayli
43. Naska
44. Luka
45. Linden
46. Logan
47. Lane
48. Lorna
49. Taashi
50. Tehane
51. Tahn
52. Tanah
53. Tansy
54. Tasmin
55. Tully
56. Seb
57. Zaneta
58. Jaxon
59. Soraya
60. Freya

30 books on my bookshelf

2008-09-28T09:34:00.002+08:00

The 25th of 30 lists of 30 things

I have lots of books, and these are some of them.

1. Money Secrets of the Rich, John Burley
2. Better Off; Flipping the Switch on Technology, Eric Brende
3. Freakonomics, Levitt & Dubner
4. It was on fire when I lay down on it, Robert Fulghum
5. A Modern Herbal, Mrs M Grieve
6. Chambers Thesaurus
7. Troublesome Words, Bill Bryson
8. The One Minute Millionaire, Hansen & Allen
9. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
10. Mao’s Last Dancer, Li Cunxin
11. Secrets of the Inner Self, Dr David Phillips
12. Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha, Saraswati
13. Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield
14. Jonathon Livingston Seagull, Bach
15. Pride and Predudice, Jane Austen
16. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
17. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
18. A Patch of Blue, Elizabeth Kata
19. Little Women, Louisa M Alcott
20. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne
21. The Health Revolution, Ross Horne
22. The Naked Husband, Mark D’Arbanville
23. Use Your Head, Tony Buzan
24. Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery
25. The Secret Language of Birthdays, Goldschneider & Elffers
26. The SAS Survival Handbook, John Wiseman
27. A Guide to Priceless Campsites and Rest Areas, Jan Holland
28. The Cape to Cape Track Guidebook, Scott & Forma
29. The Complete World Atlas
30. Forrest Family, A&D Muir

30 things from our local paper today

2008-09-28T09:32:00.001+08:00

The 24th of 30 lists of 30 things

The Augusta Margaret River Mail comes out on a Wednesday, with all the news of the southwest. This is a 30 point summary of today’s paper.

1. Two of our local fellows will appear on TV with their invention – the Saints Safety Barrel, which is a floating device that contains flares and other things you’ll need if your boat sinks.
2. GetUp’s lemon-powered torch will be in Margaret River on Sunday, for the climate torch relay.
3. The cosmodome (a portable planetarium) will be at this year’s Margaret River show.
4. There’ll be a phone tossing contest at the show too.
5. The first Farmers Market of the season is on this Saturday.
6. Accommodation providers can apparently be fined $10 000 if underage people are caught drinking on their premises, including in their rooms. The kids themselves only get $200.
7. People are invited to help complete the mural at the community kindy.
8. Several kilometres of purple bras will decorate Augusta this Saturday.
9. Tony and Ken have manned the scoreboard at the footy for 8 years, and they are finishing up.
10. If you’re between 2 and 5, dress up as a fairy or a pirate for story time at the library.
11. Snakes will be starting to come out and the vet says you need to watch your pets. If they get bitten and stop breathing, owners can give them mouth-to-nose resuscitation.
12. One of our circus school kids played the piano (the National Anthem, no less) at the old folks’ home.
13. A local man grew a 10kg organic sweet potato. The world record is 22kg.
14. Bender the wonder dog got his own page spread in the latest Surfwest magazine. Bender has won prizes, been on TV and radio, is owned by a man named Scar, and gets excited when they approach a surf break.
15. The Australian Girls Choir is coming soon.
16. The Margaret River Chocolate Company won lots of medals and the Champion Chocolate award at the Perth Royal Show.
17. Residents of the elderly home have been taking kitchen tours so they can see where their food is coming from and feel a bit more connected to the whole process.
18. Chris Isaak will be the guy at this year’s Leeuwin Concert.
19. 40 resumes were submitted to the vet for their receptionist position.

20. There’s a vacancy for a horse-rider on a thoroughbred training farm.
21. There’s a hay baler for sale at $5500.
22. You can buy goat meat for $15/kg.
23. You can buy sheep poo for $7.50 for a 35 litre bag.
24. A dogsitter is required.
25. There are some doves free to a good home.
26. Another one of our circus school kids demonstrates his starting stance at little athletics.
27. By now you should be able to run for 12-15 minutes without a rest if you’re planning to compete in the fun run.
28. The Margaret River women’s football (soccer) team won the double – the cup and the league, for the first time ever.
29. The Margaret River Senior High School volleyball team went to Perth and won the 2008 Volleyball WA’s High School Cup.
30. The forecast is for showers later today.

30 thoughts and conversations from seeing the movie Mamma Mia!

2008-09-28T09:30:00.000+08:00

The 23rd of 30 lists of 30 things

We saw Mamma Mia! at our cinema. It was so much fun.

1. Look how packed the cinema is!
2. What, it was packed on Sunday too?
3. Rookie, do you want to turn the houselights down now that the movie has started?
4. What a great fun movie!
5. The actors look like they are having a ball.
6. Man this would have been fun to film, I’d love to be on set of something like this.
7. We’ve only ever bought one movie, but I think we’d better make this our second.
8. Is that Gemma Ward, did you say?
9. I wonder if I have any friends I’d greet on the jetty like that? With a song and actions that we all knew?
10. Wow, the scenery is breathtaking.
11. OMG, I love the décor of those rooms.
12. Hey, I want to go to that island!
13. I just love how all those kitchen staff chime in to say their bit, it’s hilarious.
14. I don’t know how old Pierce Brosnan is, but he’s still got it, hasn’t he?
15. Colin Firth is a bit of alright, isn’t he?
16. Can I get up and dance now?
17. Listen to us all laughing, over and over again.
18. This is a great scene, with all those women dancing on the jetty.
19. Lol, how funny is it that now the guys are on the jetty, and doing the penguin dance?
20. It’s so cool to sing along to most of the sound track.
21. ABBA were amazing, weren’t they? What a legacy they left.
22. Some of these actors seem to be doing their own singing, but others don’t.
23. Meryl Streep is brilliant, isn’t she?
24. I squeeze my daughter’s leg at the bit where the mother is sad about her daughter moving on.
25. Why don’t all 3 dads just share the dad job?
26. Oh look, they’re sharing the job.
27. I wonder if they’ll ever get a DNA test?
28. So tell me again, why aren’t they just going to get married anyway now they’ve gone to all this effort?
29. Hey look, those ABBA boys were involved in the making of the film.
30. Wow, that was great. I felt a bit flat before the movie, now I’m on fire.

30 thoughts from Monday 22nd Sept

2008-09-28T09:24:00.001+08:00

The 22nd of 30 lists of 30 things

I entered the ABC’s Fanging It documentary-making contest. The day the 2nd documentary was due was a bit of a panic.

1. Ok, I’m going well, there’s not too much to do here.
2. Wow, Claire is talking quietly. The old camera really doesn’t have a very good microphone.
3. OMG, I can’t hear Claire talking at all over that backing track!
4. Alright, I’m just going to have to fade the backing track out during that segment. Shame.
5. Damn, it’s still not good enough, I’ll have to raise the volume on that clip.
6. Aarrgghh, it will only let me take it up to 6.0db, and it’s nowhere near enough!
7. Ye gads, Claire is loud compared to Dave. Dave is QUIET!
8. What to do? What to do? Search the net…..
9. No go. Eeek! Should I edit Dave & Claire out? I can’t do that, they’re the parents!
10. I’m going to have to refilm – OMG. I do NOT have time for this, it’s got to be finished ready for uploading in a few hours.
11. Ok, make a couple of quick phone calls. Oh dear, Dave & Claire are pressed for time too, they’re going on holidays tomorrow. I’ll have to make it super quick.
12. Dave’s office first. Can he recite these pre-prepared lines and still sound natural? Hmmm, for one, yes, but the other one’s a bit dodgy. Not to worry.
13. Off to Claire’s house. Several takes, but we nail it. Phew!
14. Ok, let’s get home quick smart. Get these vids onto the computer, get them into the video editing program.
15. Thank goodness, the sound is much better!
16. Now, put the backing track back in. Good, it’s ok!
17. Right, it’s up to 3 minutes. I need to shave 30 seconds off.
18. There, that’s done. Now for some titles. I have absolutely no idea how to do this. Wow, big, black and ugly! Too bad, it’s all I have time for.
19. Now to export this thing. Tom, can you please help me?
20. I need to get this uploaded. It’s all good, everything is going to plan and I’m going to get it done on time.

21. Arrrgghh, what’s this? 100MB max? Mine is 112MB.
22. Tom, help! We need to export this again and make it less than 100MB. Are you sure that’s the right way to do it? Don’t get cranky, I was just asking.
23. Ok, log in. What’s my password again? Not that. Not that. Not that.
24. Oh crap, now I’ve been locked out for 20 minutes. I have to go and teach a circus class in 20 minutes, and I wanted this to be uploading while I was away!
25. I need to send off for a forgotten password. Ah, there’s the email. Ok 20 minutes is up, I’m logged in. The upload is happening! Quick, get down to the circus shed. Sorry I’m late!
26. I’m back, how’s it going? Yes! There’s a green message saying it was successful! I can’t believe I did it! My documentary has been entered into the contest.
27. Let’s watch it. OMG, I am so proud of my efforts. This is my second ever doco and I think I did sooooo well.
28. My husband is home! It’s late and he’s hungry but still, I must crash tackle him as he walks in the door and insist that he watches it too. It’s good, did you say darling? Tell me again. Do you think I’m clever? Do you think I did well? Tell me more, tell me more!
29. Why hasn’t it appeared on the website yet? It’s been a couple of hours. Fret fret.
30. It’s ok, no other new ones have gone up yet either. They need to check them and they probably won’t do it until tomorrow morning. I can go to bed. Gosh I did well, I am thoroughly pleased with myself.

30 things I can see from where I'm sitting

2008-09-28T09:22:00.001+08:00

The 21st of 30 lists of 30 things.

1. Fireplace
2. TV
3. Pile of old newspapers
4. Lots of dust and dirt
5. Boxes of fundraising chocolates
6. The painting Lindy gave me
7. The framed print Sharleena gave me
8. Cam’s soccer coaching kit bag
9. A rolled up set of plans
10. A box of circus equipment
11. Our CD collection
12. A yellow rubber duck
13. A bottle of Tea Tree oil
14. My new camera
15. My tripod
16. My pink calculator
17. A basket of clean washing
18. Cam’s business shirts waiting to be ironed
19. Tax paperwork
20. An old guitar
21. A largish indoor plant
22. A lucky bamboo that needs repotting
23. Spring flowers on the table
24. Two of Tom’s books waiting to go back to the library
25. A box of tissues
26. The towel my mother-in-law left behind
27. Our picnic baskets
28. Casey’s school files which I have asked her several time to put away
29. The over-the-back neighbour’s nectarine tree in blossom
30. A photo frame of our family

30 words

2008-09-28T09:20:00.001+08:00

The 20th of 30 lists of 30 things

I sifted through my highschool dictionary and found 30 words that I have either never heard of or just don’t see or hear being used very often, if at all. The last 3 letters of the alphabet were a bit tricky, I knew all the words and just had to pick the least used one. I didn’t include words that were names of birds, tools, instruments etc, or adopted from a foreign language. Thus all these words are ones we might use in everyday language if only everyone knew them.

1. Ambit
2. Animadvert
3. Busman’s holiday
4. Capitation
5. Collocate
6. Dipsomania
7. Equipoise
8. Fulminate
9. Gimcrack
10. Hobbledehoy
11. Hegemony
12. Ibidem
13. Jammy
14. Kirtle
15. Literateur
16. Mendicant
17. Nonce
18. Overweening
19. Percipient
20. Quietus
21. Recrudescence
22. Sententious
23. Threnody
24. Timorous
25. Uxorious
26. Valetudinarian
27. Wilco
28. Xerox
29. Yammer
30. Zeitgeist

30 references to 30 on Google

2008-09-19T21:44:00.002+08:00

The 19th of 30 lists of 30 things.

I’m getting desperate tonight.

This is a list of 30 things I found on Google when I typed in ‘30’. I think it marks the first time I have ever gone all the way to P13 on a Google search.

1. The first listing is from Wikipedia. It tells us that 30 is the natural number following 29 and preceeding 31. How about that?

2. 30 days of fashion and beauty.

3. Mac OS X hacked under 30 minutes.

4. Oz in 30 seconds - a call to arms (or digital video cameras, actually) to create, rate and air television ads that promote a better, fairer, more progressive Australia.

5. 30 hot entrepreneurs aged 30 and under.

6. 30 seconds to Mars.

7. 30 reasons employees hate their managers.

8. Midlife crisis at 30.

9. 30 scripts for relaxation, imagery and inner healing.

10. The 30 secrets of happily married couples.

11. The 30 second commute – the ultimate guide to starting and operating a home-based business.

12. The 30-minute fitness solution: A four step plan for women of all ages.

13. The 30 second encyclopedia of learning and performance.

14. Life begins at 30 – Pictures and experiences of a woman in California.

15. Obama in 30 seconds.

16. 30 days of prayer for the Muslim Moslem world.

17. 30 great Westerns.

18. 30 dark designs you should’ve seen.

19. Bookshelves – 30 of the most creative designs.

20. 30 days to becoming an opera lover.

21. 30 days to success – Steve Pavlina.

22. 30 brilliant vector logo designs, deconstructed.

23. Happy Spamiversary! Spam reaches 30. The first ever spam message, an ad for a new computer model, was sent to 393 people from the spammer’s own email address. A co-worker typed in all 393 addresses by hand.

24. The 30 most spoken languages in the world.

25. 30 most incredible abstract satellite images of Earth.

26. The Lego minifig turns 30.

27. 30 stunning images of the Large Hadron Collider.

28. Zero cash, a little talent, and 30 days.

29. The internet will end in 30 years!

30. Top 30 mistakes made by new Mac users.

30 places I'd like to visit

2008-09-18T21:36:00.000+08:00

The 18th of 30 lists of 30 things.

1. That whole big area between Broome and Kununurra
2. Darwin & Kakadu
3. Uluru
4. Cradle mountain to Lake St Clair walking track (We walked the Overland Track, in Tasmania, before we were married - many, many long years ago. I want to do it again, I hear the track has been much improved since we were knee deep in mud.)
5. New Zealand
6. Bali & the rest of Indonesia
7. Malaysia
8. Cambodia
9. Thailand
10. Vietnam
11. India
12. More of Japan
13. Vanuatu
14. Fiji
15. London Olympics
16. Wales
17. Scotland
18. Ireland
19. Norway
20. Sweden
21. France – the Eiffel Tower and the French countryside – every year we see the Tour de France and say “we want to go there!” Actually we say “ikittai!” which is the Japanese expression for the same thing, and so much more expressive.
22. Italy - Rome again (oh we just loved it there but a couple of days was nowhere near enough) and the rest of Italy, especially the Amali coast.
23. Greece
24. Spain
25. Dubai
26. Parts of Africa
27. Walk all the way across the Grand Canyon (we did a day walk there a few years ago and just LOVED it, it was the highlight of our trip.
28. Lots more of the US
29. More time in and around Vancouver, as well as the rest of Canada
30. Brazil

30 fruits & vegetables growing in Margaret River right now

2008-09-17T21:19:00.003+08:00

The 17th of 30 lists of 30 things

I checked out 3 gardens of dedicated vegetable growers to come up with this list. My own garden was the least impressive of the lot, even though I found 14 different things, so I have been freshly inspired to put some more vegetables into the ground this weekend.

1. Broad beans

2. Beans

3. Peas x several varieties

4. Broccoli

5. Cauliflower

6. Brussel sprouts

7. Lettuce x at least 3 varieties

8. Rocket

9. Parsley x two varieties

10. Bok choy and other Asiatic greens

11. Tendergreens

12. English spinach

13. Silverbeet

14. Artichoke

15. Celery

16. Tomato

17. Carrots

18. Beetroot

19. Potatoes

20. Strawberries

21. Mandarins

22. Lemons

23. Leeks

24. Onions

25. Garlic x several varieties

26. Shallots

27. Spring onions

28. Coriander

29. Mint

30. Thyme, rosemary

30 random things

2008-09-16T20:58:00.002+08:00

The 16th of 30 lists of 30 things.

I made a plan for my 30 lists at the beginning of the month, but some of them are proving to be way too time-consuming to get together considering that another list has to go up every day.

So tonight I went to Google, typed in ‘random pages’ and was sent off on a journey. Here’s a sentence from most of the pages I visited. My daughter thinks it’s like one of those continuous stories you do on school camps, where you write a sentence and fold the paper over, and the next person writes a sentence.

1. Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Olive Oil But Were Afraid To Ask.

2. Yes, we know you’ve been neglected.

3. A bunch of Canadians.

4. The Arsenal have wrapped up a signing so unexpected that it has taken everyone by surprise.

5. Which is the main goal of having spy cams: to discover what you're doing when you believe nobody's watching.

6. High school students interested in becoming gunsmiths should take woodworking, metalwork, and technical drawing courses at school.

7. Plantains are always packed by hand in cardboard boxes, 50 pounds to the box and shipped in refrigerated holders to maintain freshness.

8. This is the thing, a conversation that in Australia would take half an hour takes two or three hours here because of communication problems.

9. Are you interested in learning how to DJ, mix at home or in a club?

10. Sandy Smith woke up to the annoying and familiar sound of the alarm clock.

11. Minnesota's clawback law is a good example of best practice.

12. The Desert Dog Troglodytes have regular meetings at the Ace hardware store.

13. It is very discouraging to newcomers to have to ask for every single thing on the list.

14. Estonia is unique among nations in its heavy use of oil shale.

15. Michel is an inscrutable young man - neatly dressed, mild mannered, intelligent - hardly the type whom one would suspect to be a pickpocket.

16. A popular account, I would have thought, ought to be terser and tell more of a continuous story.

17. Are you tired of spending time vacuuming at home?

18. The people were super nice and everything was in walking distance, which was very convenient for us.

19. Multiplying a vector by a scalar will get you a vector with the same direction, but different magnitude, as the original.

20. Have no fear, drongos, dickheads and ratbags of Australia!

21. I'm an Anglophile.

22. My husband is getting more and more angry and saying I have to get rid of her if I can’t get her trained.

23. The results of calculations based on the observed data show that the dragonfly performs low speed flight with ordinary airfoil characteristics, instead of adopting an abnormally large lift coefficient.

24. Knowing it was the finale, you kept waiting for someone to die.

25. If a nobleman or collector dies, who values his pictures but Mr. Seguier?

26. "The Earth cannot wait 60 years. We need everybody capable of discovering an answer to put their minds to it today," Branson said.

27. He laughed, but also pointed out that “Well, the fact that we appeared in a political cartoon on the editorial page is proof that the event was newsworthy.”

28. Less also means more when it comes to reliability.

29. It is for the reader, and ultimately history, to decide which view is correct.

30. Let’s cut straight to the chase.

30 more people I know

2008-09-15T20:10:00.000+08:00

The 15th of 30 lists of 30 things.

1. The one who gives me sage advice about my teenage son.

2. The one to whom I gave 7 baby guinea pigs.

3. The one who can rearrange people’s skull bones and other feats of healing magic.

4. The one who had the most glamorous post-baby shot in the local newspaper that I have ever seen.

5. The one who owns lots of buses.

6. The one who has a daughter that, at 3, looked exactly like I looked at 3, yet we are not at all related.

7. The man I call ‘my boy’.

8. The one who is a glorious silk painter.

9. The one who presented at an eco-village discussion night many years ago, resulting in us moving to Margaret River.

10. The one who has a laminated camping check-list itemized by where it packs into the vehicle.

11. The one who is equally skilled as a woodworker and a scientist.

12. The one who has to buy 13 dance costumes for her daughter for this year’s dance finale concert.

13. The one who plays fiddle like a dream and looks just like her Mum when she was young.

14. The one who breeds Labradoodles.

15. The one who attaches expensive cameras to kite strings and accidentally smashes them or drops them into the ocean.

16. The one who talked her daughter out of naming their new puppy ‘Dorothy the Dinosaur Dog’.

17. The one who still remembers, after all these years, that I put the wrong detergent into the dishwasher at CSIRO, and filled the lab with foam.

18. The one who is studying psychology and has a goodly supply of wine for when the going gets tough.

19. The one who can remember how every fiddle tune starts.

20. The one who, with his wife, ran around stark naked with me to make a video for YouTube that has had nearly one million hits.

21. The one who became a projectionist after a discussion we had, whilst I was naked, in his physiotherapy room.

22. The one who cuts his firewood with a circular saw every night.

23. The one who has drawers in her kitchen where everybody else just has kickboards.

24. The one who helped his son put together his new off-road unicycle.

25. The one who can sing like a magpie even better than some magpies.

26. The one who built his own boat.

27. The one who went up to the big city and forgot that it was his turn to show the movie at our volunteer-run cinema.

28. The one who I met when our children were boyfriend and girlfriend.

29. The one who wants her daughter to cooperate in photos.

30. The one who has a red collection.

30 jobs that would NOT be fun to try

2008-09-14T12:41:00.001+08:00

The 14th of 30 lists of 30 things

On the back of jobs that would be fun to try, we came up with 30 jobs that we think would NOT be fun to try.

Cath

1. Being an astronaut

2. Being in the navy

3. Being in the army

4. Working on a boat (or on land) at Antarctica

5. Being part of any expedition climbing icy, cold, dangerous mountains

6. Working in a crematorium

7. Drug dealer

8. Garbage person

9. Suck truck operator in Japan (ie the person who comes around and empties everyone’s toilets)

10. Working in a nuclear power plant

11. Nurse

12. Plumber

13. Pub security person

14. House painter

15. Cleaner

16. Accountant

17. Dentist

18. Abattoir worker

19. Mechanic

20. Tyre shop worker

21. Vet

Casey

22. Being the old people at Karijini who tell younger crew like us that the campsite is full

23. Maths teacher

24. Surgeon

25. Prostitute

26. Chinese sweatshop worker

27. Waxing therapist specializing in bottoms, bikini lines, testicles etc

28. Dog washer

29. Driving instructor

30. Any job that involves a vow of silence

30 jobs that would be fun to try

2008-09-14T12:40:00.001+08:00

The 13th of 30 lists of 30 things

My daughter and I thought about jobs that would be fun to try. Of this list, there’s probably not too many that we’d want to do for years, but we thought they’d all be fun to have a go at, even if it was for 10 minutes, 1 day, 1 week or 1 month.

1. Station jackeroo

2. Nanny in the UK

3. Working in an English pub

4. Professional musician

5. Professional actor

6. Highly paid artist

7. Model

8. Documentary maker

9. Clothing designer

10. Rehabilitation scientist for an organization like Bush Heritage Australia or Australian Wildlife Conservancy

11. Helping kids in 3rd world countries

12. Events manager

13. Olympics opening and closing ceremony organizer – “you’d have a big budget, you could do anything, go crazy!”

14. Chocolatier

15. Travel show presenter

16. Tour guide at the Eiffel Tower

17. Highly paid and respected public speaker

18. Published popular author

19. Policeperson directing traffic at a busy intersection (for about 10 minutes)

20. Zoo employee looking after the primates and/or meerkats

21. A scientist observings and studying animals in the wild

22. Gardener at the Botanic gardens

23. Tropical fruit stallholder in Asia

24. PA to George Clooney or man of similar pedigree

25. Professional, performing flying trapeze artist

26. Helicopter pilot

27. Jet airline pilot

28. Flight attendant

29. Nature photographer

30. Chai tent operator at music festivals

30 people I know

2008-09-12T20:49:00.001+08:00

The 12th of 30 lists of 30 things

1. The one who I shared a house with for 2 years.

2. The one who played on the see-saw with me every recess and lunchtime.

3. The one who has a prosthetic leg.

4. The one who has my candelabra on a very long term loan.

5. The one who built our chookyard gates.

6. The one who builds birdcages.

7. The one who has 3 passports.

8. The one who jumped off the bridge into the Blackwood River in a bikini.

9. The one who’s a Harley-Davidson riding grandmother.

10. The one whose father hid a shotgun in a tree, where it was found decades later by the next owners.

11. The one whose parents argue over whether he was named after a world-famous surfer or his great great grandfather.

12. The one who doesn’t have a birth certificate.

13. The one who got in trouble with me, from a local in the area, for yelling ‘coo-ee’ at the top of Mt Augustus.

14. The one who employs Mexicans.

15. The one who had a double hernia operation at 3 weeks.

16. The one who got married on the beach.

17. The one who drew Goony.

18. The one who lights my fire at night.

19. The one whose daughter told him, at 3, that “it’s my life and my choice!”

20. The one who stays up all night at festivals, jamming on her fiddle.

21. The one who drives a convertible.

22. The one who buys organic bananas with red wax on the end.

23. The one who sold a LOT of chocolates with me.

24. The one who wrote a song about her two children with albinism.

25. The one who aided and abetted a family ‘cement-mixer’ cocktail event.

26. The one who sings in church.

27. The one who bought a tropical island resort.

28. The one who cuts hair.

29. The one who runs marathons in America.

30. The one who makes musical instruments.

30 cool circus tricks that you can learn even if you're not a kid anymore

2008-09-11T22:25:00.002+08:00

The 11th of 30 lists of 30 things.

My kids have been involved in circus for many years, and along the way I’ve played around with lots of things. I have discovered that there are heaps of circus tricks that old dogs can learn.

This first lot are the most straightforward and could be done at home. You may need someone to get you started, or some basic equipment, but then it’s all good. Naturally, there are different levels of expertise to be acquired. But most people can have a go, and that’s the utter fun of it. Try not to make strange faces; the kids tend to be very cruel about it.

1. Juggle 3 balls.

2. Juggle 4 balls.

3. Juggle 3 clubs.

4. Hula hoops. Try around the waist, on hands, or around knees. Or all of the aforementioned at once. So far I’m up to three different hoops simultaneously – one around the waist and one around each hand. It’s quite thrilling, but I haven’t mastered the face thing yet. All the kids laugh at me.

5. Diabolo.

6. Crystal ball manipulation.

7. Slackrope.

8. Unicycle.

9. Handstands. One of the most exciting circus tricks to learn, believe it or not. Once you start to feel the shape you should really be in, and get that first hint of balance, it gets a bit addictive.

10. Cartwheel into a skipping rope. (This is a trick for 3 or more people. You need a long rope and two people to hold/swing it. Follow it down with your hands to cartwheel in; you will land in time to jump the rope as it comes around. Have a few jumps then cartwheel out.)

11. Poi.

12. Bendback. As demonstrated in these pics by myself and my daughter.

(As it should look)

(As it looks when you're old and stiff but still having a red hot go...)

13. Human pyramids.

14. Stand on shoulders.

15. Pole. Pole is really physically taxing, but there are some good starting points that are fun to play around with.

16. Devil sticks.

17. Rolla bolla.

(Rolla bolla with extras. They were tormenting me, they kept piling stuff on...)

18. Clowning.

19. Stilt walking.

20. Performance. We know a circus performer who has no actual circus tricks per se, but a brilliantly devised ‘personality’ that is fun to watch.

21. Plate spinning.

22. Magic/illusion.

This next lot are either more complicated or need specialist equipment that you’re only likely to find at a circus school. However they are all new tricks that old dogs can learn with patience and application. Ok then, maybe not the standing backflip. But I put that here because I have recently seen a woman over 40 learn how to do one of these for the first time. That, to me, is inspirational.

23. 2 or 3 diabolos at once.

24. Dive roll. Onto a floor mat, onto a crashmat, or from a minitramp.

25. Mini tramp trickery.

26. Acrobalance fun and frivolity.

27. Standing backflip.

28. Silk, aka tissue/tissue.

29. Static trapeze.

30. Flying trapeze. My personal favourite, OMG this is so much fun. And the boys who catch you are all young and muscly and just utterly divine, really, which is a bonus.

30 great things about being an egg donor

2008-09-10T20:24:00.001+08:00

The 10th of 30 lists of 30 things

About 6 years ago I donated eggs to a couple who had a daughter as a result. It has been a really positive experience for me and my family. Here are 30 of the best things about being an egg donor.

1. Helping a couple who really want to have a child to have their dream come true. What a cool way for one person to make a big difference.

2. Not many people do it so egg donors are automatically part of a small and special group.

3. Speculating with the parents about the future of our girl.

4. Indulging with the mother about how fabulous she is. Unlike most similar situations where it's more interesting to talk about your own child than another's, in this case we could both talk all day about the same child.

5. All the fun and none of the responsibility.

6. Looking at photos of me when I was little and seeing traces of her.

7. Being at the hospital when the birth was happening, waiting in the waiting room and being called in to see the new baby.

8. The joy of the most beautiful relationship between the little girl and my daughter.

9. Telephone conversations when she's in the mood for a chat.

10. Another baby to love, another small child's imagination to have fun with.

11. A really good excuse to buy cute little girl clothes.

12. Cuddles.

13. Singing.

14. Seeing her get involved in things that my daughter does, such as playing the fiddle and doing circus classes.

15. Being interviewed for, and written about in, a book about making babies.

16. Recovering from the operation to extract the eggs.

17. The fun and frivolity of getting my husband to stick a needle in my bum every day for a couple of weeks.

18. The shock value of hyper-stimulating and producing enough eggs to populate a small nation.

19. Talking about important things like parenting philosophies and choices, schools, friends etc. I feel so honoured to be included in discussions like that.

20. Adding a whole new family to my clan of relatives. Celebrating milestones together.

21. Being a part of her life as she grows up, and taking lots of photos along the way.

22. Staying at their house when we go up to the big city.

23. Scrambled eggs in the morning in their cosy kitchen.

24. Doing her hair in fancy designs when she lets me.

25. Babysitting occasionally.

26. Reading bedtime stories.

27. Learning how to not offend her delicate sensibilities.

28. Being thoroughly impressed by her extraordinary language skills. This girl knew all the words to, and could sing in tune, about 20 songs before most kids her age were speaking their first words.

29. Experiencing first-hand the wonder of modern medicine. It took 3 adults plus an entire team of medical staff (and who knows how many researchers over the years?) to bring this one little girl into the world, and boy, is she a ripper.

30. Joking with the mother about which traits are hereditary vs which are environmental. We are both quick to disown the worst ones.

What a blessing I have had! Traditionally being an egg donor is viewed as giving, but to me it is much bigger than that. This little girl’s two wonderful parents have become my friends and I am so grateful to be included in their family life.

30 thoughts about raising children

2008-09-09T22:12:00.002+08:00

The 9th of 30 lists of 30 things

I cannot begin to imagine life without kids. Being a parent changes all of us in profound ways, I think.

1. You learn all the songs from Playschool and The Wiggles.

2. It was great when John Hamblin was the Playschool presenter because he had a gift for double meanings that gave the parents a chuckle whilst going over the heads of the kids.

3. Milestones in the early years, such as first rolling over and learning to walk, are wondrous.

4. When babies first go to sleep in your arms, you have about 15 minutes to get up and put them down. If you wait for longer than that, they start to come back towards wakefulness and you’re stuffed then, they’ll wake up when you put them down.

5. The poo and vomit of other babies is disgusting whilst that of your own child is quite acceptable.

6. When our kids were little, we found that suddenly our friends were the parents of our kids’ friends.

7. Finding out your child is not in absolutely perfect health is more devastating than health professionals realize. When our son was first diagnosed with eyesight issues that required glasses, I was totally shocked. I couldn’t believe it.

8. Travelling in a car takes on a whole different meaning with young children in the car. You can’t just lose yourself in thought.

9. Some of the most stressful times are when one’s kids are sick. That can derail even the calmest person.

10. You think you’ll have more time when the kids go to school, but somehow it doesn’t work out that way.

11. We become willing to sacrifice way more than we ever thought we might for our children.

12. Life tends to revolve around your kids. Things that are important to them become your driving passion.

13. If children are better behaved at other people’s houses than at home if means you’re doing something right.

14. Teenagers are full of life; it’s a heap of fun when they bring a whole lot of kids home.

15. Boobs, pubes and BO are an amazing moment.

16. The first boyfriend/girlfriend is big too.

17. The way kids are as youngsters is magnified in their teenage years. Thus a child that is born screaming and knowing how to press every button their parent has will do that even more at 15, whilst one who is calm and easygoing will be easy to live with at that age.

18. As they grow towards adulthood a curious mixture of emotions overtakes us. Relief that the job’s nearly over (for now), trepidation (or more like an absolute knowing) that we might not really have them ready for the big wide world, and how will they ever survive? Sadness that they are about to be gone, excitement for them for all the adventures they are about to have as they start out in their own lives.

19. Every emotion is exaggerated when it is brought on by your kids; joy, anger, happiness, sadness, they’re all much bigger than they would be if it was someone else involved.

20. Relationships between each child and each parent within a family differ. That’s just how it is.

21. We take great pride in the achievements of our children, whether that’s learning a musical instrument, being good at sport, doing well at school or anything else at all.

22. Having kids makes you think about your relationship with your own parents.

23. The usefulness of kids at doing chores changes. When they’re really little they want to help but they get in the way and slow everything down. Then they gradually become more useful. Finally, when they are fully functioning, they don’t want to do chores anymore.

24. Breastfeeding is awesome.

25. Giving birth hurts.

26. Recovering from a caesarean is even worse.

27. The thought of becoming a grandma is exciting.

28. Reading bedtime stories to children is one of life’s great pleasures.

29. Parenting is a full-time job, and it’s not a phase; once you’re a parent it’s for ever. This bit took me about 3 years to figure out after I had my first child and I was quite overwhelmed with the thought that unlike everything else I had ever done, this actually had no endpoint.

30. Children think differently, it’s fun to get into their imaginations with them and go places you don’t normally go.

30 of Casey's designs

2008-09-08T22:15:00.013+08:00

The 8th of 30 lists of 30 things

My daughter Casey has this little notebook in which she does designs. I love their intricacy, so I photographed the 52 she has done to date and chose my favourite 30.

She had something to say about every image, so I’ve included those comments here.

She wants to be a professional circus entertainer, but I think she also has a future in design if she wants it!

“This is a random little dude.”

“The one question that bugs me.”

“I was bored.”

“I was feeling like doing some intricate designs.”

“Inspired by the clay cakes we made at school.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think this one needed a background, because the writing looks cool.”

“I don’t remember doing it, it just is.”

“I don’t remember doing this one either.”

“The most true saying in the world. And the coolest.”

“This one’s fun. I asked Angelique for a word and she said rose, so I did that in the background.”

“This all started with Mara writing ‘I miss u’ in the middle, and I wrote random words after that.”

“My friends were playing a board game which had a map of the world and I didn’t get how to play because it was really complicated. So I drew.”

“I was talking on the phone, laying on your bed, and I asked you what else I should do and you said nothing, just leave it like that, it looks good.”

“Dedicated to our school play.”

“I was investigating different pens.”

“This one speaks for itself.”

“I like the O’s because you can look at them two ways. You can focus on the lines, or the petal-shaped spaces in between.”

“Why what? The clouds were really confusing to draw.”

“Hah hah. The flowers are cool because they’re like windmills.”

“I had no idea where to go with this one.”
(Cath: This is possibly my favourite one out of the whole lot, though the random little dude at the start runs a close second and I also love the flower in a pot, the tree trunk and the frangipani flowers below.)

“Billions of words dedicated to our trip to Broome.”

“I like this one. Why? I like the shading of the sun and the birds and the tree.”

“Where do I find all that spare time?”

“I like this one, I like those flowers. They’re kind of like frangipanis.”

“That’s me.”

“I like the cool little dude with the big sunnies.”

“This could be a photo frame.”

“I received a text message and it just sounded cool.”
(We edited this image so J wouldn’t receive random phone calls)

“Dedicated to my mother. We won’t mention chicken, because it’s only written in 4 of them. Why chicken? I don’t know, we all say chicken. Isabelle says it, Rowie says it, it’s just chicken. I am now making a solemn promise to myself that whenever I do one it will have chicken written in it.”

30 things I love about camping

2008-09-08T22:13:00.001+08:00

The 7th of 30 lists of 30 things

Some people don’t get into camping but it’s my idea of the perfect way to live. I would camp a lot more if I could. My daughter and I came up with this list in about 5 minutes flat, and this is as it came.

1. The smell of the tent and swags. Every time we open them up, I take a good, deep whiff, and sigh with the pleasure of it.
2. Waking up early.
3. Being somewhere different.
4. Cooking on a campfire.
5. Nobody else around.
6. Jaffles for breakfast. (That’s as in toasted sandwiches in a ‘jaffle iron’.)
7. No problems or business things to worry about.
8. Being able to explore a new place.
9. Organising ‘the house’. It’s all so straightforward and uncomplicated in a tent.
10. Laying in the tent at night when it’s raining.
11. Spending time with family or friends.
12. Eating different kinds of foods.
13. Ricecream!
14. The sound of tent zips.
15. Our cosy swag.
16. Being out in nature.
17. Less dishes.
18. Going for walks, especially in the early morning.
19. Birdsong, especially at dawn.
20. The smell of the forest, if we’re camping there.
21. Our camping gear – the light, the stove. Putting it together and being stoked we’ve got it. 22. Getting away from technology.
23. Taking lots of photos.
24. Creating memories.
25. Getting there.
26. The excitement of the preparation; making lists.
27. Always something to do but no pressure to do anything.
28. Collecting wood and lighting the fire.
29. Our ‘Birdcage’, a fabulous fold-up BBQ plate with legs, for use on an open campfire made by my Dad. The name is a reference to an incident many years ago which the family has not forgotten, mostly because variations on the theme reoccur with some regularity. We are honoured, quite frankly, to have our own birdcage project.
30. Meeting new people.

30 cool, free or low cost family weekend activities

2008-09-08T22:09:00.002+08:00

The 6th of 30 lists of 30 things.

Weekends are a good time for the family to spend some time together, in our opinion. We always used to ensure that we had a ‘family activity’, though nowadays we don’t do as many things with all 4 of us because the eldest is on his own trajectory. All the activities on this list are things that we’ve done at one time or another.

1. Chop wood.
2. Play soccer. We sometimes play Dad vs the rest of the family. He always wins.
3. Walk on the beach. 4. Walk a walking track from one location to another.
5. Canoe on the river.
6. Go camping.
7. Crabanoeynorkelling, or just crabanoeing if it’s cold. That’s a cross between crabbing, canoeing and snorkelling, for the uninitiated. You go crabbing out of a canoe, but with someone (ie Dad) in the water to advise when to pull the nets and to catch the ones that get away.
8. Play badminton.
9. Ride bikes.
10. Play bocce on the lawn.
11. Play Rummikub.
12. Visit a nearby area; go sightseeing.
13. Snorkelling in the ocean.
14. Go on a picnic. 15. Go to garage sales.
16. Weeding trapeze camping party. This one’s pretty specific. Say you had a guy living near you with a flying trapeze rigged up. And say he hosted the annual Circus Festival for your area. If his place had heaps of weeds and your kids had heaps of friends, you can see how you might organize for the whole lot of them to go down there, weed like Trojans for a few hours, then play on the flying trapeze in the afternoon. Naturally they’d all stay the night too.
17. Visit friends or relatives.
18. Practice juggling together.
19. Go on outings such as nature walks put on by local environmental organizations.
20. Make a movie.
21. Pose for some wacky photos.
22. Make and decorate a fun cake. 23. Go fishing.
24. Have a treasure hunt where one clue leads to another, some cryptic.
25. Play sardines. One of the most fun things I have ever done was to play sardines at the house of some relatives. They had a great place for it. One person hides in a good place for others to squeeze into, and everyone else hangs out in the bathroom (or similar) counting to 50. As each person finds the hider, they join them until there is only person left searching. They get to hide next time. Everyone, including all the adults, joined in and it was a blast.
26. Play spotlight. One of the other most fun things I have done was to play spotlight at a school camp I was attending as a parent helper. There were two trees on opposite sides of a large area dotted with smaller shrubs. The trees held the flag of the respective teams. The aim was to capture the flag of the opposing team without being caught, which happened when someone shined their torch and called ‘Spotlight Cath!’ They would only say Cath to me, obviously, because that’s my name. When you got caught you had to go back to the time out bay for a minute. It was really adrenalin inducing!
27. Go spider spotting on a night walk. Hold a torch at your temple, so the light is shining straight from your eyes. You can see the spider eyes. If you hold the torch in a different place you don’t see them.
28. Explore some caves.
29. Make cards.
30. Make a fire and cook damper on a stick. This was a favourite thing to do with my brothers when I was a kid.

30 ways we make our money go further

2008-09-06T23:10:00.003+08:00

The 5th of 30 lists of 30 things.

We started our married life with two small kids and one income, so we’ve learned some pretty cunning tricks over the years when it comes to saving money.

I notice that a lot of the ways we save money are also ways to live responsibly from an ecological point of view. Many are also ways to live a real and meaningful life, connected to the planet and each other.

I had to think really hard to come up with this list, because these things are so deeply ingrained they are just how we live. I had to think about what other people do, because I often marvel that people who don’t have a lot of money seem to waste so much of it. The old thing about spending less than you earn seems so obvious, yet it seems to have escaped many.

1. We grow some of our own food. Lately we’ve been a bit slack in the vegie garden, but our fruit trees are maturing nicely and give buckets of fruit every summer. We often grow sprouts in the kitchen. 2. We preserve surplus fruit and vegetables, mostly by drying them. We don’t limit this to home-grown produce either; at the end of summer when we see cheap locally grown pumpkins, we buy a whole lot and hang them in our chook shed, then use them throughout the year. 3. If we see a mega-special in the supermarket, we buy up, then do a big cook up and freeze meals for later.
4. We try to cook foods that expand rather than contract when cooked. They’re cheaper, and good for you too. That includes rice and pulses, as opposed to meat. I’m not a meat eater anyway…
5. We make our own bread.
6. We dry out the end crusts and make our own breadcrumbs.
7. We don’t eat out, and cook well at home. In summer, when we are eating freshly caught seafood with vegetables straight from the garden, I wonder if any restaurant could match it.
8. We don’t buy takeaway food.
9. We buy very little pre-prepared food from the supermarket.
10. We rarely buy individual serves of things because they are expensive. Zip lock bags and small containers are our friends.
11. We keep chooks for their eggs. 12. We don’t buy coffees all the time. This one really blows me away, I know people that buy takeaway drinks for the whole family on a regular basis. It must cost a packet.
13. We take food when we go to places. We make lunches, pack water and other drinks, and keep plates, forks and serviettes in the car. It’s an easy habit to get into. We try to make sure there are enough snacks to keep everyone happy, so that we don’t need to buy food when we’re out.
14. We home brew our beer.
15. We trained our kids up from an early age in the what-to-expect-mum-and-dad-will-buy department. Other kids had canteen lunches from school once a week, they got it once a term, ie 4 times a year. One year we bought them a trampoline for Christmas, and explained that it cost the same amount as lunches once a week. They both agreed they’d much rather the trampoline and not long afterwards forgot about the once a term deal altogether.
16. At Christmas time we take crayfish that we have caught ourselves as our contribution to the family dinner. 17. We buy Christmas presents all year. I have one bag for each family member, ie about 30 people. When we see something that is absolutely perfect, and a bargain as well, we buy it and put it into the appropriate bag. It’s always such a buzz to pull the collection out around November and see what kind of starting point we have for our Christmas shopping.
18. When doing a few chores in town, we try to park in one location and walk. It takes a bit of extra time though, so it’s not always possible.
19. We clean our own house. Actually we also save money on cleaning products, because we hardly ever get around to cleaning the house…lol.
20. We mow our own lawn.
21. We volunteer to help out on things that we’d otherwise have to pay for, or just wouldn’t get to see. We’re both volunteer cinema projectionists, so we get to see all the movies that come to town. We help out with visiting shows, volunteer for music festivals, and run house concerts. I have even helped out on a number of professional development courses, and saved thousands by not having to pay for them.
22. We cut our own hair. Well, my daughter cuts my hair and I cut the boys’ hair. Said daughter insists on having a hairdresser do hers, but we have a wonderful mobile hairdresser come to our house and she charges less than salon rates.
23. We don’t have a credit card debt. My mum taught me this one when I was young and we have always paid our card off in full each month. There are much cheaper ways to obtain finance.
24. We stay with friends when we travel to the city, and we mostly go camping when we’re on holidays.
25. We drive our small car whenever possible, to save on fuel.
26. We wash full loads of clothes and dishes. This seems like a no-brainer to me, until I go somewhere and see that not everyone does it.
27. We are energy conscious. We try to keep lights off when not needed, and minimize the amount of gas we use, for example by only putting the required amount of water into the kettle for hot drinks. We don’t even own a clothes dryer.
28. We shower together! Well, not all of us. Daughter locks and bars the door. We try to keep our showers short.
29. We gather our own firewood (from the appropriately designated firewood collection areas…).
30. We go to garage sales for bargains. The advantage is picking up things that you wanted to buy for a fraction of their new price, the disadvantage is you can’t dictate when you’ll get each thing.

30 things to do to get fit

2008-09-04T17:04:00.003+08:00

The 4th of 30 lists of 30 things.

Spring is a great time to think about shedding the winter fat. I like to mix up my exercise so here are 30 suggestions.

1. Go for a run.
2. Ride a bike somewhere that you might have otherwise driven.
3. Go for a swim in a pool, or in the ocean. Use flippers sometimes to make it more fun and give your legs a good workout.
4. Snorkel in the sea for hours on end, with a wetsuit if it’s cold.
5. Go for a brisk walk somewhere beautiful.
6. Walk to the shops and carry home the shopping in a backpack (good weights training).
7. Play soccer with your kids or mates. 8. Play hockey, maybe even in a team.
9. Play tennis, or table tennis.
10. Play badminton just for the fun of it.
11. Play backyard cricket.
12. Shoot some basketball hoops with your kids.
13. Stretch.
14. Do the 5 minute workout to wonderment (10 x abdominal exercises, 30 seconds each).
15. Hula hoop – this is much more tiring than one might think.
16. Knead bread by hand for 10 minutes.
17. Jump on a trampoline.
18. Ride a skateboard, or go roller blading.
19. Go to the gym, or do a gym session at home (chair dips, lifting heavy things, etc)
20. Do some handstands and cartwheels. Stretch first.

21. Go canoeing.
22. Strip paint from an old house, or other assorted renovating jobs.
23. Clean up a backyard after a tenant has trashed it.
24. Decide that’s a crap way to exercise, have sex instead.
25. Ride a horse.
26. Ride a unicycle.
27. Dig up a garden.
28. Shift a pile of bricks from one place to another.
29. Invite a few friends over, create a circuit. Go to their place next time.
30. Dance.

30 things we cook for dinner

2008-09-03T10:48:00.008+08:00

The 3^rd of 30 lists of 30 things.

‘What to cook for dinner?’ is a question that sometimes drives me to despair. I often ask other people what they’re having in case it provides inspiration. We eat mostly vegetarian food, as well as seafood. The boys in the house are meat eaters, but not very often at dinner because I organize most of the cooking.

Here are 30 things we cook, especially during winter. The first seven are often made in our slow cooker and are all great for freezing.

Basa/seafood curry with rice - usually made with coconut milk.
Black bean stew
Chick pea hot pot
Lentil hot pot

Vegetable curry, sometimes with rice. We always make this when the cupboard gets full of empty peanut paste jars. We wash them out with a little bit of hot water and put it into the curry. Actually, I do the vegemite and jam jars while I’m at it. Weird eh?
Tofu curry
Tuna hot pot
Pumpkin soup
Clear soup – a quick dish made with onion, garlic, quick cook noodles, dried vegetables from our garden last summer (zucchini, tomatoes), dried shitake mushrooms, soy sauce, black pepper, Tabasco sauce, a touch of tomato paste, etc.
Pea soup – often in two batches, one with a bone and one without.
Minestrone soup – it’s probably not ‘real’ minestrone but it’s a tomatoey pasta soup.
Floured basa, calamari rings and vegetables. Basa is a cheap, imported and often insulted fish. It’s true that it’s tasteless, but it has a good texture and it’s affordable for working families. You just have to treat it like tofu, ie infuse it with flavours. It works well in a fish curry, and we really enjoy it crumbed or floured, then fried. One of our favourite ways to cook it is to toss it in a 50/50 mix of white and wholemeal plain flour, with vegie salt, black pepper and a goodly dose of Cajun spices. Fry in a little bit of oil, serve it with vegetables, and the audience goes wild every time.
Salmon and best vegetables – this is our celebration dinner. It costs about $20 for the 4 bits of fish, so we reserve it for special occasions. It’s still a lot cheaper than eating out.
Roasted vegetables – potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, garlic. Drizzled with local olive oil and topped with a couple of rosemary sprigs straight from the garden. Sometimes home-made wedges, with Cajun spices and local olive oil.

Stir fry vegetables with home-made satay sauce
Tuna mornay
Spaghetti bolognaise with vegetarian ‘mince’
Salmon patties
Palak paneer – a delightful spinach dish. One of our favourite dinners, it’s easy to make; the worst part is washing the greens. Recipe below.
Impossible pie (ie quiche) – everything gets put into a casserole dish, then it comes out as a quiche with a pastry base. Magic!
Spinach and ricotta pie
Nachos – with kidney beans. Sometimes in two batches, one with flesh.
Sushi
Pizza – with hand-made bases.
“Samosas” – our name for a generic meal that we make when the fridge is full of leftovers. We make up some pastry, roll it out into rounds, place some filling in the middle, and seal it up. Bingo. Visiting kids love helping out with this one.
Pies – same dog, different leg action. We have some groovy pie dishes that we snaffled at a garage sale.
BBQ – chicken and other meat for the boys, tofu and vegetarian sausages for the girls, sliced zucchini with cheese on top, corn cobs. Steamed vegies from the kitchen if I get it together.
Rice with tuna and salad/vegetable items – a desperate and dirty meal. We cook the rice, open a tin of tuna, then find whatever we can in the fridge or garden. Cherry tomatoes, rocket, previously cooked carrot, corn and peas, etc. A bit of mayo or soy sauce and you’re good to go. Takes about 15 minutes from beginning to end. The funny thing about this dinner is that it’s always really delicious.
Fish and chips from the freezer – now we’re really getting down to the pointy end. It’s the weekend, we’ve had a long day at soccer, we’re tired and can’t be bothered. Crumbed fish goes onto the tray. Chips go onto another tray. Garlic bread goes in if husband is involved. Maybe, if we’re really onto it, we’ll steam some frozen peas and corn.
Pasta with shop pasta sauce - sacrilege in some places. But there are times when we are doing well to cook some dried pasta, open a jar of sauce, chop some mushrooms to add to it, and serve the whole lot topped with grated cheese and dried parmesan. Easy, and good.

Palak Paneer recipe

Take a handful or several of onion, garlic and ginger, and fry with about 2 tablespoons of Thai Green Curry Paste. Adjust the amount according to taste, some pastes can be very hot.

Add some mint. Note that I never have any mint to hand, so I omit this step.

Add a bunch or 6 of steamed silverbeet and/or spinach.

And a cup or more of frozen peas.

Cook it for a bit then blend it.

Add baked ricotta cubes, and warm through.

Serve with white rice.

(It's good to make it 24 hours before and put the cheese in about 12 hours before, to really get the flavours happening.)

If you have trouble getting baked ricotta you can use tofu cubes or other types of cheeses, such as camembert. But nothing’s as good as the baked ricotta, believe me.

30 Festival CD's

2008-09-02T15:20:00.004+08:00

The 2^nd of 30 lists of 30 things.

Over the years I have taken my offspring along to many music festivals. We started off at Port Fairy Folk Festival, because we lived over that way. Nowadays we make an annual pilgrimage to the Fairbridge Festival in Western Australia. Music festivals, where you camp onsite for a few days, are so much fun. They’re like a whole different world.

I have amassed quite a collection of CD’s, some purchased and others by nefarious means. Here are 30, although it’s a bit of a cheat because the final 3 are actually collections.

1) The Wailin’ Jennys

2) Rory McLeod

3) Fine Friday

4) Jodi Martin

5) The Waybacks

6) Frencham Smith

7) The Von Trolley Quartett

8) Bomba

9) Jigzag

10) Akasa

11) Tok Pan Tok

12) Sirocco

13) Sirocco again

14) Valanga Khoza

15) Jean-Paul Wabotai

16) Fairbridge Festival Sampler 2006

17) Fairbridge Festival Sampler 2004

18) Fairbridge Festival Sampler 2002

19) Fairbridge Festival Sampler 2005

20) The Velvet Janes

These ones were given to me for being a good sort. Most were a gift because I organized house concerts in Margaret River after seeing the act at festivals. Michael Kennedy posted me his CD because he was so stoked that I photographed him up on stage playing with his childhood idols, Goanna.

21) The 2 Strings Band

22) Michael Kennedy

23) The Spooky Men

24) Stephen Taberner

25) Fred Smith

26) Akasa

27) David Hyams & The Miles To Go Band

These ones were also gifts. My good friends Scott, Louisa, Ruth, Lucy and Rowena Wise have given me all their CD’s over the years, as well as the Shooters’ CD’s, since Scott is a band member. The CD’s, like the live acts, make excellent listening.

My friend gave me the Los Blancos ones. Her brother Colin is in the band. I saw them perform when I was in Syracuse, New York and they were great. I even got a name check. Go me.

28) The Wise Family Band, Scott & Louisa Wise

29) Ten Cent Shooters

30) Los Blancos

30 things to be grateful for

2008-09-01T20:57:00.007+08:00

The 1^st of 30 lists of 30 things.

It seems appropriate that the first list ought to be a counting of blessings.

When thinking about how good life is, I often find myself wondering what it would be like to live without the things we take for granted.

1. Spring!

Down under, winter is behind us for another year. I know that in some parts of the world the season is considered to change at the equinox, but here, it happens on the 1^st of the month. I am so glad that we are moving towards summer…

2. Delightfully warm, sunny days.

Feeling that sunshine soak through into one's bones is about as good as it gets, in my opinion.

3. Rain.

We'd be a pretty messed up old world without it.

4. Strawberries, rockmelons, kiwi fruits and oranges.

They're the fruits that seem to be good value in our area at the moment, and we're loving them.

5. Peace.

I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to live in fear for my family.

6. Freedom.

We get to live where we want, how we want and with whom we want. We get to say what we want. I think that's pretty cool.

7. Supermarkets.

I just find shopping in a supermarket so much easier than hunting and gathering.

8. Fresh air.

In some parts of the world, when you blow your nose in the shower at night it comes out black. That doesn't happen where I live, except if I visit my folks and spend the day in the sheep yards. You get pretty black snot on those days. I'm very grateful for fresh air.

9. Fresh water.

How good is it that we have fresh running water on tap? Plus a choice of hot or cold? We drink, shower and even flush our toilets with high quality water.

10. White goods and gadgets.

I'm a gadget girl, and in the mornings I am known to stand in my kitchen and go “Yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about. I've got one washing the dishes, one washing the clothes, one making the bread, and one keeping everything cold. Go me.”

11. Bulbs pushing through the ground.

How do they know?

12. Ducklings.

I have seen 3 lots of ducklings in the last couple of weeks and they are so incredibly cute. It's good to be alive just to see ducklings.

13. The internet.

How cool is it having so much information at our fingertips? I love using Google maps, street view and satellite. When going somewhere for the first time, you can check it all out, then when you get there you know you're at the right place.

14. Money to buy things such as all the food we need.

15. Houses.

Caves were great, back in the day, but houses have a lot more going for them.

16. The postal service.

It's pretty awesome that a postie brings things right to our doorstep every day.

17. Good health.

Unbeatable really. It makes life a whole lot easier to enjoy.

18. Cars, motorbikes, bicycles, trains, planes, boats, buses etc, to get around.

Sometimes when I drive to the next town I consider what it must have been like 200 years ago, when a journey that we now make in half an hour would take most of the day.

19. An abundance of clothes.

There are so many clothes in our society. Our local Lions Club have a garage sale every second week and you can fill a plastic bag to the brim for $3.

20. Books.

The first books were written by hand. People tended not to own a lot of books in that situation. Now it's difficult to imagine life without books.

21. Music

CD's, radio, internet; it's all so accessible.

22. Sports facilities

Beautifully maintained grass pitches, swimming pools, gyms. Really, we have it good.

23. Hospitals and doctors and nurses.

Arrgghh, imagine no access to medical facilities.

24. Miracles of nature.

Intricate patterns on leaves, migrating birds and whales, and galaxies, to help us keep things in perspective.

25. Schools and universities.

26. Living in a developed country.

Opportunities for men and women.

27. Sleep.

Ah sleep....

28. Herbal tea and dark chocolate.

But not at the same time. Herbal tea when you get up, dark chocolate later in the day.

29. Families.

Mums, dads, daughters, sons, husbands, wives. Life wouldn't be the same without families.

30. Photographs.

It's so much fun to take photos and even more fun to look back on them in future years.

30 days, 30 lists of 30 things

2008-09-01T20:56:00.000+08:00

The first day of spring is a great time to get something new started. With all the new life about, it's easy to be inspired. I have been busy with my work and the circus school, and not blogging even though it's something I want to do. So I have decided that for the 30 days of September I will create 30 lists of 30 things. Every day there will be a different topic, and I'm anticipating that it will provide the impetus to hunt out the time in my schedule when I can sit down to write. And now I've said I'm going to do it, I have to do it. No pressure or anything.

Margaret River to Broome

2008-08-29T14:42:00.014+08:00

During the last school holidays we drove up to Broome. 'We' entailed myself, my two teenage children and one of their friends. Husband dear had to stay behind to work, poor fellow.

5200km on the road with 3 teenagers was a lot more fun than it sounds to the untrained ear.

I took massive amounts of photos and videos, but this one was the pic of the trip, in my opinion. I just love its spontaneity. Our 3 teenagers are part of the down south circus mob and they spent most of their 10 days with the Broome circus mob, whom they have met at the fabulous WA Circus Festival.

One day I took a carload of kids to the beach, and it turned out that between the 8 of us, only 5 had towels. So one of the kids suggested we line them up side by side so that we could all share, and thus the opportunity presented itself.

Our first stop on the journey was to help blow out the candles on a 3 year old's birthday cake. It was some cake!

We took several days to get to Broome and passed some stunning scenery on the way.

Mostly, we camped somewhere on the side of the road, but on our last night before Broome we camped at the start of 80 Mile Beach, at a place variously mapped as Cape Kerauden/Cape Keraudren. It was a lovely location, but in our eyes it was tarnished by the excessive number of generators. This would be solved by allocating one camping area to be generator-free.

I had never been to Broome and I absolutely loved it.

We were very fortunate to be given a piece of backyard in which to pitch our tent at a friend's place. He lives close to Cable Beach, so I made the most of it with early morning walks every day. We also enjoyed going down to the other end, where everyone swims, at sunset.

Circus

The circus connection was fabulous. Not only did we have an instant social network up there, we got to train, perform and get together for juggling at every opportunity with the Sandfly Circus group.

Karijini National Park (not as good this time)

On the way home we called in to Karijini National Park, which we visited and absolutely loved last year in October.

What a different place it is in July! It wasn't anywhere near as wonderful, in our opinion. For a start, it was absolutely packed out, so we arrived late at night and were met by two older gentlemen who told us in a very un-sorry voice that they were sorry there was no camping to be had, and we had to go back to the overflow camp 12km away. When we got there we found a doof-doof party apparently in progress, complete with lazer lights. So given that we were just going to throw our swags on the ground for 8 hours before heading off again, we tried the carpark of the visitors centre, but found there was a loud generator operating. As my son said, “it's unbelievable that out in the middle of nowhere we can't find a peaceful place to sleep!”

We ended up finding an alternative spot where we had a peaceful night's rest before heading off to explore Dales Gorge for the morning.

The second reason we didn't love it as much this time was because it was nowhere near as warm, so swimming was only for the slightly insane. Last year, we just loved jumping in and out of every waterhole we came across. This year we didn't get wet at all.

But probably more to the point for me was that the contrast between top and bottom was gone. In October, it's hot up the top and gloriously cool down in the gorges. In July, it's just coolish everywhere.

What are you about, in just 4 words?

2008-06-05T11:41:00.003+08:00

Yesterday morning I was reading one of the 6 Dr. Demartini books I bought (“How to Make One Hell of a Profit and Still Get to Heaven”), and got to a story he was relating about an actress he met on a plane.

He asked her 3 questions - “What made you become an actress?” She had seen Judy Garland as a young child, and had decided on the spot that this was her destiny. “Do you focus your mind on this dream?” It was all she thought about. And “Do you say any affirmations to yourself?” To this last question, she pulled out a little dog-eared piece of paper that simply said “I sing. I dance.”

Reading this, I was moved to tears. That lady knew exactly what she was about.

I wanted to be like the actress; able to summarise who I am and what I’m about in just 2 x 2 word sentences.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about the big questions (Why am I here, Where have I come from, Where am I going, Who am I?) and though I’ve come up with some answers, I couldn’t have put it so succinctly.

I made the decision that the best use of my day would not be to make further progress along the path I thought I was taking, but to spend the time really thinking about my mission, my whole purpose for being here on this earth.

It was a glorious sunny day, so I packed a few snacks, my books, a chair and a beanbag, and headed out into the wild, where I do my best thinking. I drove down a road I’ve never been on before, and found a great spot to sit next to a patch of bush, and overlooking open farmland.

There I spent the next few hours, asking myself all the questions about what I’d really love to do with my life. I put no limitations on it, I just gave myself total freedom to think about what I’d really do if only I could. The answers that came back were amazing. They were big. Actually, they were huge. I was thinking, “Whoa, are you serious?”

The project I embarked on last year is kindergarten stuff by comparison. Unlike that one, I don’t have a do or die time limit (unless you count the end of my life, which would be pretty final), so I am now free to set goals and break them down to the daily actions required to get there, knowing that my goals are inevitably moving towards me.

I have done this kind of thing before, but it feels a lot more powerful this time, in the context of the rest of the teachings of Dr. Demartini.

I got my 2 x 2 word sentences too. I’m not quite ready to share them yet, I want to sit quietly with them myself first.

Do you know who you are and what you're about in just 4 words? Would those 4 words summarise your mission, your purpose, the whole reason you are living this mortal life?

www.cathwood.com

“I gave up positive thinking; it made me too f***ing sad”

2008-05-29T11:57:00.002+08:00

This was a statement made by Dr John Demartini at a 2 day event I did with him recently. I hardly even know where to begin writing about this man, and I can't believe I hadn't even heard of him until a few weeks ago. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

I attended a one day course about 3 weeks ago, and was fortunate enough to be there as crew, having been recommended to the organisers, Global1, by my friends at Powwow Events, for whom I'd staffed at a John Burley event a couple of months before. I only went to see the delightful Maurice Goldberg, a financial planner I had seen at the John Burley event and who was travelling with Dr Demartini. I didn't know who 'the other guy' was.

At that event I was inspired by what I heard from Dr Demartini, and came home feeling that I'd found my 'missing link'. For some time I've been feeling that there are some important lessons I have yet to learn in order to move to the place in which I want to be.

That night, Dr Demartini gave an advanced presentation for his many long-time students, to which I also listened. I felt like a kindergartener in a university lecture. At the end, people asked questions which not only indicated they understood what he was talking about, but had their own thoughts as well. I had very little idea what anyone was talking about, it may as well have been in another language half the time. At last, a course of study to sink my teeth into! I was absolutely thrilled to be invited back to help crew the 2 day 'Breakthrough Experience'.

I have since seen a diagram of the whole curriculum; it starts with a variety of one day courses, such as the one I did, then has progressively longer events such as the 2 day one from which I have just returned, and the 7 day event which is running in Sydney as we speak. At the end of the curriculum is a 21 year correspondence course!!! I haven't enrolled in that one yet.

'The Breakthrough Experience' is described in the front of the identically named book as being 'designed to help you break through whatever barriers may be keeping you from experiencing your true and enlightened nature.' Since most of us have been busily building up these barriers since we were wee little things, it can take a bit of work. Quite a few people were there for their 2nd, 3rd, or 4^th (or more) time.

I spent a very intense 9 hours or so doing my first ever 'collapse'. I was asked to pick someone I had a 'charge' over, for example someone who had done things that upset me. Most people end up picking a close relative and I was no exception. I had to list 7 traits about that person that really annoyed me, upset me, or pissed me off. I also had to list 7 traits that I admired about that person.

A long and involved process then took place, in which we came to understand how we also personally had every one of those traits, both positive and negative, as we had called them. We came to see how every 'negative' trait had an equal and opposite 'positive' and vice versa. There was a lot more to it too, we had 6 columns to fill in for every single trait, ie 84 boxes in all. No spaces were to be left blank, and if Dr Demartini asked you to put 20-50 examples of something in a box, that's what you did. He doesn't actually take no for an answer. You can see why it might take 9 hours. It was a very powerful process and by the end of it I was getting confused with which of my lists was the 'good' list and which was the 'bad'. I came to see how one of the things on my 'bad' list was the whole reason I was even at the course, as crew. Wicked! I had powerful feelings of love and gratitude for my chosen subject by the end. I was more balanced.

Dr Demartini says the whole universe works on duality, so there can't be happy without sad, peace without war, good without bad. Once we come to the point of gratitude for the perfection of it all, life becomes a lot more straightforward.

It's good stuff, in my opinion.

I was asked to write more!

2008-03-28T05:45:00.002+08:00

I went to Sydney recently and whilst there met up with an investing colleague who took me aside and told me how much he'd enjoyed reading my words, and that he really wanted me to KEEP WRITING!!!!

It felt like one of those seminal moments, and I was so grateful.

Recently I haven't been sure what purpose my blog serves, and more specifically, what it's about. I started it up to log the process of attempting to secure a large block of land, but once that project finished, it sort of went a bit... quiet.

I have missed blogging because I really enjoy writing and sharing some of what I'm doing.

Jon said that it was important to him because he was trying to find meaning and balance in his life, so seeing photos of my camping trip to Karijini National Park, for example, was enough to make him pause and wonder if he was doing that enough with his family?

Thus I have decided to keep writing, and I won't worry about "the meaning of my blog" too much. If I enjoy writing it and Jon enjoys reading it, and one or two other people along the way drop in, then that's a good thing.

Since I have very clear goals for what I want out of life, this blog will largely, I guess, reflect my journey.

That means it will cover topics quite varied, such as real estate investing, personal development, travelling, gardening, cooking, and living a meaningful life. It breaks all the rules of internet marketing because it's not a carefully defined niche, but since I'm not trying to sell anything, who cares?

Thanks Jon, by the way.

Empowernet - not winning any awards for customer excellence

2008-03-28T05:25:00.007+08:00

So, the latest news. (This is the 4th Empowernet post...)

The recording

Everyone received their CD sets recently. That's as in the recording of the 5 days. Yay! It only took 5 months, but yay.

Oh hang on, actually, no, that's not quite right. Everyone did not receive their CD sets. Only half the people in the room received their sets. That's right, those of us that were 'guests' and who were told that we would be receiving a CD set got shafted. Again.

I rang up to ask where my set was, and was told that I wasn't receiving CD's because I was only a guest. I commented that the whole "primary vs guest" thing needed a bit of a rethink, in my opinion, because my mate and I had gone over as equals and paid a half share each, as had many others, but that I now didn't exist as a customer except as a name on the database to whom more stuff should be sold.

The whole thrust of the program was that we ought to work together, and that we had attended the first part of a year long series, and that they really wanted us to succeed during that year. I suggested, on the phone, that this was clearly not true for half the audience and that it was starting to look like we'd wasted our time even attending.

The lady on the phone went into a long defensive spiel about the great value the guests had received 'for free' and suggested it was our problem if we'd gone halves with the person deemed the 'primary'. I said that I didn't want to argue, I was just saying that as a customer, it felt totally crap.

Honestly.

The quarterly updates

Now, how about those quarterly updates? On the morning of 23 January I talked to the Empowernet office and they said the schedule was being put together and we'd be notified soon. I requested plenty of advance notice so that we could plan around it, especially those of us from the country. I was assured this would happen. Did it? No.....

The first "quarterly" update was scheduled for Sun 16th March and we were given less than 2 weeks notice. I had just booked tickets to be in Sydney for that weekend, and had to miss it.

Our address list

I wrote to the Empowernet office and pretty much demanded that our confiscated address list be returned to us as rightful owners, since Empowernet had no right, or legal standing on which to be refusing to give it to us. They wrote back to say "they couldn't find it".

Talking with others (most of the WA people are now back in touch, we're only missing one or two, I think) I think it would be fair to conclude that Empowernet could do some work on their customer satisfaction rating, lol.

Some news from Empowernet

2008-01-23T08:46:00.000+08:00

(This is the 3rd post in an Empowernet series.)

Following on from my wee rant of yesterday, I had a call from the Empowernet office this morning, telling me 3 things:

1) They can't send out the contact details because it would contravene the privacy act.

I contacted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and confirmed that this is incorrect. The act states that a company should not disclose details of their customers except where individuals consent to the disclosure.

Clearly, since we organised within our own group to share our details with each other, we consented to doing so. Empowernet has effectively confiscated our private document and I have written to them asking for it to be returned.

Note to self: Next time I'm at a course and delegates collect contact details from each other, DO NOT hand the info over to the organisers of the course.

There wasn't an answer for why nobody bothered to tell us this.

2) The recording is nearly finished and should be sent to us soon.

3) The schedule for the quarterly updates is being put together and we will be notified soon. Interestingly, the staff member on the phone knew nothing of these meetings and had to go away to find out about it.

We will wait and see what happens next....

Empowernet's shine wears off

2008-01-22T14:17:00.000+08:00

It's now a full two months since the Empowernet 5 day Advanced Real Estate Mastery Program, which was held in Melbourne, and I must say the glowing report I gave has been badly tarnished by what has happened since, which is to say nothing whatsoever.

No contact list, as promised

A big focus during the 5 days was to work in syndicates, and students from each state were encouraged to work together. The West Australian contingent did a great job of this, and we passed around a sheet of paper to record contact details so that we could all stay in touch. We were going to make copies for everyone, but were told to hand in the sheet, because the staff at Empowernet would type it up and email a copy to all of us.

Has that happened? No. So here we are, two months later, and none of us are in touch with each other.

Tardy travel rebate

At the Perth event, we were promised a $500 travel rebate if we went to the Melbourne event, to help offset the costs of getting there. Since the ticket deal was 'buy one, get one free', I went halves with a mate, and we are therefore going halves in the rebate. At the 5 day event, he was instructed to bring along his boarding pass in order to claim the rebate, which was a surprise for a start, because that was never mentioned in the beginning. However, he did the deed.

At least a month after returning, he made enquiries as to the whereabouts of the cash, and was told he had to submit his boarding pass. Again....

Last week, after lots of very polite messages had been left on the answering machine of the Empowernet phone that never gets answered, an extremely terse message was left by my mate, informing whoever listens to the messages that he thought he might be looking at a fraud situation, and was wondering if he needed to follow it up further? Lo and behold, the rebate hit his bank account the next day. How about that?

A guest is not really a real person

The 'buy one get one free' ticket deal has had its own challenges, because one of us had to put our name down as the "primary" while the other is a "guest". A number of us went halves as business associates, and are finding it rather disadvantageous to be a 'guest' since we kind of don't count as real customers.

Are the Quarterly Updates really going to happen?

We were told that we'd be getting together with Steven for quarterly updates, but so far we haven't heard any details of these. Given that quite a few of us don't live in the capital cities, we are going to need some notice so that we can plan our trips. We are hoping that a) the updates are going to happen, and b) we're going to receive advance notice of these.

Where's the recording of the 5 days?

The event was recorded and we were promised a copy so that we could listen again, which is a good thing since we heard so much information. However this recording has not turned up yet. Where is it? I know it takes a while to edit, but really...

And yet there seems to be time for marketing!

I find it interesting that Empowernet found the time recently to leave a long and tedious message on my mobile phone, "personally inviting" me to the 5 day Advanced Real Estate Mastery Program!!! Nice one fellas. For a start, I've already been, and for seconds, you still have work to do from that one.

I'm not really asking for that much

I think the real issue here is the silence. The rebate situation was deplorable, but for the rest of it, a simple email sent to every person who sat in that room for 5 days would be really helpful. If everyone in the office is busy or on holidays, the email could say "we're all busy and on holidays, but we're getting on top of the recording, and we'll type up those address lists just as soon as we can, and we'll let you know about the quarterly updates in the next week or two."

As it is now, it feels like they've taken our money and run.

I know this post is a very negative view of the Empowernet organisation, but heck, in my last post I practically awarded them sainthood! It's a shame they didn't retain all that goodwill by quickly and efficiently honouring the promises they made.

Empowernet Advanced Real Estate Mastery Program

2007-11-16T11:35:00.000+08:00

I have just returned from Melbourne, where I completed the 5 day Advanced Real Estate Mastery seminar. It's the first part of a year long program run by Steven Molnar. From here, I'll be attending quarterly updates, which will be run in capital cities, meaning I'll do mine in Perth.

Back in September I wrote about the free 2 day event I did. In that blog entry, I did a bit of a summary of what I learned.

Quite frankly, I am unable to summarise the 5 day event. It was absolutely phenomenal.

The only thing I can say is this - if you are investing in real estate and would like to take that to a whole new level (and there's always another level....) then you should MOST DEFINITELY get yourself along to Steve's 5 day event.

This guy is like nothing else I've seen. If you imagine some kind of crazy children's toy that jumps and leaps about with flashing lights and a large assortment of odd noises, and then imagine watching that thing go for more than 12 hours a day, and then you imagine that kind of energy in a human, you might start to get somewhere close to Steve Molnar. This is not to say that Steve jumps and leaps about, or that he has flashing lights or even that he makes odd noises, but boy, he is intense energy personified.

I would guess that Steve has an IQ of about 50 bazillion, and his knowledge base is huge. He is an outstanding presenter yet also very good one-on-one. He has the most delightful sense of humour and a way of engaging everyone with sincerity. Yes I know, it sounds like I want to shag him, but I can assure you I wasn't the only one.

It was like drinking from a fire hydrant, I was just mindblown at times. It's unusual in an event like this to actually receive so much new and useful information.

There were people of all levels at this seminar, from those who had never bought an investment property through to experienced property developers, so it was a mighty challenge for Steve to come up with a program that satisfied everyone. I think he did it exceptionally well. There was material that was old news to me, and there was stuff I'd never heard of. Then I'd hear from someone who had been using that technique for years.

A lot of the things discussed were very advanced and I am very glad that the event was recorded and I'll be receiving a copy. I will definitely be going over it again and again.

For me personally, this program was worth every cent I paid for it. I have studied the pyschology of investing and have enough deals under my belt that I'm not a beginner any more. This means that I can take what I've learned and put it into practice.

I will be interested to see how rank beginners go. If this was my first real estate investing education, I would think I might be feeling a little bit overwhelmed right now.

Ours was the first big group to take this seminar, so as the guinea pigs we got to experience the glitches that come with running an event like this for the first time. On the whole though, I thought it was absolutely excellent, and I heartily recommend it to any real estate investor.

www.cathwood.com

Melbourne Cup Beauty Queens Eat Pies

2007-11-07T09:16:00.000+08:00

I flew into Melbourne yesterday - Melbourne Cup day. I didn't get to see the race, darn it all, but I was thoroughly entertained by the aftermath.

Glamorous girls and guys came flooding out of train stations all around me, filling the streets with their gorgeous dresses, tiny hats, high heeled shoes and funky coloured suits and shirts.

The shine was gone though, this dishevelled lot were tired, sunburnt and for the most part, very, very pissed.

The dainty high heels were being carried in hands.

The dresses and hats were slightly askew and the shirts were no longer tucked in.

It looked like the whole of Melbourne had frocked up in their very best, then gone and had a most glorious time.

The highlight though, was seeing these divine creatures stuffing their mouths with takeaway food as they made their way down the street. There was something particularly entrancing about the lady and gent, still looking quite stunning, walking along and eating meat pies.

Arrgghh .... why didn't I run back and take a photo?

The definition of optimism

2007-11-04T05:21:00.000+08:00

This bloke walks up to me as I'm walking along a street in Brisbane and says, "Excuse me, this is going to sound a bit.. dodgy..."

I'm thinking, "Uh oh, if YOU think it's dodgy and you're doing it, what am I going to think?"

So he goes, "I think you're really good looking and I'm wondering if you've got, like, a phone number or something?"

Oh my god! Nice compliment, thankyou, I'll take it. But what a pick-up technique! Can you be serious?

What about a 'get to know you' conversation? Maybe "Hello" could be a good start? Perhaps we might even swap names and have come general chit-chat before advancing all the way to swapping phone numbers? The promise of our next date hangs deliciously in the air.

Not.

I wish I could report that he was a stunner but sadly the lad could do with losing a bit of weight. Putting a shirt on would help too. Nobody likes to see a flabby white belly, especially not when one is being hit upon.

I was relieved when we parted ways and dismayed when I saw him moments later on the train platform opposite mine. I became very interested in the contents of my bag, then I noticed he'd lit up a cigarette. Oh dear. Where any miniscule thread of hope for our future might have remained, I now knew for sure that we were just not made for each other.

www.cathwood.com

Honestly, it's not all about the food...

2007-10-31T19:10:00.000+08:00

A gap in my planning when I first left home to come on this trip meant that I wound up in Bunbury hungry. The stop was 5 minutes, meaning I had one option for food, which was the bus station café. There wasn’t much on offer, and it was early, so I asked for a cheese sandwich. A couple of dollars, I thought it would be.

"That’s $4.50 thanks," said the lady who knew I had no other options.

"$4.50? Gosh that seems pretty steep for a plain cheese sandwich," I replied. You can kick me while I’m lying down, but it doesn’t mean I have to take it quietly.

"That’s how much sandwiches cost these days, and if you went over the road it would cost you $6!" retorted the lady whose tone told me that I should just be grateful for what I was getting.

I’m talking white bread, and not the fancy sort. I’m talking margarine, not butter. And I’m talking about one thin little slice of cheese. Personally I reckon $4.50 is a bit over the top for that.

So I’m doing a bit of comparison as I travel about the place.

A couple of nights ago I managed to buy the worst fish and chips I have ever tasted anywhere in my life. And not just a little bit worse. A LOT worse. It was atrocious. But the service was fantastic.

Yesterday I blew all the competition out of the water when I got a massive plate of wedges for $6.90 at the Bondi Icebergs Club. Oh ok then, I also lashed out on an iced chocolate.

As if the food wasn’t good enough, I had spectacular views of Bondi Beach, and a pod of 3 whales came down the coast and obliged the lunchtime crowd by coming right into the bay for a splash around.

I spent a delightful couple of hours wandering the length of the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition, which is due to open in a couple of days. The artists were busy erecting their statues and I had some marvellous conversations with people from all over the world.

Some of these sculptures are pretty big to check as baggage.

http://www.cathwood.com/

What's everyone doing in my room?

2007-10-31T19:01:00.000+08:00

I went to Fairy Meadow (near Wollongong) a couple of days ago, but sadly I did not see a single fairy, nor any pixies or goblins.

I had to catch the 5:30am train at a station just over a kilometre away from where I was staying, so naturally I set the alarm for 5am, and was dressed and out the door by 5:06.

I almost didn’t get up when the alarm went off. I’d had a vivid dream that I got ready and left the house, only to discover that I was at my parents’ farm, in the wheatbelt of Western Australia. There is no public transport of any kind up there, so I wasn’t going to make it anywhere, let alone Fairy Meadow for a meeting. I didn’t know what I was going to tell the person I was seeing. When the alarm went off at 5am, my first thought was that it was pointless to get up, since I was nowhere near a train station anyway.

The journey was about two hours, and hardly anyone was on the train, so I took off my shoes and lay down on a row of 3 chairs, setting a reminder on my phone just in case I really did nod off. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone to sleep, because I kept hearing stations being announced, and occasionally I’d hear footsteps.

I was sadly mistaken however, and was obviously fast asleep when the reminder alarm went off. I bolted straight upright, utterly lacking all decorum and in a state of wild-eyed confusion. I was quite mortified to find that my bedroom was a train carriage now full of passengers, all looking at me in amusement.

Completely unsuccessful in my efforts to look nonchalant, I was very glad to scurry off the train at the next stop.

Exploring the gorges of Karijini National Park

2007-10-25T06:55:00.000+08:00

There are plenty of gorges to explore in Karijini National Park, each one seemingly more stunning than the last. The photo opportunities come thick and fast, from gorgeous vistas to interesting trees and rocks.

The two main areas promoted, and which we visited, are the Dales Recreation Area and the Weano Recreation Area. Both can be found on the map on my blog of Wed 24 Oct. We also explored Joffre Gorge, but didn’t get to any others this time as we only had 5 days.

As I describe our explorations, please bear in mind that my daughter and I are both quite fit, with some rock climbing skills. We were able to get to a lot more places than some people, but young children were getting to those places too, so I’m not talking about anything too complicated. It’s actually pretty obvious as you go along. If it looks like it’s beyond you, stop. Medical help is far away.

The Dales and Weano maps are really well done, with all the walks colour coded for degree of difficulty. Pink is 2 (easy), Green is 3, Yellow is 4, Blue is 5 (more difficult) and Red is 6 (don’t go here unless you’re an abseiler).

The actual walks come complete with markers picking out the best trail to follow.

We found the walks over-graded, on the whole. I’m sure that it looks different throughout the year, but during October it was all pretty accessible, and even the Class 5 walks were easily done.

Dales Recreation Area

The campground is within easy walking distance to Fortescue Falls, which we loved. It was such a bonus to nip down for an early morning dip in Fern Pool.

We developed a liking for the obvious loop walk, and did it several times. It’s probably about 3.5km depending where you’re camped. We were in Cockatoo Loop.

Starting from the top of Fortescue Falls, we’d walk along the (pink) clifftop path until we reached the stairs going down to Circular Pool.

We’d visit Circular Pool, which was one of our very favourite parts of Karijini (you walk through the most amazing ‘Babylonian gardens’ on the way). Circular Pool has lovely delicate waterfalls - curiously, of different temperatures – some really warm and some icy cold!

Then we'd walk back along the (yellow) path along the bottom of the gorge.

Going past Fortescue Falls,

we’d visit Fern Pool, which was another of our favourite spots. Both Circular and Fern pools are absolutely delightful places to swim. Fern Pool has a huge waterfall which gives an extremely invigorating massage when you get under it.

We’re not convinced about the grade 4 of the track along the bottom of the gorge. It seemed to us as easy as the walk along the top, but I guess at other times of the year it must get more challenging.

Weano Recreation Area

We walked the green track first, so that we came into Weano Gorge from quite far up. We enjoyed a swim along the way.

The track changes from green to blue as you begin the descent into Handrail Pool

The descent into Handrail Pool is pretty tricky and we saw an elderly lady, who was unable to do it and therefore sitting at the top, take a tumble. Luckily her husband had his leg wedged across the opening which prevented her from falling all the way down the rocks. It would have been nasty.

You have to make your way through running water, down a reasonably steep and narrow path, with slippery black algae underfoot. There’s a handrail to hold onto, then a rope to help in getting down the last couple of metres.

Handrail Pool is quite stunning. Once in there, you can continue into a dark and narrow alleyway, which looks very foreboding and makes you feel utterly adventurous and pioneering until you see young kiddies gallivanting up ahead.

There’s a very obvious stop point – a long drop down to the next pool which is where the red bit of the map starts (abseil only).

After lunch we headed over to Hancock Gorge, descending the ladder then making our way around to Kermits Pool. The track is graded 5 along the bottom of the gorge but it was easily done at this time of year. The map shows the track changing to red before you get to Kermits Pool, but this is incorrect. It is blue until after Kermits Pool.

There’s another very obvious stop point after Kermits Pool in the form of another long drop.

Joffre Gorge

Compared to the pandering we got at Dales and Weano, Joffre was a whole different scenario. No handy little colour coded maps here. The track is marked by yellow arrows, but it would easily be a Grade 5 descent into the gorge when stacked up against the others. There’s actually some rock climbing involved.

The descent into Joffre Gorge

To get to Joffre Gorge from the campground, you walk past the reception/bar area, past the turnoff to the tour group camping area, then got onto the walking track that heads off to the right. It’s got a little walking person symbol. You make your way down into the start of the gorge, where a sign points you up to the carpark on the other side. Going down along the gorge takes you to the bottom, but if you follow the track to the carpark, which is only vaguely marked in places, you’ll see a path heading off to a very well placed lookout.

At the bottom of the descent to the gorge you make your way around to the right, to the waterfall. To the left is a 300m long pool, which makes for a delightful swim.

I discovered it was 6km from the Joffre Gorge waterfall down to the intersection with Red, Hancock and Weano Gorges. I was very curious to know about hiking opportunities along this stretch, and when I asked I was advised that there was a ‘point of no return’ shortly after the 300m pool, so once you went over that, there was no turning back and you’d have to get out elsewhere.

My daughter and I teamed up with a couple from Sydney and found out that we could in fact get back over the point of no return, so we headed off down the gorge for an explore. It was absolutely sensational. We weren’t equipped for a long hike – you need to swim quite a lot of the sections, so we basically went empty handed. But we spent a couple of hours enjoying the vistas the gorge had to offer, and kept finding ourselves lured ever further by “let’s just see what’s around this corner.”

When we go back next time we definitely want to do a day hike – Joffre Gorge from waterfall to 4-way intersection, but we’ll need some sort of system to float our gear when we’re swimming, and carry when we’re walking. Any ideas?

We hiked out of Joffre gorge up and over the waterfall. It is easy at the beginning and the end, but there's a tricky bit in the middle.

An important note on this Joffre Gorge hike. Barely anyone goes beyond the 300m pool, so if something goes wrong you would not necessarily be found. We therefore let the reception know of our intentions, and reported back to them on our return. At the time of doing this, we were advised that if we didn’t return, a search party would not be sent out until the following day, so we’d spend at least one night in the gorge.

Karijini National Park Maps and Camping Information

2007-10-24T08:58:00.000+08:00

Before I left for Karijini, I searched the web for maps and information about camping at Karijini National Park and couldn’t find what I was looking for. Here it is, for all those coming after me:

There are two options for camping at Karijini, one at Dales campground, and one at Savannah Campground. Camping is not available at Weano Gorge or any of the other gorges.

The Dales campground is located right near Dales Gorge, about 12km from the visitor centre. The Savannah campground, which is part of Karijini Eco Retreat, is about 40km west of Dales, right on Joffre Gorge. It’s about 10km from Weano Gorge.

We enjoyed the Dales campground most, even though it had less facilities than Savannah. We just really liked the laid back atmosphere, and the fact that we could walk to all the local attractions.

There’s a special section for generators, and even though we don’t have a generator, we stayed in there because we had friends who did. The sites are well spaced, so we hardly noticed any of the other generators in any case.

"Oh woops, we forgot to take a photo of the campsite before we packed up the tent."

There’s no water at the Dales campsite, so you need to fill your vessels at the visitor’s centre. There are plenty of long drop toilets available. We didn’t feel the need for showers, having swum all day, but there are showers at the visitors centre available for $2 per person.

Dales campground was great value for us. We paid just $8.50 per night - $6.50 for an adult, and $2 for a child.

In contrast, Savannah campground cost us $22 per night. Apparently, approximately $1m was spent recently to install facilities including a water treatment plant, and it has all been very well done. The campground has showers, toilets, bush kitchens and covered eating areas. It was a nice change to do our dishes at a kitchen bench, with running water on hand.

Our first night at Savannah had us wondering if it was party central, but things quietened down a bit on the second night.

Shade is available at many of the sites in either location. Most have a choice of morning or afternoon shade, however at Savannah we were lucky enough to find a site that came with both, and we pitched our tent to take full advantage of that.

If you don’t want to camp, you can stay at one of the rooms on site. They are made of canvas, built on a small deck and covered by a shadesail roof. With your own ensuite, it’s $270 a night, or if you are happy to share bathroom facilities, it’s $175 a night.

There are no rubbish bins in the park at all, so you need to take all rubbish out with you. We had ants get into our rubbish, so we put it outside the tent where birds promptly tore it apart. Next time I’d take a strong garbage bag that I could put our full smaller bags into, and I’d tie it up so that ants couldn’t get into it.

In my next blog I’ll talk about exploring the gorges.

Fun with snakes on our holiday to Karijini National Park

2007-10-22T22:44:00.000+08:00

Visitors to Australia are often overly sensitive about snakes, whilst those who live here tend to be a bit more relaxed. Most Australians live in urban areas, so in fact, some Australians have never seen a snake in the wild at all. Of course most people are a bit cautious when in long grass in summer, but it’s something we live with and we don’t get too wound up about it, on the whole.

However, during my recent visit to Karijini National Park, I seemed to have more than my usual share of snake encounters, so I have presented them here for interest or terror, according to what takes your fancy.

Encounter Number One – driving over a snake

Driving from Perth to Meekatharra, I realised the mirage on the road in front of me wasn’t disappearing like all the others, and that this one was in fact a snake making its way right into my path.

In the split second I had available, I had to choose between running it over with one wheel, injuring it for sure, or attempting to straddle it at either end. It was a tough call because it looked like it might be just long enough that I would run it over with both wheels anyway.

In the end I opted for the straddle, partly because that was the course I was already on.

As soon as I was over the snake, I looked in the rear vision mirror and was somewhat disturbed to not see it at all. Having heard stories over the years of snakes getting flicked up into the undercarriage of a car, I now wondered if I actually had a snake on board, or if I just hadn’t been able to see it because of the angle of the light.

My daughter was horrified when I suggested that sometimes snakes have been known to appear at the air vents, and promptly moved her foot to a safer location.

I spent the next few hours wondering what I’d do if the snake suddenly appeared in my footwell. Would I move at all? That would be the first instinct, but it would also be the very thing that would cause the snake to strike. No, I’d have to stay very still and just ease my foot off the accelerator, letting the car slow to a stop before deciding how the heck I was going to get myself, my daughter and the snake out of my car without any injuring another.

As I mused I noticed the car slowing down and had to remind myself that the snake was not yet in the footwell, so I was free to continue driving at 110km/hour, and besides, those were probably just untrue stories.

A visit to friends in Mt Magnet renewed the fear however, when they started poking around the car to see if they could see the snake.

We arrived at Meekatharra on nightfall, and our plan was to find a place to cook our dinner, before driving on for a couple of hours and sleeping on the side of the road. We wanted to be off the road for dusk, when the kangaroos love to graze on the side of the road. Our car really isn’t set up for hitting kangaroos, and we would definitely come off second best.

I was tired, having had only 5 hours sleep the night before due to supervising 16 teenage girls at country week soccer, so the thought of driving on wasn’t particularly attractive. The thought of putting our swag on the ground next to a car that possibly had a snake for a passenger was even less attractive, however, so when we found we could get a room at a motel for $60, meaning we could have a shower and sleep in a bed, we decided this was a great option. The green grass and the swaying palm trees were a nice bonus.

Encounter number 2– seeing a snake whilst walking

My teenage daughter and her friend were ahead of me on the path down to Circular Pool, at Dales Gorge, when they suddenly screamed and jumped back. A snake had slithered across the path just ahead of them. This was one of those ‘kind of scary but no harm done’ moments.

Encounter number 3 – another snake whilst walking

Daughter and I were walking along the bottom of Dales Gorge just before dusk. We had done the track a couple of times before and had a torch with us, so we felt comfortable on what is a pretty straightforward track. Right at the end I got slightly mixed up and went around one side of a bush when I should have gone the other. I had to push through a little track that others had gone through, but which required crouching down. Casey was a couple of metres behind and about to take the same route when she let out a shriek. There was a snake lying in her path. With little light on the scene, she did well to see it, and I can hardly bring myself to think about what combination of events allowed me to pass through moments before unharmed. Did I step over it? Had it just moved there in the last few seconds?

This was one of those ‘oh my god, how did we get out of that in one piece’ moments. My blood ran cold for a little while. Then I felt immensely grateful that we had passed through safely.

Encounters number 4 and 5 – more snakes on the road

Driving through the wheatbelt, a snake started to slither out onto the road from the left. It was a rusty colour with a distinct black head. Apparently it was probably a gwarda, otherwise known as a Western Brown Snake. I was able to veer around it, and when I looked in the rearview mirror I was amused to see its head raised a few inches, as if wondering what on earth had just happened?

About 5 minutes later, a snake started to slither out onto the road from the left. It was a rusty colour with a distinct black head. I was able to veer around it, and when I looked in the rearview mirror I was amused to see its head raised a few inches, as if wondering what on earth had just happened?

Weird yes, I know. I thought I was in the Groundhog Day movie for a few moments. I seriously had two identical snake encounters within a few minutes of each other, and I was driving in a straight line.

Encounter number 6 – snakes in the car

Oh ok then, it was just a bag of lolly snakes. But I still found it quite disconcerting, after all that snakiness, that we were eating snakes for fun.

Broadbeans are going off!

2007-09-28T14:42:00.000+08:00

We have a rule that broadbeans should be planted at Easter in order to take best advantage of their propensity to grow over winter.

Being leguminous, of course, broadbeans busily add nitrogen to the soil during their growing stage, and throw off some lovely beans at the end as a bonus.

This year, our broadbean crop looks particularly impressive. There are no actual beans to be seen yet, but boy, this crop is drawing cries of admiration from everyone who visits.

Visit:

My Cath Wood Website
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Real Estate Mastery Seminar

2007-09-26T12:34:00.000+08:00

I went to a course on the weekend called Real Estate Mastery, run by Empowernet and presented by Steven Molnar.

Having previously done two pretty serious 5 day real estate ‘bootcamps’ in America with John Burley, I didn’t expect all of the information to be new, and indeed, found most of the first day pretty slow going as it covered what was, for me, old ground. On the second day, however, I looked at my clock at one point, thinking it was about 5pm, and was staggered to see that it was already 9:15pm! We still had a bit to go.

Also, since the seminar was free, I fully expected to be upsold at least a couple of opportunities to part with some cash, and I was not disappointed on this front. There were no fewer than 8 pretty hard core upsell presentations spread throughout the 2 days, but since I had gone online and done my research beforehand, I was fully prepared and didn’t end up mortgaging my soul to buy everything in sight.

The seminar was most definitely well worth attending, and I’ve since had a long phone conversation with a staff member, answering every question I had. Where the answers were not known, I was invited to send an email detailing the question, so that they could get Steven to clarify what he meant.

Steven is an awesome individual. He is obviously extremely bright and very sharp, with a great sense of humour. He reads voraciously and widely, and retains information, so he has all sorts of facts and figures to hand. Part of the enjoyment of the seminar was that he was so entertaining!

I picked up some great new information and ideas, and revisited old ideas that have become a bit hazy with time.

I’m about to host a few friends for lunch, to do an information download. I’ll be sharing some of the most important points with them.

Here are just a few of the things I picked up:

1) I knew it made good sense to buy property, and to buy well, but these figures really blew me away:

Buy a $400 000 house now, and hold it for 40 years.

At 5% increase per year, it will be worth $2.8m in 40 years

At 8% increase per year, it will be worth $8.6m in 40 years

At 11% increase per year, it will be worth $26m in 40 years

Do your research, and buy well!

2) I can’t believe that in all the years I’ve been investing, I’ve never heard of paying deposits using deposit bonds or bank guarantees. It’s my habit to pay very low deposits, so I haven’t needed this strategy, but if you’re a property investor and you don’t know about these things, find out.

3) Equity Leases – this is a concept that has really made me prick up my ears. As an investor, you buy a house, then rent it to a tenant for a long term, eg 5 years or more. During that time they pay higher rent than normal, perhaps twice as much. The rent is equal to the mortgage payments. At the end of the lease, the tenant receives a pre-agreed percentage of the increase in equity of that property during the tenancy.

Advantages are obvious:

Easy to fund.

Tenants are long term, and look after house as if it’s their own.

At the end of the agreement, you hang onto the house, unlike lease options where the tenant buys the house.

For a tenant, this is a good way to get into the market where it might not otherwise have been possible. The rent they pay is the same as if they had their own mortgage, and at the end of their lease they walk away with a lump sum that could be used as a deposit on their own home, assuming the house has increased in value over the term.

Other observations

Only 1 in 14 Generation Y’ers (under 24) will be able to buy their own home.

Australians are conditioned to think that most of us will be able to buy our own home one day. But in many parts of Europe, where homes are well out of reach for most people to buy, people rent one house for their entire life. This is normal where they live. Australia is heading in this direction. Sydney is close to it already.

You can get lender’s mortgage insurance from other organizations besides your own bank.

Questions to ask

“How can I make this work?”

“How can I buy/control more property?”

When someone says “it’s not possible” ask (them, or yourself) “Is it really not possible, or do you just not know?”

************

This is only a partial list. I prepared a much longer summary for my friends, so if you’d like a copy of it, please email me and I’ll send you one.

Of the many upsell opportunities, there are two that I believe are well worthwhile. One is an advanced course to be held in Melbourne in November, and the other is the chance to become part of a buyer’s group. Both are detailed on my longer summary.

www.cathwood.com

Gratitude

2007-08-20T22:49:00.002+08:00

I reflect daily on that for which I am grateful. Living in Margaret River, living in Australia. Being free to live the life I want, and having so many of the blessings of life that some people in the world just don't have access to.

We have peace, clean air, fresh water, plenty of good, fresh food and homes, when many others can only dream about such luxuries.

We have fun on the weekends, as these pictures show. Cam, Casey, the gorgeous Mat and myself took the canoe out for a paddle, then played on the beach. It was a lovely day, topped off by a performance by the fabulous Cosentino, illusionist extraordinaire. If you ever get the chance to see him, do it!

Back Online

2007-08-13T14:53:00.001+08:00

I'm back in the land of computers, and though it was frustrating being without it, there was also a real sense of relief at not being tied to it. It was like an unexpected holiday.

The many emails that arrived while I was broken down came in blank once my PC returned to the land of the living. I have written to most people and asked them to resend, but as about 150 went to the junk folder, there's a chance that I might have missed something important from you. If you haven't heard back from me, please resend your email. Thankyou.

We went crabbing on the weekend. We took our canoe out and got drenched, because the weather wasn't really conducive to "crabanoeing" on the ocean. But it was fun and we had hot chips on the beach afterwards.

BSOD and Being Helpful

2007-08-06T09:12:00.001+08:00

Last Thursday I learned that BSOD (pronounced "Bee Sod") means Blue Screen of Death.

I've seen blue screens on computers before and know that it's generally not a good thing, but I didn't realise they had their own acronym.

I booted up my computer on Thursday and got nothing, which was a worry. When I fetched my son home from school at recess and EVEN HE couldn't fix it, I knew I was in strife. I had to call in the big gun - Daniel - who has taken my PC away, having informed me that my system was one of about 20 000 which was taken out by a Windows automatic update. You've gotta love Microsoft.

It is driving me nuts having no computer, and if you've emailed me since Wednesday night, I'm not ignoring you, I just haven't received it yet. Hopefully I'll be back on board by tonight.

I had a call at the end of last week, from a guy who had incorrectly written down the number for a Margaret River winery. It was one I hadn't heard of, and I couldn't find it in our local directory, so I gave him the numbers for our Wine Industry Association as well as our Tourism Assocation.

I didn't think this was particularly extraordinary but he was extremely surprised at having received help from a stranger picking up a wrong number call, saying "you must work in the hospitality industry, do you?"

I seem to receive a lot of help from other people when I need it, and I always give help when I can, so I was surprised by his reaction. Are people generally helpful? Or generally unhelpful? Or does it depend on our expectations?

Blackwood River excursion

2007-07-31T11:04:00.002+08:00

On the weekend I dragged my husband and daughter out for an excursion to the Blackwood River. It was a wet and rainy day and the river was in full flood, so it was quite marvellous. I filmed some vids, which were really just intended to show my son (who was at work) what one of our favourite camping spots currently looks like. It was so much fun though, I wanted to share.

Stretching boundaries

2007-07-23T20:55:00.002+08:00

Two things happened over the weekend which got me thinking, once again, about the process by which we grow as humans. Each time we extend ourselves beyond our limits, we find that when we snap back to "normal" we are in a different place.

On Saturday I did an all day theatre-sports type workshop. It was non-competetive and culminated in a performance that evening. During the day we played various games that required us to think on our feet and improvise.

For example one game, called 'Space Jump', started with one person on stage acting out a scene until the director called 'space jump', at which point the person had to freeze and someone else joined them on stage. The new person had to look at the tableau and launch a new scene based on the frozen position. This continued, adding one person each time, until we had a dozen or more people on stage.

We 'performed' this game at the end of the evening show, having also performed various other skits requiring us to think on our feet whilst a paying audience was watching.

Several people said that they were nervous before the show, and it occurred to me that previously, I would also have been nervous. However, having taken a large dose of intensity lately, I was quite calm, and able to enjoy both performing in and watching the show.

Yesterday, Sunday, I received a call from the cinema manager at 5:20pm, saying "do you realise you're the projectionist tonight?"

Gulp.

No, I hadn't realised that.

My husband and I have been volunteer cinema projectionists for several years and I have always wondered what would happen if one hadn't taken enough notice of the roster and got the call an hour before the movie starts.

I found out yesterday, though given that the movie starts at 6pm, and it was 5:20pm, my dread fantasy had suddenly arrived, and even worse than I'd imagined.

The movie has to be put together - it arrives in 6 or 7 parts in a couple of cardboard boxes, and each reel, or 'flat', has to be stuck to the next one with special cinema sticky tape. Each flat has a head and a tail, which needs to be removed before assembly, so there's a bit to it. What we usually do is go down sometime during the day of the movie, so that we can put it together with a bit of time to ensure that everything is in the right order, up the right way, and with the sound all correctly positioned. Whacking it together in a hurry is a pretty good way to get a mistake.

Luckily my daughter is fully trained and had just returned home on the bus from her 2 week holiday, so she was able to swing into action with me, and even though we found the movie had arrived 'head out' instead of our preferred (because it's quicker to put together) 'tail out', we still managed to start the movie at 6:08pm.

Previously, I would have been so stressed by this that I would have been sweating and shaking. Yet I found I was quite relaxed and able to think clearly under pressure, and the movie ran without a hitch.

It seems to me that previously, either of these scenarios would have been about equal to the maximum amount of pressure I would normally be under. Yet now, both situations seem trivial, minor, and hardly worth working up a sweat.

I'm not sure that it's necessarily a good thing to be under so much pressure that ordinarily stressful events seem piffling, but still, it seems to me that if we want to learn how to deal with a situation, it helps to ramp it up to about 100 times the normal intensity.

Anniversaries, dripping ceilings and ESP

2007-07-19T21:13:00.001+08:00

My husband and I celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary today! The highlight was remembering it - we have had quite a few years where we have missed it altogether. It took me until about mid-morning, and I enjoyed making the phone call to Cam at work. "Happy anniversary!"

We discovered that the 16th anniversary is all about tungsten, so the conversation all day has been tungsten this and tungsten that. A bit of research revealed that tungsten is used in all sorts of things, including light bulb filaments. Well there you go.

Sixteen years, not bad, hey? Especially these days. We've had our ups and downs, like anyone else, but we are certainly looking forward to many more years together. Awwww...

We had some wild weather in Margaret River today, with rain coming in from a different direction to normal. I had water coming in at all the windows, then suddenly splashing down from above. We live in a house that we had transported from somewhere else, and we haven't finished it yet. Today, that was a good thing, because the water was able to come in through a gap in the ceiling, where the house was cut in half all those years ago.

It's a bit freaky hearing water coming into one's house, I can only begin to imagine what it must be like to get flooded, or be in a wild hurricane.

I enjoyed an ESP experience today. Or maybe it's the Law of Attraction, like they talk about on 'The Secret'. Whatever, it was weirdness at its best, and I just love it when stuff like this happens.

I thought of a friend this morning and was about to phone him, then thought "no, he'll phone later." I took a couple of seconds to send him a telepathic message, just to make sure. Sure enough, he phoned later. I haven't talked to him for a while and there was no reason why he should have phoned today. It was really very cool.

A family weekend

2007-07-08T21:47:00.001+08:00

We did a few family activities over the weekend. I tried to choose one photo, but lots were taken, so I narrowed it down to 11.

I desperately needed a haircut, and my trusty hairdresser, who is also my daughter, was happy to oblige.

She turned me into a shampoo commercial.

We celebrated life with home-made sushi for dinner. It all felt very posh, until we got the old wasabi kick up the nose.

Today, Sunday, we went down to Augusta for some whale-watching. As usual at this time of year, there are lots of whales (and their offspring) frolicking in the bays. We were really lucky to see a mother and her calf about 50m from shore. They gave us a great show, with the little one doing lots of tail slapping.

We went up to see the Cape Leeuwin lighthouse. This lighthouse was built from local stone in 1895 on the most southwestern tip of Australia. It is still operational today.

It was really, really windy up there.

The kids ran around, and I found a place to hide for a few moments of respite.

It was fun, and a good opportunity to have some family time before my daughter gets on the bus first thing tomorrow morning, to head off on a two week holiday without us! We are really going to miss her.

Trumpet in the forest

2007-07-05T20:37:00.001+08:00

I went for a walk down by the river late this afternoon. It's a great place to clear one's head, which I needed.

The highlight of my walk was hearing this quite lovely music travelling through the forest. I thought it was coming from a house across the river, and was imagining the musician playing on an open deck, or in a loungeroom with the doors wide open, because the sound was crystal clear.

As I was walking back, however, I found that the source of the music was a man sitting in a shady little spot on the other side of the river, playing a trumpet! I tiptoed down to the water's edge and found a comfortable rock for my private forest concert. It was just magic. Very Margaret River, really.

A game of lies and deception

2007-07-04T20:40:00.001+08:00

Here's a game we learned at the NICA workshop on Sunday, and which we adapted a little and played here last night with the rellies. It's a game of skill and deception, requiring a poker face. It's also a heap of fun. The 6 year old in our midst was the deadliest, as it turned out.

Everyone in the group takes a turn to tell 3 things about themselves. Two must be true, and one must be a lie. Everybody else has to guess which is the lie.

When it's your turn, you get one point for every person who doesn't pick your lie. When you are choosing the lies of others, you get one point every time you correctly pick a lie. So in a group of 6, as we had, the maximum score would be 10. We had someone get 9!

You can ask questions, but it doesn't necessarily help, because a lie can be made even more convincing with answers that fit. For example, my daughter said "I played indoor soccer at school today and scored one goal." I know that she plays indoor soccer at school this term, so I (very cleverly, I thought) fired questions at her - "What was the final score? Who kicked the other goals?" She fired back the answers with such assurance that I smugly concluded that she was telling the truth. It turned out she didn't play indoor soccer at all that day.

The adults told quite complicated stories, but the kids went for simplicity, which made it ridiculously difficult to pick. Behold the 6 year old's contribution:

"I'm not used to the cold"
"I like playing computer games"
"My favourite animals are dogs"

Arrgghhh. It turned out that our cold wintry weather was not bothering her in the slightest, so number one was the lie. We struggled.

We also learned a good deal about each other during the game. I have heard it said that you can learn as much about a person in one hour of playing games as you can in a lifetime of conversation.

NICA Workshop

2007-07-02T21:33:00.001+08:00

I travelled up to the big smoke (Perth) on the weekend, so my daughter could attend the NICA workshop. NICA (National Institute of Circus Arts) is the university for circus people, and the workshop gave potential students information about the course as well as assessing their circus abilities and giving them feedback on what they ought to be working on.

It was a fabulous day which was enjoyed by the 10 participants. They were all, no doubt, highly motivated by the news that only 20 students are selected each year.

The Wood household is full of teenage girls!

2007-06-15T19:39:00.001+08:00

There's a 14th birthday party going on here tonight, it's all pretty crazy. They are high energy and lots of fun.