THe biggest load...

Seriously, I am so over this shit being in the news constantly. If they want to make a real difference, have free sport for all kids of school age and do proper health classes at achools for kids to learn it. Not this shit of running around the oval once a day either. Instead of profiting off kids and making them feel like shit listening/reading/seeing this kind of news, Put up or Shut up.

It costs a fortune to have a child do any kind of sport, when you have more than 1 child it gets to the point of being ridiculous.

I just had to take my 12 year old son to the Doctor last week to get him to tell him he is not obese and that he doesn't need to diet as long as he eats well and gets excercise. My 12 year old has bones sticking out everywhere and he hears the message that most kids in Australia are obese. Thanks a freaking lot.

In a couple of months the stories will all be about anorexics everywhere, *how shocking!* and they'll wonder why there's a surge in kids with anorexia.

Newsflash, most parents do know their kids/themselves are overweight but don't want to admit it. Many believe it's an indicator of how good they parent, so of course they're going to not admit it. Especially not to some stranger doing a poll.

So to all the Journo's, Researchers,Dieticians etc that are all so freaking worried about it to the point of these news stories being everywhere.. Lobby the Governments for free sport for all children whether it's played at school or on weekends.


"MOST parents don't think their overweight children are fat - and heavy parents are the worst judges of them all, a study has found."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21142823-5007133,00.html

I'm a lemming...

Yes, I have Myspace. No great D&M's or anything but feel free to add me if you want.
or not.

http://www.myspace.com/antikva

Help an Aussie in the drought

I don't know the Seller, I just saw her auctions on Ebay. I thought we could all help out by buying one [or more] of her photo's to help her save her farm until it rains.

http://search.ebay.com.au/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZaws803

If I've stuffed up the link, her sellers id is aws803

Update:
Alice now also has a blog at http://www.rangersdrought.blogspot.com/

cars, cats and tatts

The car we just spent a fortune on replacing parts while chasing down an intermittent fault...
$15- sensor seal.

I'm glad hubby's a mechanic, would have cost an absolute freaking fortune otherwise!

Pebble's is on the mend. Whatever she ate/drink is leaving her liver etc. Still no idea WTH she got into.

Hubby got his tattoo, a tribal dragon. Excellent job from Central Ink at Oakleigh, very fine and looks great. Wonder how long it will be before his Mum sees it. Nevermind, I'm sure she'll blame my evil influence *G*

Let's see, what else? Oh, yes, I got an audition for Deal or No Deal. That's gonna be fun, hope they don't ask me anything hard. heh.

Got the youngest daughter tickets to the Fall Out Boy concert, she's happy.

Paid for the youngest son to be a mage or something in an online RPG, he's happy.

Might have more good news soon too. Just wanna make sure I didn't have a brainfart and dream it up.

And, on that note, I am off to bed. had a bitch of a migraine yesterday and still feel slightly yick.

Hugs everyone!

Pebbles the human cat

We got Pebbles [she's 8 now] about 5 years ago after she was tossed out of a moving car on the Bruce Highway. She'd been abused and starved but after a few weeks settled in happily to the family. Because of her former life, she's never really grown and people often think she's a kitten. Pebbles bonded to me first, so she sleeps on me and follows me around the house, sitting on me and holds my hand LOL which is the weirdest thing I've ever seen a cat do.

Poor Pebbles is having a really bad weekend. She had some kind of seizure, couldn't walk without falling over sideways and her eyes were bugging out of her head. She made it all the way back upstairs to our bedroom to me [with kids and hubby in hot pursuit] and ran into the blanket box at the end of the bed. Ouch. Poor Simba was even trying to help [our siamese cat] and the girls were crying. I was worried because she'd previously had a fractured skull and may have developed epilepsy.

We raced to the vet and they've done bloodwork and it appears she has ingested something toxic. What, we have no idea. So, back this morning to get another bloodtest to make sure that she's not getting into whatever it was [some kind of plant or grass is the vet's guess] again. Anyway, the vet nurse is new and held her wrong and accidentally choked her instead. Pebbles went nuts, good thing he'd clipped her claws first or there would have been blood from everyone in the sample.

I had wisely legged it out the door leaving them and hubby to it, but all I could hear was the cat screeching. I went back in and she practically launched at me and tried to burrow under my arm. Poor baby. She finally calmed down after I cuddled her and talked to her. She was so freaked she was panting like a dog and growling at everyone.

So, because the 1st attempt failed we had to leave her there for a few hours. They managed to get the blood the second time, but she's a very unhappy cat. She's hiding in my workroom in the shelves so noone can get to her with a look of total distate for the world.

I feel like an absolute bitch.


Because Pebbles is so unhappy I have been sitting in here so she won't have to move around the house looking for me. I have been making double sure there is nothing in here that she could have gotten in to. I don't have anything toxic, but just making sure!

*Sigh* now the kids are all grown up I have to cat proof the house instead of child proofing. LOL

Blimey. It's hot.

Very hot. I feel like I'm about to melt.

We moved down here because the lower humidity and cooler climate is better for me. ROFLMAO. That's been the biggest joke yet. Oh well. We haven't lost power like the rest of the State it seems, so that's a bonus. We don't have ac downstairs though as the tiled floors keep the house cool during the day, but doesn't seem to be making much difference tonight.

Good thing the testing at PI finished yesterday, I don't think they would have like been out on the track much today. I'd hate to see the track temps. It was still 39C here at 6pm. Good for gilding though LOL

I rearranged the house again and we moved my workroom to a different area. We're also trying to set up space for bub when she's born. I keep telling the eldest she's going to have give up her KS bed, but I don't think she's keen on that. Says her feet will stick out the end of the bed. Well, we all make sacrifices for our kids, don't we. hehehehehehehehehe. Sorry. but it is funny. She's gone and bought heaps of pink stuff, so I really hope the ultrasound wasnt wrong.

Did I mention it's hot? I think I'm gonna go and hide ustairs in the aircon for the rest of the night!

Catchya Later

Work in progress - just for fun!

Drawn and Inked so far, and working on the base colours. I'm using Spicers Parchmentine paper, which is similiar to vellum but a lot thinner and so buckles easily if you use too much water or paint. I use watercolour pencils as a base before gouache. I'm using gold and paladium gilding for the metal pieces.

Based on a line drawing from Homers Iliad by John Flaxman in 1805.

WIP1 for 2007 [this one is just for fun and so I can de-stress. Cheaper than medication!]

Watching the bikes go by

Yoda is going for another ECG next Monday, Dr doesn't seem worried but just wants to check it out. He says it could be caused by the virus he'd had.

See how useless I am at taking any kind of image that requires a camera. This was Max Biaggi screaming past while we were at the track and no, Yoda is not really giving me the finger. LOL Apparently there were crashes yesterday, but we didn't see them, so they must have been before or after we left. The riders are ok though.

It was a pretty good day to go, was pretty cool but didn't rain so the kids enjoyed it. Yoda was enthralled at how fast the bikes go, he said they don't look that fast on tv LOL
The ducks were well fed by the 2 of them though, they kept wandering off to feed them and hubby had to keep whistling to get them back to the fence. I kept telling him not to whistle [ they're not puppies! LOL] so he'd do it again. Finally, I gave up! I think the 2 riders doing promo pics on the track thought he was whistling at them, was very funny though, but embarassing.

As we were walking up to the pit roof, Troy walked past into his pit, Yoda casually says hello to him. Troy said Hi, how's it going". Yoda didn't even realise who he was saying hello to. He just thought it was some random track dude. heh. The guy in our group was shocked that Yoda was *forward* enough to say hello to one of the riders. Poor Yoda was totally bemused and got the *all adults are nuts* expression.


>

Ahem...

I have decided not to panic until after he's been to his regular Dr. Then it will be open season if that's the case. His cough is almost better but I think it's allergy based. All my kids were lactose intolerant at birth, so didn't have dairy until after they were 4 and even then it was limited. Methinks something sneaky is occurring and something is tipping him over the daily dairy limit.

So, tomorrow we are going down to Phillip Island, WSBK are testing, so we'll do the tour then sit on the grass and watch.


Started working on a new image today. Finished the overhaul of a clients site.

Last year was a pretty shitty year all round. This year is shaping up to be exactly the same. We took our youngest to the Emergency Dept last night. He's had a sinusy/coldish type thing happening and got worse. Last Friday the Dr heard crackling in his chest and started him on antibiotics.

Nope. still coughing like crazy. Anyway, so last night we go to Emergency and they've discovered a systolic heart murmur Level 2/6 they also did an ECG* thingy as his pulse was erratic [ could have been the crazy lady in the waiting room who threw a phone at the Receptionist though!] and now we have to have a specialist follow up.

I can't understand how they could have missed it, he was born at 27 weeks, has partial deafness, 1 kidney [ the other is cystic as a quick description] and has been scanned and operated on, for a while we did nothing but rotate through hospital doors. I am gobsmacked. I'm hoping it's a mistake or it's something to do with him being sick and will go away.

2007 already sucks.

* erm,sticky things on his chest and hooked up to check his heart rate.