Easter eggs, lies and a washing machine.

I have a very serious problem.

When I did a load of washing yesterday and washed my dressing gown I was certain that I had emptied the pockets. Whilst Mr S was unsurprised that I thought I'd emptied my pockets and I had not, it brought light to a much more serious problem.

It appears that someone has been in my house, sitting around all evening not only wearing my dressing gown but eating a large quantity of Cadbury solid easter eggs. They have then stashed the evidence in my dressing gown pockets. 

When I took the load of washing out of the machine there was a handful of scrunched up easter egg wrappers, a mangled receipt and a lone tissue. But mostly easter egg wrappers.

I'm certain that this is an attempt to derail my Yummy Stay At Home Mummy Yoga Pant Wearing facade... it makes it seem as though all I do is sit around in my dressing gown eating (my children's) easter eggs.

You and I both know that it's all lies, right?

FFS Friday...Up next... Locusts.

Perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but after this Tuesday? It truly felt like it.

• I've been feeling less than awesome for a week or so now and I've been blaming it on my flu shot of two weeks ago. Truthfully, it's probably sleep deprivation. Gah. FFS.
• I awoke at 1am and fed Pip, and again at 4.30am, and again at 6.30am, at which point I made a cup of tea and leave the tea infuser in. That's how dire my situation was. I congratulated myself on using breastfeeding as a way to weigh the least since early 2010. The downside is the lethargy. The plus side is aforementioned weight loss and the ability to imbibe a disgusting amount of chocolate and sugar. Sort of FFS.
• We breakfast, Pip goes down for a nap and I attempt to ready Millie for Playgroup, aka Mummy Time where Millie gets to play too.
  Pip wakes and will not feed before we go out. Uhoh. This does not bode well. I find a dummy clip and congratulate myself (again) for a job well done, ensuring we have a quiet car ride without Pip flinging her dummy all over the place.
  2 minutes up the road, I hear Pip yelling from her seat. Pull over to discover that dummy is indeed, still in her mouth. She's just holding it out to yell. FFS.
• 8 minutes up the road, Pip is still yelling in various dulcet tones of Bobcat Golthwait. Turn the radio up. Millie exclaims about every cow/tree/car/truck she can see.
  15 minutes up the road, Pip yells louder again and Millie demands 'SING, MUM. TOO LOUD, PIP.' from the back seat. I begin singing songs about bicycles, working through my repertoire until I hit The Beatles. We make it to my friend's house and I dash inside to say hi whilst the kids are happily waiting in the car, talking to my friend's kids.
  I dash back out, realise it's been a few minutes and both kids are screaming, snotty and inconsolable. Millie gets a box of sultanas, Pippa a headpat. We head to Playgroup. I sing more Beatles tunes loudly and Millie and I listen to Pippa's banshee screaming. FFS.
• Into Playgroup, Pippa starts screaming when a friend says hello to her, and doesn't stop and won't feed for the next 40 minutes. She eventally feeds, burps, looks happier. Millie sidles up to me and says 'Poo.'
  No poo. She wanders off, and comes back in a few minutes, walking like a cowgirl. Alas. FFS.
• I change her nappy, change Pippa's nappy at the same time and run out of wet wipes. Congratulate myself for having the exact number of wipes required. You can see where this is going.
• Millie comes running up again, walking like a fragrant cowgirl. SERIOUSLY? FFS.
• A friend hands me her wet wipes and I realise that I'm out of Millie nappies. She is shoehorned into a Pippa sized nappy and we head home.
  Well, almost. Pippa screams in the car park for ten minutes and I rock her gently by the side of my car until she's somewhat consoled. She is not consoled. I pack her into the car and thankfully she's asleep before we hit the highway.
• I bought a beautiful fancy True Cut Rotary Cutter this week. I nicked the blade on the second use. FFS.
• The next day I bought a replacement blade. First cut went via my finger. FFS.
• I have low platelets. This means I bleed a lot. I panicked, rand Mr S at work (voicemail?!) and Googled 'How to stop cut bleeding'. Pressure on wound, wound above heart. FFS.
• I was cutting white muslin. FFS. Thankfully (?) the cut was so deep it didn't bleed immediately. Muslin saved.
• That night Mr S was out, the girls were in bed by 7pm and the house was mine. I sat down on the floor with all my fabric and pattern and got cutting again. I was interrupted every ten seconds by Lucy the cat rubbing my hands, licking my fingers and scratching the pattern. FFS.
• Lucy also feels that using her litterbox is optional. Next to the box is much nicer option. FFS.
• Thankfully Lucy's litterbox lives in our bath, so it's an easy clean up. We've just started bathing both girls in the big bath so most days I wind up disinfecting and scrubbing the bath. FFS.
• Mirena. Enough said. FFS.

You missed my FFS, didn't you?

Now, go and enjoy Sarah's FFS Fridays too...

To the left, on the bench please.

It's the enjoyment of shopping online, with the smugness that comes from knowing you do not need to venture to The Supermarket.*

*Unless you are me and even though you have an extensive list to shop with, there is inevitably a few things that slip my mind. Usually the glaringly freakin' obvious things, like bread.

Let's rephrase that then.

It's the enjoyment of shopping online, with the smugness that comes from knowing you will need to venture to The Supermarket, but it's a duck in and out job, not a packed lunchbox kind of affair.

I started doing my groceries online a few months ago when my lovely pregnancy hormones vacated and left my mental health somewhat lacking. Along with seeing my GP, I started to find any little ways to make life easier. Strangely enough, the prospect of not taking an infant and a toddler to the supermarket made me feel like my life could be easier.

I tried my local supermarket, but their food quality was crap, delivery expensive and they didn't have the basic things online for me to purchase. Their phone assistant told me it was 'probably that the shop your order is picked from is low on stock, so they reserve that stock for in person shoppers.'

What now? You're charging a premium per item and in delivery that means I can't buy my BBQ sauce online because someone in New Town might want to buy it?

'Could you not just pop in to your local Supermarket and get it in person?'

Yes. I could. But, genius, that isn't why I'm doing my shopping online now, isn't it? When I leave detailed notes in the 'Detailed Notes for This Item' section, I also have an expectation that my personal shopper whom I'm paying more from might actually read it, not completely ignore it.

So I tried The Other Supermarket from Another Town. And grocery toting angels sang from on high. My groceries are delivered to my kitchen bench. I can pay by EFTPOS in my kitchen, should I choose. The delivery is half the price of The Supermarket, and we're actually spending less on our groceries because I'm not wandering aimlessly distracted by shiny things for some unknown reason. My delivery person will even take the plastic bags away to be recycled. My one beef is the sheer amount of plastic bags used - they have no other option unfortunately, but last week I received one zucchini in a clear veggie bag in a shopping bag. One.

The other first world bonus of doing my shopping at The Other Supermarket is that because we've never shopped there, their home brand goods are like another fancy brand that we haven't tried yet. I've so far whittled us down to Other Supermarket Corn Flakes, Other Supermarket Pasta, Other Supermarket Lemonade... as I clicked through this week's shop I hopefully said to Mr S 'What about Other Supermarket Ice Cream?'.

'No. Absolutely not.'
'Okay, okay, I just thought I'd ask.'
'I am 33. I have tried them all. I have been around the ice cream block.'

I did not buy the Other Supermarket Ice Cream.

Clothes. THEY ALSO SELL CLOTHES. I bought P a pair of socks to test the Clothes At A Supermarket quality, and they're not only lovely, they are highly reasonably priced.

So once a week I write my list, I sit down and click my grocery shopping into the ether of the internet. As if by magic, two days later it turns up in my kitchen. MAGIC, I tell you.

This is absolutely not sponsored. It would be brilliant if it was.

Tormented by the major keys...

of children's music.

It's up there with realising that you're still watching Giggle and Hoot but the baby is asleep and the toddler is at day care.

I've always had a song stuck in my head. Usually it's a half written one that won't leave me alone until I finish it or at least write it down. Since I've had children it's a little bit different. Now it's either various Play School tunes or really catchy half written children's songs that won't leave me alone.

Today I am HOME ALONE.

I'll just let you ponder that for a moment.

I KNOW. ALONE.

I've been playing catch up with sewing, and have had the grand event of starting AND finishing a project in the same hour. Oh my goodness!

But there is a dark side to this joy that is Parental Alone Time.

It's the children's songs stuck in my freakin' head.

I happened to catch myself watching Giggle and Hoot's 'Gigglearium' this morning after everyone had gone out (oops) and now I can't stop singing 'Singing Solo'...

There's also usually a few varieties of Justine Clarke's greatest hits, including 'Dinosaur Roar' and 'Jelly Jelly Jelly'. It's a good thing I think she's ace.

I'd love to sing cool indie songs in my head, so I could seem cool and indie... but the truth is I'm just a country folk loving nerd who makes up songs about bicycles to make her gorgeous girls smile.