progress

Well we have our new fridge and freezer installed downstairs.

The freezer is packed full of food, the fridge will need to be filled because a full fridge runs more efficiently than a half full one.

We are set for Xmas as far as food storing space is concerned.

We bought a whole lot of pies and things from the last school pie drive of the year, so until we get that order I will not buy anything else for the freezer.

I am still clearing the computer room upstairs ... I am up to the sewing phase now.

Once I finish all my sewing jobs, I will put the sewing machine and all sewing supplies into a new location.

Meanwhile uni spent all of yesterday clearing space in the store room which will become the new computer room/office.

It is in a pretty bad state at the moment, smells awful and still has damage from termite attack, but it is almost empty and uni worked his magic last year to paint and vastly improve the look of the fish room, so he will no doubt do the same to the "computer room".

This room has the advantage of having a door that can be closed and locked(so will be safe from Bella), is raised higher than the rest of the downstairs rooms, so is unlikely to flood. Downstairs is also cooler usually than upstairs, but there is only one window in the room so will have to see how well ventilated it is.

We will still probably get a laptop for upstairs so I can use it in the evenings and not have to leave the kids (hee hee, the kids!) upstairs by themselves while I unwind with the computer at night (hee hee, that sounds a bit odd too).

At the moment our fish room has plastic wrapped baby furniture and other assorted odds and ends all over it.

The baby stuff will have to be unwrapped, cleaned and taken upstairs once the baby's room has been emptied and uni wants to paint the interior walls which have some paint peeling off them.

We are certainly going to be busy!

Uni has also cleaned and filled the pond and introduced some plants into it. The plants are so happy, they are growing and flowering like crazy. The pond leaks from the top, so once he has sealed the interior we will fill it up to the top, let it sit for a week or so and introduce some fish into there. We have noticed an influx of dragonflies coming to investigate the pond!

Yesterday Kt went swimming wearing her new rainbow swimmers!

Very cute!

We also did a lice combing in the afternoon and I didn't find any lice at all. There were a lot of eggs (nits) but 90% of them were ones that had already hatched (and those lice have been dealt with in previous lice combings/lice treatments) and there were about 10% unhatched ones which I believe were rendered useless by the hot hair drying I have been doing.

Very happy ... will now just continue to remove any nits that I can see until her head is completely clear.

Only 3 months worth of work involved in that success!!!

I attended the whole of parade today

Kt now has two kippa paws in that little green reward box, neither of which came out today when I watched parade.

They have announced that there will be a platinum award for those students who have been consistently good all year ... always on gold, always following the rules.

I suspect the last week of term will be a big one.

I will make my pregnancy check up appointments early in the last week of term so I don't miss out on any of the end of year presentations.

Kt handed in word wall 6 yesterday and is yet to be tested on it. She is doing an amazing job!

Next week we have a prep to yr 3 fancy dress ball to attend, where the younger school kids will be dressing up and performing some songs and dances for their parents.

Can't wait! Should be lots of fun.

This first year of school has really been a big one. So much to learn, so much to remember ... not just for Kt but for me too.

Reading the newsletter every Wednesday night in case there is vital information in there relating to the next day. Helping to make hats, crazy hair or costumes for various fundraising or fun days. Bringing back library books and homework on the right days. Packing a good lunch every day and trying not to forget the water bottle ....

Battling lice ....

Incidentally the school newsletter mentioned wanting everyone to check their kids hair for lice in a coordinated effort on Thurs 12th Nov. I did a lice combing (I have been pregnant for 14 weeks on Saturday and we have been battling head lice that whole time)... there was one louse in her hair which I am not sure was even alive, and a whole heap of either old or hatched eggs.

I think it is over! I will continue to lice comb once a week until I find nothing ... but I think that I have finally become effective and quick at lice combing, and because I now tie Kt's hair up in a pony tail at the back rather than two cute little side tails ... there is less hair to hair contact with other kids.

I also drench the ponytail every single day in water with a few drops of lavender oil and tea tree oil mixed in.

This way it is on her hair not her scalp or head or neck and is only on the parts that are most likely to be in contact with other kids. ... and an added bonus is that it smells quite nice.

The final step in the equation is also drying her hair with a hot hair dryer right down to the roots. This is supposed to dry out the eggs and prevent them from hatching and I believe this has worked because a lot of the eggs I found during this last lice combing were intact ie appeared not to have hatched, but the absence of adult lice makes me think the eggs could be old ones that have stayed stuck on but never hatched because they got blasted with the hot hairdryer.

Will see what I find next week anyway and that will either confirm my theory or prove me wrong.

more lice

KT has been under attack from lice again.

I picked out two big ones that I just saw crawling on her hair while she lay in bed.

Head and ears and neck were covered in bites.

I did a lice treatment on Sunday and left it on for 1 hour instead of the minimum 30 minutes.

I covered every single bit of her scalp, every single strand of hair, not one was missed and put extra in the spots she said were itchy.

when I washed it off in the bath I also conditioned her hair with conditioner that had tea tree oil added.

I then dried her hair with the hairdryer on hot and I didn't just dry the hair I dried each portion of hair right down to the scalp.

I guess I was maybe looking for lice?

One big one had fallen out into the bathwater but I hadn't seen any others and was certain there had to be more.

She was wearing a white shirt as I dried her and I suddenly noticed a couple of very dead black lice had landed on her shirt.

I also found two lice stuck on her scalp "feeding" I presume, and I pulled them out by hand. They were alive and waving their legs at me. I put them in a solution of water and tea tree oil and they were motionless in minutes.

As soon as I removed them Kt said that she had been particularly itchy there.

I think I got about 8 adult ones in total by doing things this way.

It relies on you actually looking with your eyes and getting them while they are stunned from the lice treatment (or perhaps the heat of the hairdryer).

When you do lice combing, the hair is wet with conditioner and you can' see anything, you just have to comb through every section and see what you pick up.

I kind of like the idea of being able to hone in on them and nab them! Gotcha.

More hunting satisfaction I guess.

Will have to do a lice combing today or tomorrow to catch any eggs and any small lice that have hatched in the last few days.

Really thought I had eradicated them last fortnight but there was one day when I forgot to put tea tree oil and lavendar in Kt's hair ... wonder if a whole lot jumped onto her then.

actually I will say more ....

I have the smell of dust and lice treatment in my nostrils!

I am getting better at combing them out, faster and gentler on KT's hair. I got heaps today ... lice and eggs.

We haven't had any sign of them in recent weeks, but yesterday KT was really scratching her head hard.

I didn't get a chance to do anything about it because we had a full day planned.

First we looked for a new wardrobe for KT with some hanging space and a mirror, then we went out to lunch and took her to see the pixar movie UP which David and Margaret both raved about.

In the afternoon we took the dog for a walk and in no time it was bed time.

This morning though I got up and wanted to make sure I wouldn't be sending KT to her Grandma's house with lice.

We watched Ice Age 2, and once I had combed through her hair, I realized that I would have to go out and buy and apply a lice treatment too.

I got plenty of eggs and lice out, but I wanted to make sure I killed any live ones that I might have missed.

Poor KT had her head in a cloud of tea tree and eucalyptus for nearly an hour and a half!

I gave it a good massage into her head too, and a good massage when rinsing it out.

Apart from the annoyance and "mad rush" associated with the lice removal there was the whole dust from the plains that decended upon us. It gave the whole day a weird feeling.

Apparently it is affecting lots of the country ... even with doors and windows shut during the worst of it I could smell dust everywhere!

Anyway it started to clear this afternoon, KT is safely at Grandma's house and Grandma has been warned of the earlier events of the day.

Tonight KT will stay there overnight, and go to a kids theatre production and some craft making activities in the city tomorrow.

Uni and I will have a romantic dinner out tonight.

combing out hair lice

Ok well this post is about reminding myself what to do and how to do it as I have an unbelieveable habit of forgetting things too quickly or only vaguely remembering.

I looked for a video on combing out hair lice on the internet to help me out and this gave me a few tips that were lacking in other written guides.

The first thing to do is to smother your dry hair in a thick conditioner.  This apparently surrounds and "stuns" but does not kill the head lice and renders them immobile for long enough for you to catch them in your comb.

You have to first comb through the hair with a normal comb to get out as many tangles as possible and make the job easier and less painful for the person being groomed.

Then you use a lice comb which is a metal comb with thick metal teeth that are very close together.  You are supposed to section off the hair and comb through each bit at a time.

The very important thing to remember is to go from as close as possible to the scalp and all the way down the hair shaft.  This removes lice and eggs.  The lice like to stay close to the scalp where they feed and they lay their eggs about an inch down the hair shaft.  So when you start from the scalp and work your way down you have the greatest chance of success.

When you have done one comb stroke you need to wipe the comb off on a tissue or paper towel.  Most of the time what you wipe off will be a whole stack of conditioner but every so often there will also be some very small specks which are brownish.  They look to me like those cyclist helmets that you see at the olympics that kind of have a long thin tail at the back.  I'm not sure if these are small lice or eggs, but ... The really big lice are bigger ....I mistook one for a flea, and the larger they are the more you can see of their "legs" or pincers.

Remember to comb starting from all parts of the scalp, including the start of the hairline at the nape of the neck and from directly behind the ears.

The other tip is to clip up the bits of hair that you have already done so that you systematically work through all the hair and don't miss any.  I don't think it matters if you do some parts more than once, but missing some is more of a problem.

I got lots of stuff today and one very major large louse. 

The tissues with lice on them can be thrown in the bin.

I will do more combing on Sunday and am hoping that there will be less of everything coming out ... indicating that we are winning the war.

I will also comb Uni's hair and get him to do mine.  I suspect that because I have been regularly using shampoo and conditioner with tea tree oil in it I have been less susceptible than everyone else ... but it would not hurt to get combed and confirm this.

Fun times ahead!

PS the lice killing stuff I have been using is nitwits lice foam and its main ingredients are tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil.  I think it has been effective but because I did not comb out the eggs the first time after using the treatment I undermined its effectiveness.

50m freestyle

Today I had the pool to myself for the first 25 of my 30 minutes swimming!

I also swam for the first time ever a full 50m of freestyle (with flippers on), without stopping, having problems with my breathing, or swallowing any water.

When I stopped I didn't feel like I was out of air, but of course it did take me a while to catch my breath and my heart was racing like you would not believe!  I know the breathing statement sounds like a contradiction but it is like if you are running to catch a bus, you are breathing while you run and you are in no danger of running out of air, but when you stop your heart is racing and you need to catch your breath.

I painted another fence panel today ... unfortunately I got quite sunburnt doing it.   I am up to the inclined part of the fence now and I have to climb a chair, or the water tanks, or the fence to reach the very top parts I have to paint.

I have settled into a rhythym of painting from the top of one paling, right down including crossbeams as I come to them, then moving to the next paling and starting at the bottom of it and working up all the way to the top, then from the top down on the next paling and then the bottom up on the next paling etc.

This means I don't "lose my place" and don't end up painting the same paling twice.  It also means I am constantly changing my position so I don't get stuck crouched down or stretching up for long periods at a time.

This afternoon I will comb the lice eggs out of KT's hair and probably again in 2 days etc etc.

We did our 3rd lice treatment last night after KT had lots of bloody spots all over her scalp.  As I speak Uni is washing the treatment out of his hair too.

Why oh why have they gotten rid of the spellchecker function???

Or has it moved somewhere that I have not discovered yet?

Getting organized for spring

Well have combed through KT's hair and removed several little things ... don't know for sure if they are eggs or baby lice or what, but I didn't find anything too enormous.

I am in the process of washing sheets, pillowcases, towels, blankets etc.

Today was a rainy day in the morning ... have really missed the rain and hope there will be plenty more to come, but I was able to get a load of washing out and dried.

We got our electricity meter installed by a fast talking, impossible to understand scotsman. He arrived on our street at 9am and waited in his car until 9.45am to arrive early for a 10 o'clock appointment.

Meanwhile I kept running backwards and forwards from the window to see what he was doing and was he coming in yet and why was someone else  pulled up near him and stopping for a loud chat.  It turns out the lady with him was his supervisor because as soon as he left my house she rang (I recognized the voice) to find out if he had done all that he was supposed to do.

Our hot water is at the right temperature, he gave us 15 CFL light bulbs ... we should be ok for lightbulbs now for the next 5 years or so if you include our long life ones we already have in place and the ones he gave us.

I have used most of our appliances today and done circuits of the monitor to see just how much power each appliance uses!

I guess we knew most of this anyway but it is a great visual reminder of how much electricity is being used.  The main offenders are of course the oven, dishwasher, kettle, iron, airconditioners particularly heating and the washing machine when it is spinning.  I will also have to try the dryer too.  I also discovered that having the rangehood light on at night is not such a great idea as it uses almost as much power as the two CFL kitchen lights combined!  I liked it because it cast a very dim light in the kitchen but I might just have to buy a few more night lights instead!

It was also absolutely freezing today!!

I was pleased that it would mean I should have the pool pretty much to myself.  When I arrived there were only two other people in there and after the initial dip the water was pretty warm.  Getting out was a struggle and the hot showers were heaven!!!

I am still struggling with the butterfly stroke, I have to remember to do head and arms first like going through a hoop on the surface of the water, then follow with my bottom and then my feet, and then do the pushing with the arms under the water.  I watched a "how to" butterfly video on the internet and I could see the head, bottom, feet pattern but I really need to watch the evening squad swimmers again to see it happen for a few lengths of the pool, because in the instruction videos they chop and change camera angles etc and there is an annoying voice over.

I have also tried to adjust my freestyle stroke as Jennie told me so that my elbows don't come up out of the water and instead my arms are doing more of a circular  or elliptical motion-starting out in front, going down through the water, past my hips and then coming up and out as more of an extended arm rotating at the shoulder (rather than a bent elbow) and then coming down (elbow bent in the water a bit in front of me) and then extending forwards and meeting the other hand  way out in front of me.

I am probably repeating myself but every time I get into the water I swim differently.  Better? hopefully but I am not always sure about that!!!

Just published this post and realized I hadn't really said anything remotely related to the title!!! 

I am winding down some of my facebook activities, games,  I think a few of them have run their course and I will only use them sporadically.  I am turning my attention to the house once more and trying to get rid of things I don't need, and taking care of jobs that I have put off.

Uni is on holidays for one month from tomorrow and he will probably like to spend some time on the computer too, so I will use this month to break my time wasting computer habits.

I will of course continue to email and blog and read other blogs etc but I have a lot I want to accomplish over the next month and hopefully I can create a new routine that will continue once Uni is back at work.

I also used our photocopy function for the first time yesterday .... brilliant!!!

arggghhh we are battling head lice

Need I say more!

Plenty of washing hair, combing hair, cleaning sheets and pillow cases and pillows in my immediate future.

Now I know what lice look like and I'm sure this is the first time KT has had them. 

Behind her ears is red and itchy and just below her hairline on her neck she is covered with little bloody spots/sores.

I also saw something biggish and white crawling on top of and then disappearing under her hair.

Yick!!!

And I feel as if there is something crawling on my head too.  Ewwwww

Later today we will both spend 30 minutes with head lice solution in our hair ... I think we will make a fine pair.

I did KT last weekend too and it killed off all the adult lice, but since I did not worry about the combing the eggs out of her hair step ... I am paying the price.