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.

Swimming with KT

Tonight KT came with me to swimming lessons and met Jennie.

She was really cute and really funny, so very interested in everything.  She asked a million questions while we were there ... why is there a smaller pool, why are there numbers at the end of each lane, do the lane ropes go all the way down to the bottom, which one is the teacher, are these the people in my class, what are there names, is the water cold, where will I sit, will I be able to see you, will you be able to see me, can I help you put on your flippers ....

Then when she listened to Jennie's instructions she said to me "I know what she wanted you to do, I think I could do it perfectly".   I think it is so much easier to listen and take in instructions when you are not the one in the water ... because I think the same thing when I hear her coach telling her things in the pool LOL!!!

I planned tonight's itinerary with military precision and it went without a hitch.  We took pooch for a walk at the usual time, came in and I had a shower and changed into my swimsuit, then KT had a shower after me (instead of a bath), I had promised her a hungry jack's dinner so after we were dry and dressed we drove through the drive through and bought chicken nuggets and chips for her.  While she ate them at home, I finished my preparations ... putting in contact lenses, putting my hair up etc.  We arrived at the pool right on time.

There were only 3 of us there ... last week there were 5, the week before there were 6, the week before that 7 and the week before that 5.  Hopefully people come back next week because if there are not enough consistent numbers the class may get cancelled. Apparently they need at least 4 or 5 to make it worth them keeping the lights on etc.

I got plenty of attention tonight and Jennie really focused on butterfly.  She said so much stuff and I really wasn't doing anything right ... i need time to digest the information ... but I think if I can remember everything she said and think about it and practice it I may be ok.  Lots to practice.  I really wish I had a video of her demonstrating the stroke to me ... she does all the actions for you on land (out of the water).

From what I can remember I have to lead with my head and arms, head, bottom, feet.  The head and arms lead and the bottom follows and then the feet have to follow (relax and undulate along with the rest of the body) and they actually have to come up out of the water.  She got me on the right track when she indicated I should try to lead with my head and arms as if I was trying to go into a hoop that was lying on top of the water, then the bottom follows and so should the feet  BUT you have to keep your arms straight in front and once you have undulated you have to come up to the surface of the water again ....I was going down further and further.  If your arms and hands point down, that is where you go ... so they have to come back up to the surface of the water again.

She said I had a good dolphin kick when I do 3 dolphin kicks then one breaststroke arms, but when I tried to incorporate butterfly arms things went awry.  She also does not want me to try breathing ... just try to do 2 or 3 strokes with head down to get a feel for the motion and then stand up for a breath when I need one.

I  am also not supposed to start moving my arms downward to push the water until after my whole body has completed one dolphin undulate ... ie. Head~Bottom~Feet, then push the water with arms, pushing with thumbs down, right back until past my hips and then arms over keeping thumbs in same position and rotating shoulders.

I can also try doing just one butterfly arm at a time - and when I do it I have to bring it down into the water in front of me and then extend (stretch) forward (I guess this is where the next head, bottom, feet comes in ... Then alternate to give both arms a go .... not sure if this will be easier or not ... will have to practise.

I didn't even get a chance to do backstroke tonight ... and when I did freestyle Jennie commented that my elbows come back too far and out of the water.  I need to do a full stroke back past my hip (ending with my arms straight) and then rotate my arm forward (kind of like in butterfly how your arm does a bit of a circle).

Hmmmpfff I think I'm doing great at the beginning of the lesson and by the end I am confused, kerfuzzled, tired ... but very eager to come back and get things straightened out in my mind on Friday.

I am working with the computer on my photos at the moment and working on a how to diary so that I know what the best way to work with my photos is ... which is the best program for burning CD's and DVD's etc


Ahhhh where is the spell check function on this new improved posting thing ..... help! what do I need a strikethrough function for goodness sakes WHAT ABOUT SPELLCHECK!

safety switch

Today our safety switch shut off the electricity at about 7.02 am. I know it happened then because my snooze alarm had just gone off a few minutes earlier ... and when I got up to look at the time I was met with a blank clock face.

This is the second time in the last few months this has happened. I know it is the safety switch and not a power failure because our oven clock still works and all our lights turn on.

I have to switch everything off and unplug it at the wall, reset the safety switch and then turn on each appliance one at a time until the safety switch cuts the power again.

It is supposed to do this when an appliance that you plug in shorts out.

Unfortunately nothing made the switch turn off again and it looks like the something that malfunctions does it on and off once in a blue moon. Last time it happened during the night while we were asleep as well so it is a bit hard to narrow down what is causing the problem.

Hmmmmmmmm

todays date is Monday the 24th of August

Well tonight KT lost her first tooth! It started to be wobbly two nights ago and we were expecting a few weeks of wobbles etc but right in the middle of eating a home made chocolate biscuit ... out it popped.

I was surprised at how much blood there was, but tried to keep a lid on my reaction so as not to frighten KT. We cleaned it off and put it into the tooth pixie doll that Auntie Isadora bought for KT many years ago.

I have left the window open so that the tooth fairy will be able to fly in tonight!!!

Today I swam at the pool again. It was an incredibly hot day for a winter day and unfortunately there were a lot of people at the pool. Last Monday I had it to myself, this time there was someone in each lane. I had another attempt at butterfly. I did a lap or two concentrating on just doing the strong butterfly kicks and then I did rocket arms straight out in front and KICK, KICK, followed by pushing back on the water and then arms over and in front while kicking.

You are supposed to kick when your arms enter the water and leave the water ... I did two complete attempts of this and I managed to get my head out of the water to breathe this time, but it will be slow going!

I had a fairly hard time falling asleep last night, there was lots of banging and crashing (I thought it was Uni and Bella downstairs) but it turns out there was some kind of creature that was running madly around and crashing into beams in between our upper and lower level. I went to bed at midnight and kept being woken up by noises for the next 2 hours. The last noise was uni having a midnight (or should I say 2am snack).

To try and calm myself down and relax I started thinking about swimming technique and the freestyle stroke. I think it is funny how these days I drift off peacefully thinking about swimming whereas several months ago I would think about what plant I would put where in my garden and plan my next yard beautifying project.

Yesterday KT and I had a great day together ... we made chocolate biscuits and KT decorated them, using some of the multitude of packets of sprinkles that we purchased to put on her birthday cake and then did not end up needing to use!

We went shopping for swimming stuff .... goggles, swimming cap and thongs in preparation for starting swimming at school in term 4. We were lucky that the shops had restocked their swimming gear leading into spring. KT was able to find a great pink pair of goggles, pink silicone swimming cap and pink thongs! I discovered a red silicone swimming cap and just had to buy it. It was lucky that I did because when I returned home and compared it to my current green one, it was quite a bit bigger ... so it will be much roomier and more comfortable and cover more of my head and hair than the other one. KT's pink one is big too which will make it easier for her to put it on herself.

On Wednesday KT will come with me to watch my swimming lesson while uni is at work. She liked the idea of her watching my swimming lesson this time around whereas normally it is me watching her swimming lessons!