August Fly on the Wall

Welcome to another fly on the wall. This post is all the weird, crazy and funny things you'd hear if you were a fly on one of my walls this month.  On a side note we found our very first blowfly in the house this week, a sure sign that summer is finally on the way. Now is the time to invest in fly spray shares on the stock market. Below is a list of all of the blogs who are participating in the fun today, be sure to visit them all and enjoy all the madness.

 http://www.BakingInATornado.com     Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://followmehome.shellybean.com   Follow me home 

http://www.menopausalmom.com/      Menopausal Mother

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com        Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://www.justalittlenutty.com/          Just A Little Nutty

http://themomisodes.com                    The Momisodes

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com   Someone Else’s Genius

http://www.angelaweight.com             Sanity Waiting to Happen

http://www.southernbellecharm.com    Southern Belle Charm

http://www.juiceboxconfession.com     Juicebox Confession

http://www.gomamao.com                  Go Mama O

http://dinoheromommy.com/              Dinosaur Superhero Mommy   

Mum: If I have a heart attack in my bed, after you call the paramedics, can you hide the empty chip packets? (comes out of her room holding two handfuls of bags)
Me: Aww mum is that your version of the porn stash?
Mum: It really is.

Miss K requested a new Spiderman themed toothpaste the other day when we were shopping for a new toothbrush. This paired nicely with her new Dora the Explorer toothbrush, but I digress.  It turns out she wasn't the only one who could get excited about licensed oral hygiene products...
Mum: Wow! Spiderman toothpaste!
Me: I know! It sparkles too!
Mum: That is so awesome!
Me: I know. What else could a little girl want in a toothpaste?

Sam: I dreamed the other night that Jason went into space, and when I woke up I was convinced that it had happened. I sat there arguing with myself for five minutes that he couldn't have gone to space, because there were no photographs of the event. In the end I had to ask him if he'd gone into outer space.

Miss K and I were on one of our regular trips to the supermarket to buy essentials, and she was in a great old mood, chatting away about everything and anything, when we walked past a rather heavy set woman. It was clearly a woman, and I could tell from a mile away, but that didn't stop Miss K from saying very loudly as we passed her "look, another man!" I learned I can speed walk like a pro that day.

Another day, on another trip to the supermarket we bumped into one of our neighbours. We started with the obligatory small talk you make when you meet up with someone you only vaguely know when Miss K started talking to the neighbour, and informed her that she was Miss K's best friend. She then went on a giant rant about how good friends they were, despite the fact that she has never actually met this neighbour before.

Mum: The big boss came in today, and she said straight away "Now I can't remember everyone's names, so you'll have to tell me who you all are." I said "I'm Lyn" and she asked "which one?" (there are currently two Lyns who work in mum's team) and all I could say was "the old one?" It turns out she just wanted my surname.

Me: He's going to the Italian Australian Club.
Mum: Did you say he's going to the Chinese shadow puppet?

So Miss K thinks she has both mum and I figured out. She asked me for a chocolate, and I said no, because it was too close to dinner time. Undeterred, she then snuck the chocolate over to where mum was sitting, and started to open it next to her saying "Shhh, don't tell mum."

Miss K loves performing concerts for us. If she's feeling particularly generous she'll even take requests for songs from the audience. One day I asked her to sing a song about grandma's mustache. The lyrics went:

Granny has a mustache,
Granny has a mustache,
Granny has a mustache,
And she is nice.

Me: Come on Miss K, time to get ready for kinder
Miss K: (lays on the floor) I'm dead.
Something tells me she wasn't in the mood for kindergarten that day...

Me: Miss K go to the toilet.
Miss K: No!
Me: Go to the toilet now or I'll give you a wedgie.
Miss K: Nooo!
Me: Well what's it going to be, toilet or wedgie?
Miss K: Wedgie.

Sam: I said something today that I never though I would have to say thanks to your daughter.
Me: Oh yes?
Sam: Yes you can be a monkey, don't put that watch down your pants...
The sad thing is I understood exactly what she was talking about.

Miss K had a nightmare last weekend, and after calming her down and giving her a small drink to get her back into bed she ended up in bed with me. She tried every trick in the book to get to stay up even longer including this one...
Miss K: Mum my heart is broken.
Me: Your heart is broken? That's terrible! Should I kiss it better?
Miss K: No.
Me: What about a hug? Would a hug fix it?
Miss K: No.
Me: So what fixes a broken heart then?
Miss K: Bananas.
If only it was always that easy.

She then informed  me the next day that her heart was "beeping"

August Use Your Words - The Second Meeting

Welcome again my lovely audience, it's time again for another Use Your Words. this month seventeen brave bloggers have signed up to challenge their skills as writers. How this works for any newbies around here is participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now, 

Below is a list of all of the bloggers participating today. Please be sure to visit them all to enjoy the rest of the brilliant work that goes into this challenge. 

Baking In A Tornado

Spatulas on Parade

The Momisodes

The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

Stacy Sews and Schools

Southern Belle Charm

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

Someone Else’s Genius

Never Ever Give Up Hope

Confessions of a part-time working mom

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 

Climaxed

Juicebox Confession

Cluttered Genius 

The Angrivated Mom

So today my words are: extravagance ~ silver ~ moonshine ~ hope ~ flaming ~ dice and they were submitted by the incredible Jenniy over at Climaxed.

So today's story is a continuation from my last Use Your Words, which you can read here if you want to start from the beginning.

He took a deep breath. and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The man staring back at him from the highly polished silver glass looked calm and confident, but inside his head all he could hear was screaming. He thought he'd already overcome the hardest obstacles so far, but each new hurdle seemed higher than the last.

Putting the ad in the newspaper hadn't been his idea. His best friend and the person whom he was staying with when he spotted the mysterious beauty across the garden fence was the one with the bright idea. He had resisted it at first, but in the end in order to shut his friend up he finally sent the ad in the day he left to go back home. He knew that was the cowards way out, but if her reaction wasn't all he could hope for, at least this way he wouldn't have to see her ever again. Standing on the platform waiting for her to arrive had been absolute torture. He was certain he stood out like a neon sign standing still with nothing but a green coffee mug in his hand, however all the worry and nerves hadn't been for nothing, and she had shown up. 

Their first meeting had gone well. He'd managed to make her laugh, and her easy, friendly manner had calmed his nerves almost instantly. It had gone so well they'd arranged a proper date for the next evening. That of course had sent him into a wild panic as he spent the next two days trying to figure out the perfect night out for the two of them. Every idea he came up with felt cliched or too much like he was trying too hard. It was so important that this evening went perfectly, as a way of thanking her for taking a gamble on him. She'd rolled the dice when she came to the station to meet him, and he didn't want her to regret her decision.  In the end he'd settled on a dinner at a restaurant nearby, that had good online reviews, followed by a stroll by the river. Being the weekend there would be people everywhere, so she wouldn't feel nervous being alone with him. 

Taking another deep breath he applied his cologne, inhaling its rich, woody scent. It was the one extravagance he allowed himself, rationalizing that the cost of the tiny bottle was far outweighed by the attention he got from people when he wore it. "Women love a man who smells good" he thought to himself, as he often did when applying it. "Not that it's ever gotten me more than the occasional compliment" he grumbled under his breath. He felt like he'd always been unlucky in love, which was part of the reason he'd been so resistant to placing an ad in the newspaper to begin with. Too often he'd been passed over for the guy with the flashier car, the more impressive job, or the slick suit. It had made him cynical and guarded, completely unwilling to put his heart on the line as quickly as others. But there was something different about this woman. something that almost made him want to throw caution to the wind and risk everything.

Smoothing down his dark hair he stepped away from the mirror and walked towards the front door. He felt sicker than the time he and his friends in high school had tried one of their father's moonshine. He'd been laid out with that hangover for two days, much to the chagrin of his parents at the time. He decided that this was definitely a worse feeling than that weekend. He reached for the door handle and pulled open the door. Standing on the other side was his date, her hand poised to knock on the door. Her head snapped up as the door opened and her face flushed a flaming shade of red.
"I was just coming to pick you up" he smiled at her.
"I know, I couldn't wait" she replied wincing, the red now spreading down her neck. The sight of her pale skin blushing made him smile even wider. He held his arm out to her and looked into her eyes. "Shall we?" He asked motioning towards his car. Nervously she took his arm and allowed him to lead her down the path. How the rest of the evening would turn out neither of them knew, but the possibilities were both endless and exciting. 

August Secret Subject Swap: Perfect?

Hello again my lovelies, I am back for another month of Secret Subject Swap. Today sixteen brave bloggers are writing posts on subjects given to them by another blogger. I don't think I've ever been in a secret subject swap this large, so there's lots of great stuff here for you guys to read. I know that reading everyone else's posts is going to take up a great portion of my Saturday, so I'm excited to finally say I have plans this weekend!

So before I get into my subject I'll link you to everyone else who is participating in the swap today. Be sure to hop over to the other bloggers too, and share some of your lovely love around.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com                                          The Momisodes

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com                    The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/                 Stacy Sews and Schools

http://dinoheromommy.com/                            Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/                  Spatulas on Parade

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                        Southern Belle Charm

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                               Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                                 Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com                    Silence of the Mom

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                      Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/              Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com                The Angrivated Mom

http://morethancheeseandbeer.blogspot.com           More Than Cheese and Beer

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                           Climaxed

So today my post is For the first time ever, everything is going right today. While it's wonderful it's a bit scary. Do you want more perfect days or do you want your normal life back? and it was submitted by the wonderful Karen over at Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

So anyone who knows me knows how hectic life around here gets. With juggling work, kindergarten, my own scrapbooking business, speech therapy appointments, visitation schedules, and everything in between, I barely have a minute to scratch myself. It's why I so often fall asleep in front of the computer of an evening. I shouldn't complain, but it gets old real fast. I've learned a few cheats over the years to make life a little easier, which usually involve throwing some electronic device in Miss K's general direction just to get five minutes of peace and quiet to get a job done, or five minutes more sleep, but I have things more or less under control. which is what made yesterday's bad day worse. First of all Miss K spent the whole day giving me sass, arguing back at me, and getting under my feet. Any request for assistance from me prompted running and screaming from her as if I was asking her to donate a kidney for me. To make things worse we ended up late to our speech therapy appointment thanks to her antics, which threw me out for the rest of the day. By the time I got to my night time class I was absolutely fried, and I still had to teach a scrapbook layout to my workshop ladies.

Usually spending two hours comparing our battle scars from the past week leaves us all refreshed and ready to fight the good fight the next day, but I couldn't help but still feel unsatisfied with my lot in life as I drove home late last night. I sat in my car in the dark driveway for five minutes too exhausted to get out and start unloading all my tools from the back seat. I looked up at the sky, which was void of sparkly lights for some reason, and searched the black until I found a solitary star winking at me. "I just wish life was easier" I said out loud before letting out a large sigh and hauling my tired behind out of the car. I ignored the boxes in the back seat, figuring I'd get them tomorrow and dragged my feet towards the door. After completing my normal night time routine I went to bed early and fell fast asleep.

When I woke up this morning the sun was streaming through a slit in my curtain. This alone was odd, because I'm usually woken up by Miss K pulling my covers off me at 4:30 in the morning demanding a drink and a banana. Once I got my bearings I pulled myself out of bed and went over to Miss K's room, worried she was sick. Instead of finding a mayhem of toys or books all over the floor, I was greeted by the sight of a spotless room, with Miss K in the corner stacking her books into their shelves according to size. "You OK kiddo?" I asked her. "Yes mummy, just cleaning my room thank you" came the reply. I shook my head, wondering if maybe the exhaustion was beginning to mess with my mind, and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. The mess of coffee powder and sugar that had coated the bench the night before was missing, as was the pile of clean dishes that had been drying on the rack for three days now. "Miss K has grandma been cleaning this morning?" I called out. "No mummy, that was me." she called back. I wandered into the lounge room to find a similar scene of tidiness that hadn't been there the night before. "You cleaned the whole house?" I asked incredulously. Hearing noise from the kitchen I turned to find Miss K preparing herself some breakfast. "You want me to do that for you?" I asked hopefully "No thanks" she replied and continued on pouring milk on her cereal. At a loss for words, I decided to tell a joke. "Knock, knock" I said with a grin. "Not now mum, I'm a little busy" Miss K said as she walked past me carefully balancing her bowl in one hand and a cup of juice in the other. She sat down in her little blue chair, and I waited for the inevitable request to push her seat in. Instead she did a weird little jump in her seat and managed to pull herself closer to the table unassisted.

The rest of the day passed in the same way. Miss K refused my offer to play a game of Mario Kart with her, something she usually jumps at the chance to do, and instead decided to rearrange her sock drawer. She declined my suggestion to pull out the kinetic sand, instead sorting through her toy chest and throwing out all her old unwanted toys. I was so bored I decided to drape a blanket on myself and pretend to be a ghost. This was only met with a dirty look from my suddenly mature 4 year old. Gone were the requests to follow her to the toilet for no particular reason, gone were the spontaneous games of tag, gone was the cheeky sass I got on a constant basis. I was horrified to realise my little girl had morphed into a middle aged woman, right in front of my eyes. This thought caused something in my head to snap and I screamed in the middle of the quietest dinner I'd had in a long time. "What in the ever loving hell is going on? Where is my baby and who are you?" "You said you wanted life to be easier. This is what you wanted" Miss K said in between mouthfuls of mashed potato (a dish I'd never been able to get her to eat before now) "Well I changed my mind" I cried. "I want my old life back. I want the mess, and the arguing, and the laughing, and the fun. Easy is boring" With this I ran to my bedroom and buried my head in my pillow. I know it was incredibly childish of me, but this day had been so horrible, I didn't know what else to do.

I lay in silence for a few seconds, until I felt something pull the blankets off me, and the shock of the cold air jolted me out of my sleep. Miss K jumped on my back and yelled "Wake up mummy I'm thirsty." I reached for my phone and checked the time, 4:30 in the morning. "I want a banana and a drink please mummy" Miss K said as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and before she could repeat herself I grabbed her up in the biggest bear hug of her life. "Never, ever, ever change Miss K, got it?" I cried burying my head in her tiny shoulder. "Ok mummy. Can I have a drink now?" she asked. I jumped out of bed, relieved that everything was as it was meant to be, and last night's dream was only that. As I poured Miss K's drink, the little voice came from my bedroom. "Don't forget my banana mum." "Some things never change" I said to myself smiling. "And thank God for that."

The one where I say everything about everything

It has been too long since I wrote to you guys. I decided to take the month off from my writing challenges because work has been crazy busy this past month, with having 20 cases going through Court in one week and then spending the next three weeks madly trying to catch up on everything we stopped doing just so we could shove these 20 matters through the system, and I'm now only a week behind on all of my work, so I'm starting to find my energy again. Yay me.

I have actually started several posts over the last three weeks, unfortunately each and every one of them has only gotten so far before I lost my enthusiasm, so they are all just sitting dormant in my list of posts waiting for me to come back and love them. I have decided to just come on now and drag several of them together into one larger post and just spew absolutely everything that has been in my head for the last few weeks out at you in one large go, to save wasting any more time agonising over when I'm actually going to post again.  So in no particular order, here are some of the things I've noticed happening in the world recently.

Victim shaming is still a thing
Now because I'm not actually in America and I get all of my news from over the ocean via click baits like the best people always do, I'm never sure whether what I'm reading really is as prevalent as the sensationalist news websites want me to think they are. But one theme that has come up time and time again is instances where girls are being made to cover their bodies up, for fear of exciting any men within a 3 mile radius. You're going to have to pardon my French here, but for once I don't really care if this is a really widespread thing. For this to have happened even just once pisses me off. I hate that women are once again being made responsible for the actions of men everywhere. Blaming victims of rape for the actions of their rapist is NOT ok. Ever. And to force women to cover their shoulders, or their knees, or their chests just to make sure they don't get raped is not good enough. It would be a better use of people's time and energy to teach people not to rape. But that's too difficult. It's easier to make women cover up than make men man up and treat young girls with respect. Of course I do not think that all men are rapists, that's just silly. It's just as silly as expecting women to control their bodies as well as the urges of the whole male population. When I was a teenager I could barely even control my own hair, let alone the behaviors and actions of any and all males I walked past. To expect this of our daughters now is as unfair as it has always been and it needs to stop.

America finally gave homosexuals the same rights as everyone else
Yay America! Congratulations you guys for recognizing that this needed to happen. Now if somebody could have a quiet word with the people who run my country, that would be great. Of course Australia has always been the younger sibling to you guys, we're always several steps behind, running madly in your wake just trying to keep up with our cooler big brother, so the fact that you guys have changed your laws can only mean that it is an inevitability down here too. I am very happy to say that the dialogue is already starting, and while it is still only on a small scale here, from little things big things grow. I was actually really excited that I was alive and old enough to understand the world around me when this change happened. To be there to watch history  happen is an amazing thing, and I hope that by the time Miss K is older and more aware of her world, the idea that homosexual people are not allowed to get married will be an outdated and ridiculous concept for her, just like the idea that people of different races being banned from marrying each other is outdated and ridiculous to me. Now I know that not everybody is happy with this history changing decision the Supreme Court has made, and the insults are flying thick and fast. This will change. It will take time, but it will become less and less as time goes by, so keep riding the storm people, you're doing great.

We're all going to die
I get a teensy bit tired of all the news posts that try to tell me the next big thing that is going to kill me, or my children, or my pets, or the entire world. It's usually always cancer, and it's always depressing as all hell. Well I've got a news flash for you guys, and just a warning, this is a huge spoiler, but we're all going to die. That may come as a surprise to some people, but none of us is immortal. Sometimes I think the fun part is discovering exactly what it is that gets us in the end. Right now I'm banking on lung cancer or emphysema being the bastard that sends me to my pine box, but it would be a delicious twist if I was struck down by an errant toilet seat falling out of a plane. Scientists will never find a cure for death, because overpopulation is a bad thing, and we need people to die. Mainly because you horny buggers won't stop having sex, which ultimately leads to more babies, and we're really running out of room already as it is. (Except in the centre of Australia. There's heaps of room there, so if you're feeling a bit cramped, and don't mind living somewhere that even most animals refuse to inhabit, come on down.) But the point is we all die. Our bodies are only built to survive for a finite amount of time, and we need to come to terms with this.

Phew, I feel better for having got all of that off my chest. I'm sure I've noticed other things that I'm forgetting about right now, but I have a comfy bed, and a chocolate bar calling my name, so I'm off to enjoy my night. Stay tuned my lovely readers, because the next time I appear out of the mist it will be to do one of my incredibly rare reviews, this time of an amazing product I've just discovered, and I can't wait to share it with you guys.

June Fly on the Wall

Welcome again to another Fly on the Wall. This series is about sharing all the little things that we all do that are never enough on their own for a blog post, but tend to group together nicely in a post like this, just to show you that even the flies in our house are ashamed to know us.  Today 18 bloggers are participating in the challenge, and their links are written below.  Be sure to visit all of them, even if only to make you feel just a little bit better about how insane you are.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com             Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/        Spatulas on Parade

http://followmehome.shellybean.com           Follow me home

http://www.menopausalmom.com/              Menopausal Mother

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/   Stacy Sews and Schools

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com               Battered Hope

http://www.justalittlenutty.com/                 Just A Little Nutty

http://themomisodes.com                          The Momisodes

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com         Someone Else’s Genius

http://gndisney.wordpress.com                  Disneyland in Kentucky

http://www.juiceboxconfession.com            Juicebox Confession

http://dinoheromommy.com/                      Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.angelaweight.com                    Sanity Waiting to Happen

http://www.southernbellecharm.com           Southern Belle Charm

http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com                 The Sadder But Wiser Girl

http://www.gomamao.com                         Go Mama O

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com/ Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

My brother law was recently diagnosed as diabetic. I never knew just how inappropriate conversations about blood tests could be until we all decided to play with his new blood sugar tester.

Me: Did you prick me already? I didn't feel a thing.
Sam: That's what she said.

Me: You're going to have to prick me again, I got nothing out of that one.

Me: I'm getting nothing out of this one.
Jason: Squeeze it harder then.
*inappropriate giggling from every adult in the room*

Sam: I want Eliza to have a turn. Where's his little jabby thing?
*inappropriate giggling from me*
Sam: I said his LITTLE jabby thing.
Needless to say that didn't stop the giggling.

Me: Life is more like a soap opera than we realise. The only difference is we don't do the longing stares into the difference when things go wrong.
Mum: That is so true. I'm going to make it my life's mission now to do that stare into the distance whenever something goes wrong. Can I get some dramatic music too?

Kim and I were discussing recipes from our childhood with mum when we started talking about a recipe mum had when she was a kid. This is the conversation that ensued.

Mum: I was about to say I'd ask mum, but never mind*
Me: Did you really? Aww mum.
Kim: Hold on, let me get out the ouija board...0408
Me: Hang on, that's my number, I'm not dead yet, don't summon me!

*My grandma has been dead 25 years, which somehow makes mum's initial comment even sadder.

Nat: I had to get the dinner cart downstairs to the kids at work the other day, but I hate taking the elevator, so I stuck the dinner cart on the elevator, pushed the button then raced the elevator down the stairs. Unfortunately I got halfway down the stairs and forgot what I was doing, so I just went back to my room and left the cart to ride the elevator. It could have ended up in the basement if my room leader hadn't got it for me.

Me: Did you know that strawberry flavouring comes from beaver secretions, from their scent gland.
Nat: Really? I have strawberry flavoured lip gloss.
Me: Oh. Well then, enjoy putting your beaver secretions on your lips.

Me: I feel it is inappropriate to break into 1980's songs when yelling at the children.

The court house in the town I work in has a massive circuit every three months, and all the local people going through the family law courts can have their matters heard in the area. It saves everyone having to travel an hour and a half to the next closest family law courts. The joys of living in a rural area. The latest circuit just happened this last week, and we had thirty matters going through the court in one week. Most of them happened in the first day so I had to help my boss get the case files for about 25 matters to the court house, which is half a block away from our office, so we walked the files down. I was carrying about 20 kilos worth of paperwork the whole trip, then we got to the court house and found that they were doing security scans at the front door, which meant that entry was in single file, and the queue to enter was the length of the building. Needless to say by the time we got the files into the court room my arms and legs were like jelly. The sore muscles I ended up with lasted another three days. The pain ended up so bad Miss K had to pull me up the stairs into my sister's house when I went to pick her up at night. I'm now going to request we get office skate boards before next circuit. The added bonus is I will look mega cool when I ride it down to the cafe every week to pick up our milk.

Miss K has fortnightly speech therapy sessions in a nearby town. This is a conversation she has with our therapist every single week. You would think the woman would learn by now she needs to rephrase this question.

Chloe: What is this girl doing?
Miss K: She's eating a burger.
Chloe: And where is she eating the burger?
Miss K: (pointing to the picture) Right there.

Well that's all from me for this month, be sure to buzz back again next month for another installment of crazy.

June Use Your Words - The Stranger

Welcome again to another Use Your Words. In this blog challenge fourteen brave bloggers have swapped words with eachother. We all need to write something based on what words we have been given. The hitch is none of us knew who got our words, or what direction they will take them in.  Below is a list of all the bloggers participating in the challenge this month.  Be sure to visit them all and share the love around.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com          Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/     Spatulas on Parade

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com     The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://themomisodes.com                        The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/               Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com              Battered Hope

http://www.southernbellecharm.com          Southern Belle Charm

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com         Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch             Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com          Climaxed

http://dinoheromommy.com/                     Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

This month my words are:

strange ~ the world was different ~ passengers ~ flaw ~ she blinked

And they were submitted by the amazing Robin at Someone Else's Genius 

The train was running late. She wasn't upset about this because she was also running late. The delay caused by the train gave her a chance to catch her breath. She always seemed to be running late these days, her once polished life having given way to chaos. Life wasn't meant to be this way she thought for the millionth time.  

She was interrupted from her thoughts by the arrival of the train. She shuffled through the doors and into the aisles with the rest of the passengers. Slowly she made her way through the carriage until she found an empty seat. Settling down in her chair she prepared for the two hour long journey. Leaning back in her chair she allowed her thoughts to wander again, back to that fateful day two weeks ago that had flipped her world upside down. 

It had started as a normal day, she'd gotten up early, done her daily yoga routine then settled into her arm chair to read the paper. She loved her morning routine, and got pretty cranky if she couldn't do it exactly the same way each morning. Little did she know that at that moment, her mornings would never be the same again. She flipped quickly past all the doom and gloom in the front pages and turned straight to the personals column. She loved reading the lost connection section every day, seeing the desperate and hopeful turning to the local rag in the hopes of finding the answer to their what ifs. As she read through the ads however, one connection in particular caught her eye.

"To the brunette beauty sitting in her armchair reading this right now. You've just finished your yoga, and you're now drinking an herbal tea out of your green mug. I have had the privilege of watching you for two weeks perform your daily routine, and you are perfection. Your only flaw is that you do not know I exist, and now I must return to the city without ever having had the courage to learn your name. If you want to help me rectify this, come to the city on the 24th of this month. I'll be at the city station waiting for you on platform 4. You will know it is me because I will be holding a mug identical to the one you hold in your hand right now. Please help me fix the worst mistake of my life, and let me get to know you."

She blinked and stared down at the green mug she was indeed holding in her hand. Had someone really been watching her all this time? She was repulsed and curious at the same time. Her mind raced with questions. Could the ad really be about her? Was there really someone out there who wanted to meet her? Was she going to head to the city to find out? Quickly she looked at the top of the page to check the date. It was the 10th. She had fourteen days to decide whether or not to do something impulsive and crazy, or pretend she had never read the ad at all, and go back to life as usual. Unfortunately for her it was too late for that, she looked around her tiny apartment, and already could see that now, the world was different, and possibly would never be the same ever again. 

The next two weeks dragged by. She changed her mind a million times, back and forth between the two choices until she was dizzy with indecision. In the end her curiosity won out, and she bought a train ticket two days before the 24th, during a moment of bravery. Now she was sitting on the train, heading to the city and regretting her rashness. What if he was ugly, or boring, or worse, a murderer? What if he wasn't really talking to her, what if there was another woman in her town who did yoga then drank herbal tea every morning? All these thoughts flew through her mind over the two hour trip into the city. She was almost relieved when the train arrived at its final destination, until she remembered why she was actually there, and the terror kicked in. She milled out of the train behind everyone else and stood still. She began to scan the people rushing to their next destination, searching for a man holding a green mug. 

Then suddenly like something out of a movie, the crowds parted, and standing in the middle of platform 4 was a tall gentleman holding a green mug. He had kind eyes and a nervous smile on his face, as he scanned the crowd looking for his yoga loving mystery woman. Their eyes met, and the world stopped for a second. She was relieved to find, the strange person who had been watching her in secret certainly wasn't ugly. "As for the boring or the murderer," she thought, "there's only one way to find out."

June Secret Subject Swap - Mother Nature

Welcome one and all to the June episode of Secret Subject Swap.  Today 16 brave bloggers are swapping subjects with eachother, and then posting simultaneously. None of us know who got our subject, so it's a fun ride for everyone involved.  Below is a list of the participating bloggers, as always be sure to visit everyone, and share the love around.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com         Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com    The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com       Spatulas on Parade

http://dinoheromommy.com/                     Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://themomisodes.com                           The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/                Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://thelieberfamily.com                          The Lieber Family 

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com               Battered Hope

http://www.southernbellecharm.com         Southern Belle Charm

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com        Someone Else’s Genius

http://www.silenceofthemom.blogspot.com Silence of the Mom

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch           Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.smalltalkmama.com                   Small Talk Mama

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com            Climaxed

So today my prompt is So you get to be "Mother Nature" for the day, what's on your To Do List? and it was submitted by the lovely Shawnna from Small Talk Mama.

Wanted: motivated go-getter for newly available management position. You must have the ability to multi-task, and the willingness to ride the storm.  Nature lovers welcome.

I circled the add then dialed the number given at the bottom. A cheerful sounding woman asked me a few basic questions, then invited me to meet up with her for an interview the next day. I hung up the phone with a knot of nerves slowly growing in my stomach. I'd been feeling for a while now that I needed a change of scenery, and I was hopeful that a new job was just the ticket. 

I put my best work attire on the next day, and made my way to the cafe I was directed to the day before. I was surprised when I entered to find the only other customer in the room was a tall olive skinned woman in a purple flowing summer dress. I assumed I was really early until she walked over to me, with her arm outstretched.

"You must be my prospective replacement" she said with a warm smile. Suddenly I felt incredibly overdressed. We sat down at a small table in the corner of the cafe and she began to speak. 

"First of all let me tell you what your new job is going to involve. You're going to be mother nature for the day." 

I thought she was being metaphoric, or at the very least funny, but when her expression didn't change, I became confused.

"Excuse me?" I managed to squeak out

"Mother Nature. You know, Mother Earth, Gaia, the woman behind all of nature? I need you to be her for a day so that I can have a day off."

"Mother Nature gets days off?" I asked

"Ah, yeah, of course she does. Or at least I'm hoping she can, because I am incredibly burnt out right now, and I need a day of not worrying about monsoons and tides and balance. And that's where you come in. Now can I count on you?"

I was certain I was being pranked at that stage, but a quick scan around the room showed no hidden cameras, and given that I could come up with no good reason why I could say no, I nodded mutely. With that she jumped up, her grin widening. 

"Great. Smart decision. I'll see you at midnight tonight."

"Midnight? Why so early?"

"Because that's when the day begins. Don't worry, it won't take you too long to pick up the system, besides it's only for a day. What's the worst you can do?"

I left the cafe in a daze, still not entirely convinced this wasn't an elaborate prank. However just in case it was real, and I was running the risk of breaking nature I arrived the address she gave me fifteen minutes early. I knocked on the door, and she opened it, still wearing the same purple robe I'd seen her in fourteen hours earlier. 

"You're early, that's great" she said smiling. "Come on in and I'll show you around. Here's the kitchen, it's fully stocked, so help yourself. Amenities are over there, and here is your work station."

I looked where she was pointing and saw a small laptop sitting on a coffee table. It seemed so modern I just stood there staring for a few seconds. Noticing my shock Gaia smiled.

"You were expecting something more mystical weren't you?"

"Well yeah, a globe at least."

"Honey globes are so last century, we like to keep up with the times around here. Go on, take a seat."

I sat down on the couch and noticed a map of the world on the screen.

"You control the weather using Google Maps?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah, but this isn't the publicly available one, I had a special plug in designed for me. Go ahead, take a look."

I checked the screen again, and noticed the task bar had several unusual buttons, rain, snow, typhoon, earthquake, spawn and sun, to name  just a few. 

"So how does this work?" I asked

"It's a basic point and click interface. You choose the location, choose the weather and click go."
"what about that spawn button?"

"That's for creating life. Be careful with that one, because the last temp I had in accidentally caused a rat plague, which ended up leading to the Black Death and nearly the end of civilisation as we knew it." 

"Anything else I need to know?"

"Yeah one other thing. There's only a finite amount of water on earth. The one thing I can't do is make more water, so if you go too crazy with that one, you could end up causing a drought somewhere else. Trust me, I learned that the hard way. The centre of Australia wasn't always quite so red."

With that she grabbed her suitcase and walked towards the door. She promised to be back by midnight the next evening and left me to it.  I slowly sat back down on the couch and started playing around with the map. I clicked the search feature and started typing in addresses of people I knew. I spent the first fifteen minutes stalking friends, but given it was so late at night, there really wasn't much to see. Then I had an idea. I searched for the Great Barrier Reef, and had a look around. I remembered reading somewhere that the reef was dying, the coral wasn't coping with global warming or something, so I figured I could try to do something about it. I clicked the spawn button, then went through the drop down menu until I found the list of corals. I clicked randomly on several different species then clicked spawn a couple of times. Couldn't hurt I figured. Plus it might give the environmentalists one less thing to worry about for now. Next I found the bees. I knew that the latest panic had been the decline of the bee population in the world, so I decided to spawn them in several places over the world. Again, what was the worst that could happen. 

I kept fiddling with different things, I caused a slight earthquake in Russia, to pay back the spammers who kept trying to hack my blog, and a second one in Nigeria, just as a warning to all the "princes" there who kept emailing me. By this time it was about 9am and I was getting the hang of it, but it was pretty monotonous. I decided to have a little bit of fun with my new found power and located Miss K's dad's house on the map. Then I clicked the rain button, selected his house as the location and hit go. It did look pretty funny his house being the only one in the neighbourhood getting any rain. 

An email came through so I clicked on it and found a request for snow in Vancouver from a small child. He wanted a day off school the next day, and was hoping I could help. I found Vancouver on the map and made it snow there. Being so unfamiliar with the imperial measurement I accidentally set it to snow 30 inches instead of 30 centimetres, but I couldn't figure out how to undo that one, so I just sent an email back to the small boy telling him to enjoy his snow, and maybe go out for some supplies before it was too late. 

By this time a second email had come through from a surfer in California requesting "kick ass waves" that day, as he had a date with his girlfriend and wanted to impress her with his surfing skills. I selected California on the map and hit wind, figuring that was how waves were made. While trying to figure it out, I accidentally ended up sending a hurricane to the coast, and again, couldn't figure out how to fix it, so I sent an email back telling him to avoid the beach that day, and perhaps try to head inland a little bit, just to be on the safe side. 

I was still playing around when I got a text. I checked my phone to find Miss K's dad had texted me, telling me something funky was going on in Melbourne, as it had been raining at his house for two hours now, but nowhere else. His back yard was starting to flood, and his mum's vegetable patch was destroyed. I rushed the map back over to his house and tried to stop the rain, but accidentally sent a thunderstorm there instead. So I sent a text back to him telling him to put on some gumboots and send me a text if he survived the next twelve hours.

The rest of the day went slightly smoother, mainly because I stopped answering emails and ended up spying on different countries. If somewhere looked too dry I'd send them a little rain, if somewhere looked too wet I'd send them some sunshine. By the time midnight rolled around I was absolutely exhausted, so you can imagine my relief when I heard the front door open. In walked Gaia with the same sunny smile on her face she always seemed to wear.

"How did it go?" she asked me

"I understand why you needed a holiday" I replied smoothing my clothes down. "Speaking of which, the next time you need a break, please feel free to call someone else."

With that I walked towards the door, but before I left I felt I needed to say something else.

"If you feel that you absolutely must, there's a storm raging over a house in the suburbs that's been going for a little while now, it may not be a big deal, but you might want to turn it off."

So while it's not something I could ever put on the resume, I certainly won't forget the day I became Mother Nature. I can certainly tell you that nature is not for the weak.