gosh darn, mother

I love hearing stories from my mother's mouth of how much of a hussy she used to be.

Mum: "I guess I was just lucky"
Ju: "Lucky or a hussy?"
Mum: "What's a hussy?"

My dad is better than yours

Whilst I was in the kitchen, at the stove, cooking dinner:
- Dad walks in, sees me cooking, hands me a Cornetto ice-cream.
- Dad "It's a hot day, let's not suffer"
- I eat the Cornetto whilst standing at the stove cooking dinner.
Win.


At the dinner table:
- Hannah (11) "Like, I want to get a 3DS, but I also want to keep my Nintendo DSi"
- Dad (50-something) "I know how you feel."
Silent chuckles to myself.

teach yourself a lesson pt. 5

Dear Grade 8 Julia,

All I have to say is, bitch you were so skinny. And you didn't even know it. Even with all the crap you ate, like on a Friday afternoon when you went home with Alana after school to get ready for ballet lessons and her mum would prepare a killer afternoon tea. Tim Tams, Wagon Wheels, Donuts, Chocolate. Anything and everything that has zero nutritional value. Those were the days.

Love 20 years, 4 days Julia

Dear Grade 9 Julia,

Alright so you got off to a rough start with your teacher. Being late on the first day and getting in trouble for all the shit that the boys were doing to irritate you. That time Luca was sitting opposite to you with his back to the teacher, playing with blu-tac, sticking it on his face to mock your beauty spot. That time Matt was kicking your bag across the room when it was "chairs-up, clean-up time". That time Tim scrubbed your chair with shoe buff and asked you if your chair was extra slippery. Ok so you didn't get in trouble for that, it was just funny. They were all just dumb and looking for a laugh. Don't stress. It's all good.

Love 20 years, 4 days Julia

teach yourself a lesson pt. 4

Dear Grade 6 Julia,
I would like to congratulate you on this one. That time you were playing tiggy with the girls at lunch, you checked back to see how close Emma was to catching you and as you turned back around, a pole had miraculously appeared. I am so proud of you for managing to laugh off the fact that you had just become a baby unicorn. You held back the tears and it was brilliant.
Love 19 yrs 10mths Julia

Dear Grade 7 Julia,
Times ares tough and for some reason everyone is finding reasons to bitch about each other. Its become survival of the toughest and girls will do anything just to be catty. I know you never hid a list of who you hate in your desk (what a dumb rumour) and you never deserved to be pushed off your chair by Nixon (even though you were swinging off it). Stay strong, because grade 8 got a lot better.
Love 19 yrs 10 mths Julia

teach yourself a lesson pt.3

Dear Grade 4 Julia,

Alice in Wonderland is one of the most kickass kids stories there is and there is nothing wrong with being cast as a talking tree. That tells the nativity story. I know it isn't actually in the story and that the school just added it in to keep some sort of Jesus theme happening, but at least you got a main part. Well done!


Love 19 yrs and 9 mths Julia

Dear Grade 5 Julia,

You and your best friend are no longer best friends and yes it seems like 2012 has come early. But don't worry, years later, your paths will cross every now and then and it will be fun! Trust me (and the vodka).

Love 19 yrs and 9 mths Julia

teach yourself a lesson pt.2

Dear Grade 2 Julia,

Try not to dob on your friends too much. Stuff might not be fair at the time, but try to embrace the situation and resolve it before you go and tell. Dobbing on your friends to the birthday girls mum at a sleepover for talking too much and not letting you sleep is a bit too much.

Love 19yrs and 8mths Julia.


Dear Grade 3 Julia,

That time you were lining up for class and the conversation was about how much everyone weighs, that was rubbish. You were not a 'pork chop'. It was puppy fat, and lucky for you, it was all gone by grade 7 (but may have come back a little, later on).

Love 19yrs and 8mths Julia.

525,600 minutes

warning: this is going to be deep.

how do you measure success?
it's not how much money you have, it's not how much stuff you own.
it's the life choices you make and the goals you set out for yourself to achieve.
achieve these goals, and you have succeeded.
i'm not here to tell you how to live your life (see a certain 'angel in training' for that)
but i just wanted to share with you what i have succeeded in achieving this year.

one of my new years resolutions this year was to stop lying to my mother. no sneaking around, no lying about what i'm doing and where i'm going. and i am proud to say i have succeeded (except for just once. promise, just once). and what do i have to show for it? a better relationship with her. not fantastic, but definately better.

so now i've started brainstorming more new years resolutions.
i'm thinking something along the lines of, be kinder to hannah.

Once upon a time...

A family of four won free tickets to see a family movie at the cinema. Full of excitment, they lined up with all the other ticket winners and waited for the attendant to let them in.

All of a sudden, the mother realised she had not purchased any snacks for the family, so she hurried off to the candy bar.
As the family waited, the line began to move, so in order to keep the line moving, they let those who were lining up behind them, pass in front of them. When the mother returned, the family rejoined the moving queue.
A couple behind the family were taken aback.
"Honey, they just pushed in!"
"Oh don't worry sweetheart, it's what they do in their country."

Luckily no one in the family heard these rude comments, except for the eldest daughter. I'm not terribly angry at the comment but I do wish I had turned around to say something.
That's what I regret.

sorry about ANOTHER holiday photo. the only relevant one I could find for this story.

ichi ni san

What do you do when you encounter the japanese mafia on a silly night out?
You do two rounds of tequila shots with them, then go to the bathroom and never return.
And don't ask where the wad of hundreds came from.

One of these things is not like the other

I came downstairs Sunday morning to find my little sister (who is 10) sitting at the bench eating breakfast. At first I thought, awesome, she's finally figured out how to make her own breakfast. Then I saw her toast. With bright eyes and a strong sense of pride in her voice, she told me she had put kiwi fruit on her toast because she couldn't open the new jar of vegemite.

I didn't really say much. Its times like these that there really isn't much to say.

I just opened the new jar for her then made my own breakfast.

One of the hardest things in life

Is baking gingerbread men. Anyone who's tried it will understand. First you've got to cream the butter and sugar together, add in the golden syrup and various spices (mainly ginger). Then you have this nice goopy mix, to which you add flour. Now at this point, the recipe says to 'knead' into a dough and wrap in plastic and put in the fridge.

Well, you pretty much can't 'knead' this mixture. its freaking sticky. But I managed and put it in the fridge. Whilst waiting, I started making the icing. But turns out we have about 2 tablespoons of icing sugar left. So my mother kindly went out and bought some more. Eventually the 'dough' had spent enough time in the fridge so I took it out to cut into gingerbread boys and girls. Urgh. The dough is simply not dough. My understanding of dough is what I see on bread commercials. This is like playdough that isn't quite right and just sticks to everything.

Literally after 3 hours, I get all my gingerbread children (and the odd bunny rabbit) in and out of the oven and ready to ice. Funny story, I literally could not find a gingerbread cutter ANYWHERE. The only thing I did find was a bucket of 100 cookie cutters. So I bought it. Anyway, you can see the finish products. After a total of about 4 hours, I had finally accomplished one of the hardest things in life.

G is for Gerhard :)