What To Do... What To Do?

I need to decide what I'm going to be doing next April.
Yep. me. the spontaneous traveller.

I need to choose between going to Israel for a month, going to the Australian Rainbow Gathering in Victoria, or attending a birth.

I had originally thought the rainbow gathering would be in March, and then we'd go to Israel for a month at Pessach (passover), and then to China in May. I'm definitely going to China no matter what. But then the Scouts decided to make the dates for the Victoria rainbow in April - starting exactly on Pessach. Crap. Then I met a woman who is pregnant and would like me to be her midwife, but she's due in mid April.

Well, of course, I really want to go to the rainbow. Technically, we could go to Israel after China, in June, though the weather will already be getting annoyingly hot by then, and I would really like to be there for Pessach, especially because it will mean a lot to Littletree's grandmother if we are there for the holidays.

I definitely want to attend the birth, though I can't plan anything, because you can never tell when a baby will be born. Especially first babies are generally after dates. though this is, of course due to the fact that the way they calculate due dates is grossly off. Average gestation for a first baby is 41.5 weeks, rather than the usually calculated 40, so of course lots of babies go 2 weeks over.

At first I thought, well, if I miss the Victoria Gathering, at least I'll still go to the New Zealand Rainbow, which is in January. but the very annoying Kiwis decided to make their gathering now, starting in the end of November and going till the end of December!

Anyway, I need to work out what we're doing so we can buy tickets. Crap.

My Saviour

Well, I posted a few days ago about my dreadful virus...
Thanks muchly to all the people who contacted me with helpful hints.
I have definately learned a LOT more about computers :)

Anyway, the crisis is averted, my computer is clean and happy again.
I found the most amazing wonderful website with free tech support.
It's called www.malwareremoval.com which is a kind of school for tech support people.
There is a forum there, www.forum.malwareremoval.com where you can send them in a description of your problem, and they guide you step-by-step through the removal process, and get the computer all cleaned up.

It was GREAT!
I had to download a software called HijackThis, which did some scan of my computer and created a log that the helpful folk at malwareremoval could read and understand. They got me to download some things, run some programs, even write a .bat file and run it.

The end result was that I no longer have a virus :)
and yes, I highly recommend these guys. Its like the computer version of breaking down on the highway and calling AAA to come save you.

A Party at My Place and Everyone's Invited.

My good friend Jah wanted to have a kangaroo barbecue this week, but didn't have a place to do it. So he casually suggested making it at my place, by the pool.
Well, I was okay with that, as long as I didn't have to do anything or organise or provide food. as long as it would be clear that its not *my* barbecue; it's just at my house.
I did agree to make cakes, and came up with this:


It was fine, except that lots of people arrived, but no one was very organised; they didn't have a proper barbecue, and didn't get it together to get wood for a fire.

There were lots of kids, and they were all splashing around in the pool while the adults pretended to look like they were making the barbecue.

It started to rain a bit, and no one got it together, so we all went into the house and they cooked on the gas. It was nice, lots of kangaroo, and bread and sauce, but only one salad; an orgasmic potato salad made by one very luscious mama. And the cake I made. I also made a banana spice cake with whipped cream cheese icing, but that wasn't nearly as exciting as the rich chocolate fudge cake :)

In the end, there were (I think) 12 adults and 7 children in our tiny little cottage! it got quite hectic and noisy.
Here's some of the chaos:



until Tree cut the cake

and then everyone was too high on choc-coffee-rum-fudge icing LOL

Crap! I have a Virus

My poor computer has a virus.
It's called Warezov CLA.
How did it get there? It infects Skype. One of my good friends send me an IM, I clicked on it.
Bah!
of course, my friend didn't send it, the virus, which I assume is infecting her computer did.
I wasn't really paying attention (as usual, doing about 100 things at once).
So now I have this virus. My antivirus (Avast!) can't seem to get rid of it. Purple doesn't know what to do, we tried a few things...
Avast! pops up a window every few minutes that has a loud scary siren and a serious voice that says "Caution! A Virus has been detected" it's quite alarming.
and the little window says "There is no reason to panic" with some options to click.
Well, we're working on it. but in the meantime, don't click on links from Skype, and if you know anything about computers, I could really use some help.

My Vege Patch

Our Garden is growing so beautifully lately; I've been doing a lot of work in it and the recent thunderstorms have it really blooming.
I've got heaps of Comfrey


Tomatoes all over the place

Papayas in abundance

Nastirtiums all around the fence

Lavender and herbs to my hearts content

And we've just put in carrots, silverbeet, spinach, pumpkins, capsicum, broccoli, salad greens, calendula, petunias, basil, sugarsnap peas and more...
There's still a lot of weeds
but slowly slowly I'm working on getting it all cleared and looking good. and anyway, I dont mind too much the weeds, coz its all about letting nature grow as it wants to; mother nature definately knows far better than I do. Besides, leaving the weeds provides more food for the bugs, so they eat less of my veges.

Littletree's Little Room

This weekend our new landlord came over and did some more work on the cottage, he fixed the leaking shower too.

I didn't yet mention Littletree's new room that he built.

When we came back from the rainbow, we found that heaps of work had been done on the cottage; a lot of the cracks had been filled, the termites had been treated, and we have new stairs (to replace the rickety old bamboo ladder).

Amazingly, B, the sweet English girl who lives up the road had come into the house while we were away at the rainbow and oiled and varnished all the wooden surfaces in the house! It looks fantastic; somehow makes the place seem less rustic. She said that she'd seen how much work we were putting into making the rainbow happen, and she wanted to give something back. So she came and did some work on our house!!


But the most amazing thing was that the landlord manifested my fantasy deck. Where the front stairs used to be, he's built a beautiful wooden deck, and turned the old front door into a window. So now, insead of having the wasted space of stairs and a door that we never use (there's 2 other doors), we have an extra little room.

He also cleared a path and some new stairs outside, leading up to the patio area out the side door, which is now our front door. :)

I had originally thought the space would be a good office space for Purple, but when I saw it, it was clear; a playroom for Littletree. Its just a little space, like 1Mx2M, but its perfect for her. She has her toyboxes in there, and her little bench and chair. She just about lives in there; she eats all her meals there and hangs out and plays.

The best part is that now her toys are contained, rather than being spread over the whole house. And the stairs space underneath is now a storage area that is accessable from the outside.

Even better is that I asked him if we can build an oven like the one we made at the rainbow, and he is totally into it! I showed him the pictures of the oven, and he thought it was great!

What A Week

Whoooee!

I just realised it's been a whole week since I posted. Lots been happening, I suppose...
Mostly I've just been staying home with Littletree, spending time together.

Been working on the garden, which is now getting close to its pre-gathering state and about ready for some new improvements. I saw an incredibly beautiful spider in amongst the weeds, it was quite small; a little too small for me to successfully capture with my little camera, but its body was shiny gold and silver.

Been reading lots; since we went to the library and borrowed books. Littletree is really starting to get into reading and writing. She is constantly asking how to spell things, and asking me to help her write: she says what she wants to write, and I tell her how to spell it, and how the letters are formed. She's really writing legible sentences.

I bought a little electric oven, so we've been baking cakes and muffins and pizza - Yum!

Rapunzel came to stay with us too, which has been really nice. Littletree loves her to bits, and the two of them got into the jar of glitter, which is still covering the house four days later!

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So while the glitter-fairies are dressing up like princesses, I've been studying a lot; I got a new midwifery textbook, which is great to sink my teeth into. I start feeling ready to venture into the world of birthing again, maybe network a bit and get some clients.

We've been having quite a girl's party, with Rapunzel staying, and also Rinka came to stay for a couple of days too.

It was interesting mostly to see how Rapunzel is so real and honest with what she eats, munching chips and sweets to her heart's desire, while Rinka was doing a fruit cleanse.

Mostly we just hung out. Playing ticklemonster with Littletree, chatting about healing, and birthing, and education, and family, baking, we went over to the cafe across the road, we swam in the pool...

Today was storytime at the library again, Littletree made a teddybear puppet. Her's was definately the least "beautiful" one of all the kids' (read: not neatly cut and glued, nor coloured within the lines), but her's was the only one that was done without parental assistance.

It's been a nice week. and Purple is due to come back on Monday.

Littletree's Garden

We went to the Storytime at the library today; something I've been meaning to do since we moved here.

I was a bit nervous about the idea, because I know how freaked out Littletree gets when there's lots of kids around. But I figured she would love the stories, and they do a craft activity after the story.

Of course, it was just our luck that when we got there double the usual number of kids came. There was literally 30 kids, with their assorted mums in this one little room of the children's area in our tiny local village library! It was like a circus!

So Littletree was painfully shy, and clung to me for dear life, wanting to go home. I just hugged her tightly, thinking that if she would get really upset we'd go. Anyway, though she wouldn't let go of me, she managed to sit through the two stories; one a non-fiction pop-up book about insects, and the other a beautiful story called Mrs Millie's Painting, about an old woman who paints pictures of flowers that come to life. It was really such a beautiful book.

So then they had the craft activity, which was glueing random stuff to make a garden picture. Of course, 30 kids and only space at the tables for about a dozen was quite chaotic. So I just grabbed a few things for her to work with and we sat on the floor. Littletree slowly came a bit out of her shell with all the glue and sparkly things, and she made a beautiful garden picture :)