Charlotte our Spider

A week ago, I noticed a spider busy at work, spinning a beautiful web in our porch, right above where I usually like to do my painting. I took multiple shots of her and uploaded one on the web. Then I noticed that she was always in her web, never leaving it.




She became like a faithful companion, and I kinda grew fond of  her presence there, always silently resting or busy spinning web around her new catch of the day.
She's spent much time watching me paint that I suspect she began painting too...see..the word "Spider"? Must've been painted by her  :) .



As I watched her daily, I noticed the back of her body expanding. I told hubby "Maybe the spider is pregnant." My kids began taking notice of her and decided to name her Charlotte, like in Charlotte's Web. So I watched her daily..wondering if that new bulge was real or just my imagination.

Today when I came out...she wasn't in the usual center of her web. For a moment I thought perhaps someone had accidentally destroyed her web! (you've no idea how much I do to preserve her web, even going to the extreme of not watering plants near her web to avoid destroying it...). Well..I panicked and searched for "Charlotte." Well...lo and behold, I found her tucked neatly in a leaf. She looked almost dead...





but upon touching her lightly she moved...spun down and acted dead again...then up to her nest again. I wonder are these her eggs? Must be. I'm not a spider expert, but I think my instincts have been right. Watching now to see if baby spiders will eventually emerge. However, I read that some spiders die after laying eggs...I hope not in this case.

A visit to Gardenia

A group of us had a fun time visiting the Gardenia Bread Factory today morning. We expected  large crowds of other groups, but fortunately for us, it was just the small group  of us (20 people), and no one else. So we took our time, asked as many questions as needed.

No photography was allowed, thus no photos of the factory itself. I know I could've sneaked in a couple of shots, but when I took my camera out secretly, my Lil police (Jo) blew the whistle! (rats!)

Jo said "No Camera Mum! Didn't you hear the instructions??" I mumbled grumpily "Ok, ok....." and kept the camera.

To end the day, they served us waffles, and best of all, presented each child with a goody bag, and each parent with TWO goody bags full of yummy things. There...that was our visit for the day. :)

THe goody bag

The contents of the bag. So now I have 4 loaves of bread!! my goodness, I shall probably share a loaf with my doggie Camel.

This was us, waiting to collect the goody bags

Here's more photography from this week. Took picture of a "flower" from a creeper and modified its colour.

I also bothered the spider some more with more shots. With time, I'm sure he'll be my friend and might oblige some interesting poses. :)

rainy day with nothing to do

The past few days have been pretty busy. We spent Sunday at the Old Folks Home, where my girls and cousin sang Silent Night to the elderly as part of our Christmas celebration with them. The girls then went round giving presents, shaking hands and spending some time with the elderly there. It was a meaningful Sunday.

Today we went to an Android exhibition, which was pretty disappointing. After lunch we headed home, and upon arrival it started raining like crazy. With nothing much to do, I decided wait till the rain mellowed and then went out in the drizzle with an umbrella to catch some shots. Here they are...hope to improve with time.

Raindrops falling off the vine of flowers on my fence

I wonder what was this fly doing in the drizzle?

Making Ginger Bread Man

 Cousin E, who's just a little older than Nel is here to stay over for a few nights. The girls are having much fun. Following our yearly tradition, we made some Gingerbread man cookies,using a recipe we got from taste.com.au. The gingerbread men came out pretty tasty, a little crumbly, but just nice for kids. We tried a different version last year, and the children found it too "spicy."

The wonderful thing about this year's baking is, I hardly lifted a finger. I drove the girls to the store, gave them a challenge of finding the ingredients in 20 mins. They made it just on time. (well done girls!:) )At home, I gave them the recipe, left the kitchen and told them they were on their own. So the entire batch of cookies were made totally by them. From preparation to baking, to deco to eating. Well..I did decorate a few and ate some too. :) That's after all the fun part.

Cleaning was done by the girls too. :)

Look! Mr. Impossible decided  to join in the fun session! :)

DD piping on the icing. Jo liked hers mosty pink, Nel liked hers mostly green.

Jo's pile

Ahem....my attempt at decorating some of the gingerbread

Some of the final product

Finally we also spent time watching this spider build its web today. Fascinating. It worked pretty quickly! :)

All's well

Just wanna thank God that the whole virus fever has finally left us. We're finally enjoying or break now, thankful for every day that goes by peacefully. Thankful for the roof over our heads and the food in our stomachs. Thankful for my dear parents who showered us with love, care and food when the girls were down. Thankful for my beautiful girls and thankful for my wonderful loving husband.

Now that all's back to normal, I've been spring cleaning like crazy!! Have thrown away about 8 boxes of things, and have some to give away. Halfway done and hope to finish it before the year ends. Other than that, mucking around with my camera .. :)

Wouldn't it be so awful to be in their position? Food for spider! yikes!

After the rain

updates Lulu the Guinea

Well..it's been days now since Lulu started bringing stuff for the children. This is just a brief update.

Jo left this tiny hair dryer for Lulu with a short note.

Then Nel collected all sorts of nuts for Lulu..

and she also left a pet penguin with little pencils she found

All with this note from Nel.

Lulu left some photos for the girls this morning..

Apparently she's been at the beach..

surfing

and on a train...

Designing a house for Lulu

Toda we decided that we'd take time to design a house for our magical visitor, Lulu the Guinea, who's been dropping off stuff for the girls everyday,  and will continue to do so till Christmas.

 We started by first designing her house using   HomeStyler,  which is really user friendly. The free program allows users to design rooms, add furniture, accessories, design gardens and even paint the walls and countertops. What I like is that it also allows viewing in 3D and panoramic form! :) With that, we began designing Lulu's House. Well...Nel and Jo worked together on this (not without some squabbling and arguing in between...) and with help from me, we finished designing it today.

Plan for Lulu's House done by Nel and Jo with some help from mummy

3D view of Kitchen, done by N and J

3D View of Living Room by N and J

Nel's Room Design for Lulu with attached bathroom. (We couldn't get the tile in bathroom to change colour, but it was supposed to be blue tiles.)

Jo's Design for Lulu's room

Then Jo wanted to add a swimming pool. So we had to google "Do Guinea Pigs swim?" And we discovered, yes they do. However some like it, some don't. We're gonna assume Lulu does, so we added the pool.

Final version of house for Lulu

Now that's all done..I've one problem. I've never built a house except for a Lego house and basic cardboard house. We'll have to figure out how to do this. May take a week, or 2 or a month or never.....but hopefully...very soon we'll get a house built..maybe not exactly but something close enough or far enough.

Figures, made out of lumpy wheat bread dough.

 Just when we thought the virus had gone, Jo came down with fever again and severe coughing. So we found ourselves at the hospital again. We were told we were 9th in waiting. The doctor took a really long time with her patients, and the wait seemed unbearable with Jo coughing every few seconds.

Flower brought by Lulu the Guinea

Finally the nurse called us and said "Because your daughter's coughing is incessant, we've slotted her earlier, you're now third in line." With that we found ourselves in the doc's office. Well first they gave her med to bring down the fever, and then off to the nurse's room to use the nebulizer. Because of her lethargic condition, she screamed and kicked like never before, insisting that the nebulizer was horrid and hindering her from breathing properly. As she screamed and cried, I tried to comfort her but to no avail. I was surprised by the reaction of my usually confident, brave girl.

Next was chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. She enjoyed that, especially when she found out she'd be taking back a picture of her ribs and lungs with her. Well, thank God, no pneumonia, but a case of bad bronchitis and also swollen tonsils.




 And so...we remain homebound. *sigh*
Anyway, this morning we checked, and Lulu the imaginary guinea has brought them some flowers made of crepe paper and some ribbons for the girls' hair. How lovely. :)

In the mean time, since we're stuck at home, I decided to make some bread clay dough. Now, this DID NOT turn out as expected. Firstly coz we were too tired to head out and get white bread, so we used wheat bread. Second, I did not knead it enough. So we had lumpy brownish bread dough. Here are the products of our work anyway. I think I shall head out today and get white bread and attempt the whole thing again. Pics of work below. (Jo did not make any, coz she has been lethargic most of the time, in bed.)

An Angel I made

Nel's old man which she made

Nel also made this snowman and a red socks for the Christmas tree

A Nativity Set of figurines..all made out of lumpy wheat dough. hahaha..:)

.Habits and Phobias

-I could never understand the phobia some people have towards animals, particularly towards cats and dogs, which I think are tremendously cute and wonderful creatures. My reaction has always been to prod, nudge, encourage and hope that the person with phobia, would take the first step towards "liberation" by touching just a bit of the animal's fur and perhaps eventually falling in love with these lovable creatures.

-I could never understand people's difficulty in breaking addiction in areas like smoking, gambling or computer gaming.

Well...all that's changed recently. When my daughter brought me that huge house lizard, stil wriggling and alive in her hand, I freaked out. She came nearer and nearer to me, and I tried to back away, but alas, she trapped me in a corner. She prodded me, nudged and encouraged me and hoped I'd take the first step by just touching the lizard's body. I totally refused, screamed, shrieked and determined that I would NEVER fall in love or touch such a creature. With that, I've come to realise that perhaps this is exactly how my friends who've a phobia towards furry kids feel.

In relation to addiction.. my hubby recently hinted that I perhaps might have a slight (although I'm sure he meant "great") addiction ...and that is being addicted to FB. I denied it at first..and realise that all people who are addicted to something probably live in denial too.

So there....for today, I've chosen to try and understand the phobias and addiction of others. It's not that they do not want to overcome that phobia, it's because the phobia is REAL! It's not because they do not want to break out of the addiction, it's because while they're in it, it feels good, and to cut it out is like cutting out some air.

Having said that... I will TRY my best,( IF and only IF my daughter catches another lizard), to try and slowly touch, just a bit of that lizard. And if I ever get to the point of carrying that darn squirmy thing in my hand, then I will continue nudging those with Cynophobia, Ailurophobia and other similar phobias to overcome theirs.

As for FB...by hook or by crook..I will surely find a way of cutting down time on it...with time...with time. (see it happening anytime soon??) ;)

In the mean time..I have other phobias...some which I think..are hard to overcome..such as the fear of heights. I'm not in a hurry to work on that one..in fact, i think I'll stay safe on the ground for the rest of my life.

my girl with her lizard

Habits and Phobias

Jo rescuing a puppy

1) I could never understand the phobia some people have towards animals, particularly towards cats and dogs, which I think are tremendously cute and wonderful creatures. My reaction has always been to prod, nudge, encourage and hope that the person with phobia, would take the first step towards "liberation" by touching just a bit of the animal's fur and perhaps eventually falling in love with these lovable creatures.

2)-I could never understand people's difficulty in breaking addiction in areas like smoking, gambling or computer gaming.

Well...all that's changed recently. When my daughter brought me that huge house lizard, stil wriggling and alive in her hand, I freaked out. She came nearer and nearer to me, and I tried to back away, but alas, she trapped me in a corner. She prodded me, nudged and encouraged me and hoped I'd take the first step by just touching the lizard's body. I totally refused, screamed, shrieked and determined that I would NEVER fall in love or touch such a creature. With that, I've come to realise that perhaps this is exactly how my friends who've a phobia towards furry kids feel.

Jo and a huge house gecko!!

In relation to addiction.. my hubby recently hinted that I perhaps might have a slight (although I'm sure he meant "great") addiction ...and that is being addicted to FB. I denied it at first..and realise that all people who are addicted to something probably live in denial too.

So there....for today, I've chosen to try and understand the phobias and addiction of others. It's not that they do not want to overcome that phobia, it's because the phobia is REAL! It's not because they do not want to break out of the addiction, it's because while they're in it, it feels good, and to cut it out is like cutting out some air.

Having said that... I will TRY my best,( IF and only IF my daughter catches another lizard), to try and slowly touch, just a bit of that lizard. And if I ever get to the point of carrying that darn squirmy thing in my hand, then I will continue nudging those with Cynophobia, Ailurophobia and other similar phobias to overcome theirs.

As for FB...by hook or by crook..I will surely find a way of cutting down time on it...with time...with time. (see it happening anytime soon??) ;)

In the mean time..I have other phobias...some which I think..are hard to overcome..such as the fear of heights. I'm not in a hurry to work on that one..in fact, i think I'll stay safe on the ground for the rest of my life.

...

 @poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2011

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Lulu the Guinea is a Chef! and STOMP

My girls awoke this morning to find three tiny books left by Lulu! Well apparently Lulu is a chef, as seen in photo below, she's even written some recipe books herself. Wow, impressive!

Well.. I think Nel's got quite fond of Lulu, she put some butterfly stickers in Lulu's home today, and even made these little shoes for Lulu using some dough. I hope Lulu will be able to fit into them. They're very tiny only about 2.5cm in length. (Even I, mum was surprised to see the shoes! :)  )

Also I'm sure this carriage here will be a great surprise for Lulu. Although they've not read about Christmas Mouse's visit to Mini Mocha's where there's a scooter involved, they somehow had a similar idea. So Lulu the fairy tale visitor,  now has a carriage to ride on. I wonder if she'll be going to a ball anytime soon?

Finally, despite Nel's bad cough and Jo's condition, we went ahead and watched STOMP last night at the Plenary Hall. I'd bought the tickets some time back, and they are expensive. I just thought that to miss the show would be a total waste. So I wrapped my girls in warm clothes, and together we went to watch STOMP. Of course daddy had to carry Jo all the way to the hall.

I'm glad we went. We totally loved the show. In between their coughs and sneezes and all, I heard them giggling, laughing and just enjoying the show. I'm glad for that. :)

For today, Jo's fever has gone up to 39C again, and I administered another dose of paracetamol last night and ibuprofen this morn. It's a horrid virus that doesn't want to admit defeat yet, but it will soon!

Yeah, so after the show STOMP, my girls are noticing stuff around the house which can be used as instruments. :)