How cool is this?

1. Look what I found at the garage today whilst waiting for the car to have a $600 essential pair of new boots fitted.....well hello this is New England!

2. No it is not just an ordinary painting it goes around a VW van.

3. I have to apologise for this third photo as I was balancing my 4 year old on my hip as he had no shoes on ( I cannot afford to buy shoes for him & the car!) I was also squashed between two cars as you can see by the bonnet of the one on the right.. I could hardly ask the dealer to move the cars around for a photo shoot at 4.59pm!

4. Finally a great motto for a great van the NH "Live Free or Die!

Be grateful

Well I was feeling a little down hearted and lethargic yesterday but I have pulled up my pants & I am starting a fresh with a new outlook on life! Let me explain why.

Terrible news today some friends of ours who moved here from Mexico lost their house & all of its belongings. The husband was cleaning his prized car with gas & the light he was using fell & ignited the gas. It even set him on fire. He did manage to escape as did his wife & luckily their 3 children were all at school. He did have minor burns however they lost all of their possessions.

Within 12 hours they had been re-housed and people were bringing them furniture, clothes, personal items, linens etc, a fund was set up for them at the local bank & 2 fund raisers have been organised for this weekend. The family are being very brave and are absolutely stunned by the generosity of the locals here in NH. You are the best New Hampshireites!

It really is warming to know that in an emergency the people of NH dig deep into their hearts to assist those in need.

So the reason for my strong title today is "be grateful" as there is always someone in the world who is worse off than you!

16 Days!!!

So this is the countdown of my mother in law who arrived on Thursday for 16 days. Why 16 days you ask? I ask myself the same question on the hour every hour! It is rather difficult to do stuff & type idea's whilst someone is looking over your shoulder..

Please do not get me wrong I love having company however my fellow Brits who come to visit seem to come for long extended visits & they tend not to drive so they need ferrying around. On the other side (as I am trying to be very nice) they do bring in the booty... lots of yummy English Cadburys chocolate & gummy sweets that Sir Lancelot is rather fond of!

I should really be doing something productive like cleaning, laundry or applying for jobs but the mood is just not there today. I just want to mooch before the clan return and we have to feed, do homework and rush out to soccer yet again. Oh well "C'est la vie!"

I love chocolate but only the good stuff!

Last night my mother in law arrived bringing with her 12lbs of the yummiest English Cadbury's chocolate.... the only way that I will let her through the doorway! Please note the stressed English Cadbury's chocolate as it is soooo different, creamier & addicting as the American version use molasses which is too sickly for my palette. We have some very dear friends of ours American born & bred who denied that this chocolate was any better than Hershey's (toxic waste!) . Please note that after many years of socialising with us they have come to their senses & have now joined the English chocolate addicts club (ECAC).

I do admit that even our children crave the stuff. In fact at pre-school my youngest drew a picture of me surrounded by chocolate....

And life goes on

Well the next part of my job saga is here....I know you were all waiting with bated breath.....(I still have no comments as of today's date!) My darling hubby who we shall call Sir Lancelot for the time being came to my defense regarding the job shun. He e-mailed an extremely blunt yet also cutting letter to the HR and the Sales Director who jumped around probably like the nits on my nieces head a few weeks ago! Sir L works at this company & has done for 15 years and he is known for not loosing his temper....not anymore! Attack his maiden and he is off on his charger.

The nit dancers were apologetic blah blah blah & tried to blame it on each other. So watch this blog for further news.

Enough corporate crap now on to nicer things like children. As I have mentioned before I do daycare & watch ages newborn up to 11 years old. We tend to get many toddlers which are a handful but so cute. They pronounce my name "Awwy". Today feeling rather brave I decided we would paint caterpillars as this weeks letter is C. As I was pulling all the gear out of the cupboard the room filled almost instantly, suddenly I had 9 toddlers!!! Anybody else would have put the paints away & played games.....not Awwy! I had to let them do free painting as I could not get 9 caterpillars drawn in the 2 seconds that they gave me. The result lots of dark looking painted clouds......no chance of a Michelangelo in this lot!

Kittens wanting to be cats!

Well here he is our "Mittens" how cute is he?

He is being a little tinker at the moment as he so desperately wants to go outside and enjoy the fresh air, chase squirrels & climb trees ....however it cannot be. He is still only 4 months old & as we live in the boonies with a pack of coyotes who roam the back yard it cannot be until he is at least one year old. Every time that the front door bell goes his ears prick up as he senses the second that the door opens he has a 2 second interval to dash for the outside world. Five times today he has made it & even the Friskies do not tempt him back in! It would be quite amusing to video the family trying to corner him in an open back meadow as he manages to slink by us all some how or other.

I loathe corporate companies

Well listen to this. I am not a happy lady at all. Last week a company that I worked for 4.5 years ago called ME & asked ME to do a maternity coverage & could I go for an interview now. At the time I had just picked up my 3 kids who were happily munching down on chocolate... so thankful was I that they were quiet whilst I was on my cell phone. They said to bring the kids with me.....the first sign that they were foolish people. Then I got a return call 2 minutes later ( they had obviously heard about my darling kids reputation's especially after a good dose of chocolate!) how about meeting the director of sales for a glass of wine later on. Now that certainly appealed to me! (the wine part.) So I rushed to the farm where we do a co-op share to pick up my yummy organic veggies & to let the kids pretend to be Laura Ingalls & pick flowers to their hearts content. May I add that is an hour trip in total. Went home made dinner, threw lipstick on & rushed off to the interview....Miss Queen Multi tasker all by 7pm!

The interview went well, they offered me the job with flexible hours.. no problem at all. I just needed confirmation from HR. This did not happen for a few days in fact 8 days in total. So being efficient & slightly ticked off I chased them up. Anyway to cut a long story short I received a call today advising me that they could not offer me the job as they wanted someone who could work full time plus stay until 6 maybe 7pm at night without any notice i.e.a slave!

I am so angry I want to write nasty e-mails to everyone. However being mature & 2 glasses of wine later I have decided to wait until I have cooled off a little. Instead I feel very rejected, used and useless. Woe is me! But it is there loss right??

People that bug me

I have come to the conclusion that there are some things in life that are cruel and that some people enjoy using them & being darn right Orrible!

1. Why do people say "I cannot believe that you have never heard of that?" This makes you feel like the president of the oddball club & puts them in the god I am so kin clever club! I vow I shall never do this to people ever, ever, ever.


Oh OH about to have a power cut will post NOW.