Read all about their schemes and adventuring.... it's well worth a fee......

I don't really have anything to blog about, so it is with Aussie spirit that I have decided to have a whinge............. I am going to call it;

"WHAT CHEESES ME OFF..."

• TV stations changing their programming just when things start to get interesting. I love watching tv: it is my chief recreational pastime. I find it extremely annoying when a station shows 1 or 2 episodes of a tv series, then don't run it for a while, or all of a sudden stick the show in at an obscure timeslot, eg "BUFFY" turning up at 1am on TEN the other day, "Supernatural" off for a couple of weeks, "House" coming and going at odd times and tonight, Nine decided to run a repeat of a "documentary" about Carl Williams instead of "The Mentalist"..... The same thing happened with a little series called "Roswell" back in the early 90's........ Unfortunately, most of the shows I like seem to be on late at night..... I know there's more, but that's enough of those for now.....
  

• Anti-smoking ads: Anti-drinking ads as well. These just don't work. They are so awful and offensive, and the only people who seem to really pay attention are the people who don't partake of the advertised evil product. So much money is wasted that could be put to better use in the hospital system. GG is part of the "Healthy Harold" generation, for whom the evils of drinking, drugs and smoking any substance have been force-fed into them. Like most teenagers, they just don't care about any of the dangers......... it's more important to have fun..... they tend to look upon the ads with ill-disguised scorn. No amount of adverse advertising will ever stop this stype of behaviour unless people really want to. And no-one ever believes that they will become addicted. Putting up the price of cigarettes isn't really much of a deterrent either..... GG smokes "roll-your-owns" because they're cheaper. Our house has always been a non-smoking abode, so the argument of "children copy the example of their parents" doesn't fit here....
  

• Parking fines. Or more specifically, my daughter's parking fines. Last year, I payed over $500 to cover these little babies for my daughter. This year, during February and March, my delightful daughter has racked up another 5 or so at $84 a pop, all because she "can't afford/be bothered" to organise more appropriate parking. There is only metered parking, not residential parking where she lives in Newcastle, and as a person who frequently works until 3am, waking up to move her car from outside her residence is not often a priority. Newcastle Council booked her 3 days in a row....... If the fines aren't paid by the due date, another $50 is added on. It's a rather convoluted process to submit a stat dec stating I wasn't the driver at the time of the infringement, involving a solicitor or legal counsel.......
  

• Whilst I'm on a car-related rant, e-tags and motorway tolls cheese me off as well. last year, after a few of these little suckers arriving in the mail after Beloved drove through Sydney on his way south, I tried to buy an e-tag on-line. After 3 days of NOT being able to succeed in this endeavour, I tried to phone, again to no avail.... The same thing happened to Beloved again in January, but as he was driving a rental car, the account didn't arrive until March, complete with high administration fees. In March, GG managed to rack up 3 motorway tolls in the space of 14 minutes..... because she didn't address the issue within 48 hours (after she phoned me on the day and I advised her to phone 1300ROAM), the admin fees on these little suckers have ended up costing me $35 instead of $11... what-the! Probably the most annoying thing is that I can drive around Sydney without paying any tolls except to cross the harbour........ You're probably wondering why I pay the fines: it's simple. "Her" car is registered in my name so that the insurance and CTP is cheaper...... To change it over into her name will not only make the insurances more expensive, it will cost money (of course) for the transfer..........

Ok. Rant over....... thanks for listening......

Now, to think of a title.. it has to be lines from a song, or a title ..... Oh yes..... "Crime of the Century" by Supertramp.....

Here's the rest of the Supertramp song:

Now they're planning the crime of the century,

Well, what will it be?

Read all about their schemes and adventuring,

It's well worth a fee,

So roll up and see.

And they rape the universe.

How they've gone from bad to worse:

Who are these men of lust, greed, and glory?

Rip off the masks and let's see.

But that's not right - oh no, what's the story?

There's you and there's me

That can't be right.........

Cheers, Cyndy ;0)

We are family........

Hi there Bloggers!

Are there any Bloggers out there anymore in this instant-update era of Facebook?

It would appear that I missed blogging in March all together. At least that’s another “first” that I can cross off my bucket list. Life has been busy (as usual) in the Blogmuggle household. Lots of time has been spent at work, and a lot of other minutae that is so incredibly (un)interesting that I can’t recall any of it.

THE most exciting event actually happened in April. April 2, to be precise.

GG turned 21!!!!!.

She celebrated with a select group of family & friends at Newcastle Harbour Foreshore Park, enjoying meat-laden barbeque-style fare on Good Friday. She was dependent upon her very cool mirror-style sunnies to protect her tender eyes that resulted from the previous night's soiree with friends at her home. It was her best buddy's 21st birthday as well..... Happy Birthday, Morgan!

The weather was fabulous! It was a fun affair, but I am mildly distressed with the fact that in this era of fabulous technology, no-one had the thought of capturing the event on celluloid (or microchip) for posterity...... We had a video camera on hand, and almost every person over the age of 12 had a mobile phone with a camera... none used....

Except for a few choice piccies.....

These were taken by my sister-in-law, Lisa. These kids are all cousins. This is all of them from my Mum’s side of the family, except for my absent cousin’s absent daughter.... My dad’s side of the family have no interest in our little family. Sad, but true. Actually, they have no interest in each other..... Even more sad, but true.

Grace, Eloise and Laura:

Eloise, Laura, Khiara, Ebony & Grace:

Rhys, Jack and Sam:

Eloise, Grace, Rhys, Sam, Laura & Jack:

Eloise, Ebony, Grace, Laura, Rhys, Sam, Laura, Jack ,Zachary & Khiara:

I’m so glad that Lisa took them: at least we have some photos of all the cousins together.

It’s hard to all get together these days. Zach, Khiara & Ebony are my cousin, Alyson’s brood. Ally’s Mum and my Mum are(were) sisters: Ally & I were more like sister’s than cousins when we were children, even though she’s almost 10yrs younger than me. Lisa married my only sibling, Glen, when he was 41. I will be forever grateful that they were blessed with their 3 gorgeous kids. Mum’s only surviving brother, has 2 children: only one of them has children and they weren’t present on the day. There is some good news: there are twins expected to arrive at the end of June (good one, Andrew!), but I doubt we will see a lot of them, probably only three times a year. I have cousins that live in the Netherlands that I have never met, the offspring of Mum’s younger brother who passed away in the 70’s. The poor bugger developed cancer and died shortly after his mother. Neither knew about the other, as we had no idea where Uncle Harry was. The Salvation Army finally found us. It allowed Mum & Dad to track down my remaining cousins and meet them. I don’t really know much about them, though, and despite a few internet forays on my part, I still don’t.

I grew up with a very large and involved extended family. Leisure time was spent with my Aunts & Uncles (whether or not they were “blood-relations”), cousins of the first, second & third varieties. Our family included “In-law” cousins such as fellow blogger, Lisa B, her sister (and now new-found sister, Kerry) & cousins. After school, weekends and holidays were spent with a myriad of people that were simply acknowledged as “family”. There was fishing, camping, simple play & games, music & laughter. There was never much money that I saw, but it didn’t matter. There was conditional acceptance of everyone and their circumstance. There were no skeletons in our closets: they were out there, loud & proud.

Beloved is part of a big family too. But there’s no photos of them from GG’s big day. There’s 2 new babies due there as well in the next few months. We never even managed to get around to singing the “Happy Birthday” song....... the day was over all too soon. But there was some great cake courtesy of GG's birthday buddy, Morgan's boyfriend the baker, Toby..mmmmmmmmmm

And that’s enough from me for today. Until next time......

xoxoxoxoxoxo