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Family

April 17, 2012 By Janine 4 Comments

"I don't know what a family is, how to define it, other than as a collection of people who bind themselves together and get weirder and weirder until no one understands them." Eddie Perfect, Comedian and Actor Family. A conglomerate of individuals melded together. Some with blood ties others conscripted in through marriage. A family is an odd thing … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family, Family Living Tagged With: Family, Family Living

Sunday

April 15, 2012 By Janine 8 Comments

Sigh, this is why I couldn't enter the Lifestyle category in the Sydney Writer's Centre Best Australian Blogs Competition. I try to do a nice photo of my Sunday lunch and manage to capture daughter's PJ's hanging on the clothesline in the background. Before I started blogging I used to be jealous of the beautiful blogs with the lovely houses and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family, Family Living Tagged With: Cooking, Family, Family Living

Bucket Lists BEFORE and AFTER Children

April 14, 2012 By Janine 11 Comments

The Bucket List BEFORE I had children. Cruise the canals of Venice in a gondolier with the man I love. Eat at a Michelin Three Star restaurant. Buy an outfit from the Paris Fashion Shows. Watch a Broadway show starring someone really famous. Float in the Dead Sea. Travel the Silk Road. Party all night at the Carnaval  in Rio de … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family, Family Living, Humour, Life, Parenting Tagged With: bucketlist, Family, Family Living, humour., Life Experience, Parenting

It’s Friday the 13th

April 13, 2012 By Janine 11 Comments

Just realised today is Friday the 13th, just wondering if I should head back to bed, pull the covers over my head and only emerge when the calendar reads a more favourable date. Then again I'm not superstitious, I don't think. I have avoided walking under ladders but I reckon that's a practical thing, people working above you could drop stuff on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family, Family Living, Life, Parenting Tagged With: Family, Family Living, Friday 13th, Parenting, Superstition

Dads at Home

April 11, 2012 By Janine 13 Comments

It seems we've come a long way in a single generation. Dads now play a much bigger role in their children's day-to-day lives than they did a few decades ago. Yet it is still unusual for men to accept the role of fulltime stay-at-home parent. Research carried out in 2010 by the Australian Institute of Family Studies identified only 7 per cent of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Employment, Family, Family Living, Parenting Tagged With: Deborah Wilmore, Employment, Family, Family Living, Parenting, Stay at home dads

Easter

April 9, 2012 By Janine 8 Comments

It has been very nice to have four days off from the real world. We had Good Friday Lunch at Flynn's Beach. Chandler is still a sad dog, missing Abbey. On Easter Sunday we ditched our traditional baked dinner to head to a newly opened Chinese restaurant in town.  When we lived in Brisbane we loved Yum Cha and we have missed it a lot since … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family, Family Living Tagged With: Easter, Easter Sunday, Family, Family Living, Good Friday, Yum Cha

A Question of Faith

April 8, 2012 By Janine 20 Comments

Hippie Child laughed at me on Good Friday. It's not unusual for Hippie Child to laugh at me but this time she included  questions that left me tongue-tied. There was no food in the house on Good Friday. Despite my best intentions to get to the supermarket on Tuesday I just hadn't made it. By Thursday I should have left work and gone straight to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: Catholic, Family, Family Living, Parenting, religion

A Shambolic Birthing

April 3, 2012 By Janine 15 Comments

If you had had a blissful pregnancy, a trouble-free birth and slipped easily into the world of yummy mummy step away from the screen there’s nothing for you to see here. On the other hand if you found the whole pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding thing a bit darn hard then open the wine we’ve got bonding to do. It’s been 15 years since I first … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family, Parenting, Women Tagged With: breastfeed, Caesarean section, Childbirth, Family, Morning sickness, Parenting, Women

Making Me Smile

March 23, 2012 By Janine 9 Comments

During a week of high frustration over a situation I can't control (see the commenting post) there have been some good things happen. Over in the forum world I've discovered some new blogs this morning I visited Magsx2 and she had this very cute video in one of her posts. It made me smile. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9APqLA2YKs … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Humour Tagged With: Child Playing With Otter, Family, humour.

Sunday to Sunday A Week On The Phone

March 19, 2012 By Janine 8 Comments

The week began with our weekend in Sydney. We included a visit to the store I miss most living in a regional area - IKEA.  I lust after this ... I live with this ... Oh the disparity. We designed two ads for museli and wrote a four minute speech about our ads, built a windmill and designed a flag for Antartica. Then I wrote a ranting blog about … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: Family, Family Living, Fresh Horses

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Janine Fitzpatrick is a personal blogger with an untidy house, imperfect children and no celebrity friends.

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Weekend Notes

WATCHINGI went to see Fiona O'Loughlin last night. She's the comedian who survived alcoholism, a two week coma from not realising, in her drunken state, that the heater in the dive she was living in was leaking carbon monoxide.  Then went on to spend … [Read More...]

Weekend Notes

Watching We headed to the movies this weekend and saw the latest Spike Lee film, BlacKkKlansman. It's the story of the first black cop in the Colorado Springs police force, Ron Stallworth, who in the late 70's managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux … [Read More...]

Sleepless

So I've been awake since 3.00am. In that time I've signed the family up for an organizing app which can run a joint calendar, shared shopping and to-do lists and has downloaded a series of recipes that are supposed to make my "what's for dinner" … [Read More...]

Grey stairs.

The Widow Goes On A Date

The last time I went on a first date Bob Hawke was Prime Minister, Liam Hemsworth was being born, Madonna was singing Vogue on the radio, Macaulay Culkin was being left Home Alone and Kevin Costner was Dancing with Wolves. It was a long time ago … [Read More...]

Father with two daughters.

Another Father’s Day

Hi Simon, How's things going up there? Did you have a beer with your Dad for Father's Dad? We blatantly ignored the day here. Just pretended it wasn't happening. We still think about you every day. I didn't post anything on Facebook because it … [Read More...]

Daisy flowers

Hellooo Again

  Hi, I'm just here unwrapping the dust covers, brushing down the spiderwebs and sweeping up the left-over dreams of my tiny little space on the internet. I know I've been gone almost 12-months. I'm not even sure how that happened. A … [Read More...]

A messy scrapbooking desk

Milestone Moments

Hey Simon, Despite my best intentions to ignore the milestones they keep on happening, with or without you. We celebrated your Mum's 80th birthday back in August. A rushed trip of some 1,850 kilometres all up with just four days to do the 9 hour … [Read More...]

Weekend Notes

What have you been up to this weekend? Watching  We caught Home Again in the cinema. It's the latest Reese Witherspoon film.  It's a fun little comedy. Reese plays Alice a just-turned 40 divorcing mum of two. At her birthday drinks she … [Read More...]

Picture of a beach.

Weekend Notes

  As the weekend draws to a close here's a little of what caught my eye in the last 48 hours. Watching Saw Battle of the Sexes the new Emma Stone movie about the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Oh what a time … [Read More...]

A Bag of chips, wine, chocolate, lemonade and magazine. A parody of a bug out bag for the apocalypse.

Could You Survive The Apocalypse?

South Koreans are buying "survival bags" and turning to YouTube for tips on making it through a nuclear blast. The New York Times is writing articles on How To Survive The Apocalypse and the doomsday preppers are starting to look like the smart ones. … [Read More...]

chocolate and wine

Home Alone: The Empty Nest

The empty nest looms in my near future. One more year before the youngest heads out into the world without my micromanaging her every move. I can feel the rotor blades on my helicopter starting to slow.   I heard a whisper of what may … [Read More...]

Weekend Notes

It's a long weekend here in Australia.  So it's been a lazy time. Perfect for some catch-up TV, movies and reading.   Watching I've been enjoying Doctor Doctor it was shot in my old hometown of Mudgee and gosh it's looking … [Read More...]

iVillage

Janine Fitzpatrick is a personal blogger with an untidy house, imperfect children and no celebrity friends. Read More…

Grey stairs.
Father with two daughters.

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