Coconut Chicken Salad in the Sunshine and a Giveaway Winner

Everyone has their own personal stress demon.  That little something which is upsetting way beyond the bounds of proportionality.  Mine is the childcare catastrophe.   The most extreme version of that happened to me last Friday as follows.

Once I had done all the 5 million things which needed doing in order to leave the family at home alone for 3 days (lists, $5 for casual clothes day packaged up, appointments made, food in fridge, food defrosted and labelled, instructions set out on the bench, clothes washed, netball cancelled, children prepared, bags packed, training cancelled, work documents squeezed in, taxi organised) I found at 7.30 am on Friday morning that I had a window of 30 minutes after the temp child care lady arrived and before I caught a taxi to the airport to fly to the Sunshine Coast.   I even had time to double check my hairdryer was packed (for defrizzing hair purposes).

That's funny, I thought, she should be here by now.  At 7.45 am I was worried so I checked my emails and discovered to my horror that in fact I had failed to book her for the day I needed her. I had completely messed up my dates and booked her for the following week when I most certainly did not need her.   

A good 10 minutes of hyperventilating followed, where the fact I was about to get on a plane and had no childcare and no options for emergency childcare for a whole day with a husband who had work commitments to keep really hit home.   I have never confused my dates in such a way before.

(Noosa main beach viewed from Bistro C - 27 November 2010)

A solution was found.  It was one of those no choice solutions really. Husband ran his 7 hours of telephone conferences from home, and my son got to watch a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of television.  

And I arrived home to a happy little family who had had lots of daddy bonding, scootering and dungeon building time over the weekend (once the television was switched off).  Which made me feel warm after a weekend of worry...

  (coconut chicken salad from Bistro C via here)

Meanwhile, I had a long weekend of meetings and briefings.  And a wonderful lunch with a perfect Shaw & Smith chardonnay at this beachfront restaurant in Noosa, Bistro C.  

There is a reason Noosa is crawling with Melburnians.  It is a fantastic place...

Now, to my paw paw cream giveaway.   In the time honoured manner of this blog, I arranged for a small superhero (Superman this time) to select the winner.   I put you all in, even though some of you said you were already fully supplied with paw paw cream.  As I said, you can never have too much.

The winner comes from the US, from Seattle: Jessica from 24 Corners.

Dear Jessica - email me your address and I will have a lovely package to you before Santa arrives at your house. xoxo

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Giveaway Winner

It is Father's Day here in Australia.

Just a quick post to announce the giveaway winner.   I know a lot of you who commented said you didn't have an iphone but you all went into the truly random draw which was drawn by a small Spiderman.

The winner is Amanda from Small Acorns.   Amanda - email me with the best address for you and I will post it to you tomorrow.

And now, when you are walking coolly down the streets of Auckland like Lauren Santo Domingo, you can be certain that when you drop your phone it won't break!

For all of you having a Father's Day thingy, have fun.  To all of you having a double Father's Day thingy (for your father and then for your children) don't let the family organisational stress get too overwhelming...

My children have given their father a tomato plant, and a plastic container of Worm Wee.  It's true.  It looks like cranberry juice and smells like wee.  I don't know where it came from and I don't want to know.   And of course then there is the mind boggling concept of how they get the wee from the worms in the first place.  I am wondering if perhaps worm wee is a euphemism for pureed worms.   



xoxo

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196th Post - Cath Kidston Giveaway

I wasn't planning on doing a giveaway for this post.

(outside of case)

But life got in the way.  What happened was this (in chronological order).

1. Some weeks ago, I ordered a Cath Kidston IPhone case from the UK.

2. My replacement work IPhone to replace the one I dropped and smashed developed a completely battery that wouldn't charge.

3. I got new replacement IPhone and IT ordered me a new IPhone 4 (presumably stop all the property damage).  They said the new phone might 'take a while' to arrive.  I promptly forgot all about my pending new phone.

4. I had small but terse email tiff with Cath Kidston over slowness of delivery of my order.  ('How can you charge so much and take so long to deliver your stuff? Australia is not the moon' That kind of tiff.)

5. My new IPhone case finally arrived on Wednesday (I do generally find that things arrive the day after a complaint about slow mail service is made).  Hooray.  It was beautiful and fit snugly.

6. I enjoyed my IPhone case for 1 whole day.

7. On Thursday my IPhone 4 arrived.  I then discovered that my 24 hour old IPhone case does not fit new IPhone.

8. I cried.   Well not really, after all it's only a phone case.


So, here's the deal.

If you want this amazing case -  used for one day only - it is very simple.  

(inside of case)

This is what you need to do:

1. Leave a comment below. 

2. Become a follower if you are not already.

3. Live anywhere in the world.

I will draw it in 7 days.  

Happy Weekend. xoxo

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