Another Freakin Cat Post.....

About five weeks ago, it was brought to my attention that our sweet kitten - Bella - had been visiting one of our neighbours and using their ridiculously huge sandpit as a litter box.  Said neighbour came a door knocking to ask if I had a little black cat with a blue tag (council tag)?  Ummm, yes, I said.  He proceeded to tell me that he had trapped her in his back yard and I should come and get her.

WTF?

I walked with this imbecile to his home, about five houses away, all the time asking him incredulously that when he said "trapped her" did he actually trap her?  Yep.  I was greeted at his home by his ever so delightful cranky and mouthy wife, telling me how disgusting it was that my cat was shitting in her kid's sandpit.  I agreed, with a pleasant but confused smile on my face.  As I rounded the corner in to their back yard I was horrified to see our little Bella in a metal trap, freakin out.  My Chelsea (Bella's human mummy) was equally if not more horrified and quickly ran to get her out.  It was a very warm day - we're talking 27 degrees - and Bella had been in this trap for who knows how long, without any water or food.  Cranky pants wifey was talking and I wasn't really listening, as I watched Chelsea take Bella home.  I kept asking cranky and her dickhead husband what exactly it was that they expected me to do?  She's a cat.......

They suggested I needed to keep Bella from entering their property.  Ahuh....right.  I repeated that she was a cat, and perhaps they could look at getting a cover for their sandpit - LIKE MOST PEOPLE WITH COMMON SENSE WOULD DO.  Nope.  Nope, not something they would consider.  So after a few more minutes of banter, and me telling them I would do my best, and perhaps they could think of some natural deterrents to keep cat/s away from their sandpit, I wandered off - bewildered.

I mean, is it me, or is going to the trouble of hiring a trap from the council to willingly trap a beautiful little kitten - who just happens to be registered with the council and is not some random stray - just bizarre?

For the following week, I kept Bella inside the house because I was basically too scared to let her out, for fear they would either trap her again, or do something worse.....

Fast forward to last week.  I was sitting upstairs and saw a council van pull in to the driveway.  Didn't take me long to figure out why they were here.......  Ever so lovely ranger tells me that he has my cat in his van.  It had been trapped by someone in the neighbourhood.  I asked him by who, and when he said he couldn't tell me - I told him.  With some very choice words.  I was not a lady.....

I asked HIM what the f*ck I was expected to do?  Well, his suggestions were nothing short of amusing.  Apparently "people" cut slits in pvc pipes, and put them over their fences so cats can't jump over them. Mmmmmmm, that's fabulous!  Cos I want my home to look like some kind of DYI disaster?  I'm thinking razor wire would be equally as effective?  Give it that "detention centre" shine?

Orrrr, we could build/buy a cat run?  Oh yeh, cos that's why you have a pet cat.  So it can be trapped in a f*cking wire enclosed building.  Sure.

Orrrrrr, we could just keep the cat inside - like - forever.

I very politely sarcastically, with a touch of f*ck you, told the ranger that the use of common sense was lacking in some people's brains, and that the council's  willingness to go along with those lacking common sense made me very cranky.  Collected Bella from the TRAP in his van and gave him a generous wave and smile and sent him on his way.

A few days later, he returned with the official letter of complaint and warning, that if Bella steps paw on their property again, we will incur a fine and Bella would be impounded.  Nice.

Now - the husband and I have had a few interesting conversations about the predicament we have found ourselves in.  He suggested we could go and shovel some of our dog shit on to their front yard, but hey, that wouldn't be very neighbourly would it?  I had a friend on Facebook offer us some chicken shit to share with them, but I thought that was too kind, because at least you can use chicken poop to fertilise your garden?  All I've managed to do is give the a*sehole a good case of staring as I drove past their home this afternoon.  Time will tell.......

In the meantime, I am trying not to lose my proverbial mind over the fact that I now have a kitty-cat trying not to lose HER mind at the fact that she can no longer go out and enjoy the great outdoors.  Long gone are her days of climbing the trees in our front yard, or wrestling with our two puppy dogs in the backyard.  Now her days are spent staring longingly out the windows, meowing incessantly and clawing any or all the furniture she can possibly manage without copping an earful from me.

Not to mention the fact that every time I hear the front or back door open everyone yells "DON'T LET BELLA OUT'!!!!!!!  Followed by the sound of running as the closest person to the door chases after her if she's managed to escape.

Soooooo, friends.  I ask you this - what would you do?  I understand, I really do, that there are cat haters out there.  In fact, I used to be one myself.  Before I was a cat owner, I had to go and buy sandpit covers begrudgingly to keep the neighbourhood cats from deficating in said sandpit.  It's common sense yes?  And even now, as a cat lover liker I have had to throw things at random cats who've come a knocking at our door to pester our own cats.  Once again, common sense?

I'm seriously at a loss.  Help.

***  Cat haters and non-constructive comments will not be appreciated.  Although if they're highly amusing comments I may laugh.

****  We are responsible cat owners who bring their cat inside at night and register her too.

Competition Shmompetition

I'm not a competitive human being.  At all.  I've always sort of known it, but have now confirmed it by my laziness.  I see so many fabulous competitions through Facebook and in Blogger world, but am just too bloody lazy to enter.  I also figure why waste my time when I know I'm not going to win, yes?  Hell, I don't even buy Lotto tickets!

I've also never been a competitive Mother.  In the almost fourteen years I have been a Mum, I could not tell you how many times I have had other Mums throw out competitive statements - Ooh, my little Jimmy is walking, talking, saving the gorillas.  It's rather never ending.  I get the proud moments.  I'm happy to say I will tell anyone how wonderful my kids are and how they are doing beautifully at the things they excel at, but I don't think I've thrown the sucker punch at the end - and questioned another Mum straight afterwards to compare.

I suck at being a competitive friend too.  I've "let" friendships fade away at times, because I'm not interested in others making friendships in to a competition.  Sure, when I was a kid, when it's almost acceptable behaviour, I was a part of the "three's a crowd" rule.  Two of my bestest friends ever (and still are) will tell you - we lived in a type of Bermuda Triangle, where one of us would be left out at some stage.  Sort of on a revolving friendship wheel!  But as an adult, no.  You want to spend more time with my friend?  No worries, go ahead, I'll just get on with life.

I've been watching quality television lately - Farmer Wants A Wife.  Go on, admit you have too.  I sit glued to that screen each episode, and cringe every.single.time. one of those girls starts crying about the situation they are in.  Helllllloooooo!  It's a competition - that YOU entered!  Derrrrr!

I was a Tupperware Manager a number of years ago.  Yep, I sold the super plastic stuff.  It was fun.  I met some unreal women.  I also found out that sales is a competition.  And once the competition was on, I was out.  

And now that I find myself running my own little hobby business, I have noticed the unbelievable level of competition between handmade businesses.  It's unnerving - to me anyway.  I have realised I need to put myself out there to sell what I make, but I find myself in a tug of war at times - with myself - because I don't want to have to compete for people's attention!  Stupid huh?

So, instead, I find myself plodding along quite happily just doing my own thing.  I've been buying the fabrics I fall in love with, making the outfits I love, and hoping that there are people out there who really love what I'm doing and will make a purchase.  And instead of stressing about the possibility of not selling everything, I'm embracing the fact that I have a rack full of handmade goodness to give away as gifts to friends or to charity.  It's quite liberating!

And on a winning note - Chloe WON the draw at swimming lessons on Monday and came away with a................colouring book!!  Winners ARE grinners!

Are you competitive?  Would you like to win something just by commenting on my blog?  Hmmm, just thought of that - now I'll have to find something to give away!  Watch this space!

Smart Chart

After what I would call GIVING UP on Monday, it seems my brainy husband put some thought to the situation we had found ourselves in - again.

Last year, our youngest son, Cadyn, went through a pretty hideous time.  He hit a wall at school, which then reverberated through our home, as he hit not only walls but anything else he could possibly cry at, throw himself on the ground at or yell at.  It was a living hell.  We ended up getting some great help for him, and he was assessed for a number of things.  Turns out he is one of the millions in the world who suffers from lives with anxiety.  I crossed out the suffering part because I don't like to think that his life is going to be full of suffering - so we'll try to help him to live with it instead....

Back to Monday......It had become very apparent, blatantly obvious actually, that Cadyn's anxiety had raised its ugly head again.  Who would have thought?  A new home, new school, new friends, ongoing renovations etc etc would be enough to do anyone's head in - but throw in some anxiety - and whallah! Melt-down!  Cue the giving up part.  Andrew was at the end of his tether too.  Except instead of him throwing his hands up in the air and crying, like someone I know, he must have stayed awake Monday night, and by the morning told me he had a plan.  Fabulous.  He would go to work and get together a routine/chores chart - with incentives.  Cool.

We have done rewards charts in the past.  With varying success.  But one thing we know about Cadyn is that he is rather goal orientated.  So why not give it another crack?  Later that morning, Andrew emailed me his "first draft".  I did giggle.  Past reward charts have been put together with some poster paper, textas, a ruler and some star stickers.  Nooooooo, not this one.

It's a spread sheet.........

I gave him a little of my input, but basically left it up to him to sort out.  What we were presented with (and I do not say presented lightly - it was a boardroom presentation, with the dining room being our boardroom - I was President) was a very well thought up and executed spread sheet.  On very big size paper.  Laminated.  Impressive.

Andrew dives in to his spiel explaining the dynamics of said chart and asks for the kid's participation.  Cadyn and Chelsea both eagerly start reading out the different parts of the chart, whilst I stood behind Andrew giggling at his spread sheet genius.  I did stop and ask the kids if they actually understood what the word "dispute" meant?  Nope.  A few small explanations later and the charts made perfect sense - even Chloe had some sort of idea!

One point I did dispute, was the monetary value put on receiving a day full of ticks - with no crosses (very technical).  Each child has the opportunity to earn a dollar for every day they achieve all of their possible ticks.  I queried Andrew's maths abilities and asked him if he realised how much money that adds up to over a four week period for four kids?  $112!!!!!!!!!!  He reassured me there was no way that all four kids could achieve perfection for four weeks in a row.  We shall see.

Our new system was rolled out Tuesday night.  And much to my amazement, there has been an almost full 360 degree turn around!  I have children offering their services left, right and centre.  I see the mechanics ticking over in their little heads as they begin to dispute argue/annoy me, before stopping themselves in their tracks and reverting to angels.  I am certain we will not be sent bankrupt by our scheme, but I am also very certain that it's something we will be sticking with.  Oh, and I CANNOT WAIT to see the look on Lochie's almost 14 year old face when he sees his delightful chart stuck on his wall when he returns from his Dad's house this week!

So - how do you reign in your kid's behaviours?  Are you a poster paper or spread sheet kind of parent?

With freedom comes responsibility...sort of

The freedom that comes with your children wanting to walk home from school by themselves is rather liberating.  There's an extra 30 minutes in my day that I do not have to spend in and out of the car.  I don't have to stop what I'm doing, run around like mad looking for Chloe's shoes and making sure doors are locked and everything's turned off.  I don't have to grab my purse and phone and keys and run through all sorts of inclement weather conditions to make it up our muddy driveway and throw Chloe in to the car.  It's fabulous.

BUT

The responsibility that has now been given to my two middle children is great.  In fact, it's huge.  We practised the walk home a couple of times together before I took a big breath and agreed to their wish of walking home together.  I reiterated the importance of walking briskly towards the main road, so as to make it there whilst the crossing lady was still on duty.  I repeated myself more times than I care to remember, the importance of sticking together and crossing at official crossing points.  And I gave Chelsea the all important role of Key Holder.  She was so very proud that I had enough trust in her to hand her a key to the house.

Now it seems I must have failed in a couple of areas whilst preparing them both for not only walking home by themselves, but also arriving home to an empty house on occasion, when I have not yet returned home from work.  I DID tell them they had to call me as soon as they walked in the door, so I know they're safely home.  I DID tell them they are to lock the door behind them, and do not answer it for ANYONE.  Apparently, I did not make it clear that they weren't to take any detours on their way home.  And apparently, asking Chelsea if she has her house key as we are leaving in the morning, and her answering "yes", does not necessarily mean she has it.....as demonstrated this afternoon.

Last week, I was patiently waiting for my 4pm phone call from the kids.  I had just been telling a work mate about how well they were doing at their new school, and how they had been so very responsible.  4.05 came and went, so I called home.  No answer.  4.15 came and went, so I called home.  By the time they finally answered the phone at 4.25 I was less than amused and had quite frankly started having a little panic in the pit of my stomach.

Me: Cadyn, where have you guys been?

Cadyn: Ummmmm, I got kept back in class.

Me: For half an hour??

Cadyn: Ummmmmm, yeh.

I had a quick word with him about how worried I was and left it at that, for the time being.  I spoke with Andrew whilst we were both driving home from work and we both agreed someone was telling a porky pie.....

After dinner, we sat them both down and Andrew began his version of the Spanish inquisition.  He basically asked why on earth they took almost one hour to get home?

Cadyn:  Ummmm, I got kept back in class and blah blah blah blah blah....

Andrew and I spot the strange look on Chelsea's face, and at this point, Andrew holds his hand up to Cadyn, swiftly turns to Chelsea and asks "What happened Chelsea?"

Chelsea:  We stopped at the park on the way home for a play......

*****Crickets*****

The silence was then swiftly followed by many examples of what could happen to them whilst taking an unscheduled detour, without anyone knowing.  Nothing like a bit of scare tactics to make sure they get the point?  Takes stranger danger to a whole new level!

SO what did we learn from this exercise?  Well, I learnt that my kids are still quite naive.  Which is both a good and bad thing.  We never like to believe that our kids are growing up, but just when you accept they are, they do something that makes you realise they are still just babies.  I also learnt that they have not memorised any important phone numbers!  Whilst I was worried about some evil pervert snatching them from the park, Andrew pointed out that if either of them hurt themselves, and a good samaritan wanted to help - how could they if nobody knew our contact numbers?

Next step?  Writing our contact numbers in big black texta on the inside of their school bags!  Or alternatively, a trip to the tattooist......

How old were you when you were given such freedom and responsibility?  Do your kids you have tattoos?

Random Rambling...

Today, I was going to come and write a post about others cynicism towards all things good.  Then I changed my mind and thought I would write about something else.  Then I started writing.....

 My annoyance rose from a very innocent flippant comment, I'm sure, the other day regarding the Kony 2012 campaign.  Said person questioned its success, and pretty much judged it a flop.  I was a little disappointed.  Sometimes I think people question the validity of social consciousness basically because their conscience is failing them?  Perhaps they would like to see things fail because it would make them feel better about not being supportive?  I was more than happy to let them know that on my way to work that day I saw this:

Just a random traffic light post, in a random suburb far far away from Africa....

I also know for certain that quite a number of regular Aussie kids sent away for their Kony 2012 packs and have been educated by this campaign.  So I guess in my eyes, this was far from a fail....

Let it be known these little men are very proud of their involvement!

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A lady I like to call a friend, even though I have never met her, nor had a conversation with her  - Eden Riley - wrote a post this week that broke my heart.  I blogged about the profound effect Eden's trip to Niger, on behalf of World Vision Australia, had on myself and my family.  It was a week in Eden's life that I cannot even imagine.  Well, it seems a whole bunch of naysayers decided they would target Eden and question the way she wrote about her trip as well as the way she is living her life since said trip.  This infuriated me to say the least.  How dare someone else, who has NO idea of what someone has been through, question them?  I just DON'T GET IT?  Another case of people feeling guilty about their lack of involvement, their lack of social awareness and their lack of tact and manners.  Shame.

I see this sort of crap daily.  Over a wide variety of subjects.  People dragging people down, to make themselves feel better.  And it makes me proud that I am no longer the cynical teenager I was once judged to be.  

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So that's what I was GOING to write about.  I did a good job not writing that didn't I?

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I'm also linking up with The Studious Stitch today!  So feel free to hop along to the other blogs linked up - you may just find something you like!

Tell me - what would you write about today?

WORDS - WORD

Eden has me thinking again - she wants WORDS.....

When I first read Eden's post this morning, the first word that came to me was CYNICAL.  Strange?  Well, back in 1990, my amazing English Literature teacher - Mrs Proctor - told me I was CYNICAL.  I was 15.  I can't even remember the context it was used in, but I do remember laughing it off....and then looking it up in the dictionary!

It also means one is sarcastic and mocking.  I'm guessing that was the point she was making? She was right.  But in saying that, she also helped to change me.  Because once I knew what CYNICAL meant, I made a conscious effort not to be so.  It's still one of my favourite words.  And I can pick a CYNIC a mile away.  It has paid off!  But I am still a work in progress.  I'm one of the most sarcastic biatches around!  But I'm also one of the most sentimental, soppy human beings you will meet.

So Eden - if it was open mic at a birthday party - I would more than likely get on stage and take the piss out of myself and anyone else I thought I could get away with, basically to mask the fact that I would be getting sentimental and trying not to cry (Yes, I know this, from first hand experience!).

And in my best CYNIC'S impersonation, I would think that all of the other speeches were bullshit!  Neigh.