The dreaded lurgy

Monday is the day Cass and I get together at her place and we scrap. It's our guaranteed "I will get something done today even if I don't even look at my scrapping supplies for the rest of the week" day and we both cherish it dearly. Our girls play to gether and we take pics and muck around, watch Days of our Lives and talk talk talk all day. Our kids all walk home from school together and they have a play for a while, Cass and I have a last cup of sanity and I pack up and go home. It's our fun day once a week that keeps us going through the other six days of crap and boredom.

Unfortunately Cass rang this morning sounding like the grim reaper herself. She's been up all night hurling her guts up and is still going. She will be getting to the doctor for the bum jab as soon as she can but if you have a moment can you leave something nice on her blog so she knows we're thinking of her? Honestly even if you don't know her that well I'm sure you can appreciate the nightmare of a house full of 4 kids, husband had to go to work and nobody else to help her. The totally imaginable horror that could strike any of us down at any time because lordy knows gastro seems to be lurking around every frickin corner these days!!!! In the ultimate act of selflessness Cass has asked me not to come over, not even to help her out, as she doesn't want to spread it if she can help it but we spent half of yesterday together so if I knew for sure I was going to catch it anyway I'd go over and watch the kids so she could go to the doctor. Unfortunately my eldest has a karate tournament this weekend and I'm loathe to risk sharing it with everyone else in case he misses out because it affects points for the whole year of the tournament circuit.

I am thinking of you babe!!!!! And before you go calling karma on yourself, this is NOT what you get for leaving your kids at home with your husband for a few hours while you go out and enjoy yourself!!!! Don't even bother telling me you hadn't thought that - I know how you tick woman!!!!

So today's schedule is mainly housework because just two days of having kids and menfolk at home does more to destroy my house than a small natural disaster, or even a big one for that matter! Oh and I guess I had better get out the amazingly good White King heavy duty toilet cleaner I bought last week. That stuff is amazing and I swear I didn't know my toilet could get so clean, not with four boy creatures in the house anyway!!! As Flylady says "nothing says 'I love you' to your family as much as a clean toilet, especially when stomach flu hits your house and you have your face in it!". I think BEFORE the toilet cleaning I'll go do some backing for lunchbox stuff. Honestly we'd have so much more money if the kids would stop eating!!! lol Not practical but very fiscally rewarding.......I'm trying to stretch out the stupidly expensive individual baggies of overpriced snacks by fluffing out the lunches with home made muffins, cakes and shortbread. It does work out cheaper if you've got the time and because we need to know exactly what goes into all those kinds of things it's just less hassle to make stuff myself. My chocolate muffins have actual cocoa, not five different artificial colours to make them brown. Next time you're shopping, if you're game, have a look at the numbers on the back of the stuff you buy your kids. I usually launch into soapbox mode here about junk in food and while it's positive to see that people are now educating parents about fat, salt and sugar in foods, the healthy food message completely ignores the vast numbers of addiditives that are required to make up a shortfall in fat, sugar and salt so kids will still want to eat it. Food manufacturers in our country use some of the worse known additives for causing behavioural reactions in kids, many that are completely banned in the UK and Europe because of those kind of effects. Our Food Administration here is of the opinion that if it makes your kids act wacko but doesn't give them cancer then it's okay to use it. I'll step off the box again now and just say that if you are interested in the food additives issue then there is a link on my sidebar to "Are You Feeding Your Kids Healthy Junk?" which links to a website called www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info and gives some major eye opening info about food and childrens' health and behaviour issues. I can't recommend it enough as it's done wonders for our kids but at the same time I can say I'm not a raving food Nazi, new age chicken spanker with a fetish for love and mung beans. I know that even for some kids diet is not the anwer, as is the case with my second eldest who is not affected by food additives at all and we've tested the theory many times. He has ADHD and nothing but his medication will control that. But by the same token I do believe that there are lots of unnecessary chemicals and additives in food and that at some point we will see the side effects of that in a whole generation of kids so I figure if I can feed them a healthy diet without those things then all the better for them.

Oh I'm glad Ngaire keeps things light and fun because my posts sometimes always go south and I'm sure people stop reading because it's all a bit boring most days. Keep up the good work Ngaire - someone has to provide the entertainment!!!