Scott & Jo’s!!! Blog

The day started poorly. We used to keep a glass jar containing change on top of the fridge. Somehow this jar had shifted so it was sitting on the top of the freezer door - resulting in a crude booby trap, eagerly awaiting the first hapless soul who needed to retrieve his precious coffee.

After finishing vacuuming glass shards I headed off to catch the bus to the city. When I got off the bus I instinctively patted my pockets to check for keys and wallet - and discovered the wallet was missing. Thankfully I had only taken four steps before realising this, and another passenger saw the wallet on the seat and handed it back to me.

There are two important lessons that others can learn from my misfortune. The first is prevention - where possible and practical avoid scenarios where an accident is likely to occur. Since the glass jar was near the fridge door all it took was some other unrelated event (such as moving a phone book) to shift the jar to a dangerous position. Prevention is very important for parents and is why we ‘baby-proof’ a house by doing such things as covering electrical powerpoints, and putting locks on cupboards containing dangerous items (such as cleaning fluid).

The second lesson is the importance of routines and processes to address risks and catch mistakes. I habitually check for my phone and pat my pockets whenever I leave my desk or restaurant table - because I know I can leave items behind. Even if the kindly passenger didn’t see my wallet I would have detected it was missing almost straight away.

Another process I have is to never put the petrol cap on top of the car when refuelling, in case I forget to replace it and drive off. Thankfully this has never happened - but it’s something I want to avoid.

Mistakes and accidents are going to happen but there are simple and common-sense ways to minimise the risk. Let me know if you have any tricks or suggestions!

So we went to Pet City on the weekend to look at some fish. We (I) ended up buying some fish. We now have 8 Congo Tetras, 3 big Silver Dollars, 3 small Silver Dollars, a Golden Pleco, a Bristlenose Catfish, 2 small Clown Loaches (I’m hoping to have 8 in total when I’ve finished purchasing fish!) and 12 guppies.

They all seem to be co-existing peacefully at the moment and it’s lovely to lie on the lounge at night when the kids have gone to bed and watch them swim around.

There are definitely no loaches left in my tank. Am doing a full clean of the tank, not recommended by any fishy type people but for some reason my fish love it. Anyway, all I have left now are 7 Congo Tetras and a Gold Pleco. Am going to shift my Silver Dollars from my other (smaller) 4ft tank into this one and then hopefully go shopping and get some more loaches and other assorted fish that will be suitable for this tank’s community.

Now that Alexandra is gaining confidence on her little feet, the accidents are starting. This evening it was two teeth to the inside of her bottom lip and one tooth to the outside of the same lip. At first glance, I thought she had pierced right through her lip. Was going to ring the Doc straightaway but then got hold of myself and relaxed. The poor thing has 3 puncture marks on her bottom lip! Doesn’t seem to be bothering her too much at the moment although when she first did it, her hands and arms were shaking from the shock of the pain and she was doing that famous “screaming without sound” thing. Of course the blood was considerable, being the lip. Ah, the joys.

To top things off, I’ve sliced my thumb tonight while making pizza.

Had white spot rip through the tank. Unfortunately, we lost 1 congo tetra and 3 big clown loaches before the spots presented… We put the multi-cure in and lost another 2. 3 left, out of 8. All loaches were sizable specimens, between 10 and 13cm long.

Now that the water is an icky green, I’ll have to spend 1/2 a day cleaning out the whole tank, filter and replace the water…in Winter. Argh. At least Pet City will gain some business from us this weekend!

Alexandra turned one last Sunday. My goodness the last year has gone so quickly! We had a few people around for a pot-luck lunch and some stayed until 9:30pm for some Wii time . Anyway, it was a good day - pretty exhausting though!

Last Thursday, the girls and I walked to meet Scott at the bus stop when he got home. After the exuberant greetings (from the girls ) Catherine decided she’d like to play on the slide and the swing. We gave her about 5 minutes playtime and then said it was time to go. She protested (of course!) and got off the swing to run to another piece of play equipment. Unfortunately she didn’t watch where she was going and ran straight into the crossbar of the A-frame of the swing set.
She cried.
I cuddled her.
She cried some more.
Scott said, “What’s that above her eye?”
We looked.
We saw blood.

At home before going to the hospital

As you can see, she’s smiling already!

Dinner was late of course, so we just got some fast food.

Catherine very happy about dinner!

The morning after…the poor little sausage!

She’s fine now with just a little scab and yellow “eyeshadow”.

From Slashdot - free e-book available titled The Secret History of Star Wars. Title says it all, and overview below from the website:

The Secret History of Star Wars is a new full-length e-book exploring the writing and creation of the Star Wars saga. Culled from over 400 sources and filled with quotes from people such as George Lucas, Gary Kurtz and Mark Hamill, The Secret History of Star Wars traces all the way back to 1973 to examine how the first 14-page treatment that began the series came to be and was slowly built, draft by draft, year by year and movie by movie.

Slashdot sums it up succinctly - ” Download it or have your nerd credentials revoked.”