Night of nights or Day of days for me!

It is Oscar night, or day as it happens to be over this side of the world. It is one of my favorite times I love the Awards season, I watch them all the SAG's, The BAFTA's, the Globes, The Emmy's, the Critics Choice and anything else they will broadcast for my perusal, but above all the Oscar's is "it". I have my list printed off and my choices are marked, my daughters have also marked their choices as has my partner, my mum used to do it as well but this year she was busy with a personal matter that needed and deserved her full attention. I have at 7:58am only to do a couple more chores, bake a banana loaf and some choc chip cookies, the kids are on the bus bound for school, the animals are all fed, lunches made, bathrooms sparkling and dust removed, until the next breeze blows and brings it all back in, and my chair is ready with my crocheting beside it. My choices for winning are based only on who I think has really made me fully believe they are the character they are portraying, I may be a little controversial in that I have not picked any Aussies to win, I do love Geoffrey Rush and believe he was truly brilliant in the King's Speech but I think that Christian Bale might just pip him at the post for his drug addicted portrayal of Mark Wahlberg's brother in The Fighter. Melissa Leo, also from The Fighter will take a statue home as will Natalie Portman for her creepy portrayal in  Black Swan and Colin Firth surely will take home an Oscar for his amazing and beautiful performance as the King in The King's Speech. For director I think that David Fincher should win for Social Network and the Cohen Brothers fully deserve best picture for their brilliant remake of True Grit, for animated feature film Toy Story 3 should win and best foreign film should be Biutiful -it has Javier Bardem in it, that just says it all really- I have picked out things like costume design -Alice in Wonderland- and art direction -also Alice in Wonderland- cinematography -Inception- music, original song-I See The Light- music, original score -127 Hours- writing, adapted -True Grit- and finally writing, original -The Kids Are All Right- although I would love to see The Fighter take this one for Marky Mark.
My day will be one filled with frocks, shoes, bling bling, awards and tears, it is one that I look forward to every year and will continue to for as long as I am here, my grandmother was watching up until she passed last year aged in her late 90's. It is from her that I have a love for baking, knitting and crochet, she always served tea in a cup and saucer and toast in a little silver toast rack, jam was always in little glass pots with individual baby spoons to place it onto your little triangle of pre-buttered toast. She always made her own jams, cakes, pickled onions and even tomato sauces and always, always dressed properly -in case the Queen dropped by for tea. I am truly honored to have known my grandmother and hope to carry on her traditions as long as I can, and I gladly carry on the Oscar tradition.
Cin cin everybody (I mean this in the traditional Italian way not in the Japanese way)
Happy Oscar Night/Day
xoxoxoxoxo

Tears and t.v.

I am a t.v. junkie, I loves me some good, and sometimes trashy, t.v. Last night I watched one of my favorite shows and as usual cried like a baby, this event is not unusual for me I tend to cry when I watch a lot of shows, but last night was terrible. On American Idol we are down to choosing the final 24, I say "we" whilst at the same time realising that Randy, Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler (my favorite) do not care for my choices or that I think that they have chosen the wrong contestant. The choice to not include Chris Medina was a terrible decision as I think that he was one of the most talented amongst them and that he should have been chosen over one or two of the ones they did pick, however Jennifer Lopez's reaction to having to tell him no was truly heartbreaking and really added to my tears, she has really grown on me in the last few weeks and last night she showed that she is just a nice girl who had a tough time saying goodbye to someone she views as both talented and really wonderful. This years talent is amazing and I am hoping that tonight a few of my favorites get through so that I can really watch them grow in talent and confidence but I know that I will need to keep the tissues handy because for sure I will cry again.
I also watched a couple of episodes that I had recorded of Real Housewives of Orange County and the Atlanta Wives as well, I watch these shows every season in the belief that they may actually crack and show us that they are all acting and are not as horrendous and greedy as they appear, but nope they keep going on their merry way showing us that having money does not necessarily make you happy or feel content. I really do, however, wish that for one day I could have the cash they throw around willy nilly so that I could do silly things like re-seal the fridge or buy some new towels and that really nice heater that I saw in a catalogue the other day, silly me thinking of all that frippery when these poor women can only go on a girls shopping trip for three days instead of four because of the G.F.C. I know I should stop watching but I really can't help it, it is reality t.v. at it's "finest" and I loves me some trashy t.v. On a happier note Survivor starts again here next week and I can't wait to see my favorite villain Russell kick butt, oh and I should mention that I have cried in the previous seasons of Survivor and probably will in this one too...........yes I am a sad, strange little woman!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Extraordinary times

At the moment in the world there are snow storms of massive proportions, extreme rains, cyclones and now earthquakes in our neighbouring island New Zealand. I am amazed at how much devastation can occur in such a small amount of time, the people of Christchurch have had to endure 2 earthquakes in six months and both times they have proved that people, in times of horror like this, can become the most amazing of heroes. These people, admist the utter chaos and shock, came together to get complete strangers out of the rubble they were surrounded by, people stopped in their cars and offered others rides home so that they could check on their own loved ones and homes, and then there are the men and women, who although trained for this job, have pulled people out from the most twisted of buildings and metal, they put their own lives on the line to pull out people that they have never met before and give comfort to those who remain trapped until they can be freed. There are men and women who have been criticized by those who have never been in this situation, for making the horrific decision to move to another building where life signs are heard and there are people who are still alive and making their situation known, the choice to move from a pile of twisted rock and metal that is silent apart from the groaning of the rubble as the earth continues to shake to one with absolute life  is hard and guilt ridden but the choice has to be made to save those who are obviously alive. This is not a job that anyone would want to take but it is a job that must be taken and only those who have ever been in this situation have the right to make comment, no matter how much you think you are owed an opinion, these men and women are the bravest most amazing heroes in the world and while I pray that more people are saved and that the death toll is less, I pray most for these people who have to deal with life and death hands on and who are most deserving of our praise and nothing less.

What a week....

What a week I have been having, the kids have started at their new school and seem to have gotten over the initial shock of coming from a school with only a few hundred kids to being at a school with over a thousand! It has been a shock and a fair adjustment on their behalf but they have handled it really well, the next hurdle for them is working out bus times and getting up a lot earlier than we are all used too, it should  be interesting in the winter months because no one wants to get out of bed to catch a bus at 7am let alone be happy about it!
 The other news of the week is that my Gastroenterologist  rang and said that the surgery that I had originally been booked in for on March 30 had been pulled forward to this Wednesday because my blood results had come back questionable and so it was deemed necessary for me to not eat anything other than jelly for two days followed by the joy of drinking some horrible goo that is designed to make me discover things from my colon that could possibly have been there since early childhood. Fun, fun, fun! I did learn something interesting though, when you are going in for the procedures you are not allowed to eat or drink anything that is red, purple or blue, this is because if they are not absorbed by your body it shows as a bleed, gross and interesting all at the same time :)
So while I was making a delicious dinner of steamed rice and satay chicken complete with bean shoots, bamboo and baby corn I was eating a bowl of not quite set jelly, it was not quite ready to eat but I was so hungry that I figured it couldn't kill me. The dinner smelled so amazing that I am sure I had done something magical to make it more delicious than it was last week when we all had it, I think it is more likely that it smelled better because I had not eaten anything since last night. I also restocked the cheese scone container and made a rolled meringue filled with vanilla cream and strawberries, oh and I nearly forgot the cheese and bacon fried bread that I made so that the egg yolks and left over bacon would be used up so that there was no wastage while I am unable to cook for a couple of days.
I am hoping that everything is sorted out on Wednesday and I don't have to spend any longer in hospital that is absolutely necessary, I also hope that they can finally figure out what is causing all the problems I have been having since May last year, that will make missing out all yummy human food worth it......well almost :P

I will leave you with a picture of us enjoying the cool evening air after a week of over 35 degree days

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo