Spoonie castle

This last week has shown me how much I have set up my life, and my house, to accommodate my M.E./CFS Spoonie-ness.

Over Christmas we spent two nights at my mother-in-law's, and now we are house-sitting in a beautiful place near the beach. It's a magnificent house, but not quite set up for a Spoonie.

from weheartit.com

Some ways I've made our house more Spoonie friendly:

• washing detergent. I use earth-friendly products, so as not to further poison our waterways. I noticed they don't here when the sheets smelt so strongly of chemicals I had to get out a new Christmas candle! (thx 2 my MIL for the beautiful lavender scent!)
• high quality sheets. The sheets don't matter so much as the pillowcases. I can't stand rough material on my face.
• Proper bed. I spent two nights on a trampoline-type sofa bed. No one has ever woken from a sofa-bed and said "gee, I slept well last night". Particularly not a hyper-sensitive Spoonie. I had a 30 minute rant last night about the sofa bed, so I'll spare you and just say I was longing to just roll out the yoga mat & sleep on that!
• Proper pillow. I have one of those funny shaped memory foam pillows. Sooo good. Handle a good old Spoonie Migraine no worries. Brought this with me, so no worries here.
• Dog. We get a free holiday here near the beach with the proviso that we walk the dog. There are many things I love about our cat, and one of them is that he doesn't need walking!!

 

Cat please!

 So what do you do to make your life easier? What do you miss on holidays?

Rose: a free holiday in a beautiful house, close to the beach! What more could you want?? =)

Housewife Olympics

In 2006 I was a vounteer at the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. I was in the athletes village helping athletes & officials with their transport needs. It was a very positive experience, and I got to go to the closing ceremony, but I lost my interest in large scale sporting 'events'.







This morning, as I was putting the washing on, I realised it's because they're not relevant. The events? They're a little silly. Water polo? Who does that? High jump? It just brings bad bad memories from high school. What we need is to celebrate real achievements.

I, for example, am master of the Pick-up-Discarded-Laundry-with-foot-and-Flick-up-to-Hand event. I'm also very fast at the It's-Raining-Quick-Get-the-Washing race. I'm okay at Cooking-for-coeliacs but am stumped by a new event in our family: low-fructose-cooking.

So what do you think of a Housewife Olympics? Obviously all competition would be in the form of clips uploaded to the net - who has time to go out? - that would just make more work!

What events would you like to watch? What category would you win?


~Stretchy Princess
Gold medalist: Pick-up-Discarded-Laundry-with-foot-and-Flick-up-to-Hand, 2010

The Christmas Rose

Rose: had lovely Christmas dessert last night with my parents & sister. It was short but perfect.

U2 360 Melbourne Dec 1 2010

My beautiful sister & I went to see U2 when they were here in Melbourne.  What an amazing night! They sure know how to put on a rock concert! Highlights: Rejoice! Rejoice! to celebrate Aung San Suu Kyi's release in Burma & the huge crowd singing Amazing Grace (well, some of them anyway!) Hearing Amazing Grace sung on mass at Colonial Stadium was pretty special!

Here's some links for photos & clips from the night:

• Official U2.com site for the concert 
• Official video clip
• Some Twitpics of Bono & the set list
• Youtube clips here, return of the stingray guitar, & U2gig's list of videos here &
• U2 on Hamish & Andy's Thankyou Tour here  

Don't look before you laugh, look ugly in a photograph...

~Stretchy P xx

My soapbox: Asylum Seekers

Right. I am hopping on my soapbox. If you don't want to hear my opinion about asylum seekers, look away now!

This "issue" [it's not an issue - they are PEOPLE] has been getting my blood boiling for awhile now. Every few days there's another news report about asylum seekers protesting, suicides in detention centres or more "boat people" coming. And of course this last week there was the tragedy of 27 people losing their lives off the shore of Christmas island.

Here's some good links:

Mamamia's 10 thing's you need to know about Asylum Seekers. Written Dec 17, 2010. (#1 - it's not illegal to come here on a boat seeking asylum!!)

Amnesty International's website Re-think Refugees

Great piece by Matt Granfield: Open letter to my dad

Me, I'm angry. Why does Amnesty International need a website for something happening in our, wonderful, civilized country?? How, oh how, did we not know that boat was off the shore of Christmas Island before it crashed and 27 people died? How were they not transported to a different boat 10ks off shore? My heart breaks when I think what people have endured, and then we lock them up??

I'll post more on this when I've calmed down. *goes out to hit something*

Photo Friday - U2

Last week I was lucky enough to see U2 live! 

(possibly still having a spoonie flare as a result, but oh so worth it!) 

I didn't get any really good pics, and my phone died about 3 songs in =( 

But they're good memory boosters!

waiting for the show to start

The spaceship was scarily arachnid-like, but looked awesome during the show. 

Excuse us

Sorry for the hideous ads in the middle of my blog, it appears my template has been tampered with. I'm leaving it up for a little while so that the template designer can see it, however, we'll be ad free very shortly, one way or the other.

You know you're a Hopeless Romantic when...

I'm currently experiencing a spoonie flare for unknown reasons. (U2 concert? heat? Christmas stress?) So I'm eating up chick lit books from the library & watching sleeping through the cricket.

Today's book is Gemma Townley's The Hopeless Romantic's Handbook. (2007). Ballantine books: New York. Here's an excerpt:

Ten Ways of Knowing That You're a Hopeless Romantic

1. You believe in happy endings, and refuse to let others' cynicism or difficult manner deter you. 

2. Laughter and tears come easily to you, such is your level of sympathy for, and empathy with, others.

3. When the skies are gray and full of rain, you see the romance of being caught in a downpour; when skies are blue and the sun is shining are excited by the prospect of a day spent walking in the park. Everything is an opportunity to you' everything brings hope and anticipation.

4. You are not impressed by grand gestures or expensive gifts that are presented as substitutions for thoughtfulness. A single flower that is presented honestly and with love is worth a thousand bouquets of the sweetest smelling roses proffered by a fickle admirer. 

5. If something is very important to you, you don't give up. Ever. You chase your dream, refuse (politely, of course) to take no for an answer, and do everything within your power to make your dream come true...

If that's a hopeless romantic, feel free to call me one! I want to be a person who is brave, focusses on the positives in life and tries to spread a little joy.  And yes, I know that's only five, that's how it is in the book!

Wishing you a beautiful day!

~Stretchy P xx

Rose: the library! Ours has online renewals & holds. So many chick lits, all for free! =)

Christmas wish list

Forgive this rather self-indulgent post! But as the Stretchy Princess blog is partially just my personal spot on the web I thought I'd post my Christmas Wishlist here for easy access to the Prince!






So here we have, in no particular order, things this Princess might like for Christmas:

• CDs: classic jazz, Oud music or cello music ($5 bargain bin would be great here!)
• Big Bang Theory DVDs
• organic rosehip oil (this is a beauty product - available at Chemists & beauty places - $30 and up)
• recipe box from safeway -light blue. Kath has one
• cute hairclips. Bobbypins with bilas! ;)
• red sparkly nail polish
• Plants: kaffir lime tree. Avocado tree. 
• herbs: chives & basil

Fav TV show atm.

A'kin Rosehip oil

What's on your wishlist?

(and don't say things like peace and love etc - we all want those! This is a *practical* list! ;)