Book of the Week

It would be fair to say that my ideal of ten pages per day has fallen by the wayside in the last few weeks. For the past two weeks I have worked full-time, been a wife and mother the rest of the time, and struggled with a killer sinus infection. But as I always say, there is always tomorrow. I have finally got a copy of the book club "book of the month", Dorothy Parker's The Sexes, (which looks like i could finish it in a weekend) which is perfect as book club is this Thursday.

So for my book of the week I am nominating a book I have been reading to my son, Dougal and Bumble and the long walk home, by Matt Dray.
A sequel to Dougal the Garbage dump bear, this tale follows Dougal and Bumble as they attend the teddy bear's picnic somewhere near the Gold Coast hinterland, and managed to get lost whilst singing Karaoke and drinking cocktails with a troublesome pig called Trevor. During their adventure, they learn to trust one another and the meaning of persistence and achieving a goal. All written with delightful tongue-in-cheek Aussie humour. I love this book and have given it and it's prequel to many friends as gifts for their kids as you will find it hard to tire of it's whimsy, even on the 400th read.

Is the traditional gift for a fifth wedding anniversary honesty?

Sparky tells me a story about when his mother and father were first married his mother was a terrible cook, (and I can get away with saying it because she admits it herself). One night, she made Bread and Butter pudding and his father complimented her on it, saying how much he enjoyed it. From then on, for many years apparently, Sparky's mum made bread and butter pudding for her husband because she thought he loved it. He hated it with a passion! He finally summoned up the courage to tell her after many years because he finally couldn't swallow another spoonful. They remained happily married and he no longer had to be tortured eating food he despised.

Which brings me to the core of today's post. Sparky first made me "chicken surprise" when we were courting, many moons ago. I hated it, but I was so in love with this man (still am) that I couldn't bare to tell him how much I thought it tasted like old cheese boiled in a used sock. When his core ingredient of 1 tin of Cream of chicken soup went out of production, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and my taste buds did a little dance of excitement. I kept his recipe in our recipe folder, more out of sentimentality and love than for any other reason. Until this week. When Sparky showed me that his friend has found a suitable replacement for the cream of chicken soup (apparently his friends like eating cheesy sock as well), he started writing a shopping list of ingredients so we can make it this weekend.

So my question is this, at what point in the relationship is it fair to truly open up to your life partner? To say that his "chicken surprise" is more like "chicken disappointment". To ask him to stop making the joke that the "surprise" is that he doesn't wash his hands, followed by uncontrolled laughter, only from him, EVERYTIME! Sparky and I have been married to each other for 5 years this month, is the traditional gift for a fifth wedding anniversary honesty?

Weekend with Manflu

I have been working my tail off the last few weeks, all the while battling the worst sinus infection of my life, (acquired from the Live Wire courtesy of "Daycare Germs"). But nothing gets in the way of raising The Live Wire, two poodles and Sparky. Unfortunately now Sparky has got it and it is now full-blown MANFLU!!!!! You know the symptoms, exactly the same as yours but 100 times worse because he has them! Now all he wants to do is rest and be pampered while I battle on with my third dose of antibiotics. To make it worse, Sparky decided to make a pilgrimage to Ikea (or the seventh circle of HELL!) on the weekend to purchase a chair for the Live Wire. Of course it wasn't available but it took 30 minutes just to park, 30 minutes to get through the rat maze that is the Ikea floorplan, and 20 minutes standing in a queue, only to be told to come back another time to go through the same nightmare. And even then, I still have to go to a further location to pick it up, do they think I am made of time, patience and Eternal Optimism!!!

Yesterday afternoon, as I offered Sparky a cup of tea (I may or may not have licked his cup as revenge for the last few weeks of lack of sympathy!) I received a woeful reply of yes, along with a barked order of "more cake" from the Live Wire. Four faces turned to me optimistcally (yes even Champy and Knucklehead got excited by the possibility) and I strode off to the kitchen to fullfil my commands. (I may have licked the cake too!)

so who am i?

Welcome to my blog, where i will sporadically discuss the often mundane but usually quirky things that happen in my life, living with my lovely husband Sparky, our son The Live-wire, and our to chaotic poodles Champy and Knucklehead.

Why is my blog called Just Ten Pages? Well after I had The Live-wire, time spent reading seemed an absolutely luxury, to the point where i would buy books i never got time to read. This year i started a new year's resolution, just read ten pages a day! that's it. and now i frequently find my self reading more than ten pages, and often not quite making the ten pages at all, but the incentive is there. I also started a haphazard bookclub with the mum's from my mothers group, "the first thursday book and b@#*h club", which basically means we spend 15 minutes discussing the book, 30 minutes discussing why we haven't read the book, and 2 hours drinking and catching up, which is all we really wanted to do anyway!

So this Blog will review the books i am reading, for bookclub, for myself and to the Live-wire, as well as detailing things that have got in the way of my reading, fun photo's and it will hopefully keep someone amused.


Enjoy, and happy reading
Inner Kitty