Well as we all know the Christmas period is over, same with the New Year and I saw on another blog this questions “when do you take down your holiday decorations”, so I decided to write a post about this for today’s post.

I put my Christmas decorations up around the middle of November and leave them up till the 1^st of January. The type of decorations I use mostly now days are the ones you just stick on a wall, I find that they are easy to do and in all the time I have been using these type of decorations I have only had the paint come off while removing them a couple of times. Although when Kathy-Lee was removing them last week she removed some paint because she didn’t remove the decoration slowly trying to rip it off fast.

Even my Christmas tree now days is a small tinsel tree that sits on the dining room table, I also like decorations that I can sit on top of the television and other things. I do have a larger Christmas tree I just don’t have the room to put it up.

The only time I decorate the house is at Christmas time, I know in other countries people decorate at other times but here in Australia and mostly my family it is only done at Christmas time.

Well here we are at the first Indestructible Creatures post for 2018, this will be a regular Tuesday post this year.

Have you heard of the Himalayan Jumping Spider, they are just 1cm big and live way up on Mount Everest. They are thought to live higher up than an other animal, it is covered in thick hair and can manage for days without food and jumps from one wind-blasted icy rock to another as sure-footed as a mountain goat.

Even though spiders are meat eaters there are no other animals this high up, so they feed on dead insects such as flies and springtails that have blown up the mountainside in the wind.

Like most spiders the Himalayan Jumping Spider has eight legs and eight eyes but only six of their eyes face forward, they have two eyes on the side of their head that allow them to see behind them, what the hell.

Here I am with the first “did you know” Monday of the year, more trivial facts that you may know or may not know, that may or may not interest you but my life isn’t that interesting and I like to share not only my life but other things as well.

So here we go with did you know.

In 1996 Martina Hingis became the youngest ever Wimbledon Champion, winning the Ladies doubles with Helena Sukova at the age of 15.

In 1985 Boris Becker was the youngest male to win the men’s singles aged 17 & 227days old, however, in 1989 Michael Chang, won the French Open when he was17 years & 110 days).

It is said that people born on Christmas Day are lucky in life and will never drown or be hanged also they are unable to see ghosts, really?????????????

Speaking of ghosts they appear in four Shakespearian plays, Julius Caesar, Richard 111, Hamlet & Macbeth.

The “Curse of Macbeth” is the misfortune that happens during the production of the play.

The theory goes that Shakespeare included actual black magic spells in the incantations of the weird sisters. Those who appear in the play or those who mention the play’s name within the confines of a theatre risk having these evils brought down on their heads.

Well we are home, drove all day Wednesday to get home and it didn’t all go smoothly, we had a flat tyre and Tim didn’t want to put the spare on so we called into a tyre place at Grafton to have it repaired, after stopping three times for Tim to put more air in the tyre anyway we had it repaired and it only lasted to Coffs Harbour where Tim had to suck it up and put the spare on. He was none too happy about the fact that he paid $27.50 to ave the tyre repaired for nothing.

It was 8pm by the time we got home, it was Jessica and Leo who wanted to drive all the way home and it was Jessica and Leo who complained about how long it was taking to get home but at the end of the drive we were home and able to sleep in one’s own bed and we didn’t have to get up early on Thursday morning.

After we got up Thursday we took the caravan back to my parents and then went and got to new tyres for the car and did some food shopping then home for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was Friday so that meant doing more shopping and picking up scripts the morning and getting the mail before coming home and doing nothing else for the rest of the day, I am glad to be home and to be able to sleep in air conditioned comfort at night.

Tim was suppose to go back to work tomorrow but he was called into work today.

I have read all the comments on the last few posts but didn’t respond to them all as to be honest I am still exhausted and this morning I woke up feeling unwell, in fact Tim came in at 9.40am to see if I was ok as I was still asleep, I got up but really didn’t feel like doing so.

Here I am at the end of our last day in Queensland and yet again I am exhausted and my feet are very swollen and all I want to do is sleep which I will do soon. I have had a long shower and feel fresher but it doesn’t help my swollen feet.

I love Jessica but she has been giving me a headache recently with her complaining about stuff, her and Leo wanted to head home today but since we have paid for the night we are staying the night. We will leave early in the morning and Jessica wants to pack up a lot of stuff tonight that she can do if she wants to.

This morning we went back to Dreamworld so I could get some souvenirs then we went to Skypoint tower to check out the view and then back to the van to do nothing.

Well been a couple of days since I last wrote, busy days, stinking bloody hot days but good days as well.

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to Australia Zoo and I was able to hire a motorised scooter to get around the zoo and that was great, so much easier for me and also for Tim and Jessica. Although the fact that Tim woke us up at 6am was a bit much his phone didn’t reset for Queensland time and he thought it was 7am

Granted I was unable to go on the shuttle around the zoo but that was ok, I managed to see about 70% of the zoo then we broke for lunch and after lunch I suggested that the others take the shuttle to the other parts and I would go through the shops and just wait for them. So while they did that I waited in air conditioned comfort. Jessica was surprised that we spent 7hrs at the zoo.

Today saw us go to Dreamworld another long day we arrived around 10.30am but it was near 11am by the time we got in hired the wheelchair and set off. We left at 5pm when they were closing up, however, there was a part we didn’t get to, so Tim and I decided to go back tomorrow with Jessica & Leo of course.

Today is Leo’s birthday he is now 10yrs old and he seems to have had a good day and was excited with all his presents and he was somewhat spoilt, this whole trip was for his birthday, so both papa and I wanted him to have a good day.

Now I am going to post this and go and have a shower and freshen up before going to bed, last night I was so exhausted I didn’t have a shower just a wash in the van and Jessica went on and on about me not having one but I didn’t care, I was too exhausted to care.

Well it is the day before we leave for our holiday in Queensland and it’s been a somewhat busy day packing and going to the shops for a few things then heading over to pick up the caravan from mum & dads place.

Tim wanted to go out for lunch at the RSL club which we did, lunch was good we always like going to the Eastern Tiger for lunch.

What I notice was how bad Tim parked the car, he often complains about how I park the car and what made things worse was earlier this week I came home and people were parked in the visitors parking in such a manner that I found it hard to pull up right and thus had trouble parking and of course Tim was watching and commented that I suck at parking. I DO NOT.

Anyway while out today I notice on the three occasions that Tim parked what in my opinion was terrible, he wasn’t straight, not squarely in his lines and if I had parked like that he would of course made some comment about it but I said NOTHING.

He keeps going on about wanting to leave really early in the morning which is fine but does he have to tell me over and over, I get it that he wants to leave early stop going on about it.

Well 2018 has arrived, yesterday, as today is the 2^nd and after going to the doctor and taking Leo home I am now home for the day. I have nothing else planned for the day which is good, as everyone knows I like quiet days when I have little or nothing to do.

Yesterday I had Leo all day while his mum was working and even though she was back in Newie by 5pm she was tired and exhausted and just wanted to go home eat and go to bed. So when she explained that to Leo he told her he would stay here so she could go home and go to bed without having to worry about him.

We had him from around 3pm on New Years Eve as his mum had to get up early for work, yesterday while here he helped me clean the bath, the bathroom sink and the stove top, he also emptied 2 of the recycle bins. I had meant to get him to vacuum for me too but forgot. He likes to do things for me and often does little things without being asked.

After today Tim will be off work till the 11^th or 12^th can’t remember which, we are leaving on Friday for a short break away with Jessica & Leo we are taking the caravan and going to the Gold Coast, we are taking Leo to Australia Zoo and Dreamworld for his birthday which is on the 8^th January he will be turning 10.

I would love to be able to go away with Natasha & Blain but Natasha can’t afford it and we can’t afford to pay for them, Jessica always pays for her and Leo when we go away. Wouldn’t mind one day going away with Kathy, Michael and the girls but not sure if Kathy & Michael would like to do that.

Both Tim and myself feel that holidays are much more fun when taken with other family members, when our girls were little we went away with my parents and Dave & Sandy who were young teenagers themselves.

Wait till your father gets home…………yes or no

Today let’s talk a little about punishment of children, on many tv shows when I was growing up you would usually hear the mother say the words “ wait till your father gets home”……………

These are words I never heard my mum say, if we were naughty she dealt with it, if we had to wait till dad got home we could have been waiting a few days, so mum thought it was better to deal with the issue when it happened.

Maybe this is why when my girls were little if they misbehaved I dealt with it, although Kathy has said she remembers me saying it but she is wrong. What I did say often when the girls were not paying attention to me was “either I can deal with this now or you can wait till dad gets home and let him deal with it”.

Of course with those options they would chose to let me deal with the issue because I didn’t go off my head like Tim would. I also would tell Tim about any issues when he got home and I would tell him that I had deal with it, sometimes he thought I was too soft and want to add more punishment but I would say that is undermining me and that would also piss me off when he would try and do it.

If the issue was a serious one I might say to the girls that I would have discuss with dad their punishment, this they didn’t like because Tim would go overboard in my opinion. Many times he would want to throw things in the bin because they wouldn’t clean their room, this I thought was overboard because if we tossed it we would only have to replace the items at a later date. I would confiscate things and they would have to earn them back.

On many occasions I would tell Tim his punishment didn’t match the crime, if fact I often said he was acting like they committed armed robbery when in fact they just didn’t pay for a lollipop but things are wrong both things are theft but you don’t toss someone in goal for pinching a lollipop. It any of that makes sense, it often didn’t to Tim.

Did I smack my girls, yes I did a firm smack on the bum wasn’t and isn’t abuse, also Kathy had a habit of kicking the bedroom wall when sent to her room and I would go in and smack her legs, once I didn’t hoping she would calm down and stop and she ended up kicking a hole in the wall, which made things worse when Tim found out.