This is what happens when Miss Chief helps me bake...

... she covers her brother in chocolate cookie mix:

 

Perhaps this should fall into the category of Things That Make Me Smile But Probably Shouldn't. Or Things That Make Me Smile When Miss Chief Isn't Looking Because It's Not The Sort Of Behaviour I Should Encourage.

 

Things That Make Me Smile No. 7: Green Tree Frog

We've got so many horrible ugly cane toads hanging around at the moment eating the cats' food, that is was a refreshing change to find a cute little green tree frog hiding in our drain pipe. (Actually, Other Half found him and he'd be most upset if I didn't credit him.)

Things That Make Me Smile No. 6: Playing hairdressers

The other day we had no plans to go out (which is often a relief for me these days as I can't be bothered with the strategic planning required to get out of the door) and no visitors scheduled. I am also trying to limit Miss Chief's naps to between 1 and 1 1/2 hours as most nights she's a horror to get to bed. So this left me with many hours within which to entertain her.

Thankfully I have a secret stash of toys that I pull out every now and then, some of which she's seen, some of which are new plus some new books I'm saving for a rainy (or crazy) day. After a quick play in the pool Miss Chief asked me if I'd do her hair so I suggested we play hairdressers and that I be the hairdresser and she be the client. I then pulled out a brand new toy - a hair salon kit, complete with battery-operated hairdryer. It was an immediate hit. After pretending to shower, shampoo, blowdry and style her hair into lots of pig tails it was her turn to be the hairdresser. She did lots of hair drying and called me "my dam". When she was napping I put the kit away so that it would retain its novelty for another day but when she woke up she went looking for it and asked to play again. It entertained her all afternoon and I even managed to check email and publish a blog post whilst having my hair done. It was such a lovely girly day and it made me so happy to have a daughter.

Things That Make Me Smile No. 5: Hot days in the paddling pool.

We had an absolutely gorgeous day the other day when Lucie and Amelie came around and we all jumped in the paddling pool. The girls weren't that bothered about being in there until Lucie and I got in with them. They jumped and splashed around and had great fun. I would never think of blowing up a paddling pool and sitting in it if I didn't have kids. Gotta love days like this. We almost didn't care about the 36C heat.

Your Money or Your Life: stumbling on step 1.

I'm beginning to realise why I failed to complete the 9 step program in Your Money or Your Life the first time I started reading it. Here's step 1, Making Peace with the Past:

Part A: Find out how much money you have earned in your lifetime - the sum total of your gross income, from the first penny you ever earned to your most recent paycheck.

WTF? My entire life? Er yes, apparently.

Dig our your copies of old income tax returns. Adjust the figures to reflect any cheating you did - tips you didn't report, jobs that paid you under the table, informal consulting, gambling winnings, gifts from relatives that went unreported [I'm supposed to report financial gifts? Oops], any money you've stolen [what the...?], cash prizes you've won...
...summer jobs you had during high school and college...
... what odd jobs did you have and how much did you earn picking apples, house-sitting, watering the neighbours plants...

Holy baboon-pants! Do I have to mention pocket money as a kid, or the pennies I earned picking gooseberries and red currants in my parents' garden or shelling peas? I had a few babysitting jobs but I'll be darned if I can remember my hourly rate or how many hours I worked. I can't even remember how many months I worked at Vision Express or the various bar jobs I had. This is some serious digging I have to do. And it makes it a bit harder that half of my earning life was in a different country. And that's where all my paperwork is. So I think I'll just start with the last 8 years in Australia for now.

But wait! That's only Part A. There's more.

Part B: What have you got to show for it? For the years you have been working for wages, a certain amount of money (which you just calculated) has entered your life. The amount that is left in your life now is your net worth.

Well that can't be that hard, can it? Not quite sure how I manage the fact that most things are joint owned with Toby. Do I need to include all the income he's ever earned too? But as for figuring out the worth of what I own, surely it's not that hard. I mean, I've got no money and I owe shit-loads on the house. But I own one and a half cars. Well, half of two really as I made Toby get rid of his. But wait! What's this?

Creating a Personal Balance Sheet simply means going through your material universe and listing everything you own (assets) and everything you owe (liabilities).

Simply? Everything? Really? Yes, start with liquid assets then move onto fixed assets and after listing the big stuff (house, car),

Go through your attic, basement, garage and storage shed. Itemize everything, without subjective evaluations like "That's worthless."...

...Go through every room of your house and inventory everything. Look up at those decorative light fixtures. Look down at that rug. How about...

Stop! Enough already. I get the picture. You really did mean everything.

Oh my god! I'm having heart palpitations. I'm rubbish enough at doing this for insurance estimates but absolutely everything I own with "an approximate current cash value"? I'm not to "ignore anything"?

Even the stuff in my mam and dad's loft? Don't answer that.

Okay this is really hard and it's going to take a really long time. Already this has highlighted for me just how much clutter we have. The book talks about clutter as being all the extra stuff you have beyond "enough"; "enough" being what you need for survival, plus comfort plus a few luxuries. Every time you add stuff to your life the benefit (or level of fulfillment) goes down in relation to the amount of money spent. I can see the value in knowing your net worth but I have to ask myself whether the effort is really worth the potential result for me right now. But I've committed to this. I have to do it. However, this is a long term thing. Clearly I need a short term financial plan to reach my goal of $20,000-$30,000 by Feb 2013. It's going to be an interesting walk down memory lane and I wonder what I'm going to rake up in doing it. When I was applying for permanent residency I had to write a CV of everything I'd ever worked on. It took me ages but the things I remembered whilst I was doing it were amazing. Things I thought I'd forgotten that seemed to bear no relevance to work. Songs, friends, nights, moments. So, you know, every cloud...

Things That Make Me Smile No. 4: Going to the toy zoo.

We're a bit housebound at the moment because the Wee Bairn sleeps so much and often his and Miss Chief's sleeps overlap. So I've been challenged to come up with different ways to keep Miss Chief amused and prevent me from going insane. Yesterday we built a zoo in the front room and then took a Barbie doll and her cat and dog on a visit. We parked the car under the coffee table and then wandered around taking in rabbits, monkeys, giraffes, tigers, crocodiles, a pond with a frog, a platypus, ducks and a hippo, elephants, a panda, a brown bear (or was it a grizzly?), birds, a kangaroo and a meerkat. It was all fun and games until the crocodiles escaped and started eating people.

Someone left a baby in the tiger enclosure.

Visiting the giraffe enclosure.

Those crazy crocodiles.

Things That Make Me Smile No. 3: Miss Chief Having Fun With Her Big Cousins

We sent Miss Chief offsite today while we dealt with her unwell brother. She spent the day having a great time with her older cousins and even had a 2 hour nap. That's impressive babysitting. Uncle Awesome sent this photo of her enjoying a slushy.