Chinese new year

Hanoi March 2009

Pakse Feb 2009

It's the Year of the Tiger!!
This time last year we were in Pakse, Laos, eating noodles as the new year dragon entered our restaurant with drummers, dancers and a big paper mache-faced man bringing good luck to the premises.
It was a hoot as they let off fireworks & streamers in the street and celebrated in front of the Chinese businesses in this small Lao town.
The Chinese shops all had beautiful potted trees, decorated with gold & red envelopes filled with money - the dragon came and ate them - their good luck for the year was measured by how much they gave, as was the time the spent drumming up a storm in their foyer.

Organic Chocolate Easter Eggs

Easter is on its way.  You can pre-order your organic chocolate easter eggs with Jasmine Greens.


$8.80 each for 130g organic milk chocolate egg
$8.80 each for 130g organic dark chocolate egg
$13.60 each for 200g organic milk chocolate bunny


Be quick, orders have to be in by Feb 21 - they'll be delivered to you closer to Easter. 
email your order to  jasminegreens@bigpond.com

help Calga stop the sand mine

the more populated the world grows, the more impact we inevitably have on the environment.  i've spent the past couple of days learning about Calga/Peats Ridge residents' concerns about a proposed new sand mine in their neighbourhood.


the mine, located on only 134 acres of classic Sydney sandstone country is expected to extract one sixth of Sydney's annual sand supply.  it will do this by cutting 35 metres down into the sandstone and into the local aquifer that Calga and Peats Ridge residents say supplies up to 50% of the Central Coast's water supply.


it's amazing how such a small block of land wedged between Mooney Mooney and Brooklyn can potentially have such an enormous impact on the water supply for almost half a million people.  in addition, the mine process involves crushing stone to extract sand.  


the process is highly water intensive and creates invisible, but highly dangerous silica crystals, not found on beaches, where the sand's silica crystals are rounded, these silica crystals are sharp from the mechanical crushing process and can cause asthma and more significantly, silicosis, not dissimilar to asbestosis, when inhaled - there is no cure for this scarring of the lungs, that will occur from long-term exposure to the tiny silica crystals.


today i helped Scott Levi put some info on the ABC website about the mine and next week Scott will broadcast some of the interviews I've made with Calga residents and former Hawke government environment minister, Barry Cohen, who has a special connection to the area in question.


if you can make the time, simply log onto this website & ask NSW Planning Minister, Tony Kelly to stop the mine.

what a lovely bunch of bananas!

Misha and Mandy gave us three banana tree suckers november before last - this is our first hand.

back to school

back to school - to school for River for the first time - spent the day driving between swimming lessons, buying new school shoes for the boys and looking for good yellow things for Gully to use as props for his swimming carnival tomorrow.


he's in Pelis - their house colour is yellow.  thankfully his goggles are yellow.


the Peli pennant i have in mind to make for such events will have to wait for the athletics carnival later this year.


just returned from a very long and informative p&c meeting with our new (temporary) principal...  the meeting went for over 2 hours and was the most informative and interactive I've been to... have committed to putting 2 options to the next p&c for the purchase of new outdoor picnic benches for the playground.


River hates me calling it the playground... "there's no play equipment there mum!  it's not a playground, don't call it that!" he says... maybe I can bring this up at the next p&c meeting.

life's a rollercoaster!

five stitches in my leg and three broken ribs... not the best way to end a day celebrating Gully's 9th birthday, but there it is.

i had the brilliant idea to take 7 kids to Luna Park for the day to celebrate - i hadn't been to Luna Park since my best friend Martina's 12th birthday in 1984!

leaving home at 8am, we picked up kids along the way, and headed down the North Shore line to Milson's Point.  Heidi, the mother of River's new bestest friend, Felix came with us.  From the word go, the mood was hyped, kids were loud and boisterous on the train, jumping between seats and generally being excited.  

upon arrival at Luna Park (already desperate for a bex, a cuppa and a good lie down), we were very relieved to find the last day of the school holidays was not too hot, a little overcast and not at all crowded at Luna Park - already charged with lollies the kids headed straight into the rotor the kids rolled, into the dodgems, up onto the wild mouse, onto the tango train, into Coney Island, out to the Pirate's revenge, though the hall of mirrors to the spider, rock'n'tug & the carousel for a bout of quiet time before rolling back into the rotor for almost another hour, until we were virtually kicked out of the Park at closing time.

with their 'go wild' all rides and many times as you like wrist bands, the kids were hard to keep track of, queuing up for rides I had no choice, but to join them as there was no way to drag them from the barricades.

for Gully, Luna Park was not entirely his cup of tea. he spent a lot of time watching his friends, choosing no to ride. in retrospect I think he would have preferred a lego construction party at home in peace and quiet. his friends on the other hand took full advantage of parent free time to test the boundaries of their own bravery and enjoy the huge surges of adrenalin.

Gully chose to ride the dodgems and to visit Coney Island, but after that, his guests ruled the show..

Benj and Shelly met us at Luna Park with delicious birthday cake in tow - a great end to fish and chips and beautiful gift.

fantale wrapper reading was my chosen activity for the train ride home, the boys decided they preferred making caves between the train seats and shooting at each other with their imaginary guns and checking communications with their souvenir Luna Park pencils.  Generally causing as much havoc as they could.

Alex's quote of the day:

"I would read all the fantale wrappers if I could read!"  

he gave it a go, but the long names and small font proved too much of a challenge.

exhausted, Heidi and I returned the kids to their respective homes close to 9pm.  After putting my boys straight to bed and downing some delicious dumplings Charlie had waiting, I went to investigate our carpenter's progress on our new extension - only to end the day with the wildest ride yet - a 1 metre fall into the floor joists and onto the ground... the rest is a painful and slowly fading memory.

enough to say I have amazing neighbours, who came to assist in the middle of the night and wonderful friends and family helping me still x

new jasminegreens website

School starts back this week and so will our collective shopping group.


Join today & email your orders from the website.