Retail Anxiety and Coping with Kids at the Checkout

Do you shop at Aldi?

Have you ever used the self-service checkouts at Coles or Woolworths?

Have you ever done either of the above whilst shopping with children?

Good Lord, is it just me, or is grocery shopping, especially with kids, becoming more stressful?

The Aldi checkout is a well known centre for stress, particularly to the novice Aldi shopper. Even regular Aldi patrons with a trolley full of products can come unstuck at the register, trying in vain to pack their own goods, invariably scrambling to finish bagging their items well after the transaction has been completed.

"Sorry, I won't be a second, I just need to get my frozen chips, chocolate, ski-gear and drop-saw and I'll be out of your way." Crazy.

Add kids to the equation and you spend 30 minutes assuring them that Little Bears are EXACTLY the same as Tiny Teddies and promising them that they will indeed like Wheat Brix.

Aldi is cheap and they have fabulous random items each week that seem to be perfectly timed. Have you ever found yourself looking through an Aldi catalogue and spotting the very item you declared two weeks ago that you needed but didn't know existed or thought it was way out of your price range?

I need a dome-shaped, pink fridge with hairdryer attachment and bonus socks for less than $30. Oh, there it is, page 3 of the catalogue, on sale this Saturday. I'd better get there 15 minutes before the shop opens wearing riot gear because those other Aldi shoppers are BRUTAL. It's carnage.

Sound familiar?

The self-serve checkouts at Coles and Woolies are just their way of making us do the work for them. Once upon a time people used to scan our groceries and pump our petrol. Now we do it ourselves. They bloody-well tricked us into working for them! We tell ourselves it's quicker, more efficient and cheaper. Is it? I don't think so.

Do you avoid buying fresh fruit and veg if you plan to use the self-service checkout? No barcode, no purchase?

I've been that shopper. Not any more. I've gradually come to know the self-service system and am now competent at looking up items with no barcode. Please don't applaud, I'm not yet worthy. I'll let you know when I'm beyond competent, when I've reached the sparkly golden status of expert.

Skilled as I may be at it now, it's a particularly courageous mood that will persuade me to self-serve when shopping with the children.

There are basically two options here. Let the kids participate or don't.

If you choose the latter, you need to be prepared to put up with all kinds of shittiness as denying a child the right to scan a barcode is a punishable offence.

You must also be prepared for the system to glitch more than once as the kids will undoubtedly lean on the scale or remove a product / bag when the computer says no. You may need to call for assistance several times per transaction (irony?). That sucks.

Or, you can be patient-happy-herbal parent and let them help. "Help".

It will take longer. They will argue over who scans each item. They will lean on the scale and move the bag and take 45 minutes to find a barcode. You will, at least once, lose your shit.

The trick is to enable each child to scan the same number of items and touch the screen the same number of times. If you have 5 or fewer items in your basket, you should be sweet. Less than 15, it will be as outlined above. If you have a trolley and children, join the other queue and let the professionals handle it. Trust me.


How do you feel about self-service? Do you start to sweat when you reach the checkout at Aldi?

Remembering Our Beloved Pet After One Year

It's been one year since our beloved dog Ricko left us.

It was a terribly sad day for everyone. He'd been part of our family for about 12 years and was always happy to just be.

When Mr 9 was Mr 2, with Ricko

Ricko was a tri-colour King Charles Cavalier. He had that soft, silky fur that kids can't keep their hands off. He was effeminate. He didn't particularly like to get his feet wet.

He loved to bask in the sun with his mouth open, his tongue poking out ever so slightly until he saw you and caught you looking at him. Then the mouth closed firm, until he looked away and let it drop open again. Hours of fun in that.

He was Lucy's best friend. Lucy, the staffie, bossed him around and was often a little rough with Ricko, especially as he got older and the arthritis and blindness kicked in. Ricko knew how to handle her, though.

He would leave the bed or spot they were resting in, take a few steps away and then bark, as though he'd seen something amiss. Lucy would jump to her feet and run to investigate while Ricko silently slipped back into his spot and watched her work. He was brilliant.

Always together

Ricko left Lucy behind and anyone who knows dogs will understand when I say she was sad. She knew her friend was gone and for a while she would wander around, looking, sitting awkwardly as if waiting for him to walk in the room. Her ears pricked up when we mentioned his name. It was heartbreaking.

We still miss him but we make a point of talking about him a lot, laughing at stories about him. We often look at photos of him and we keep a little stone with his name engraved on it in the lounge room.

In the garden, we planted a rose. Ricko's rose. It was a bitch of a plant with uncontrollable growth and deadly thorns, so we replaced it. You've got to be practical, right? It's what he would have wanted.

I'm thinking about Ricko today because Miss 6 brought her English book home from school this afternoon. It's full and she'll need a new one for next term.  Flicking through the pages, I came across a story titled Pets. I nearly spat my tea all over it when I read the last sentence.

My pet used to have a buddy but my dad took him to the vet.

Ouch.

Have you lost a pet and what do you do to remember your fluffy loved one?

Happy First Birthday to My Blog - What's Happened in a Year?

One today. My, how the time flies.


What's happened in a year besides the whole Glad Wrap debacle?


Well, there are 66 posts on my blog, so I guess I've written a lot more. Word.


I've completed 15 paintings and sold 7.

SOLD!

Novel word-count is 55,000. Not great considering I was at 42,000 a year ago, but hey, growth is growth, right?


The vegie garden is still producing, but husband must take most of the praise for that. I'm more responsible for eating it.

I wrote a 1500 word short story just for the hell of it.

With the help of Dad, two pieces of furniture have enjoyed a coastal makeover.

I've had a surfing lesson and gave up tap dancing.

Wait, is that me or Cameron Diaz???

The dog is still a total bitch. Love her to death though.

The children are, according to their school reports, a year wiser.


I'm a season behind on House of Cards due to this whole bloody Netflix / Foxtel mess and mourning John Snow.


Am in the process of getting my polyp-filled nose fixed and, after less than 2 weeks of medication, I feel like a new person. For real. Radical changes, people, radical changes.


Winter is still the hardest part of the year, but summer is coming.

Can't wait for more of this gear.

I think that sums it up. Thanks for celebrating Blog's First Birthday with me. Don't forget your lolly bag.

Recycling - Do You Know What Goes Where?

It's true: recycling is no longer just for hippies.

In the last twenty years or so, our general approach to recycling has shifted considerably, with an emphasis on reducing waste, reusing what we can and preserving our planet for future generations.

Every household has a yellow bin and most actually use it. Our councils have reduced the size of our regular bins in comparison, gently encouraging our cooperation. Many public places offer recycling bins and children are learning the importance of recycling at school.

Slowly but surely, we are changing, uniting for the greater good. Be proud, humans because it needs to happen.

The sheer volume of recyclable products in the household is astounding and despite my best efforts, there are still items that make their way in error to the regular bin at our place. As head of recycling at Team Turner, my family feel the wrath when I open the bin to find a cardboard or plastic item buried beneath other juicy waste, abandoned, never to know the joy of living again.

No, we're not the best at recycling and mistakes do get made, but we give it a red hot go.

That looks a little painful.

When you consciously think about recycling for a while, eventually it becomes second nature. There's no need to stop and think about which bin the Coke can goes in, or where to put the newspaper. Those ones are obvious.

The problem is the grey area, the items that aren't blatantly obvious.

The little triangle with a number in it is incredibly misleading if you haven't spent an hour or two educating yourself on the topic of recycling.

Surely I wasn't alone when I believed the little triangle with a number in it meant first, an item is recyclable, and second, if it's recyclable, you put it in your yellow-lid bin?

WRONG. The number inside the triangle indicates the type of plastic a container is made from. It's not a green light to chuck it in your recycling bin. The plastic bag that pasta comes in, for example, is recyclable. But not through your yellow bin. This one has to go with other plastic bags into the recycle bin at the front of the supermarket. Apparently.

Right? Got it. That's easy.

Now riddle me this one batman:

OK, so it's already been recycled, that's lovely. Can it be recycled again? I don't know.

They've specifically asked us to dispose of this egg carton responsibly. What does that mean? Don't make a loud noise when you close the lid on the bin? Don't flush it down the toilet?

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the average person who isn't university-qualified in the finer points of recycling, manufacturing and engineering to understand HOW to do the right thing here.


To add a little salt to the wound (that is the gaping wound of feeling like a dick for not knowing which bin to use), councils vary in their guidelines for what they will and will not take. Some will take pizza boxes, some won't and some will only take them if they're not too pizzary. Yes, that's a word now.

The worst thing for me is that I know, despite how much I'm banging on about this right now, I'm going to continue to get it wrong because the rules just aren't clear enough.

I hate the thought of putting something in the regular bin that could have a meaningful existence elsewhere. Conversely, I feel pretty bad knowing I could be accidentally busting some green-machine and costing the council thousands of dollars to get it fixed.


How about you? Do you feel you have a complete handle on recycling? What are your best tips?

The Conundrum of the Creative Virgo

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball. It might be an unexpected change in living arrangements. It could be turning up to work to discover it's your last day. It might be spilling red wine all over yourself at your own wedding.

Or it could be this:

Say whaaaaaat?

I hear you, scratching your heads, brows furrowed, staring at the image. Am I missing something, you ask? Let me explain.

I am a creative kind of girl. I love drawing and painting and pictures in general. Opening Pinterest is like cracking open a beer. It's full of promise and overwhelmingly exciting. Sometimes I take a still shot of a scene on the TV just because I like it.

When my kids say "can we make a cake?" I pretend I didn't hear them, buying me some time to come up with a super awesome distraction. "A cake? Pfft. Let's go to Luna Park!"

When the kids say "can you draw with me?" I'm on it in a heartbeat. In fact, quite often they've moved on and I'm still colouring in the sky. It's a similar feeling to finding yourself sitting alone on the lounge watching Adventure Time. You're not having a bad time, you just wouldn't wittingly make this choice.

On top of the creativity, I am also a Virgo. Virgo's love order and organisation. Amongst many other wonderful traits, we Virgos love things to match. For this reason, we are often the butt of our non-Virgo friends' jokes. We accept that.

So back to the textas. These fabulous Faber-Castell Connector Pens aren't like normal markers. They are Colour Changers. You can draw something in yellow, then go over it with the special white pen and it will change to red.

Funky right? There's blue that changes to yellow, brown that changes to green and black changing to purple. It's the lid that indicates the colour it will change to as you can see in this pic:

It's creative heaven. And it's a Virgo's nightmare. That, friends, is the conundrum. Many of you may shake your heads in disbelief but I am certain that some of you will completely understand how hard it is to NOT put the yellow lid on the yellow pen. So very, very hard.

When these colourful babies joined our household, it changed my life. Well not really, but it certainly made me think twice when the kids asked me to draw with them. I was all yes-no-yes-no with the children, jumping around all antsy-in-my-pantsy trying to settle the excitement and calm the twitch at the same time. Thank God red wine came out of the red wine bottle, that's all I can say.

Go ahead, Sagittarius, mock me, mock us all. We creative Virgos don't care. And when you're done, you'll find us happily humming away, arranging our wardrobes by colour. That's how we roll.


Is there something in your life that makes you twitch?

One Marketing Promise Regularly Letting Us Down

Cheese. I love it. Next to potatoes, it's the ultimate. ON potatoes it's even better. Although  potatoes   are my all-time favourite - in any format - it's much easier to go without them than it is to go without cheese. This is based purely on convenience - it's a lot easier to grab a chunk of cheese from the fridge than to cook a potato. Word.

I  buy a lot of cheese and I buy it often. I'm not talking about fancy-pants blocks for platters (although I could live on those if the body would be kind enough to allow it). I'm talking sliced cheese, Parmesan, grated cheese (tasty, cheddar or sometimes pizza mix) and, usually when it's on special, big-arse blocks of tasty.

It's hard to be brand loyal when your financial situation can be likened to a steaming pile of puppy poo so I usually buy which ever brand is cheapest at the time.

And when brands are priced the same? How do I choose then? Why, the packaging of course.

Packaging. My jaw clenches just thinking about it. Little hairs rise on the back of my neck. Despite the cold, my cheeks burn with fury driven by one overused marketing promise:

Resealable? Pigs arse.

Can you see that? The strip inside the bag which, if the packet is to be believed, should seal both sides together, is planted firmly against one side of the packet only. The little male and female strips are working perfectly, sealed tightly together, snug and comfortable, totally oblivious to the gaping freakin' hole next to them.

This bag is therefore NOT resealable.  Sure, it comes with a promise. It even comes with the necessary equipment to BE resealable. But it's not resealable. It's just not.

You know how I feel about the labelling of shampoo and conditioner. You might recall my struggle with the tomato sauce bottle and I think we all want to bury the great Glad Wrap disaster of 2014.

Mankind is remarkable. We send rockets into space.  We replace faulty human hearts with viable working ones from a human who no longer needs it.  We can grow ears on mice. One of us even wrote Game of Thrones for God's sake!

Please. Please. Can we just try a little harder to get the basics right?


Have you been caught?

This Old Cabinet Gets a Gorgeous Coastal Makeover

Back in January, I showed you my coffee-table makeover success story. To be fair, it was my dad   who did the work, sanding, painting, varnishing to achieve a lovely coastal look:

It brightened up the lounge room, creating the impression our furniture had been chosen and not just randomly acquired.  Of course it's beauty is hidden most of the time under a pile of kid's drawings, toys, textas with ill-matched lids and the occasional coat hanger, but you can't have everything, right?

Happy with the result, Dad stepped up again and agreed to take on another piece of furniture, this time a small cabinet:

Stain and wax had previously been used on the cabinet and Dad really had a hard time sanding back the top,  particularly in the grooves on the edges.

Luckily, the chalk paint went onto the cabinet without  any need to sand it - by far the biggest benefit of this paint.


We applied the white chalk paint to the bulk of the cabinet, leaving the top in it's natural wood state. I rubbed back the chalk paint in some areas to give a  distressed look. Dad then applied a gloss varnish over the whole piece.

The varnish was a little tricky. We actually did this back in January. Dad was pressed for time, it was extremely humid and the result wasn't great. We also applied the varnish with a brush which caused some dripping and pooling.

So on a more recent stay, Dad gave it all a sand and repainted it. I rubbed it back again and we then reapplied the varnish. This time it was cold and wet, so it still had trouble drying but I think that was better than the humidity. We used a foam pad to apply the varnish this time  and I really recommend that tool if you're having a crack at something similar. This is the final result:

I'd like to replace the handles with some coloured ones, probably blue, but that will be one day when I get around to it.

I'm considering tackling the dining table next and maybe the chest of drawers in my bedroom. I wonder when Dad's coming to visit again?

So what do you think? Are you a fan of this look?