Today I did the last of my shopping for Tahiti! Yaaaay! It’s not that I don’t like shopping, I do, it’s just that I don’t really like shopping when I have something specific that I have to buy within a short space of time! That’s stressful, especially if it’s clothing, and even more so if it’s clothing that is out of season, such as a swimsuit in June! (WINTER!!)! :9: Although now that it’s all done, I feel very accomplished! I got…

A blue/green/teal tankini
Brown and green board shorts
A black shirt with Marilyn Monroe on it!
Makeup removal wipes
Mascara
Hairties
“My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult
A non-black dress!

I also got a present and a card for my friend who’s turning 20 on Monday and having her birthday lunch tomorrow. We’re been friends since we were 3 and 4 years old and for several years we were “Best Friends”, and although we’re not quite so close now, since we don’t see each other so often I get the feeling she’s one of those people who is always going to be part of my life, just because we’ve known one another for so long!

THE FRIDAY FIVE…
1. What was the best gift you received?
Off the top of my head…not sure!

2. What was the worst gift you received?
An oil burner and scented oil. It wasn’t so much a BAD gift as just an unfortunate one, since I turned out to be allergic to the oil and got quite unwell from the fumes!

3. What gift did you wish for, but never got?
Lots of stuff when I was younger I suppose, don’t really remember them though, so they can’t have been that important.

4. What was the best present you gave?
I have a fair idea of what it was (ok so I know exactly!), but it’s quite personal (just private, not sexual or anything, lol!) so I don’t want to blog about it.

5. What was the worst present you gave?
I honestly don’t know! I hope I’ve never given anyone a bad present!

I posted this on a few boards yesterday and was interested in the responses it got, so I thought I’d post it here as well, since I know some people who read this site don’t read the boards and I’m still interested to heard other opinions, since it’s just such a bizarre (and sad) situation…

I thought this was interesting, and could spark some debate…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Treatment
http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/

If she was your child, and you knew beyond reasonable doubt that she would never mentally advance beyond the age of 3 months, what would you have done?
At first I was horrified by this, because I’d never heard of it having been done before (because it hadn’t been!) but after I read more information on it and thought that about WHY her family elected to have this done, it doesn’t seem all that unreasonable, if it improves her quality of life and makes it easy for her caregivers to look after her, I suppose it is acceptable.

What’s your opinion?

Last night I had to go to a training session for work, teaching us how to include children with disabilities (visual, auditory etc) into games and activities. It was pretty interesting, but after I went away and thought about it afterwards I though “Hang on, how many children with disabilities that significant would A) Be in a mainstream school and B) Be in an out of school care program within that school?”

I was talking to my supervisor about it this morning and we concluded there’d realistically be very few, since the child would basically need a one-to-one caregiver the whole time. We thought they’d have been better to focus on stuff like behaviour management for children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome (sp?), since there’d be more likely to be children with those disorders in a program than children who are blind/deaf etc. Anyway, it was interesting nonetheless, lol!

Eek! I (and my dad and my supervisor at work) heard on the weather forecast that it’s supposed to snow here really soon! Either later today or tomorrow, apparently! Ergh! I hope it doesn’t, I don’t like snow, it’s cold, lol! Although I suppose if it did snow, I could cross off another one of my 101 things in 100 days list by making a snowman!

Also, I have to do a plug for the lovely Leaf Tea BBS! It’s run by Jen and it really well organised and well run! And no, I’m not just saying that because I’m on staff there, ROFL!

Last night Dad and I went to a mid-winter (yes, it’s winter over here!) dinner for an conservation organisation he is a member of (the same one whose website I might be taking over). It was pretty interesting, even though it went on for quite a long time and I didn’t really know anyone else there aside from Dad and a few other men I’d spoken to when they’d phoned our house wanting to speak with him.

Anyway. While we were there, a women started telling us about how she and her husband once rescued this lamb when its mother got attacked and killed by dogs. Apparently they’d had it inside their house and when it was really little they trained it to sit on a hot water bottle so that it wouldn’t get cold and die. How cute is THAT!? The sheep ended up getting house-trained and becoming friends with the family dog, and eventually grew really really big and would follow the woman everywhere – including to the supermarket!? I think she said it ended up living for around 12 or 15 years, which is a darn long time for a sheep!! I think that’s crazy, but secretly I want a pet house-trained lamb too!