Phases

While reading through my dad's blog I was "fascinated" to come across his experiences in visiting worm farms. It's a pretty odd thing to be interested in but it made me realise that in all these years that we've joking about mum going through her different interest phases that's dad's been subtlely doing the same thing! However mum's ones are funnier and I can remember them better so I'm gonna go through and list some of the interest phases that mum has been through:

• Fishing - this lasted for years and mum would constantly find time to take us down to the wharf and jump on charter boats for weekend trips with church friends.


• Where's Wally jigsaws - they were fun but once you've found Wally there's not much left to do.


• The abflex - I must admit I have a similar thing sitting in my dining room which I borrowed off Stef and never used.


• Making earrings with Beryl Young - Beryl ruined this by moving away. Beryl!


• The infamous exercycle - which now sits in the lounge taking up room.


• Wheat bags - these things helped soothe sore muscles and smelt great out of the microwave.


• Oxycise - a form of exercise where breathing is the main ingredient for losing weight. This was by far the dorkiest phase/form of exercise I have ever seen. Mum and dad still swear by it, though.


• Renovating - this is less of a phase, more of a sudden urge to tear down a wall and replace it with something different. All in all mum and dad have renovated the entire house, room by room, over the last twenty years and managed to get it down quicker than a lot of other families, while still having time for other people's houses.


• Renovating other people's houses - whether they wanted it or not!


• Photo making - mum would compete vigorously with Jenny Beck to make the best and fanciest photo albums.


• Photography - after years of taking photo classes, building up the family albums and using a perfectly good camera mum's dreams were shattered by the onset of the digital age. This camera still sits in the attic where I'm not allowed to use it despite the fact it hasn't been used for years.


• Real estate - buying flats and renovating them out seemed to be a phase for about 10 years with Craigleith St in NEV and Stef's house in Mornington. I still remember getting $40 for helping paint at Craigleith St which I immediately spent on GI Joes! Awesome.


• Bonzi trees - one of the phases that dad had that I can remember. Fortunately we weren't told to rearrange our rooms due to bad feng shui.


• Collages - Jon and I were intrigued to find a collection of special things that dad had hung onto a sheet and stuck on the wall. Maybe I just don't understand art.

I'm sure there's lot more than this but this is all I can think of at the moment. I'll have to compile a bunch of these phases for mum's 60th and get people to act out oxycising.