Oh, to be six...

...and flexible beyond belief. Aidan was playing his Leapster L-MAX last evening, in the most unlikely position.


Remember being that flexible? Me, neither.

Lessons learned

Proving that you are never too old to learn and that experience is the best teacher, I gained three new nuggets of knowledge this week:

• Never attempt to apply mascara while listening to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me. I was listening to the podcast of last week's show while getting ready yesterday morning and a particularly funny part caused me to nearly poke the mascara wand into my eye. It didn't help that I am using a new kind of mascara that has a wand handle the size of your average fireplace log - using that mascara is almost a two-handed job.

• Concentrate when working in the kitchen, no matter how many times you have done a particular task. Although the roast was still tasty, I completely forgot an important step when preparing a beef roast for the slow cooker on Wednesday morning, and I have made that particular recipe dozens of times. This morning, I came downstairs to find coffee the color of light tea; turns out that while I did put coffee in the coffeemaker last evening, I forgot to grind the beans first.

• Don't knit when tired and/or absorbed in a television program. Last night, I was trying to knit, watch Survivor and yawn my fool head off, all at the same time. After unraveling several rows of knitting not once but twice, I decided that watching and yawning were all I could handle at one time. At least I am getting better at recognizing my knitting mistakes so that I can correct them almost immediately and not when I have since knit five or six inches.

So there you have it: life lessons from The Queen. You can thank me later.