Bit of this and a bit of that...

So the funeral for hubbys cousin was last Friday...now the real grieving starts for wife and kids I suppose...when all the visitors from overseas make their return to where they came from etc.

It was a beautiful (if that's the right word!) funeral...complete with ALL the bells and whistles that a Samoan funeral has...and the dramas of course!!

The widow went all out and some with her preparations...starting with a casket for her beloved that cost nigh' on $8,000.00 - I kid you NOT!  The food was wonderful, perfect and HEAVY from day one - each and every day...the irony of it all...men and women bursting at their seams scoffing down the food, enjoying more than they needed, day in - day out - talking about how the man had passed away (apparently from a heart attack...and even more ironic...this man was slim!  Did NOT smoke.  Did NOT drink alcohol.  SO sad really...

The entire funeral was captured on   video oops...showing my age!!  on DVD by a well known Samoan company who produce videos for major Samoan events in the community.  There were t-shirts for the closest relatives and badges for everyone else (600 ordered and picked up)  what seems a 'must have' at all Samoan al funerals these days - yet another cost to factor in! The day of the burial was catered of course...who doesn't cater this part of a funeral? the hall was decorated in the most lovely way...small ie togas creatively turned into fancy decorations around the wall of the entire hall...I should have taken a photo!!  *makes a mental note of it for when I have one of the kids 21sts or weddings!*

But the icing on the cake - the 'I Can piss further than YOU in the pissing competition to end all pissing competions...' was when the ka'i'd the suas at the end of it all...you know how they usually have a small coke bottle with a $10 note, a small packet of biscuits/crackers and a 12oz can of pisupo?  Well move over rover...we had Full sized wine bottles!  $20 notes! a LARGE TIN of flavoured sweet biscuits! and a huge 3lb can of pisupo.  How extravagant and completely over the top and unnecessary!!

These were all ideas of the widow...and you know what I think??  YES it was over the top...but GOOD ON HER!!  The main thing is that she COULD afford it at the time (I think - although if it had been me, I'd rather keep any spare money I had to live comfortably with my kids...but anyway).

On the down side...the widows inlaws.  Hubby's family.  Typical woman gossip...nothing better to do than put other people down!  Forgetting that this woman had just lost her hubby at a young age - suddenly even!  There was talk of the widow being a control freak...well excuse me, I would be to, I want to make sure everything is PERFECT! especially for my hubby if it had been his funeral...there was talk that it was all her hubbys money she was showing off with good god...did she not work too?? but the worst of it all...came from the elderly mother of the dearly departed... amongst other things, I sat there at the family meeting as this frail yet tough old lady said that "if it had not been for her son, his wifes family would not know what it was like to live in a fale apa"  WTF...seriously...what family in Samoa didn't live in a fale apa at some stage??  And what kind of fale did this old lady live in back then too??  Seriously...I could NOT believe the words coming out about this poor lady - who had just lost her husband.  Give her a friggan break already!!

So anyway, payback is a bitch and I had to laugh when there was even bigger dramatics between hubby's family and another branch of their family when it came to organising who the matai was that was going to run the big day...hubby's family was made to look stupid (all their doing!!) and a matai from another branch spoke on behalf...it's all bull shite really tbh, but I had to laugh.  me ga e maua.

The widow did everything she could to take care of the food...decorations etc to make her hubbys day the best - she succeeded...all the inlaws had to do was find on of them to stand up and speak...EPIC FAIL.

Ia sui le topic...back to my exciting life as a mama. 
I am sick.  Hubby is sick.
We had managed to survive this bitter Auckland winter without even a sniffle in the house!  Then after last week's funeral and hanging out with everyone...we are sick.  I knew I should have just stayed home!!  So yesterday I stayed in bed with baby as much as I could.  having said that, i still managed to keep the house relatively tidy.  Cook two scrummy bacon and egg pies for diner with a side dish of cauliflower and carrots in a cheese sauce Mmmmm.  That was going to be the plan for today too BUT...out of the kindness of my heart (and lack of better judgement!) I took Mr 13 a coffee in bed to help wake him up... then at 6:45am he appears out of his room saying he'd fallen asleep and spilt his coffee IN BED!!  Bloody hell!!

After a mini melt down which of course I regretted...I made myself a coffee, toast and decided to go back to bed and relax...what do you think happened??  No sooner had I sat into bed...Wooosh...coffee all over my blankets *sigh* LMAO

So today...it's just me and the washing machine!!  Thank goodness I have a huge 9.5kg washing machine...it can only fit one king size blanket at a time though...so that's 7 loads to do this morning...and hang out and hope like hell it all dries before bedtime tonight!!  Not to mention the other 2 or 3 loads of regular washing that is waiting to be done...ki'o ia!!

t.b.c

*fist pump!!* ALL 7 blankets washed AND dried!  A whole stock pot of chicken and vege coup cooked and waiting for diner YUMMY!!  I made it with chicken bones which cost next to nothing!! from 'Mad Butcher'.  We've got bread that needs to be used up so I'm going to make some garlic bread with it - watch the kids scoff that down!

Baby is sleeping, and it's 30 more mins till mr 9 and miss 10 come home...then they'll wind me up slowly and surely *sigh* and I'll start the count down to their bedtime :)