Freedom at Long Last!!

Wow...Seems the last time I blogged was back in January around the time of Great Brisbane Flood 2011! I was off work for 3 weeks over that time as our building had flooded and the office re-located to the south side of Brisbane which made it hard for those of us wh live north side to get to work considering a lot of the roads were out and the bridge out near where I live was broken. (Still is nearly 4 months later but more on that later!). So I was given the option of coming to work and having to catch 2 trains and one bus each way every day or to take leave for 2 weeks. The first week was given to us fully paid up to compensate for our pain and suffering! Nice :) So I chose to take leave which I had accrued bucket loads of anyway.

By the end of January we were back in our slightly smelly and damp building but now near the end of April all the renovations are nearly complete and its like there was never any water anywhere! Mum's house was saved...no water came up to the back thank goodness as we were a little worried as there was so much water! But now life goes on, Brisbane is rebuilding and we are back to normal. It's still very annoying near where I live though as the Petrie Mill bridge is a 2 lane each way thoroughfare for those of us who live on the northside to get to the city. It was completely closed for a few weeks after the flooding which meant peak hour traffic in the mornings and afternoon was horrendous as everyone had to divert to the highway which even out of peak hour time is bumper to bumper. It was taking people 2 - 3 hours longer to get to the city which was at a crawl. Eventually they opened up one lane each way on our bridge and it is still chaos. I run the risk everyday of missing my train as with the one lane closed there are hundreds of peak hour commuters trying to merge into one single lane. Needless to say road rage is a wonderful start to everyone's morning!

There was one day because the traffic was so bad, cars started to come down my street where I live because it leads to the bridge as well and people assumed it would be quicker. Hah! It was even worse! And what made it worse for me was I could not get out of my own driveway and sat for an hour just up the street from my house before finally getting out. No-one could move and no-one could to get out. Finally after nearly 2 hours I got to the roundabout at the end of my street turned around and worked my way back home having decided I wasn't going to bother to go to work! What a day! But now nearly 4 months later the Council have not even touched the bridge and traffic snarls continue. There is plenty of equipment sitting there and has sat there since January, but not a Council worker is in attendance anywhere. What is ironic is that after the huge earthquake in Japan, their major highways were ripped apart and it apparently took them only 48 hours to repair them to a useable level and yet here we are, 4 months later and one little bridge, which doesn't even really look damaged too badly, is still sitting and waiting. *Sigh*

Anyway enough of the doom and gloom for now.

My good news is last Wednesday I made my FINAL MORTGAGE PAYMENT!! So exciting! It has taken 12 and half brutal years of no spending, no holidays, no nothing but I'm thinking now it is worth it. Of course we have absoloutely NO MONEY right now as everything we had went into paying it all off but give it a month or two and we will have some savings. What a relief. Plus at the end of February I went part-time with work so I am now semi-retired. I can't see myself giving up work completely as we still have general living expenses to pay and neither of us is old enough to claim a pension but working three days a week is heaven. I work Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays and have Wednesday and Fridays off. MM makes enough money with his business to pay the general household bills associated with his business from home so all in all I think we will do just fine. I do want to work closer to home though so at the moment I am using my time off to find closer work because the 45 min travel each day to work is really tiring now.

With the time off I am finding my days are busier than before! We are now going to start renovating and my project at the moment is going through each room and de-cluttering. Its amazing how much junk we have accumulated over the nearly 13 years we have lived here. So I am being really brutal and getting rid of everything. I am going to organise a garage sale on the next clear and fine weekend we have as mum has also been decluttering her house so between us we should have heaps to sell! Mum is hoping to sell enough to get herself a new garden shed as her old one is falling apart and all dad's old tools are getting damaged and weather worn. My share is going towards the holiday MM and I will eventually go on although we now have to start saving again as our holiday fund went into the mortgage! So wish us luck!

I forgot to mention that during the January troubles, my niece, Miss 17 ended up moving in with MM and myself. She and my mum were going through some very serious issues with each other. Neither could bear the sight of the other and the fighting had reached a head to a point where I had Miss 17 on the phone to me sobbing about how much she hated it there and then when MM and I went over to see what was going on, Miss 17 was in her room sobbing and my mum was sobbing her heart out in the lounge room. So I went to talk to Miss 17 while MM calmed down my mum and had a talk with her to find out what was going on. In the end nothing was solved, neither would look or even talk to the other without screaming at each other so I told Miss 17 to pack up some things and she was coming to stay with us for a while to give her grandmother a break. Neither of them fought that idea so Miss 17 moved in with us. I think the biggest trouble is Miss 17 is a teenager and doing what teenagers do best by being disrespectful, treating mum like her personal slave and bank, being demanding, not helping out around the house, wanting to have her boyfriend around all the time and then being shitty because mum was annoyed about not having any notice the boyfriend was coming and so no meals were organised. All this while mum was upset about the house, worried about paying the bills and feeling angry and sad that dad wasn't around to help her out with these issues. Mum was just feeling very much alone and on her own and really Miss 17 is not her daughter and should not be mum's responsibility. Mum agreed she just needed some space and some alone time and just time to do what SHE wanted to do and not have to run around after a 17 year old. MM and I talked quite a bit to Miss 17 over the course of her stay and it was good for her too and for us to know she misses her granddad badly and she knows she is being a bitch to her grandmother but she carries a lot of anger and we worked through that with her.

After 2 weeks with us she began to miss her grandmother and I took her and mum out to coffee one day, the first time they had spoken in 2 weeks and they hugged and genuinely missed each other so we let Miss 17 go home and she has been there ever since. Things have gotten better although they quarrel from time to time but now Miss 17 always apologises and tries to make it up to mum. She does a little more around the house, not much but a little, is looking for full time work now she has decided not to study and spends a lot of time with her boyfriend.

Her weekends are devoted to her photography and she gets a lot of paid jobs now. Mum got her a heap of business cards so she does work for people as well as getting paid jobs modelling herself. A couple of weeks ago she was offered a job modelling in New York all expenses paid! She was allowed to bring 4 people with her although they had to pay for their own air fares but accommodation was paid for. She wanted to take me and Ray lol. Unfortunately she had to turn it down as they only gave her 10 days notice and none of us has passports but they told her to get a passport and they may find more work for her. So you never know!

So I think roughly that's my life since Christmas. I have more to tell but it's home time for me so I'm off to catch a train. Catch you all later!