Another Week in Paradise?

Been a slow week this week.  As they all have been this year.  Not sure what is in the air at the moment but I have been feeling so tired, lethargic and unmotivated for the past few weeks.  But then when I talk to others they are saying the exact same thing!  I think it is the end of year blues where everyone has been working so hard all year and we are all ready to fall in a heap at the end of the year.  Bring on Christmas holidays!

I am very blessed in that my place of employment is closing its doors on the 20th December this year and we return on 2 January 2014.  That is quite a long break for us!  Also they give us the days we are closed for free in that the days don't come off our regular leave days and we still get paid for them so it is 5 "free" days we get.  It is their way of thanking us for all our hard work during the year.  So I am truly looking forward to the long break.  Hubby and I have decided on no gifts this year as we are saving for a holiday and for our new house we want to build next year.  All I really want is a day of great memories...friends, family, great food, great laughs and lots to drink!  (Although I am still banned from alcohol!)

As I type this now we are in the midst of a pretty nasty storm!  I went out for lunch just as it started to pour down rain so I have come back to work with soaking wet shoes!  So currently sitting barefoot here waiting for my shoes to dry enough to be able to stand putting them back on!  We have had a series of storms the past couple of days which has been nice as everything is so dry but in all honesty it has been barely enough to soak the ground.

Our biggest excitement at home this week was the sighting of a small snake which decided to pop out from under my car and say "hi" as I was getting in!  Needless to say I wasn't a very happy camper!  Hubby reckons he was more terrified of me than I of him but I don't care!  I HATE snakes!  I can deal with spiders but snakes?   Brrrrrrr!  Mind you he was only a wee little fellow and I lost sight of where he went in the midst of my shrieking and dancing the dance of the wild snake woman!  It's only the second snake I have seen in all the 15 years of living where we do.  I am rather amazed we haven't seen others considering we live right beside a bush area that is home to koalas, the odd wallaby, a family of scrub turkeys, bearded dragons and an echidna!

One of my lovely Facebook friends informed me last night that there was three more pays until Christmas! (We get paid fortnightly)  Boy did that take the wind out of my sails!  I haven't even thought about Christmas yet as I have 2 birthday parties to get through in the next 2 weekends.  Where on earth did the time go this year?  I had intended to hand make my Christmas cards this year (I was supposed to last year as well but ran out of time!) but chances are I will not make it again this year.  Even having 2 days of a week from work I still manage to have so much to do and not enough time to do everything.  I have decided I must be one of those terribly unorganised people!  I seem to have such grand plans and I make copious lists of things that MUST be done but only a small fraction of these tasks ever gets marked off!  *Sigh*

Anyway I guess I should make some effort here in the office to be productive so I leave you here with the following thought:

"One thought, one moment, can change the rest of your life.

 

Don't blink, you'll miss it! "

My life in 2013 in Review

Who would have thought that it’s been nearly 18 months since my last blog?  Why did I stop you ask?  I’m not really quite sure.  Life just seemed to be a blur with nothing much going on and I just didn’t think anybody would really be interested in my day-to-day ho-hum happenings.  2013 has just flown on by and even though I did have a couple of huge events occur it just never occurred to me blog them!

The most exciting thing to happen was the birth of my beautiful little great nephew, the first born of my niece Nicola and her partner David.  He was born in July on the same day as his Uncle Adam’s birthday, Nicola’s brother, which we all kind of hoped wouldn’t happen but he now has a birthday twin!  They have named him Ryder Jeff, the Jeff being his grandfather’s name (David’s dad).  He is now 4 months old and it is so hard to imagine life without him now.  His conception had caused quite a drama in the family as some of the family thought she was too young to have a baby (she was 20 when he was born!).  They didn’t have anywhere to live as they were still living at mum’s house part of the time and then at David’s parents’ house the other times.  Still living even now at mum’s although they moved in with me and my hubby at one stage with the baby as they weren’t getting on with mum.  So yeah, it’s been a struggle for them as they shift between homes and try to find a home of their own.

In March, my daughter Libbee married her man Daniel.  Such a simple and beautiful wedding and the wedding she always wanted.  It was very low key and very low budget which she is extremely proud of.  I bought the wedding dress for her online.  It was a copy of an original designer dress worth $2,500 to buy the original and it cost $350 online for an exact replica.  We worried at the time at what we would end up with as it was made in Hong Kong and the colours would be slightly different but when we got it, it was the perfect fit (we worried our measurements might be out!) and it was as beautiful as the real one she had tried on in the bridal shop.  So she got her dream dress for a fraction of the original price and even after wearing it all day until 6am the next day it still looks as good as it did when we got it!  It got dry cleaned and now hangs proudly in her closet.   

In August Libbee and Daniel had to move as their rental house was being sold so Libbee has been living with us and Daniel is living with his mum on the Gold Coast as that is where he is currently working.  Libbee lives with us as she is working near us.  So, sadly, they only see each other once a week while they struggle to save for their own place again.  Not an ideal situation for a newly married couple who have yet to take their honeymoon but for the moment it’s the best they can do.

Health wise things are finally looking up after 5 years of constant specialists, tests, biopsies, blood tests etc.  I still have monthly blood tests to ascertain liver function and am on a cocktail of meds probably for the rest of my life but things are finally starting to level out and the drugs are finally working.  My last specialist visit a couple of weeks ago showed my liver function is getting better with only 3 numbers showing in the red.  One of the numbers has gone way down and is well in the normal range now and the numbers in red have halved so the new drug I am on is actually working.   This means now if the numbers stabilise with this drug I won’t need a liver transplant and things aren’t quite as dire as originally thought.  It also confirms that I have PBC which Primary Biliary Cirrhosis.  What this means is my bile ducts are kaput which is what is causing my liver to deteriorate.  The bile ducts can never be repaired so the life time drugs will keep on doing what the bile ducts should be doing.  And if we can manage that then the liver will be sparred further damage.  Maybe one day down the track there will be something they can do but for now I am happy to keep popping the pills as it sure beats the alternative.  I don’t go back now until end of January so I am hoping my next blood test will have positive results.

Anyway that is my year in a nut shell.  Here's hoping for a better 2014!

 

 

 

 

Dang head colds and long weekends!

Not much to report this week after last week's blogging efforts!  I expected to have done heaps this week being an extra long weekend for me but as usual I was sick for 5 of those days so I spent the whole time cold and miserable with a throbbing headache and wanting to sleep all day.  I did get to watch the first season of "Hart of Dixie" which one of the girls at work suggested I would like so I spent most of the weekend on the couch watching it with hot tea and lots of soup and toast.  A couple of times I actually fell asleep so had to rewind it and go back to the ones I missed.  Good show and I really enjoyed it.  MM is not keen on my "girly shows" but he was really busy with customers so I barely saw him in all that time! That took care of Friday and Saturday. 

Sunday I received really sad news that a friend of ours from New Zealand had passed away quickly on Sunday morning.  Her husband came home from work for lunch and found her on the floor, dead.  She was only 32 years old and it really hit me hard for some reason.  I spent most of Sunday upset and MM was really down about it.  We found out a few days later from her husband that it was a blood clot.  This one got her three years to the day that another one had passed through her lung and almost killed her then.  It was just so sad because we had been chatting on Facebook the night before and she was still feeling off colour.  She had been ill since Friday night.  She had also had a hip replacement operation a couple of months ago as well that she wasn't really recovering from too well.  So I wonder if that may have contributed as well.  Either way she will be so sadly missed and made me think a lot about my own health issues and taking better care of myslef as well as though around me. 

It also made me aware of making sure I tell those closest to me how much I love them because you just never know if you will see them again.  Family and friends still have a bit of a chuckle as it has always been a habit of mine and MM's to give each other a kiss before we go our separate ways for the day.  People always say "after 14 years and you are still kissing each other goodbye".  At night we still do the "I love you" before going to sleep.  Another habit we started from the time we started sharing our bed. It has always worried me that one day we may not see each other again for whatever reason. 

Anyway back at work today and feeling a little better although still a little chilled.  Hopefully all will be good by this weekend!

Anyway have a great week!

Ciao!  xoxoxoxox

Pic for Chris H - Hunners!

Chris here is a picture of what are apparently called hunners...high heels runners! 

Here is the contestants and the lady in question is in the bottom row on the right hand side with the cleavage!

Third Year Anniversary

Today is the third anniversary of my dad's passing which is sad as always but this year was the first time I got through the day without feeling down about it.  Probably because I thought the 6th was Thursday and I was psyched up for that day!  Anyway I posted a nice verse on Facebook then because work was so busy today, I plugged on and never really gave it too much more thought although at lunch time I did have a sit and think about dad but then got on with things again. 

I called mum after I got home from work to see how she was coping.  As you can imagine this time of year is very hard on her and as I suspected, she was a bit down but in reasonably better spirits this year.  We talked about her day and she talked a bit about dad and how 60 years ago today Dad was in England being Guard of Honour at Queen Elizabeth's Coronation.  He had been called back from fighting in the Korean War and was specially selected as one of a few Australian soldiers selected to be Guard of Honour.  He always spoke of attending the Royal Dinner with the Queen and was the dinner partner of Queen Salotti (unsure of spelling!) of Tonga who he said was an immensely massive woman who had to have a chair specially made to suit her large frame.  The Aussie soldiers had spent several weeks training how to eat properly, how to meet dignatories, how to march with the Queens Guards as well as learning to stand perfectly still for hours on end!  That was his big claim to fame!  He always told us how much he hated Charles and Anne, the prince and princess.  Apparently they were the biggest brats and would spend hours trying to get them all in trouble by trying to make them move.  Dad always said they were horrendously spoilt by the Queen.

Other than that my day was fine.  I managed to leave work at a reasonable hour.  Still icy cold outside but no wind tonight.  MM and I just had soup and toast for dinner as AJ works back late tonight and he generally gets his own dinner when he gets home.

Anyway almost time for The Amazing Race Australia.  This one makes me laugh.  There is some silly woman in it who is insisting on wearing her "hunners" - high heel runners!  And she looks ridiculous.  That along with her little g-string, tiny short skirt and her boobs popping out of her top as she runs and her makeup makes her look like a clown!  But her boyfriend on the race with her seems to love her.  She is good entertainment!

Nighty night!

Ciao xoxoxox

My Terrific Tuesday

Today is my usual day off and although I had nothing actually planned, it turned out to be rather fun.  Overnight an arctic chill seemed to hit Brisbane so it was actually a good day to stay in bed a bit longer and snuggle under the doonah!  Outside I could hear the wind howling so it definately was an effort to get out of bed.

I stayed in my flannies until around 10:30am, did a bit of housework, watched a movie with MM then decided I would go shopping.  I had a couple of errands to run so figured I should probably make a start.  It was rather horrible getting out of the car once I got to Westfield because I had the car heater on and it was oh so warm in there as opposed to outside which was oh so damned icy cold!

I ended up ringing N1 and my sister K and asked if they wanted to come down and do lunch which they did so while I waited for them to get there (and knowing Ni would take at least an hour to get dressed and make herself presentable!) I wandered around the shops.  I had to buy MM a couple of pairs of new trackie dacks as his old ones were...well...OLD and no longer fleecy lined and with more holes than swiss cheese!  So they were keeping nothing warm!  Had a quick look around at a couple of stores and ended up buying a couple on special at Best and Less.  MM hates the trackies with elastic at the bottom of the legs so I managed to find some that were straight legged and had a back pocket for his wallet and deep pockets for his keys and phone.

Then off to the Post Office to mail a special care package off then back to the Food Court to await N1 and K.

As I suspected they took ages to get there so I quickly ducked into a couple of jewelery shops that sell Pandora charms.  Didn't buy of course but found a couple for my wish list :)

At last they arrived so we headed to find something eat and ended up running into mum and her sister who had just finished their ten pin bowling game.  I have managed to convince mum to spend a day out once a week with her sister and they both love to bowl (my aunt is in a league) so they play lunchtime every Tuesday when there is absolutely no-one in there!  So we ended up sitting with them and yakked for about an hour or so.  N1 had the sushi, I had a plate of really nice chinese and K went for the McDonalds.  Was a really nice hour spent chatting and eating.  Haven't done that for a while.

Eventually mum and my aunt decided to browse some more at one of the Bargain shops and N1, K and myself went to have a look at new trendy clothing store because N1 wanted to show the dress she wants to buy when she gets a job.  She has finally decided she needs to work now as all her friends work and can afford new clothes and she can't.  Funny how our teens never listen to what we tell them eh?  She is looking for a new handbag as well and loves mine so she wants one similar.  I told her I would buy her one once she gets a job which made her happy.

Next N1 wanted to get a new motivational type book.  She finished the Miranda Kerr one I bought and hasn't stopped talking about it.  She has actually started reading it again and following some of the advice which pleased me immensely to know I have actually made some kind of impact on her life.  Apparently Miranda drinks something called Nori juice or something like that which N1 bought and is now taking religiously every morning.  It smells and tastes revolting but you have to take 10mls in a glass of apple or orange juice.  She has been taking it for 2 days and seriously you can already see the difference.  She had a huge zit the night before and she said by next morning it was completely gone with no redness...nothing.  And she claims her skin has already starting looking better. 

Anyway at the book shop she wanted to find a book by Louise Hay called "How to heal yourself" or something along those lines because it is Miranda's favourite self help author and helped her to write the book and a lot of the ideas in it comes from Louise Hay.  We ended up finding it but N1 was disappointed in not being able to afford it so I ended being the good aunty and buying it for her.  Hey...she is on a roll and I would love to see where it takes her.  So one very excited girl will be reading tonight.  Two books in 2 days...that's a record for her lol.  While in the store her boyfriend rang and said he was almost at Westfield and he would pick her up earlier.  They had to go meet with his dad so that was my cue to leave.  Hugs all round and N1 said she would let me know how the book goes.

Still so cold when I got home.  MM was curled up on the couch wrapped in a blanket so I made a coffee and curled with him for a while.  Then I got him to try on his tracks which as usual are too long...he is such a short arse!  So I took up a couple of inches and sat at the sewing machine and ran them up.  He tried them on again...perfect!  The back pockets also had velcro holding it shut which he hates because he can't get his wallet in there so I unpicked the velcro off both pockets as well and now he has 2 new track pants that are way warmer than the others!  Another older pair he has a still good however the elastic no longer holds them up so I will fix them later with some more elastic and that should do him.

Anyway another early night in bed.  Too cold to sit up tonight so I will snuggle in bed with MM again and watch some telly.

Night all...have a great Wednesday!

Ciao!  xoxoxoxox

PS I called the juice Nori Juice...I was told today by someone else who drinks it that it is Noni Juice lol...available at most health food shops and a quick Google search says it is from a fruit from Tahiti and is a great juice to overall good health.

Not-so-Manic Monday

For a Monday today went pretty well.  It's meant to be a really busy week for us in the office this week because:

1. Our wonderful and efficient admin assistant/receptionist is on 2 weeks leave so that means the phone answering/opening and sending off mail duties are divided between us.  I get it the days I am in the office and D gets it when I am on my days off; and

2.  We have some lovely visitors from Singapore who are here to visit our schools and kindys and see how well we do things here.  My first duty this morning was to welcome them and to organise a morning tea for everyone to do a meet and greet.  Thankfully boss agreed to cater in which made everything so much easier...it was just a case of whack a table cloth on the table, put out plates and set out the trays of food.  Voila!  Load up the dishwasher afterwards and all done...easy peasy.

Morning tea lasted until lunchtime when the Managers took the visitors off in the hire bus to visit some of our schools and kindys and during the week they will take them sightseeing to places like Lone Pine, Southbank and Seaworld.

The rest of the day was actually rather quiet which was nice so I completed my to-do list for Monday and I usually prepare things for my day off on Tuesdays so that Wednesdays at work aren't quite so hectic.  I have a huge day of chores planned for Wednesday which should be good as everyone will be out of the office doing the sight seeing thing.  That is of course unless something more urgent crops up which will put those plans out of kilter.  Invariably this is what does happen but I will manage that as I usually do...with a *sigh* and a grumble and then on with it...

Today N1 posted me a picture on Facebook of dad's rose bush.  Until a week ago or so ago this rose bush was just a stick in the ground and a very dead looking stick at that.  So dead looking in fact that mum had decided she was going to pull it out but couldn't bring herself to do it as it is the last of dad's rose bushes in that particular garden.  It got left as she was ill most of the week and had no energy to do anything around the house.  On Friday they had the solar panel guy around and he asked to see the meter box which sits above the rose bush and this is when mum noticed the same rose bush covered in green and carrying 5 huge roses! 

This is the photo N1 took.  Now on Thursday is the 3rd anniversary we have been without Dad and it seems every year at this time his roses take on a life of their own.  Now I know that this time of year is colder and I think this is probably the time of year that roses generally bloom but to mum it always seems to her that at this time every year Dad leaves her this gift because she is always feeling sad and down around now and it just cheers her up to have his roses in the house again.  She is now adamant the rose bush is staying and she is giving it some rose food and will take good care of it.  It's not really in a good spot as the soil is mostly clay and the roses in that garden never did very well even when Dad was around but for now this little bush will stay for as long as it keeps mum happy.  It's certainly a far cry from the dead little stick it was when last she looked!

I have nothing planned for Tuesday's day off.  It has rained on and off all weekend so I am reluctant to make any plans for that reason...I guess I will wait and see what eventuates when I get up tomorrow morning :)  Have a great evening everyone!

Ciao!

xoxoxox

Finally feeling good about myself....

Just a quick blog before bed.  I just got a beautiful message on Facebook from N1, my gorgeous niece, that made me so happy and so proud of her :)  Just recently she knuckled down and did a 15 week course to obtain her Certificate III in Child Care.  This included 3 week's prac work at a childcare centre which she loved and has decided she wants to do this as her profession and will do her photography when she has the time.  This may not be exciting for anyone else but believe me this is a big deal for us as since she left high school she has drifted...not interested in working, or helping around the house, huge screaming matches with mum on a daily basis and basically just staying away from home for weeks on end with no-one really knowing who she was with or where she was.  Well we did sort of know she would be with the boyfriend of that period but where was anyone's guess.  She is now in much nicer relationship with a really nice guy and I beleive he is changing her for the better.  I'll explain more about him later as it's bed time for me and I want this to be brief  :)

Anyway I bought her a little book called "Treasure Yourself" written by Miranda Kerr and I wrote a beautiful message inside from me telling her how proud I am of her and how much I love her.  I finally gave it to her today when I was over at mum's.  Now N1 is not much of a reader.  Generally she will start a book then get bored by Chapter 2 and then just won't go back to it.  I just received her message saying how much she loved the book and that since I left she hadn't been able to put it down and is going to keep it in her bag as a motivational tool.  She has already marked her favourite passages and quoted a couple to me already!  I had a quick glance through the book when I bought it and there were some lovely things that made me think.  Just inspirational things and things that I thought would help N1's self esteem as she doesn't believe she is good at anything and doesn't think her photography is any good and hates her looks and the usual teenage anxiety things.  She was amazed to read that Miranda Kerr has the same anxieties etc and had based her book on the things people had taught her.

To have N1 message tell me how much she loved the book and how much she loved me for thinking of her just made me so happy (and yes I had a cry) :)  I had bought 2 of these books (we have those door to door booksellers who leave a pile of books at the office for a couple of weeks and you can order the ones you want).  They were just really cheap and I already knew I would give one to N1 but I have yet to decide whether I should keep the second for me or give it away to someone else! 

Anyway bed for me...busy week at the office this week so I'll keep you posted on this week's adventures!  Nighty Night!  xoxoxox

*Sneaks quietly into the world of Blogging*

Yay...it's me! Venturing briefly back into the blogging world. Still time poor and finding it hard to motivate myself these days but it's funny because I still have the urge to blog but my motivation to do so is virtually nil! Because I was blogging only weekly I found I would forget everything I had done during the week (must have been pretty boring eh?)and even though I told myself I would jot down daily notes, half the time I was too lazy to! So I have decided to blog in an 'up to the minute' fashion and as something interesting happens and see how that pans out for now. So good luck readers! Things may get a bit haphazard and a bit random but hopefully you will cope!

Today is Friday for me...well its a Thursday for everyone else but since I have Fridays off I like to annoy my work colleagues by reminding them it is Friday and then watching as they all get excited and then it finally dawns on them it is only Friday for ME! Evil but effective :)

Received some disturbing news about eldest daughter today. Hubby rang me at work to tell me he had heard something about Daughter 1 that we are *not allowed to know*. Not sure if you remember but MM and D1 haven't spoken in about 4 years. Son told MM today but reiterated that she doesn't want us to know. Everyone else does and it is on her Facebook page anyway (well not the specifics just that something is afoot) but apparently it is a big secret. I won't go into details here in case she some day decides she wants to read this or someone else reads it but it is something that we figured should have happened ages ago anyway. MM is not sure how he feels and I asked him on the phone if it would change the way he feels about her and he said he doesn't know...he doesn't think it will although I do know without him telling me that he really wants things to go back to the way things were. She was always Daddy's Little Girl and he misses that. Anyway we will see. I sincerely hope the damage to the relationship can be repaired. She is marrying next year (we are not invited) and I know it hurts him but he won't admit to it. Men like to pretend they don't care about that sort of stuff but we all know they do hurt and being big and brave and strong means nothing.

Daughter 2 is also marrying next year. She in March and D1 in April...one month apart! D2 is not happy because it means she needs to pay for her wedding, get married, go on a honeymoon, buy a briedsmaid dress for her sister's wedding, get airfares to Tasmania where D1 is marrying and she and her hubby to be are dead broke! D1 had always planned on getting married in 2014 but because D2 is getting all the attention now decided to move her wedding forward as well! D2 we do see lots of and she has let me be involved in the wedding by sending me lots of updates on dresses/shoes etc. In fact MM and I are buying the wedding dress she has her heart set on so she is a happy girl right now! We also met with her future mother-in-law at our Mother's Day breakfast so that was really nice.

Time soon to go home...looking gloomy and miserable out there but I am so hoping that the rain will hold off until I get home. Been such a quiet day work wise but gearing up for a big week next week with our admin assistant away so it will be all hands on deck! Nothing is planned for this weekend yet although I have a lot of rooms that need a thorough clean out! I spent the last couple of weeks decluttering the bathroom and kitchen and made lots of donations to the Salvation Army of goods that I don't or have never used. Trying the minimalist approach! It's amazing how much material goods we accumulate that we really don't need or use. I have now kept all the better things and all my nice glassware I keep getting for birthdays or for my engagement is now being used. I have decided every day is "for good". We always seem to keep our nice stuff "for good" which means we never ever get to use it! Time to spoil ourselves I say!

Anyway stay safe! You may actually hear from me more regularly so keep on tuning in! Will have to change the nick names for all my family as well as their ages are all changed now!

Ciao!

The Week Thus Far...Monday & Tuesday

Well here we are another week down the track and I don't have a lot to report but really just wanted to touch base with everyone. As much as I love only working part time it seems to me the days are starting to blur a little. It really does make the weeks go faster and the days I have off I usually have a big list of things I want to achieve and I think I have been doing an okay job of that. Finally getting the hang of my sewing but now I am finding it hard to make the time to leave the house to post off my goodies! Plus I have been speninding one day a week with mum where we go window shopping and do coffee then go home and sit together working through the family tree. I am trying to get my mum out and about more as she is finally over the hump since dad passed and already its been 2 years! She still has a cry every now and then but now she can talk about him without breaking down so thats a good sign.

Her sister and brother-in-law own heaps of vintage cars and they do vintage car rallys so they have been taking mum out on those with them. They are all people her own age so hopefully she will make friends out there! She hates leaving her two little dogs behind but she really needs to get out more and socialise which she is doing.

Anyway in the words of one of my favourite bloggers...Onwards and Upwards!

MONDAY

Another start to the work week. Mondays are generally a wasted day for me as all our Managers have to come into the office on Mondays for the staff meeting. They are generally out on the road so Mondays are usually noisy with everyone catching up on gossip, and I get passed a heap of work request forms from them asking me to do stuff for them. So whatever work I had planned for that day I can kiss goodbye until I have given the Managers everything they need. Staff meetings can be a little tedious as well especially for admin staff but it can be an insight to what is going on as well so some days are okay. These meetings will last right up until lunch time. However on this Monday we had organised a surprise morning tea for one of our young accounts girls who is pregnant and about to finish up work and go on maternity leave. She is a lovely young girl around 22 years of age so we threw her a surprise baby shower and morning tea so work stopped completely on our floor for about 2 hours! We did the usual baby shower games and even the blokes were surprised to be allowed to play. They had never been to a baby shower before and I am pretty sure they will never want to again lol...they all got an insight as to what REALLY happens when lots of giggly women get together and how naughty we can all get!!


TUESDAY

Tuesday morning became a nightmare. I drove to the train station and actually got a good parking space for a change which I thought was strange but I cheered thinking I must have just gotten there earlier than everyone else for a change. I climbed the stairs to get to the platform I usually wait only to hear on the loud speaker that there was a major police incident at Geebung station so all train commuters would be put on buses and driven past Geebung Stattion to catch the trains at the station after it. Great! That meant waiting for a couple of hours as my station is packed to the rafters with people and the buses only take so many people at a time. I debated waiting and catching a bus or actually driving myself to work in the city. I chose to drive which I think most people did hence the empty car parks!

I generally hate having to drive to the city simply because we now have toll roads everywhere and inner city bypass and overpasses and all kinds of road works going on everywhere so I went the back way because I know it best and there is minimal road works going on out that way. It is also the longest way...always quicker to drive in through the city but driving through the outer suburbs is much more scenic! It was actually a good drive because I got to work in an hour by driving whereas a normal train trip takes me 45 minutes so I did good! One of the ladies I work with had opted to be bussed so she got to work at 10:30am whereas I was only 15 minutes late for work by getting to work at 8:30am.

It turned out the incident at the train station was some poor guy who chose to ignore the train signals and ducked through a boom gate to beat the train, narrowly missed the south bound train but then got hit by a north bound train! All because he was running late. It's not the first time that has happened...these things happen all the time. Usually its cars or trucks who try to cheat the boom gates and last week we had a jumper at Roma Street and on a regular basis Roma Street gets bomb scaress and all trains have to be stopped or diverted until bomb squads arrive. I am lucky that work are okay with as a lot of us catch the same trains and if we are late they know it is to do with the trains.

Driving home was another story. I left early to try and beat the traffic and I guess the rest of Brisbane did the same! I did however finally get to go through the Clem7 tunnel. I have wanted to for ages but always missed the exit. This time I made it and to be honest I don't know why they bothered with the tunnel! Just another way to steal money from motorists is what I see. It took me about an hour and a half to get home and I had to drive home through the city bcause I missed a new exit that would have taken me home the way I came in. Boy has all that changed since I last came into the city! If you have ever driven in Sydney there are overpasses and underpasses and bridges etc and if you get in the wrong lane you end up god knows where with no chance of turning around until you get out to an outer suburb. Well Brisbane is going to end up being the same! I was feeling stressed trying to find the right exit to head me towards the Sunshine Coast and home! And I had to be sure to be in the right lane otherwise I would have ended up at the exit to the Gold Coast/Sydney! I also now know why you need to be an aggressive driver in the city as well. I actually had to literally nose my car into the next lane so I could make my exit. You really do have to barge in lol! None of this "excuse me but do you mind if I just jump in here?" It's more a case of "Hey you, I want this spot...move it or lose it bucko!" Finally I was on a familiar stretch of city road and I just cruised on home albeit bumper to bumper the whole time because the traffic was horrendous. Thankfully I have good music in the car so I was able to sing away to my little hearts content ignoring all the other drivers around me!

So there you have it. My Monday and Tuesday and today is my day off so I am still sitting in my big fluffy dressing down and my lil ugg boots. I will have to move shortly because I am dying for a coffee and I have run right out of slave boys! Plus Wednesday is my major cleaning day so I need to get up off my butt for a bit and make a start!

Some More Bags

Well as you can see I think I am getting the hang of sewing and making my bags! Still not 100% perfect but it is getting easier.

Here is the last 4 I made in the last couple of weekends. I made 3 in one day and the black one I made for my mother-in-law took me a while longer because the fabric was a bitch to work with until I got it figured out so I had to walk away at one stage as it was getting me frustrated! Once I understood how to handle the fabric it was a breeze and actually turned out the best! The aqua coloured bag was made for my daughter for her birthday, another is for my friend Shaz as a late birthday present and the brownish/grey one is the one my mum chose. I have one more bag to make for Miss Froggy as she asked ever so nicely and then I want to move on to another type of bag that I found a pattern for.

The black bag is made out of a snake skin look fabric and my mother-in-law loves it as she bought snake skin look shoes and this bag is a perfect match! And I chose a burgundy satin lining just because I liked it with the black.

At the moment I am really enjoying it and another sewing friend suggested getting myself an Etsy account and try selling but I'm not sure I am ready for that yet. I don't want to sell inferior products so when I am certain it all looks great then I will think about it!

My Sewing Weekend

Well I decided to finally dust off my sewing machine which my parents bought me 4 or 5 years ago and I have never really used! I have been given a few bag patterns over the past couple of years and I finally decided to spend the weekend attempting one! I have never really sewn before except for a really nice patchwork quilt I made for my niece when she was a baby and it came out beautifully but having said that sewing a heap of squares together isn't really that hard!

So I took my mum and sister to Spotlight on Friday while I searched for some cute material to make my first bag. I found this really nice, snake skin look purple material. It's really glossy so it looks exactly like a skin of some kind but it is in fact a stretchy kind of material and I made the lining a black satin. The pattern said to use any kind of material but this one seemed to be just right. The button for the catch and ribbon also were just right so I was happy with the whole purchase.

The pattern was rather ambiguous in places, well for me anyway as I am a newbie at this and had to try and figure out what the pattern was trying to say. But a little bit of loginc and ignoring parts of the pattern to suit me seemed to work and I think, for my first attemps, it came up pretty good. There are a couple of bits that are a bit wonky (my dodgy sewing!) but hardly noticeable to anyone but me. Even MM declared it to be fabulous. He loves the material! Now I have made one everyone wants one so I will work my way through my list starting with my mum lol. She has even picked out her material! It should be easy now I have the pattern figured and I have my sewing machine set up perfect for me. MM is already trying to work out how much profit I can make selling them lol but I think I will leave that until waaaaay down the track when I can actually make the perfect item.

Nothing Much...

…Has happened since I last blogged. I could just blog crap or make my mundane happenings sound more exciting than they are but lately I have been feeling rather *bleah* as in “I couldn’t care less about anything right now”. I hate this kind of mood and when I get into this sort of funk it takes ages to get out of it again. I think a lot of it is because I have finally come to a point in my life where I am at a crossroads and I have no idea what I want out of life right now. It’s so weird because right now I should be on top of the world. The house is paid for and the legalities of it is all sorted, I am now semi-retired and enjoying finally having free time to enjoy life and finally we have the security to what the things we always wanted to do but never had the time or money to do.


The financial thing is still the hardest. Even though we have no mortgage now you would think the money should be rolling in but because it took every cent we own we now have to wait for the bank balance to build which it is…slowly. I guess I am just impatient! MM and I are currently making a list of all the things we want to do to the house and planning somewhere to go for a holiday. Right now I would be happy just for a weekend away! Both of us are in a bit of a rut and I think we just both need to get away for a couple of days and re-focus on our future.


Another thing I guess I am down about is all the weddings happening in the next year or 2. MM and I have been engaged for 13 years now and still haven’t had our “Big Day” but that was for financial reasons and really, neither of us was in that much of a hurry. But now this year we have 2 sets of friends who are marrying this year, both of them very short engagements. These are 2 separate couples who are in the older bride and groom category, both lots are second marriages so they will be small and simple affairs. Then in the new year MM’s oldest daughter will marry in Tasmania (of course we haven’t been invited to that one and are apparently not supposed to know about it but of course everyone already told us about it and I have since spoken to this daughter about it) and MM’s niece who is 22 years old marrying her really nice boy. And all four of these weddings will be beach weddings which has kind of annoyed me a little as I have been planning a beach wedding for 13 years and now “everyone” is having a beach wedding so ours will just be “the same as everyone else’s”. MM thinks I am crazy and says there is no reason why we still can’t have one as every wedding is different. And I know he is right but I am just being a petulant little child at the moment! *pout*


So I think I will go back to the drawing board and start again. Actually I have made enquiries about weddings in the Whitsundays as they do weddings from start to finish and we will pay for my family and MM’s family to attend and have a simple and special wedding at one of the resorts. Will depend on how much we can save. MM’s mother is not getting any better and I don’t want to make the same mistake as I did with my dad and not having it while he was still here for it.


I have however, planned to take mum to Canberra next Anzac Day and be part of the ANZAC service at the Australian War Memorial. It is supposed to be fantastic and apparently there are now photos there of dad and his Korean battalion on show there now in the new exhibit so mum is really excited about going. She really needs a trip away and my cousin lives right in Canberra and has a big house so she often tells us to come visit so accommodation will be a breeze.


October I am hoping to visit my old home town, Gladstone. Miss Froggy will be there then too so I have told MM that’s where I will be come October so long as everyone there stays put and don’t make other plans!


Dad’s 2nd Anniversary came and went. I made a really beautiful powerpoint display of photos set to one of my favourite songs to present to everyone on the day and everyone loved it! I put it on mum’s desktop of her computer so now she plays it every night before she goes to bed! Miss 17 was absolutely thrilled with it as she misses her grandad more than she lets on. I have yet to put it on a CD for her as she been having trouble playing it on her laptop. We had a small morning tea together and it wasn’t as sombre as I thought it would be. We are all moved on I think although we still miss him a lot especially at special times but the good thing too is mum is finally settled and starting to look to the future. She is taking better care of herself health wise although she is now under more stress since my sister and her kid moved in with her which is probably the other thing I am annoyed at right now!


Most of you will know my sister and also know how little I think of her. I do however adore her daughter, Miss 17, my gorgeous niece who was raised by my mum and dad. Thankfully she is nothing like her mother and even tells us all the time that she never wants to be like her mother and does everything she can not to do the things she did. Anyway my sister and her son were kicked out of yet another unit and is now “apparently” on the priority list for housing commission which I doubt considering how Brisbanites are still waiting for homes since the January floods and I am pretty sure they will get first preference.


Anyway she tells mum she will only be there for a month at the most until they place her. Three months later she is still at mum’s not paying any money towards anything. She will occasionally vacuum or wash dishes to make up for it but other than that she and her 13 year old bum off mum. My nephew, “Gremlin” I shall call him eats like a horse and spends all his days, when not wagging school, watching TV or on the playstation and refuses to get off his rear to help. He also hates his mother with a passion and it is not unknown for him to thump, kick or bite his mother and call her very rude names. My sister is covered in bruises from where he does these things but she laughs it off and as a result he continues the behaviour. He detests women. He calls my mother foul names and I have told her that she is to kick them out if it continues but of course she doesn’t want to see them on the street. Perhaps I am being a little harsh? He is yet to call me anything and I am just waiting for it because I can tell you now I won’t be laughing it off and he will be lucky to speak to me at all with his teeth on the floor. The people he listens to are my brother and my MM as both have actually put him on his butt when he has been cheeky to them so he knows not to push their buttons.


The sad thing in all of this is Miss 17 has moved out of her home for 17 years because she can’t stand having her mother and brother around. She is embarrassed by them when she has her boyfriend over so she now lives with him and his parents until such time as her mother moves out which could be never. I do think though that since she is almost 18 they will decide to find a place together. He is 20 now and working full time and his parents are rather well off and have been feeding them and letting them stay in the granny flat rent free. She has had to grow up quite quickly but as I said before is very determined to make her own way in the world and not be a leech like her mother.


Gosh I did ramble didn’t I!! Sorry!! Tomorrow is another day off and I am going to try and make my very first bag so I will be making a trip to Spotlight first thing to find my material! Hopefully I will have something to show off next blog!

Terrible Tuesday...

Tuesday...another work day for me. You are probably wondering why I am suddenly in the blogging mood? Because work is soooo quiet and I am soooo bored! So I resort to blogging just to fill in the hours between coming to work and going home again.

This morning's train trip was a lesson in patience. The train was broken...again...the third time this last week or so. Today it was the train door in the carriage I was on. It just didn't want to close so we had to sit at each station for five minutes waiting for the door to automatically shut. About half an hour in, some bright spark at Queensland Rail decided to lock the door, rendering it useless and thus we were happily sailing off to the city again. BUT because the train was now considered broken it would finish it's journey one stop before mine...AGAIN! So at Roma Street station our train terminated and those of us wanting to get the one station beyond that were forced to wait on an icy, wind blown platform waiting for the next train which *Surprise Surprise* was going to be delayed a further 20 minutes because one of the signals decided it was too cold to come to work today and closed itself down bringing all the trains into and leaving Roma Street station to a dead stop. *sigh* So this meant I was an hour late to work...AGAIN! There is a few of us in our office who catch the same train so at least the boss knows it is just not me! The lady who had been sitting next to me on the train was in a highly distressed state. She had never caught the train before and was going to be severely late for a very important appointment. I felt so sorry for the poor thing. We chatted for a bit and I reassured her this happened at least 2 or 3 times a week and she was shocked! It's a way of life in Brisbane really. And really any boss in Brisbane who fires an employee because they got stuck on a train is a "bum" to paraphrase Bob Hawke!

Anyway I got to finish my book while waiting to get to work. This got the lady beside me fascinating over my Kindle so we talked about that for a bit and I told her where I got mine and how cheap they are currently so I think I convinced her she needed one especially if she was going to be a regular train traveller!

I have been reading all of Charlaine Harris's books which I downloaded for the KIndle. She wrote the True Blood series about the vampires which became a TV show. The books are better than the series but its kind of weird because I saw the first 3 seasons of the series first before reading the book and the books are rather different. The main characters are the same but the TV show took a lot of poetic licence with the book and the story lines are really different. Frankly the book's storylines were so much better than the TV show.

Her new book series is called the "Real Murders Series" and is the one I am reading now. The main character is named Aurora Teagarden and it's kind of one of those corny kind of mystery stories where the main character lives in a small southern US state, she's a boring librarian with no life, no man and a member of the "Real Murders" club where they all sit around trying to solve old unsolved murder mysteries and read murder books etc. Suddenly all the members of this club start getting murdered and the main character gets caught up in it. I am now up to Book 6 and for such a small town, there are an awful lot of murders and all of them just happen to take place in the character's back yard so to speak! Very corny but entertaining reading especially on a long train trip!

Well time for me to head off and catch a train. Got to head to the shops on the way and get some supplies. Thinking about making my very own soup for dinner...what sort I haven't decided yet. It's the night for comfort food!

Rainy Days and Mondays...

Well actually this morning was bright and sunny although extremely cold and when the alarm went off at 5:30am this morning all I wanted to do was curl into a tighter ball and stay warm! But no...today is a work day for me and after spending about 15 minutes thinking of excuses NOT to get up I crawled out of bed. One stupid thing I do is shower in the mornings before I go anywhere. Madness in winter I tell you! When we refit the bathroom I am DEFINATELY getting one of those room heaters for in there. Getting out of a warm shower into the cold air in all your naked glory is definately no fun at all!! Today was no better.

I actually dove out of the shower, dried myself in record time then leapt back into my still warm bed for a couple of minutes just to get some feeling back into my body! Brrrrrr...and I can tell it's not getting better any time soon! By the time I dressed and had breakfast though I was feeling good again and even though I wore my heavy jacket to work (because those train platforms are icy pits of hell in winter!!) by the time I bought my daily coffee and got into the office I was very warm for the rest of the day and so the jacket came off until it was time to go home again in the afternoon.

Work was quiet today. No staff meeting which was good as our Monday mornings are a snooze fest and our time could be more productive without them in my opinion. Today I had a lunch date with a dear friend who I told you about last blog. It was awesome to catch up with her and we had so much to talk about...an hour for lunch just wasn't enough but we are now committed to lunching more regularly and hopefully now we are practically neighbours, we can visit a bit more. I have really missed our talks and we have always been very supportive of each other. She has also been through a tumultuous couple of years so it was nice to talk about our problems with each other and offer each other advice which I have really missed.

Now it is almost home time and of course, after the nice sunny day we have had all day it has started to rain which means going home tonight on the train is going to cold, wet and miserable! *Sigh*

Building Bridges....

...is my theme for this week. I don't know if it is because I am getting older or what but I have suddenly decided that life is too short for petty grievances and all the silly things that people get their knickers in a twist over. Of course there are some not-so-silly things that upset people and I have a couple of those but I am willing to live and let live and it's time some people get off their high horse and learn to forgive.

I guess I got to thinking about it all last week when I was feeling very down and thinking way too much. It's always a bad thing when I think too much. I am a very sensitive type person and I tend to think about regrets, and trust me I have had a few! The majority of the regrets are things that were my fault. I am big enough a person to own these things and to acknowledge that I brought some things on myself. I have spent my life trying to be a good person, or at least the best person I can be. Sometimes situations arise where I am not a nice person but that is something I have learnt to live with. It's not a deliberate thing and hey...who's perfect eh? Anyone who says they are is a liar in my book.

Anyway...Bridge No. 1. Last week I made contact with a dear friend who I haven't had much contact with in close to 6 years. We worked together in our last job and became very close friends. When Andrea and her boyfriend moved into a house near ours, MM and I made up a huge grocery basket of goodies for them and the kids because they were struggling and doing it pretty tough. We all got on great. Her kids were the greatest and well Andrea and I were like soul mates. We both had to endure the office bitches at our old job who were making life hell for a lot of the staff and Andrea and I were the only two who stood up to them and well, they made our life even more hell until both Andrea and I quit our jobs and got the jobs we have now. Needless to say those two old OB's are still miserable where they are and Andrea and I have moved on from strength to strength. Andrea was there for me knowing how much I wanted to have kids but couldn't and just helped me through a lot of personal stuff.

Then one day we just stopped talking to each other. For no real reason except our lives both went for a turn in a different direction. Andrea and her boyfriend split. Then one day out of the blue she announced she found someone new and was pregnant. It shocked me beacuase she always swore she would never have more kids and it was one of the reasons she and the old boyfriend split because he wanted kids (he had none) and she didn't want more. So I think, if I was honest with myself, I distanced myself from her because she was having the very thing I really wanted at the time. A baby. Definately not her fault but not something I could deal with at the time. So I kept making excuses and we just eventually went our separate ways. She found me on Facebook eventually and we started chatting again until last week I decided enough was enough. I had to make amends and it turned out that for the last 6 years we have been working in the same street and never knew it! How we never ran into each other I'll never know. But tomorrow (Monday), I have arranged for us to have lunch together and finally catch up. A few weeks ago she and her now husband moved 2 streets away from us as well which I never knew but it explains the car that always beeped when it drove past! So hopefully we can get this friendship back on track. I'm not proud of myself for being that way with her and I even admitted to her that was the reason I stopped seeing her. But the loyal friend that she is actually blamed herself! She said she had a feeling when she told me she was pregnant that she could have done it in a better way because she realised it would hurt me. And she never held it against me. She always knew when I was ready we would talk again. And I am glad that I did it! So the lesson here is that a true friend will take the good with the bad and they never give up on each other.

Bridge No. 2 - Eldest stepdaughter. Now I know I have told you about how MM had cut daughter No.1 from his life and we just found out she just got engaged to the Dick from Hell who is currently working in Darwin for the next 6 months leaving Daughter 1 at home by herself. I haven't told my MM yet but I decided to message her on Facebook just to congratulate her on her engagement because to be honest I am tired of the two of them being so stubborn. There is a lot of anger and hate there still although MM occasionally will reminisce about this daughter as she was always daddy's girl and he will pop up with a story about the two of them when she was smaller. I thought she would ignore me because I removed her from my friends list 2 years ago after Dad's funeral because she got drunk just after it and was sprouting all kinds of rubbish on Facebook and I had to remove her from mum's Facebook account as well because poor mum definately didn't need to hear the crap she was going on with. At the time I wrote her a nasty message in her inbox telling her to get over herself and to leave us alone etc. And that was the last we heard from her.

To my surprise I got a nice message back a couple of days ago and we chatted again about the last two years. She refuses to talk about her father and when ever I try to bring him into a conversation she changes the subject. She is aware I cannot stand Freak Boy. In fact none of MM's family like him at all because he is sullen and just won't speak. She can do so much better than him. But that's her problem. I'm hoping, once I tell MM, that I can organise a coffee date or something like we used to in the old days. She is so much like her mother...she loves playing the part of the victim and I wish she could see past all that and realise what she would miss if her dad was to be no longer around.

Anyway that's my week thus far in a nutshell. The weekend I spent cleaning out the office and filing (yuk!) and I have a desk again! Yay! Now the accountant will have some spare space to work on when she comes in this week to do the BAS for MM. She wants to retire some time soon and she will be teaching me how to use MYOB and do the BAS each quarter. It's not hard as I have done it before but it's been a while!

Anyway everyone have a great week! Sorry for the yawn fest but there is just not much excitement in this here neck of the woods!

Happy Birthday Shaz!!

Happy Birthday to a Dear Friend who had a birthday yesterday (Sunday). I know she reads this page so I just wanted to let her know I was thinking of her. Good friends are hard to find and we have been friends now for 30 years! Yes the time has sure flown by!

Happy Birthday Shaz! Hope you had the best day ever!!

Another Slow Week...

You would think, wouldn't you, that now I have all this spare time on my hands, my days should be action packed and filled to the brim with lots of lovely, exciting things that I have done! Right? But no...it's been slow. But don't get me wrong. I am absolutely LOVING having days off. I am in a happier frame of mind these days and not feeling quite so stressed about all the things I had planned to do but not done yet.

Although this week was different. I wasn't happy...at all...and I have no idea why. I was in an argumentative mood with MM all week so because I was being snippy with him, he was being snippy with me, which made me feel unloved and unappreciated and feeling even more angry with everyone and wondering what the heck was going on. And it wasn't even THAT time of the month! I figure it might be a weather change thing because I know of a couple other girl friends who have been feeling exactly the same so maybe that's it. My mood swings went from being extremely pissed off to being really down in the dumps and crying at the drop of a hat to just giggling at random silly things. I'm sure MM was secretly planning to having me committed at one stage!

Anyway, Tuesday night was the turning point. We both seemed to mellow. We cooked dinner together (which is something we normally do anyway) but I had decided to do Dad's chicken chow mein which has been a long time favourite of mine since childhood and was my dad's specialty. So as we chopped and stirred and tasted together we talked about Dad, we talked abouth the future now the house is paid off and we had just such a nioe time. Once Mr 21 got home from work we served it up and being a cold night it was the perfect meal. This meal has always been a comfort meal for me and because it warms you from the inside it makes you feel good. So the three of us chatted happily around dinner, MM teasing Mr 21 as per usual and just generally having some good laughs.

After dinner we cleaned up then MM and I veged out to watch some of the TV shows MM downloads. We don't watch TV at all much because there is usually nothing on we like. MM downloads a lot of new TV shows from the States that generally don't get aired here or don't air until about a year after the States! We have always both enjoyed watching Survivor and Amazing Race because well, they are funny and we pick our favourites, cheer the ones we love and boo the ones we hate lol. Then we will both try and pick holes out of the strategies of the teams who play. It's pretty much as much a game for us as it is for the contestants! There's a few other shows that have yet to air in Australia that we enjoy watching.

After we got tired of TV we both sat on the computer watching old video clips of our favourite artists on You Tube. Wow talk about going down memory lane! MM and I share the same taste in music so we found our favourites and sang along and even slow danced at one point to our favourite Dr Hook song "Years from now" which MM had played for me when we first met. So yeah we shared some more nice memories until it was time for bed and then...well some things need to stay sacred!

So that was my week and my weird mood was over! Just like that...

Mother's Day was the only other event this week worth mentioning. We did the Mother's Day breakfast at our local sports club with my mum and MM's Mum and all the family. It's a buffet breakfast for $11 and really good value and so much to eat! It usually does all of us until dinner time! My kids bought me the flannellette PJ's I wanted...purple with pink and blue butterflies, and a soft fluffy purple dressing gown, and so nice to wear! The nights are cooler here now so I can now lounge around and be warm! I love it!

Tomorrow (Friday) is my day off and no plans as yet although I do want to catch up on some craft stuff. I'll let you know next blog what I end up doing! Ciao for now!

Another quiet week...

It seems I have hardly been at work for the past two weeks! I finally went back today. The days I am meant to be working have all fallen on public holidays so I seemed to have worked that out well! Last week I only had one day in the office and this week I only have today and Thursday! Almost feels like being on permanent holiday! Plus I get paid for them!

At home I have really just been spending all my time cleaning through the house and gathering up unwanted items to put on our garage sale which is going to have to happen real soon as I have great piles of stuff and MM is starting to get a bit cranky about it all. Never mind that a lot of it is old computers and parts and other things he couldn't sell in the shop so it will all go cheap on the garage sale. Will be nice to see it all go! We're still trying to toss up which room in the house will be the first to be remodelled. At the moment the consensus is that the upstairs bathroom needs to be totally ripped out and started again. Being a house of the 70's the decor in there is horrendous and all we did when we first moved in 12 or so years ago was rip down the horrid brown paisley wallpaper and my dad painted it a nice lemon colour for me which looked nice considering the horrendous brown timber cupboard and ugly sink top. The shower is a bathtub/shower combo which is horrible especially as we get older and will eventually have problems being able to step up and over the tub to get into the shower! We are planning to rip out the current tub/shower cubicle and get the shower placed under the window at the opposite end of the room and this will make it a bigger shower as well. We want the shower to run along the entire end wall like the one we encountered in a hotel we stayed at once...it was really nice and actually had two shower heads...one at each end! That's the dream anyway along with more modern tiles and something to lighten the whole room up...it is always so dark and dismal in there! It's not a huge room but for what we want it will suit fine. It currently has a huge sink and cupboard, most of which we don't use (just the two of us now) plus a huge mirror right across and really we don't need it now. It was perfect though for when the 2 girls lived with us as all three of us girls do be in there doing make up and be out of each other's way but way too big now. MM reckons he doesn't need a mirror to do his hair as he knows where his head is! Funny boy!

This week MM and I are re-doing our wills especially now the house is paid for. He wants to cut Daughter Number 1 out of it as she is now a non-entity and we haven't seen her since my dad's funeral. We just found out from our son that she is now engaged to marry the freak who is the reason she is no longer part of the family so that has caused a bit of anguish. There is a long story connected to the whole thing and probably best explained in person. Not something I really want to discuss here but needless to say MM now only has two kids not three. Friday we will visit the Solicitor to deal with the final paperwork for Registering the Title Deeds for the house with the Lands Dept. The bank wants us to keep it with them for an annual cost but it was suggested by friends we seek legal advice which we now have and they will do all the running around for us and hold the Deeds for no cost with them in a secure box so we are doing that. They will also update our wills for no extra cost. All up it will cost around $250 which wil be paid to the Lands Dept and also pay the Solicitors fee which we thought was pretty good and we decided it would make it easier as we have no clue what we are supposed to do now and the bank keeps confusing us so we figure leave it to the experts! I always figured you paid for your house and all was good but there are papers to be signed and documents to be lodged with different places...no-one really explained to us exactly what needs to happen! We are thinking now of buying a block of land with a view to build a little down the track so we will wait and see...the house is too big for us now and we want something low set especially as we get older and now is probably the time to do it but first I want to enjoy being debt free for a bit!

My niece, Miss 17 got her test results back regarding her panic attacks and her heart problems. She now has to go to the Cardiologist at the Royal Brisbane Hospital for further tests as they have spotted some abnormalities. She is scared out of her wits poor kid but they are saying this is also the cause of her panic attacks...her heart stops, she can't breathe and because she can't breathe her body seizes up and she panics which then places more pressure on her heart! They were going to put her on anti-depressants but we talked her out of those as I don't think kids her age should be on those and now the doctor thinks she doesn't need them now anyway which is good.

Things with her and mum have settled down a great deal. They are actually being civil to each other and their relationship is back to the loving one they had before dad passed away. Mum has become more accepting of Miss 17's boyfriend and that has helped. He keeps her calm and makes her a much more relaxed person. He still spends way too much time at mum's house. Mum reckons he should be paying board because he eats, sleeps and showers there about 3 or 4 days out of every week! The other half of the week Miss 17 sleeps at his house! It's a good arrangement for them but not too sure about the parents!

Anyway I guess that's all the goss from me for the moment. Oh yeah I spent Friday afternoon/night watching the lead up and then THE Wedding of the Century! I am a romantic and I love that sort of thing but it meant MM spent the night downstairs on the computer because he had no interest in it at all poor love! I didn't care...I had my champers and my nibblies to myself and I chilled out and watched and marvelled at how beautiful she looked. It didn't seem that long ago when we were watching Princess Di's wedding. Was it really 30 years ago??? *Ouch*!!

Wow...just about to post this and a flash storm has just hit here...the lights flickered and then a big *boom* of thunder...hope it clears up before this afternoon...don't fancy trying to get a train home in stormy weather especially since the trains don't like to get wet! Thank goodness tomorrow (Wednesday) is a day off for me.

By Request...

Here is a couple of photos which were originally just on slides. I scanned them into a jpeg file and now they are ready to be printed.

These are probably my favourite pictures of me as a little one! This was when we lived in a one room shack at Tannum Sands...its amazing to see how different it was in the days we lived there compared to now! These haven't been fixed yet...if you open the photo right up you can see what I am dealing with age wise but with Photoshop I can erase all the age marks and negative wear and tear and make them look like new again!