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.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
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!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Short & Sweet...
Blog for this week is very short as it was a really quiet Easter and long weekend. Feeling the pains of having no money until next pay day! I know...it was all for a good cause as all our money just paid off our mortgage but its sad having 5 days off and nowhere to go! Still I made the most of it.
I got caught up on decluttering the house. I now have a beautiful clean craft room again and I have cleaned out a whole heap of cupboards in MM's office ready to rip out the old wardrobe that used to hold all our stationery supplies and other odds and sods. MM has someone coming in to build some proper cupboards and benches so the room will look like an actual office instead of a bedroom which is what it was when we first bought the house and never could afford to renovate it! We are planning a garage sale very soon as I now have boxes and boxes of stuff to sell so hopefully we will make enough to be able to afford to tile the floor which will make the room look awesome!
MM also bought me a new scanner as the old one died suddenly. I was so disappointed to see the old one go as it was one of those that turns slides and negatives into photos. Over the past couple of years mum gave me boxes of her old slides to do and it was quite tedious as it only did one slide or negative at a time. But this new scanner is brilliant! Now I can do 5 slides at a time and a whole roll of negatives in one go. So in one day I actually scanned 2 big boxes of slides (about 275 to be exact) into jpeg files ready for printing out. Mum was so excited as a lot of the slides were from 1965 and had never been printed to photos. Now mum has a CD of photos ready for her to print out and do whatever she wants with them. Was really nice to see all my old baby photos and photos of my first birthday with mum and dad...was a real walk down memory lane!
My next task now is to scan 2 huge folders of negatives from MM's photography days when he was a professional photographer. As he used to develop his own photos there are hundreds of negatives he never bothered doing and I found 3 or 4 that he actually won awards for and there is one which actually used to hang in the Brisbane City Hall. Not sure if it is still there but I now have the photo!
I also did a bit more work on Dad's book. He left a couple of reams of handwritten notes for me to decipher so I am working my way through them in the hope of one day putting them all into a book for family and friends. I am envisaging it taking a couple of years! Along with the notes is his old journal which is full so it might be a while!
Easter Sunday was quiet. The kids went to their mother's for breakfast so it was just MM and myself. After the kids got back we went on a drive to visit my mum and MM's parents which pretty much took up the rest of the day. Got loaded up with choclate so came home, watched a few more episodes of "Cold Case" and pigged out on choclate for a bit. Still have heaps left over and I am already over choclate! I have never been that much of a choclate lover. If it is there I will eat it but it's not something I go out of my way to buy. Occasionally MM will buy me a nice block of choclate if he is schmoozing up to me for whatever reason but other than that I can take it or leave it.
Anyway today (Thursday) is my only day of work this week. I should have just had the whole week off instead of coming in one day but at least there is no choclate here!
I got caught up on decluttering the house. I now have a beautiful clean craft room again and I have cleaned out a whole heap of cupboards in MM's office ready to rip out the old wardrobe that used to hold all our stationery supplies and other odds and sods. MM has someone coming in to build some proper cupboards and benches so the room will look like an actual office instead of a bedroom which is what it was when we first bought the house and never could afford to renovate it! We are planning a garage sale very soon as I now have boxes and boxes of stuff to sell so hopefully we will make enough to be able to afford to tile the floor which will make the room look awesome!
MM also bought me a new scanner as the old one died suddenly. I was so disappointed to see the old one go as it was one of those that turns slides and negatives into photos. Over the past couple of years mum gave me boxes of her old slides to do and it was quite tedious as it only did one slide or negative at a time. But this new scanner is brilliant! Now I can do 5 slides at a time and a whole roll of negatives in one go. So in one day I actually scanned 2 big boxes of slides (about 275 to be exact) into jpeg files ready for printing out. Mum was so excited as a lot of the slides were from 1965 and had never been printed to photos. Now mum has a CD of photos ready for her to print out and do whatever she wants with them. Was really nice to see all my old baby photos and photos of my first birthday with mum and dad...was a real walk down memory lane!
My next task now is to scan 2 huge folders of negatives from MM's photography days when he was a professional photographer. As he used to develop his own photos there are hundreds of negatives he never bothered doing and I found 3 or 4 that he actually won awards for and there is one which actually used to hang in the Brisbane City Hall. Not sure if it is still there but I now have the photo!
I also did a bit more work on Dad's book. He left a couple of reams of handwritten notes for me to decipher so I am working my way through them in the hope of one day putting them all into a book for family and friends. I am envisaging it taking a couple of years! Along with the notes is his old journal which is full so it might be a while!
Easter Sunday was quiet. The kids went to their mother's for breakfast so it was just MM and myself. After the kids got back we went on a drive to visit my mum and MM's parents which pretty much took up the rest of the day. Got loaded up with choclate so came home, watched a few more episodes of "Cold Case" and pigged out on choclate for a bit. Still have heaps left over and I am already over choclate! I have never been that much of a choclate lover. If it is there I will eat it but it's not something I go out of my way to buy. Occasionally MM will buy me a nice block of choclate if he is schmoozing up to me for whatever reason but other than that I can take it or leave it.
Anyway today (Thursday) is my only day of work this week. I should have just had the whole week off instead of coming in one day but at least there is no choclate here!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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!
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!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Row, row, row, your boat....
Photos taken behind mum's house. The property behind her house is generally a nice green paddack that has horses and cows grazing on it and the farmer who owns it also has a small race track, now under water, which he uses to break in his horses. The creek generally can't be seen from mum's house as a rule.
These are pictures of my office at Milton.
It is times like this I wish we had a boat! As most people would be aware this wonderful city of Brisbane in which I live, is one third under water although today, as I am writing this, it is the third day of no rain and the sun is out although looking out the door it is getting overcast here again and I am really hoping we have no more rain! It seems like it has rained for months!
For the first time in years we have had the TV on and watching the news reports 24/7 in an effort to find out more. The devastation has been heartbreaking and reading in the news of people's last moments before being washed away by flood and seeing people talk on the news about their devastating losses, it feels like I will never stop crying. So many stories of heroism and sadness and loss. The frightening images seen all over the world, even by my cousins in America, of the "flash flood" in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley. Ordinary people in the town doing their day to day chores suddenly being washed away by a 7 - 8 foot wall of water with many drowned, babies being ripped from the arms of their mothers, children with their parents being washed away and drowned. A family actually sitting in their house and being washed away to their deaths. Words cannot describe how heartbreaking it all is.
What is even more remarkable though is the caring everyone is experiencing. I have had family and friends all over the world trying to call and email and message me via Facebook to make sure we are safe and ok. And I love them all for it. All of Brisbane is trying hard to help each other out. MM and I spent a day ringing around different agencies offering up temporary accommodation at our house as we have two spare bedrooms and three beds plus about 4 or 5 spare mattresses and we are willing to share space with any who need. Eventually the Salvation Army said they would register our home and would call us if needed.
My home is beside Lake Kurwongbah which gets water from the North Pine dam and it flooded up and over the road but because we are up high it would never have a chance to get to our house thankfully. We were however stranded from the rest of Brisbane as the Petrie Mill Bridge was extremely flooded and closed. Youngs Crossing Road in the opposite direction was also closed. It floods every time someone spits out the window so no surprises there. And then the third exit, the Bruce Highway was also blocked so we had no way out any way we looked.
Mum we were worried about and no matter how hard we tried to convince her to evacuate, she wouldn't go. She has my brother and niece living there though as well so we hoped they would be okay. The lake behind her house was a huge dam! The property it sits on belongs to a farmer and his house went under. The paddock is generally full of cows and horses and a small racetrack where he trains his horses. Mum worried the whole time about the horses and cows bless her heart! The old farmer once told dad the last time it flooded was in the 1950's and the tree is still there with the water line marked on the tree. This time the water got all the way up to mum's back fence and they worried with the king tide that it would go right up to the house and underneath. Thankfully it didn't.
The funniest thing though was mum took her girls outside for a toilet break and Sasha took one look at all the water out the back and started barking hysterically. Mum said she had to laugh as Sasha was probably wondering what happened to her back yard and probably worrying about whether or not this was her home! They had never seen so much water in one place!
Anyway I have attached some pictures of the scenes behind mum's house and also photos of my office in Milton. Looks like another week before we can get in there. The office is setting up a temporary office at one of our kindergartens but we have the option also of taking leave which I think I will do as the kindy is much farther out for me than Milton and not really worth it for me to travel all that way.
But once again thanks to all who phoned and wrote asking if we were ok. We are still waiting to hear from dad's family in Ipswich as we haven't been able to get through and we are hoping they are safe and sound and one of MM's family has also got family in Ipswich and she hasn't heard from them either so hopefully they too will be ok. Now with the severe weather conditions heading to other parts of Australia we pray everyone stays safe and sound.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Can You Block Your Ears for a Second....
...while I SCREAM!!! *ARRRRRRRGH*. There. Much better. I think I am almost officially over Christmas. Only one more week to go and I still have done nothing and I can't see where I am going to get the time to do it.
See I started Christmas planning in September. Organised my Christmas cards, made lists of who I was buying for and even started making my Christmas cards to give to people. Then *nothing*...nada...zip...nil. I don't even know what happened. I had oodles of time and now one week before the BIG DAY and I am unprepared.
It's been wet here most of this week. In fact on Thursday, because of the storms we were having, our relieving Boss closed the office and kindly let us all go home 2 hours early to make it easier for us to get home before the storms struck. As it turned out for me, the only train traveller in the office, my trains ended up being cancelled and I ended up getting home an hour AFTER I normally would so my 2 hour head start was wasted! Was not happy Jan! Plus the storms hit as I was driving home from the station. Friday was not much better as it bucketed down just as I got off the train and headed for my car. I was drenched right through before I even got to the car so I was cold and wet and quite snarky.
Anyway let me start at the beginning. Monday and Tuesday in the office was dead quiet. All our schools and kindergartens are now closed so no phone calls or emails which is nice for a change. But dead boring with not much to do. I have a years worth of filing to do as most of us do as in our office it is menat to be a paperless office which means we electronically archive all paperwork, check to make sure it is in the system then shred everything. Now for the past 6 months our archiver has not worked so the entire office has boxes and boxes of archiving to do. This means when we go back online no-one will have time to archive the back log and we normally employ someone's kid looking for extra pocket money to come in and archive...an extremely boring job but not bad since they can whack their headphones on and listen to music while they are doing it.
Wednesday was the judging of our Annual Christmas Decorations competitions. The quality this year was even better than last year. The winners will be anounced at the Christmas Brunch on Friday.
Thursday was quiet and very stormy and we were sent home early.
Friday was Christmas brunch/Secret Santa gift swapping and judging of the Christmas decorations. We didn't win anything this year which we were disappointed in as the person who won stole our idea and only did theirs 2 days before judging whereas we had ours done the first week of December! And ours was way better and more personal! My Secret Santa gift was a ceramic green frog and some choclates.
Our area has decided to boycott secret santa next year and just donate to a good cause instead. What we saw this year did not invoke any Christmas spirit at all. Everyone draws names from a hat and several people were taking names out looking at it and putting it back saying "Nah don't like that one" and pulling out a different name until they found someone they liked. Very rude I thought. Plus some of us buy more expensive gifts (it's hard to buy something decent for $10) only to get something they don't really need in return and not quite as expensive as the gift you gave. I know it's the gift that counts and all but sometimes you would like the gift to be a little more thoughtful than a bottle of hand cream or some little soap balls that were probably gifted by someone's Aunt Sally last Christmas! We just thought that the $10 could be put towards making someone who has nothing a little more cheerful so its not wasted.
The weekend was quiet for us. I had to start my Christmas shopping so ran around like a mad thing trying to buy all the things on my list. We looked at our bank account last night and realised "oops" we have depleted most of our funds and I don't get paid again until the week after Christmas and MM informs me last night that its our turn to host the Christmas lunch. So no idea at this point how we will afford the food! Mum has offered to buy the chicken so that's one thing and MM's mum always makes the trifle and the plum pudding so that is all good. We will just buy the ham, salad and nibblies and everyone brings their own drinks so we should be okay I guess. Will let you know how that goes *grin*.
Generally I do love Christmas but I think with the mad rush I get stressed a little by it all. But come Christmas day I will sit with the family, mum and I will share a bottle of Asti Ricadona between us and giggle like little girls (so my MM says!) and put the past pressures behind us.
And with this blog I will sign off for this week and wish everyone a joyous and wonderful Christmas! Love you all! Stay safe, try not to overindulge (hell no...you know what...indulge to your heart's desire! I know I will!!). And if you are going away please drive safely.
I have been truly blessed once again to have wonderful friends and family like you all!!
See I started Christmas planning in September. Organised my Christmas cards, made lists of who I was buying for and even started making my Christmas cards to give to people. Then *nothing*...nada...zip...nil. I don't even know what happened. I had oodles of time and now one week before the BIG DAY and I am unprepared.
It's been wet here most of this week. In fact on Thursday, because of the storms we were having, our relieving Boss closed the office and kindly let us all go home 2 hours early to make it easier for us to get home before the storms struck. As it turned out for me, the only train traveller in the office, my trains ended up being cancelled and I ended up getting home an hour AFTER I normally would so my 2 hour head start was wasted! Was not happy Jan! Plus the storms hit as I was driving home from the station. Friday was not much better as it bucketed down just as I got off the train and headed for my car. I was drenched right through before I even got to the car so I was cold and wet and quite snarky.
Anyway let me start at the beginning. Monday and Tuesday in the office was dead quiet. All our schools and kindergartens are now closed so no phone calls or emails which is nice for a change. But dead boring with not much to do. I have a years worth of filing to do as most of us do as in our office it is menat to be a paperless office which means we electronically archive all paperwork, check to make sure it is in the system then shred everything. Now for the past 6 months our archiver has not worked so the entire office has boxes and boxes of archiving to do. This means when we go back online no-one will have time to archive the back log and we normally employ someone's kid looking for extra pocket money to come in and archive...an extremely boring job but not bad since they can whack their headphones on and listen to music while they are doing it.
Wednesday was the judging of our Annual Christmas Decorations competitions. The quality this year was even better than last year. The winners will be anounced at the Christmas Brunch on Friday.
Thursday was quiet and very stormy and we were sent home early.
Friday was Christmas brunch/Secret Santa gift swapping and judging of the Christmas decorations. We didn't win anything this year which we were disappointed in as the person who won stole our idea and only did theirs 2 days before judging whereas we had ours done the first week of December! And ours was way better and more personal! My Secret Santa gift was a ceramic green frog and some choclates.
Our area has decided to boycott secret santa next year and just donate to a good cause instead. What we saw this year did not invoke any Christmas spirit at all. Everyone draws names from a hat and several people were taking names out looking at it and putting it back saying "Nah don't like that one" and pulling out a different name until they found someone they liked. Very rude I thought. Plus some of us buy more expensive gifts (it's hard to buy something decent for $10) only to get something they don't really need in return and not quite as expensive as the gift you gave. I know it's the gift that counts and all but sometimes you would like the gift to be a little more thoughtful than a bottle of hand cream or some little soap balls that were probably gifted by someone's Aunt Sally last Christmas! We just thought that the $10 could be put towards making someone who has nothing a little more cheerful so its not wasted.
The weekend was quiet for us. I had to start my Christmas shopping so ran around like a mad thing trying to buy all the things on my list. We looked at our bank account last night and realised "oops" we have depleted most of our funds and I don't get paid again until the week after Christmas and MM informs me last night that its our turn to host the Christmas lunch. So no idea at this point how we will afford the food! Mum has offered to buy the chicken so that's one thing and MM's mum always makes the trifle and the plum pudding so that is all good. We will just buy the ham, salad and nibblies and everyone brings their own drinks so we should be okay I guess. Will let you know how that goes *grin*.
Generally I do love Christmas but I think with the mad rush I get stressed a little by it all. But come Christmas day I will sit with the family, mum and I will share a bottle of Asti Ricadona between us and giggle like little girls (so my MM says!) and put the past pressures behind us.
And with this blog I will sign off for this week and wish everyone a joyous and wonderful Christmas! Love you all! Stay safe, try not to overindulge (hell no...you know what...indulge to your heart's desire! I know I will!!). And if you are going away please drive safely.
I have been truly blessed once again to have wonderful friends and family like you all!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....
Whew! What a hectic couple of weeks! You know I really need to jot down notes to write my blog as so much happens then comes time to write my blog and *poof* all gone...can't remember a thing! I just know that heaps happened and the last couple of weeks have passed in a blur.
Work is quiet now that the schools and our kindergartens are on break so we are playing catch ups really...doing all those crappy little jobs you don't have time for during the year. We had our team Christmas breakfast where our boss paid for us to have brerakfast at the Rue de Paris on Park Road at Milton. They do the most wonderful pancakes and ice cream with fresh berries....MMMMMM! That was a couple of weeks ago and one day before my boss flew out of Australia to spend 5 weeks in the UK. She will be back in January and the lucky thing emailed me pictures of being in London where it is snowing! Nice!
Last week I had my last appointment for this year with my specialist. I don't need to see him again now for another 12 months. I had blood tests done three weeks before that and everything seems ok-ish. My thyroid is only slightly under active now so he has bumped up my Throxine intake to 100mg a day instead of 50mg. So we will try that for the next 12 months and then re-evaluate at the next appointment. My cholestoral number is still really high although lower than 3 months ago. However even though the number is really high and in the red, the majority of it is good cholestoral and I have less than .05% chance of having a heart attack or stroke which is good to know! The cholestoral level is apparently caused by my PBC and he has said we won't even bother testing my heart or arteries or whatever as it appears all is good there. My liver is stable although still disfunctional but again due to the PBC which means my bile ducts are not working correctly which in turn is damaging my liver but no further deterioration thus far which is good. he is hoping the liver will repair itself which is highly possible so long as I eat the best I can. I drink very little alcohol now and usually limit myself to only 2 alcoholic drinks every Christmas and birthday. Alcohol is not banned but imbibing too much is not a sensible option so I try to be careful and to be honest alcohol doesn't do much for me anyway especially since my MM doesn't touch alcohol and I'm not really a lone drinker! I did have a beer a few weeks ago and I enjoyed that but only because it was there and I won't be going out to buy any especially.
It's the middle of a thunderstorm here at work right now and boy is the thunder loud! It's been hotter than hell here all day and shows no sign of cooling down. Damn office airconditioning! The sky outside is so black! It's 2:30pm and it looks like 7:00pm!
My Christmas shopping, which started off so well, has gotten nowhere as usual. Time just marched on by and I think I must have slept through that particular parade! Now we have Secret Santa at work for tomorrow plus a BBQ with Mum's brothers and sisters and then Christmas Day and I have nothing I tell you! I did however manage to get my Christmas cards out on time as well as sending a long overdue Birthday present which was actually due back in September! Sorry Froggy!!!
Other than that I have decorated my house a little, tried spring cleaning but failed due to too much going on.
More later...I think I will log off for a bit until this storm passes. Our IT guys are standing around looking a little nervous so I will be back later!
Work is quiet now that the schools and our kindergartens are on break so we are playing catch ups really...doing all those crappy little jobs you don't have time for during the year. We had our team Christmas breakfast where our boss paid for us to have brerakfast at the Rue de Paris on Park Road at Milton. They do the most wonderful pancakes and ice cream with fresh berries....MMMMMM! That was a couple of weeks ago and one day before my boss flew out of Australia to spend 5 weeks in the UK. She will be back in January and the lucky thing emailed me pictures of being in London where it is snowing! Nice!
Last week I had my last appointment for this year with my specialist. I don't need to see him again now for another 12 months. I had blood tests done three weeks before that and everything seems ok-ish. My thyroid is only slightly under active now so he has bumped up my Throxine intake to 100mg a day instead of 50mg. So we will try that for the next 12 months and then re-evaluate at the next appointment. My cholestoral number is still really high although lower than 3 months ago. However even though the number is really high and in the red, the majority of it is good cholestoral and I have less than .05% chance of having a heart attack or stroke which is good to know! The cholestoral level is apparently caused by my PBC and he has said we won't even bother testing my heart or arteries or whatever as it appears all is good there. My liver is stable although still disfunctional but again due to the PBC which means my bile ducts are not working correctly which in turn is damaging my liver but no further deterioration thus far which is good. he is hoping the liver will repair itself which is highly possible so long as I eat the best I can. I drink very little alcohol now and usually limit myself to only 2 alcoholic drinks every Christmas and birthday. Alcohol is not banned but imbibing too much is not a sensible option so I try to be careful and to be honest alcohol doesn't do much for me anyway especially since my MM doesn't touch alcohol and I'm not really a lone drinker! I did have a beer a few weeks ago and I enjoyed that but only because it was there and I won't be going out to buy any especially.
It's the middle of a thunderstorm here at work right now and boy is the thunder loud! It's been hotter than hell here all day and shows no sign of cooling down. Damn office airconditioning! The sky outside is so black! It's 2:30pm and it looks like 7:00pm!
My Christmas shopping, which started off so well, has gotten nowhere as usual. Time just marched on by and I think I must have slept through that particular parade! Now we have Secret Santa at work for tomorrow plus a BBQ with Mum's brothers and sisters and then Christmas Day and I have nothing I tell you! I did however manage to get my Christmas cards out on time as well as sending a long overdue Birthday present which was actually due back in September! Sorry Froggy!!!
Other than that I have decorated my house a little, tried spring cleaning but failed due to too much going on.
More later...I think I will log off for a bit until this storm passes. Our IT guys are standing around looking a little nervous so I will be back later!
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