Ok girlfriends I'm back so quit nagging huh??? *grin*

I do love all my friends who have texted and emailed and poked me on Facebook begging me to blog again! I never really left...it's just that life was simple one day then suddenly *bammo* everything and everyone ran amuck and I just lost all my spare time.

So what have I been up to since Christmas?? Well the last week or so at work was deadly quiet which it always is since all our schools were closed and we could just do "catch up" work and not have to field calls from cranky parents and stressed kindy teachers and school principals! Christmas at work was amazing although the second last week was hard as one of my lovely work friends lost her mum to cancer so I attended her funeral with my boss. It was sooooo hard as they used the same funeral directors as we did for dad and so we had the same people there officiating. She had come to dad's funeral and really liked their service so decided on them. She was apologetic afterwards knowing it would be hard for me but like I told her it is about her loss and not mine and I really was fine about it. She also had the song Amazing Grace played which was also played at dad's funeral. It seems to be a favourite of people of that age so we both let go and howled all the way through! It was cathartic for both of us as we had been a huge support to each other during our respective parent's illnesses and it helps when someone else is going through the same things.

Anyway someone following my blog asked who won our Christmas decoration thingy at work? I got highly commended for my pretty purple display and our department won overall so we beat the IT guys! YEAH!! We had a great time with it and it's the first year we really did the big christmas thing. We also had a Christmas party where one of the guys dresses as Santa and one of the pretty young lasses dresses as Santa's helper and they give out our Secret Santa gifts. Then we got 10 days off over Christmas and had time to enjoy!

I decided to have a Christmas Eve party at my house for family this year which was nice. Mum wasn't much in the mood for Christmas this year being the first without dad but she got through it and did him proud I think. He'd have been happy to see her do the christmas thing for the kids' sake. Christmas Day Mark and I spent at home alone which was so nice for a change but we went to his sister's place for his family's Christmas do. It was lovely and cool and was a nice day.

We didn't do gifts this year. It was decided as a family to donate the money we would have spent on gifts we didn't really want or need to a charity so we did that and it was really nice. Now the kids are all grown no-one really needs anything in the way of gifts. Mark and I took Mum and the family shopping and we did lunch at Sizzler one day over christmas as a family thing since we didn't spend Christmas Day together and that was really nice. Miss 21 and her Air Force guy came too so that was great. Lots of chatter and laughter...we toasted dad and life goes on. We still miss you dad and we always will but we will help mum to get through all this.

Mum now has the house on the market and we have been with her to look at a couple of houses. She retired before Christmas and is a little worried about spendng all her long service leave and superanuuation. But she is doing ok...She is finally on a pernsion which has helped heaps. We are all helping her out and hopefully she will sell before too long and it will be better for her.

So that was December/January.

February was a busy month at work for me with all the schools/kindys back from break. So much to do at the beginning of the year! Also because I organise the Early Childhood Retreat in March my time is pretty much all taken up with that. MM turned 50 in February and I organised a 50th party for him which went really well. He HATES being the centre of attention but he allowed me to shine and get his party organised :) I had a cake made that had a photo of him when he was little done in rice paper on the top of the cake. That was so cool and such a cute photo. He was born in the 60's and it seems all little boys had their mothers pull their shorts up under their armpits lol. He had the cutest, cheekiest little grin and his mother and sister told the party gatherers about the mischief he got up to. I had also invited his old next door neighbour who has lived next to his parents for over 50 years and she too told stories of all the trouble he got into! He tried to blame his brothers but since he was the oldest of the boys I don't think anyone beleived him lol. Was a great night overall.

The rest of February and March has passed in a blur so I know I have missed stuff but I will blog it as I remember it I guess. Oh yeah I did have a trip to the dentist where I spent 45 minutes getting a tooth pulled. He had such a hard time and I had that many needles to numb it all that I felt absolutely nothing even when he had to slice the gum open to get it out...he ended up cutting the tooth into 4 fragments to get them out. I thought I would be in agony afterwards but I only used the pain killers for the first day and after that no pain at all. The gum healed up fine and all is now good. I have one more tooth to go so he told me to come back in 6 months when this gum is healed completely.

The weekend just gone I finally had my Retreat come to fruition. All the hard work paid off and a great time was had by all. We booked Tranquil Park at Maleny which really is a pretty spot. The view from the conference room and restaurant were spectacular. The accommodation was not exactly 5 star but comfortable I thought and the food! Wow so much food! They kept us fed the whole time and there was just too much food I think...very beautiful and plain food...just perfect and lots of deserts!

The weekend was about reflection and relaxation as we taught the early childhood staff how to take care of themselves. Teaching is a rather stressful profession these days and it was nice for them to slow down and take time out to network with each other, visit the local sights and just relax. We had invited the local pastor who did a session about spirituality...it was not as religious as I thought it would be but was amazing at the effect it had on people...we did a sort of quiet meditation and we were given really nice journals to write our thoughts on to. Many people had a sort of spiritual epiphany so there was lots of tears and hugging. It really was amazing.

We had a masquerade ball as well so when I get to work I'll post up a pic of me and a friend in masks! Was a great night! But now I am exhausted and the boss gave me Monday off so back to work tomorrow *sigh*.

I was telling fellow blogger Froggy today about a mutual friend from our old days who I ran into at Super Amart last Thursday night. Miss 21 and her guy wanted us to go with them to give advice on furniture they wanted for their new place and he served us! Was awesome to talk about old days and he hadn't changed much at all just the hair was much greyer! After keeping him for about an hour Miss 21 and Mr Air Force made their choices...they bought a dining room table, a queen sized bed (we managed to talk Galen into throwing in the pillows which he did!) and they also bought a TV entertainment unit. They did a good deal out of the whole thing. MM can talk anyone into giving away all sorts of stuff...he has NEVER paid full price for anything...I tend to slink away quietly as it embarasses me a little!

Speaking of Miss 21 and Mr Air Force, tonight is their last night together for 3 months as he is being deployed to Iraq. It will be his first stint and I think he is a little scared and I know Miss 21 is but here's hoping he stays safe and will be back home in no time.

My week thus far....

The weekend gone was quite an eventful one and I must say the most enjoyable one I have had for quite some time! My Miss 21 and her Airforce man have finally moved in together and so they invited MM and I to come visit their new humble abode and have afternoon tea on Saturday. We'd love to say we and with Mr 20 assuring us he knew the way we set off on our journey to Silkstone, an outer suburb of Ipswich about an hours drive from our house. I had been to Ipswich many times as it is dad's hometown and his sister still lives there and over the years we had many visits although these stopped a few years ago as said sister became very ill and wasn't much up for visits. So I figured we should be able to get there easily without getting lost. Well...we didn't figure on all the new underpasses/overpasses and new highway to Ipswich. So we say to Mr 20 "okay which way". He ums and ahs a few times then says "Try that way" only seconds from the exit. "Are you sure?" yells MM as he veers off onto the exit. "Yeah pretty sure" says Mr 20. By now we are on the Centenary Highway and the sign that we pass a bit further on says we are heading to Logan/ Gold Coast and then Sydney. MM is now getting a little uptight and thinking this is not the right way. We head past Forest Lake and Springfield and lots of signs that say we are heading to Warwick but none that say Ipswich. Turns out Mr 20 has only been to his sister's once and she was driving and it was at night so he really had no clue where he was going only that some things "looked familiar". By now MM is yelling at Mr 20 saying "looking familiar" is not going to help us find Silkstone. I ask Mr 20 to pull out the UBD and I start looking. Hmmm we are actually miles from we are supposed to be and should not have taken the exit we took. If we'd stayed on the same path we'd be there by now. It seemed we were going to Ipswich via Cairns! Eventually we get as far as Amberley RAAF base before turning around and heading back the way we came. By now we are an hour late, MM has steam coming from out of his ears and Mr 20 is sulking in the back seat! As for me, I'm just happy to be out of the house and going for a drive! I'm like the puppy that loves getting in the car and sticking his head out of the window and tongue flapping in the breeze! Anyway, after following the UBD which incidentally is from 2004 and has none of the new roads/highways/housing estates in it, we arrive about an hour and a half late! But we got the grand tour of the house and we had a lovely afternoon with daughter and future son in law. The owner of the house is a young lady who is renovating so there is a lot of work to be done but she has all kinds of kitchen gadgets which were pretty awesome! Miss 21 is really proud of herself and she and I spent an afternoon swapping recipes and she asking me for laundry tips and what products are best etc so it was a really nice mother/daughter thing with MM and MM Jnr talking man stuff and Mr 20 sitting watching a DVD on their nice big TV! MM Jr is really good for Miss 21. She really was a wild child out of control at one stage and was living a nomadic existence drifting from one friends house to another with nowhere to call home. He is really pulling her in to line. They argue a bit as she wants to spend money and he keeps telling her to get a job then they can afford to spend money. MM and I silently cheer as we have been at her for years to get a job! But they really are in love and he takes good care of her and she has finally become domesticated! Yay!!

Sunday we had a Christmas breakfast at a park near the beach at Scarborough (Redcliffe) with Mum's family...her brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. We had a lovely time! We basically only see each other once a year at Christmas and at weddings or funerals. Mum's siblings are a riot and its so odd to see all my cousins who were only babies when I was in my 20's are now all grown up some with kids and families of their own now! One of the aunts is putting all the previous Christmas parites we have had and we filmed on video onto to DVD and we will all get copies. We all laughed at the way some of us looked in the 80's *ugh* and all the cousins how cute they were as little ones. It's so funny. There's ones with Dad in them as well as some with my cousin who died of leaukemia at the age of 21 so it is so nice to look back over the years.

All in all the weekend was wonderful and it really put us in the mood for Christmas again.

My Christmas Thanks

I have come to the conclusion that I am indeed very blessed...I have had the support of some very wonderful friends some of whom actually read my blog and from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for your love, support and kindness to me over this year which has been quite a horrendous one for me. I know I can count on you all to accept me as I am through my ups and downs, my faults and some of my positives. I can never repay any of you for what you have done for me. Just know that I love you all and I am here for you as well! Thank you friends and have a most wonderful Christmas!

Is it over Yet???

Christmas Madness is in full swing here. Don't get me wrong...I absolutely love Christmas as a rule but this year I just can't seem to get into the spirit of it all. Work has gone quiet again as all our kindergartens are now closing so until they all re-open in 8 weeks time we will have a chance to catch up on all the mundane things that get left behind in the craziness of dealing with teachers, staff and cranky parents. Our office also closes for a week and a half over the Christmas break so that will also be a nice time to recharge the old batteries!

I guess it's also the change in the dynamics this year for Christmas with Dad gone. Mum has become quite morose and is threatening to cancel Christmas. I can understand her sadness at this time but it is a little upsetting to the kids and Dad would hate for the kids sake to not celebrate so I have talked her into coming to our house for Christmas Eve so we can all celebrate at my house then Christmas Day she can stay home and think about Dad. She has agreed with that and has promised to pull herself together for the kids' sake. She had my sister over today and they were helping my niece and nephew decorate so that's a big start!

Mum also finally retired 2 weeks ago so she is now a lady of leisure although she is now stressing about getting the house in a fit state to sell. She will be fine once she sells and moves into a smaller, more affordable home. She will also be debt free as well then and can just enjoy life for a change.

My Miss 16 niece finally bought herself a car on the weekend! My MM, myself, Miss 16 and my brother found a private sale on the net and went to see it. My MM knows all there is to know about cars having re-built them in his youth and working in his parents service station for many years and also racing them for a few years so he tagged along to make sure Miss 16 was getting something good. Well this car really is just the thing for her. It's a 97 model Ford Fiesta 5 door a greeny blue colour with blue racing stripes. The tyres are all brand new and the interior is spotless. The paint work even isn't too bad. The usual scratches on the sides from trolleys and stone chips etc but its in better nick than my car! She fell in love with it on sight and MM went over it with a fine tooth comb with Miss 16 praying he wouldn't say there was something wrong with it! MM took it for a spin and it runs like a dream so for $4500 it was a bargain vehicle. RACQ have also looked it over and its passed road worthy with flying colours so Miss 16 is now the proud owner of her first car! She has had 3 lessons in it already and my brother took her out and already she drives like a pro he reckons. Can you beleive he got her to reverse park just to tease her and she did it twice! Perfectly! That's nuts! Miss 16 has always been an extremely calm person though so I think she will master driving like a pro! Maybe I will be safe on the roads after all!

Some Chrissie Pictures from my Office

Ok...after a bit of nagging here they are =P





My workstation is the bottom one. The others belong to work colleagues.

Actually as one colleague just commented this is the best fun Christmas we have had in all the years she has worked here. Everyone is participating whereas in previous years only one or two people have done decorations. This year it has become bigger than Ben Hur! Me and another girl have tried to sabotage IT's christmas train. We ended up derailing it which has now resulted in a small war being declared. Bring it on Boys!!!

DANGER! DANGER! New Teenage Learner Driver !!!

My niece, Miss 16 finally got her Learners yesterday and is soooo excited! She couldn't wait to tell everyone then got in a huff because nearly everyone, even the guy next door, said they were all handing in their licences and catching public transport lol. What's even scarier is she has asked ME to teach her. *Gulp* She has a fair bit saved for a car so MM and I will take her car shopping, then once she has that she will start with a driving school first and we can take her out for drives as well so she can complete her obligatory log book hours. I have told her she will have to buy an ex-driving school car so I can have controls on my side as well *Grin* Mum has also given her dad's car to trade in. Dad's was a Toyota Camry still in very good nick for its age (about 17 years) so even if she only gets a few hundred dollars for trade-in it will be good. And so begins the next stage of my little girl's life *sigh* She has been spending a lot of time with the next door neighbours as the guy next door is an artist and he held an exhibition at their house last weekend. He does awesome work and since he discovered Miss 16 is also wanting to get into art he has been sort of mentoring her. He has also been encouraging her with her art work and has seen some of her pieces and agrees with what we have been saying that she needs to get a portfolio going. She has now also decided to go back to her natural hair colour which is great!

My Miss 21 has now moved in with her boyfriend at the house in Ipswich. They are housesitting the boyfriend's boss's house while he is deployed overseas for 3 months. When he gets back the boyfriend will then be deployed overseas. Miss 21 rang me the night after their very first night together and said that so far they still like each other and not one fight yet! Miss 21 is incredibly messy whereas the boyfriend who is in the Air Force is a neat freak. We have been invited to dinner there in a couple of weeks when they get settled so I can't wait!

Yesterday I took the day off work to help MM get the house in order. Still waiting for Insurance Assessors to come out and assess the damage from the storm on Sunday. MM spoke to the Telstra guy on Monday when we finally got our phones operational. Apparently the whole street's phone lines went out. There were 3 Telstra guys in our front yard trying to find the Telstra pit and when they found it all the cables and wires were fused together! Was a real mess apparently. Further inspection of the trees near the house showed the lightning passed through 2 trees. The bigger tree had scorch marks all the way down the trunk till it reached the smaller tree splitting it in two and leaving a huge gouge mark in the ground. MM was told if he had been on the phone at the time he'd be dead now. Both our phones have to be replaced as they are dead as well. All in all a pretty lucky escape I'd say.

Well the office Christmas decoration war has started. This place looks like it has been literally moved from the North Pole and Santa has moved his workshop right here! We have snow and lots of sparkly stuff every where! The IT guys have excelled themselves. They have set up a beach umbrella and towells and have a stubby full of real beer and everything! Plus they have a huge video screen playing old Christmas movies and christmas carols playing all day long. The poor guy in the office beside IT has heard all 85 christmas carols about 20 times already! There's lights flashing and carols playing and every work area has tried to outdo themselves with the best treats. There's candy canes and choclates and jelly beans and all other manner of bribery for everyone in the office. This is going to be really fun I think! I did think my work area was really nice but now it looks miniscule compared to others! The battle is on! Will try and get photos and put them up. Our Accountant has stuck Grinch pictures all over his office which is hilarious! He is not a Christmas kind of person...

Anyway enjoy the rest of your day!

"Oh jingle bells...batman smells...."

Yes it's December 1 and only 24 more sleeps till Christmas! My tree will go up tonight when I get home from work because I REFUSE to put up any decorations before 1 December. At work we have a competition for the best decorated work stations and I have just finished putting up my tinsel and my pretty battery operated flashing lights and have had everyone trounce past at least once saying "Oooooh...pretty!". So now the race is on to see who can outdo the others. I'm going to to wait a bit longer to see how elaborate everyone else's becomes before I add any more to my little festive display. One lady has festooned her desk with santa type ballons and has had every one going past with imaginary pins threatening to pop the balloons only for her to produce at least 2 more big bags of balloons and the threat "Bring it on Sister!" Ah it's so lovely to work for a Christian organisation hehe. We do love our christmas here and the smarter ones of us have actually added some Christianity to our display with Nativity scenes etc as a visiting Pastor will be judging. None of us has any idea what the prize will actually be mind you!

Traditionally we also do a Secret Santa which myself and our payroll lady have organised this year. Once we draw out our Secret Recipient we are supposed to do secret little niceities to them. So far my SS has spoilt me rotten :) Every morning I find choclates, poetry, and a beautiful angel bookmark (seems my SS knows me well!) and this morning I received an advent calendar which is now staring at me daring me to demolish all 25 choclates! Ah I love Christmas *grin*

On the home front I have gotten lazy with Christmas now that the kids are all grown and have left home and are doing their own thing. On Sunday I bought a fibre optic tree which has 150 multi coloured lights so all I have to do is unfold it, plug it in and *voila* Christmas tree is up and decorated!

Sunday morning MM and I actually went shopping together to get another TV as he loves the big TV we got for upstairs but now he wanted a smaller version for downstairs in the office. The old one in there has died and he misses the TV there. We tried the Good Guys first and got a quote from them then off to Hardly Normal to see what their best price was and since we had already bought about 5 TV's there last month (ours plus his dad's and their neighbour and our son who all saw our TV and wanted one too!) we knew the guy there would give us a good price which he did.

Happily for MM the Surf Life Savers also had a sausage sizzle going so he was in heaven! He hasn't shopped in about 12 months as he hates it. In fact he has rarely left the house in 12 months and couldn't believe how much has changed in 12 months! So many new roads and shopping centres etc. He was like "that wasn't here before" and "they changed that". I was like "But sweetheart it's been there at least 12 months! You need to get out more!" We also bought some Blu-Ray DVDs to see if they were better quality than normal DVD's and the verdict is not really. We bought a bunch of choclate bars (tried to find Pollywaffles since they are going to be off the market soon and we love them but they were all sold out!). Silly us though left them on the coffee table overnight and all the cholates were like water next day from the heat!

On Sunday, while I was shopping for my tree and my award winning work desk decorations, a massive storm hit. As I was loading the tree into the car I got a frantic phone call from MM saying we just took a direct hit to the house by lighting! He walked into Mr 20's bedroom and it was a war zone. Because his bedroom holds the phone cable housing, the lightning some how blew it apart and shattered his room with bits of pvp plastic. There are scorch marks on the ceiling and on the wall and it actually shattered his TV. Thankfully he was out at the time as it could have been quite nasty had he been there watching TV on his bed as he usually does. So we have had no phones or internet since Sunday and the power we only got back Monday morning. MM reckons it sounded like an explosion and even he damn near shat himself. He raced outside thinking a car exploded or something only to find the tree beside the house split in 2 with a metre long gouge mark in the ground near the tree. He said all the neighbours came running to see what happened and that was when they smelt the smoke. MM was like "Oh crap" and raced back inside to find the mess in Mr 20's room. So yeah by the time I got home it was all done and dusted and we spent the rest of the afternoon ringing family and friends and customers via mobile to say our phones were out and that business was temporarily suspended as we had no power or internet.

As of 30 minutes ago when I rang MM at home, the Telstra guy was there fixing the lines and MM was arguing on the phone with the ISP as they were refusing to fix the internet saying it wasn't their problem and MM has to go through Telstra. The Telstra guy was saying no the ISP has to fix it so I'll let you know who came off worse for wear!