Today I surprised my father. After church, we dropped in and took my parents out for lunch. His favourite: Club Kawana. It was great!
All photos taken by Miss 7 on my iPad… which she’d never used before. How proud does she look!!!
Happy Father’s Day, dear readers!
Yesterday afternoon, two online friends @fionawb and @jobeaz were discussing having ‘positivity in your PLN’, and they came up with the idea of sharing a daily “What made your day”, tweeting about it with the hashtag #Springinyourstep. And not to shy away from a blogging challenge, I asked to join in. So here ’tis! Day 1 of September, and what made my day today?
This morning, I snuggled with my three cherubs on my new lounge.
Hubby and I have been married since November 1995, and this Wednesday just gone, we finally got our first lounge. LOL! New furniture (and snuggling three gorgeous little people) certainly puts a #Springinyourstep!!!
It was a beautiful day. Hubby had to study (CPA, third unit, poor love) so aforementioned kids and I spent the day outside. And for part of that time, I got to use my hammock YAY!!! Definitely a #Springinyourstep experience!
And finally, I cooked myself some mushrooms… a rare luxury for me. Omnomnomnomnomnom!
Overall, it was a wonderful first day of Spring. And I’m also very happy to be joining in this #Springinyourstep daily blogging challenge. I’ve been envying my friend Catherine Buntrock’s Facebook updates with her daily dose of gratitude, and my pathetic drawing ability unfortunately meant that I’m unable to join in with #drawmeSeptember starting today with another friend @bbeingcool, so this is a perfect fit, methinks. Join in, dear readers, if you’d like! And see you tomorrow!
It’s Saturday morning again. This time last week, Hubby and I were with our kids at Pioneer Park. Today it’s just me – Hubby’s catching up on his CPA studies – and I promised my kids a while ago that we’d go to Skidaddle, a kids indoor playground at Caloundra. So here we are, and I feel as though I’m actually getting to ‘sit down’ for the first time this week. It’s been a week of rush rush rush, non-stop intensity, and go-go-go every day. I think I slept the least I’ve slept in *quite* some time, and that didn’t particularly add to my patience levels. But on the up-side, the illness that basically incapacitated me Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning started responding to the antibiotics, and my tweeps ensured that I bought some yoghurt to help with the side effects, so by the ‘I need to start on Miss 7’s Octonaut costume’ of Tuesday evening, I could sew ‘boots’ and create a hat and collar without stopping every two seconds to blow my nose!
Now that hat was difficult. There is NO way I ever want to be a milliner (that’s a hat-maker, right?) because that was one of the most tricky things I’ve ever made! (Now to just convince both Miss 4 and Mr 3, that they will also each need to be an Octonaut in a future Book Week Parade…!)
So the costume was done by Wednesday, and then it was Book Fair, ad creation, story writing, Book Parade, and then Miss 7 winning a ‘Student of the Week’ award meant that I also spent every single day driving in between home and Caboolture, at least once a day. Thursday night I didn’t sleep, trying to make story and ad deadlines, with the final artwork submitted at 4.58pm Friday. Phew!
So now it’s Saturday again. Time to breathe. Maybe even relax. And to blog. Because I’ve missed it! And I’m going to endeavour to take things a little easier this week -if I can!
The Octonaut hat… Miss 7’s absolute favourite storybook character is Dashi Dog. Yay me.
There’s a small, hard bump under the skin on my eye-ridge, right near the bridge of my nose. There’s another, identical, lump, on the other eye-ridge. These are the points from which the pain radiates. Out across my forehead, and over my scalp, to meet in a large ball of pain at the base of my neck. Down across my cheekbones to throb incessantly.
And when I say ‘pain’, it’s manageable at the moment, now I’ve just woken up from yet another interrupted night’s sleep – but add three children and a Hubby into the mix in an hour or so, and I have a feeling that I’m not going to be the happiest of chappies. And Mr 3 will also be cranky, I expect – he joined me in our nighttime wakefulness. He louder than me (by about a billion decibels) so here’s hoping – but not expecting – that Hubby won’t be too cranky about that one!
I feel for Mr 3 though. If I feel this rotten, and if he has what I have, no wonder he’s so upset with life. I certainly haven’t relished the constant swings from freezing skin to sweating-through-my-clothes, nor the dizziness that comes with sudden movement, nor the sensitivity to noise. I don’t really like the tender ribs and diaphragm from the constant coughing, nor the rapidity at which I’m going through both tissue boxes and, so it seems, the skin under my nose, which in itself is now a rather unattractive deep pink hue.
So all in all, I think I’m going to call it. I’m infectious. LOL. As in, I’m going to self-diagnose a sinus infection, and probably a lung one as well. And yeh, I’ll probably give in and drag myself (with Miss 4 and Mr 3 of course) to the doctor for some antibiotics. Because (with the exception of that strange nausea day a couple of weeks ago) I haven’t been this sick in years. And I haven’t had antibiotics since Miss 7 was still in nappies. So hopefully they’re going to do the trick! At least, I’l be praying that they do, because I don’t know how much more of this I can take!
It’s a bit unfortunate, but sometimes the urgent takes priority over what it is I *want* to do. This week, I had hoped to blog a minimum of three times. And now it’s Saturday, just gone midday, and I have the feeling that I only blogged once. Whoops! And the worst bit of it is… I can’t actually remember where the week went to! But I’m not too overly stressed at the moment, and the mountainous workload that normally takes up residence in my brain-space seems to not be yelling at me insistently, so I’m going to take 15 minutes out and catch up with this blog.
And what a great place to do it! I’m sitting in dappled sunlight with my kids hard at play at the sand tables in their favourite playground. And, strangest of all, Hubby’s with us, instead of being at work or studying (he’s halfway through his CPA) so this is turning into a big highlight of the week to date.
So yes, although I’m fully cognizant of the fact that when we get home there’s a kitchen full of dirty breakfast dishes, at least three loads of washing, and probably a dozen kids fights to arbitrate between now and dinner, I’m going to enjoy the moment. I’m here, I’m warm, I’m happy. And I wish the same for each of you, dear readers! Have a great day today!
(LOL ‘Extended family visits ‘ as in ‘cousins’, ‘uncles’, ‘aunts’ etc, not ‘close family members staying for extended periods of time’!)
So I mentioned on Wednesday that my cousin is coming to stay with me. He arrives later today, and I’m really looking forward to it, seeing as I last laid eyes on him around 32 years ago, when I was 5 and he 7 or 8. He lives in Kent, and is travelling to Oz not to escape the Olympics but because his fiancé has just discovered her father (she’s been looking for him her entire life) and he lives in the Whitsundays. So my cousin, his fiancé, and her two daughters, will be here in just a few hours, and will stay for almost a week with us before heading north for a few more weeks.
Just SOOOO excited!!! (Better go and clean the kitchen, hey!)
When I was growing up, I was a ‘cat’ person. I never really thought about being a ‘dog’ person. To me, they were smelly, loud, rough creatures that I knew of but had little do to with. My family had a cat. We had ducks. We had mice. We had guinea pigs, and fish. But no dogs.
So the first time I bought a puppy, I was 23 years old. Hubby and I had been married for a couple of years, and we owned a gorgeous grey “Ragdoll” cat named Rascal, but we were just browsing in a big pet barn one day (I have no idea why we were there; we just were…) and we both saw him at the same time. And it was love at first sight.
He was a male German Shepherd puppy, 7 weeks old, all floppy ears and huge floppy paws. We named him “Smudge” and he was a great dog. Huge (eventually), dominant, but completely loyal. And he loved us, and he loved chasing Rascal. But mostly he loved Patch, the blue healer we bought about a year later. The two became inseparable, and so it was hard when we had to put Smudge down. But that same afternoon, a very emotional Hubby bought our second Shepherd, Storm. She was from a breeder, and had a ‘glamour’ coat, which is halfway between a long haired and a short haired coat. Again, she was a gorgeous dog. Very sweet nature. She coped tremendously with a grieving Patch, and when he eventually needed to be put down (cancer), was more than happy to accept a black labrador pup, who we named Max.
Just a few years ago, Storm passed on. She’d eaten something she shouldn’t and her death was sudden and very traumatic for Hubby, who had lost his sister just a few months prior. Max soldiered on, half blind, mostly deaf, and partially lame, and bravely dealt with the puppy attacks of Aksel, Hubby’s next German Shepherd pup (short haired, this time). Then late last year, when we knew that Max was getting the worse for wear – Aksel was just too boisterous for him – we bought Rocky. He was a 7 month old Blue Heeler, whose owner, being physically disabled and about to move into a home, was no longer able to keep him. Aksel and Rocky bonded pretty quickly, and although they both were confused by Max’s passing in early January this year, their close friendship meant that there wasn’t the ‘grieving’ that our other dogs seems to go through.
Phew! That was a longer story than I had expected it would be!
Anyway, I started this entry with cats, so that’s how I’ll finish it. You see, I miss having a cat. But I don’t know how one would fit into our lives right now…
Today is the last day of June. Today I’m finishing this #blogjune challenge, where I’ve tried diligently to blog every day. This was my second attempt at #blogjune, and I’m proud to say that I was a lot more consistent this year!
So, according to my calendar, I am one year older. I wonder however, whether or not it’s possible to measure if I am one year wiser?!
I certainly had a lot of new experiences this year. Since my last #blogjune, I have (in chronological-ish order):
– Studied an elective outside the LIS sphere. I didn’t like it.
– Added six new clients to my new “Bloxham Marketing” business.
– Started, and finished, gymnastics lessons for Miss 7.
– Started, and have continued with, swimming lessons for Miss 7.
– Used the #blog12daysxmas challenge to start blogging regularly again.
– Read so many Jane Austen novels that I initiated the #blog5daysAustenese challenge… and had four brave fellow bloggers join me in the journey!
– Presented a 3 hour digital marketing presentation live on LEQ TV.
– Plucked up enough courage to see if Mr 3 was autistic.
– Had my daughter’s eyes tested, and sure enough Miss 7 now wears glasses for reading.
– Supported a good friend who was doctoring in New Guinea. We’d meet each other daily, online, and hold each other accountable in our Christian walks.
– Scored a HD in INN530 Online Information Services, courtesy of the truly wonderful @katiedatwork (still can’t believe that one. SOOOOOOOOOO majorly STOKED!!!!!!)
So… older? Yes. That bit’s inevitable. Wiser? I’m not so sure. I certainly hope so, though! And here ends the #blogjune challenge for another year. I wonder what will happen between this one and the 2013 version? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
Thanks for sharing this journey with me, dear readers. Your support is far more of an encouragement than you could ever know. You guys rock!!!
So I was a classroom teacher for quite a lot of my career to date. Don’t actually want to count the years, but it was getting up around the 2 decade mark… That’s a bit scary to admit! But anyway, the point I trying to make in my long-winded, English teacher-y way is that a lot of that time, I was interested in the classroom dynamics, and how they’d often shift and change depending on the circumstances and personal growth of the members of the group. It was really quite fascinating to see how a group of unruly, ‘push the boundaries’ year 9 boys would change, at times quickly, another times more slowly, depending on who entered the group, who left, how they interacted with each other, and how they worked for (or didn’t work for, in some cases) the different teachers at the front of the classroom. Yes, classroom dynamics… A fascinating study.
I was thinking about that just this morning, as the dynamics of my household has changed since yesterday morning. This morning, Miss 7 is home; her first day of holidays. (Today is ‘Parent-Teacher interview day at her school.) So Hubby has gone to work, the kids have been fed, and now, with no extremely urgent deadlines (not til midday) I find myself back under my doona, checking twitter and posting for #blogjune on my iPhone, because Miss7 is occupying Mr3 in a two player PS2 game for an hour. She’s stoked, he’s stoked, and I get to relax for a bit (I’ve actually been up working on a St James ad since 5, so I’m not *completely* lazy!) and this is only possible due to the dynamics shift. Cool. Very cool.
Anyway, Miss 4 has now found me and this has inspired her to beg for Hide and Seek, so it looks as though my blog entry for today is over.
Have a great day, dear readers!
It was a rough night last night. Mr 3 decided to enjoy screaming, lots of times, very loudly, and for really no apparent reason. We woke this morning to discover that our bread was too old to be edible; difficult when all three of your cherubs like toast for breakfast.
So Hubby elected to stay home and fix the fence, to try and keep our dogs from escaping, and I took our three to Currimundi McDonalds for HotCakes and strawberry thick shakes. And I managed to catch up on yesterday’s #blogjune entry while they explored the playground. Then it was time for a quick shop before Mr 3’s appointment at Deanie’s Kids Cuts.
They have a great place there – designed specifically to keep kids entertained while their hair gets cut. Essential when the child getting his hair cut is my Mr 3. He’s getting better, I must admit. And let’s face it – for any little kid, a stranger approaching their head with scissors, is probably a little on the nightmare-inducing side of things! Anyway, hair cut over, we came home. It was a beautiful day, with very little wind, so the kids and I spent time outside. Miss 7 built a sandpit tunnel for the very first time (quite an accomplishment when your younger brother likes filling in holes in the sandpit!) and Miss 4 did *not* fall off the trampoline, and Mr 3 – of course – terrorised the fish in our fish pond.
Back inside when the wind picked up, I was soundly thrashed by Miss 4 at Uno (she’s actually getting very good at it!) and so the afternoon progressed.
I don’t know about you, but I love ‘lazy’ Saturdays! Days when I don’t turn on the computer until after the kids are in bed – just so darn precious!
And now, having caught up on my #blogjune entries, its back into it. Work beckons. See you tomorrow, dear readers!
