NYE

Hi followers!  How was your week?  After all the spending and preparations leading up to Christmas, the weekend just passed on so fast. And now only 14 hours away, 2011 will be out the door too. 

Since Boxing Day my DH and the kids went away on holidays to Hervey Bay. My husband is due to come home tomorrow night but the girls will stay an extra two weeks at their Grandma's.  They phoned me last night to let me know how's their holiday is going.  It seems they are enjoying themselves.  I stayed behind for a couple of reasons but I used this week to get into some serious spring cleaning upstairs and catching up reading some chapters from a novel I purchased from the school's book swap about a month or so ago. 

The novel is called The Face in the Locket by Alexandra Connor. Th story is set around WW2 time about a young girl becoming an orphan after her parents died.  The young girl is raised by two aunts who live at their secluded house with a disabled uncle (ie the aunt's brother). This 536 page novel is a powerful saga fiction about passion, conflict and the will to win through life. I am now about half way into the novel.

Going by the weather looking outside with rain periods this morning it might be abit of wet night out at Southbank for people annually celebrate NYE there. I won't be there but I do have other plans on. I am just going to be the opportunist tonight!!

It's been quite a long time since I have been out celebrating NYE. While the other half of the family is absent I thought I would use this opportunity to go out and have fun on NYE with friends.  We plan on going out to see the movie "War Horse" at the cinema, grab some dinner and whatever else is fun to do.

Well.. whatever NYE plans you got, have a good night! And best wishes for a great 2012!

Goodbye 2011

Only five days ago we all were celebrating Christmas and now in less then 28 hours we will be farewelling 2011.  And what a year it has been for my family. Besides keeping busy as being a SAHM, I had my time on facebook to play games mostly and scrapbooking by attending to regular meets and workshops.  Even had two weekends away to attend to scrap camps at Brookfield which is situated west of Brisbane.

The year might not been great for some people as they experienced either floods, bushfires or earthquakes in some countries.  The only downside of my year, I lost another relative who lived in Central QLD.  Her funeral was held in early September.

My eldest daughter started high school and her year seem to passed on by very fast.  She had a busy year with her curriculum, school events and sporting competitions. Her report cards had excellent results and comments. It seems sport and art are her favourite interests. 

Most of our weekends were busy at the bowling alleys to play in leagues and tournaments. I think my eldest daughter is going to bowl more like her Dad because this year she started to bowled 200 games. For me it was earlier this century during league I started to bowl 200 games.  It feels good to bowl your first 200 game but as time moves it doesn't feel the same anymore.  League bowlers now dream of bowling the perfect game of 300.  I haven't been there myself but my DH has been very close once (298).

The best highlight of my year would have to been seeing John Farnham in concert. It aren't very often I go and see a concert so when this opportunity rose, I had to go in November.  I saw his performance live at QPAC which is situated in South Brisbane.

Do you believe in New Year resolutions?  I gave up on that thought years ago because my resolutions never seem to work out as planned.  I had a couple of things I would like to do next year but I am not going to have my hopes high thinking these plans will go ahead.  Consider what I have been through in the past few years, I now intend to live one day at a time.

All the best of luck, good health and happiness throughout 2012.

Boxing Day Holidays

Hi followers!  How's your festive long weekend been going?  Preparing up to our Christmas Day was busy with finalized the last minute items.  I already made a report in this blog about Christmas Day. 

It was a very long Christmas Day for me as I practically stayed up all night and downloaded hundreds of songs into my brand new MP3 player. The songs came from the music file on my DH's laptop that he started throughout the year from our collections of CDs. I never realised how much of a collection of music CDs we purchased over the years.  Some past hits I like from the 60's, 70's, 90's and this century are enjoy listening to but the 80's was more my era I love the most. There is too many favourites of the 80's I love hearing over and over.  Most weekends I would had the TV on weekend mornings to watch music clips from rage or video hits. 

Countdown was another show I used to love watching so when I heard about Molly Meldrum's accident two weeks ago, it was a little upsetting.  Good news!  Molly is now awake, spoke afew words and has all the intensive care machinery turned off.

After only having three hours of sleep I managed to survived the day by keeping myself busy and consuming alot of sugar related foods on Boxing Day.

At breakfast time I seen my DH and kids off in his ute to travel to Hervey Bay and spent a week up there with my inlaws. Four hours later I received a phone call from my eldest daughter stating they made it safely up there. I didn't go with them for a couple of reasons.  

While they are away this week I have planned on doing things at home.  Yesterday it was a full day to get into some serious spring cleaning of my kitchen from the ceiling to the floor.  And washed four loads of clothes, bed linen and towels.  It was the purfect day to do the laundry as it was sunny and hot to have all the loads dried quickly.

I thought about having an early night last night to catch up on lost sleep from Christmas Night but that planned didn't work as I was on the phone to a friend from bowling for over two hours.  After that phone call and read two chapters from a novel it was just on midnight when I fell asleep.

Today I managed to have abit of sleep in and I had a lazy morning here on my laptop. I checked what the latest is on facebook and blogger, my incoming of emails, replied to some messages and joined to follow a new blog that one of my craft friends created recently. 

What's on your agenda for New Years?  At this stage I haven't made any concrete plans but I don't think it will be anywhere to go partying hard for in the city. 
I wish everyone a safe and Happy New Year!

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas Everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful festive celebrations with your loved ones.  Today we went to my parents to celebrate christmas with them.  We didn't show up until around 11am as we were busy at home unwrapping our presents and preparing salads to take.

2.4" video and MP3 player



Looney Tunes Flash Drive


After breakfast we opened our presents.  The girls got some toys to use in the pool, a bowling set and many other things to use.  The plastic pins are almost big as the real bins at the bowling alley. The girls gave me a poster and a beach towel from Tiger Island at Dreamworld.  My DH gave me a looney tunes 4GB USB memory stick and a video and MP3 player.  Looks like I am now the 21st century mum as I am slowly collecting and using modern technology.  It's a 8GB which I can download photos, videos, texts and music. 

By the time we arrived at my parent's house we unwrapped more presents. My parents got my husband and I a gift voucher each to use any particular stores listed. Not sure when I plan to shop to use my voucher but I am definiately not going to any Boxing Day sales tomorrow. 

It was about 12:30pm by the time our lunch was served.  We had turkey and ham served with baked potato and two salads (potato and garden). For dessert my mum made this trifle but I didn't have any because I was stuffed from consuming a main meal in the middle of the day.

After lunch my DH set up their top set box (it was their present from us) ready for when digital TV comes in a year or so. Then we watched an afternoon movie from TV about snow dogs used for a race.

We left my parent's house at around 5pm. For the past three hours we just been lazying around at home.  The girls were in the pool playing with one of their new pool toys for about an hour.  They even managed to wet me while I was trying to take some photos.

Enjoy the rest of this weekend!  The girls and my DH will be off to Hervey Bay tomorrow morning to spend one week with his side of the family.  My plans for the next two days is to get some more spring cleaning upstairs and do some hobby activities at nightime.

Christmas Eve

Hi followers!  How's the first day of our Christmas weekend been going for you?  It's now the beginning of the evening on Christmas Eve here in Australia.  Our day started with rain periods but more sunshine showed through this afternoon. Showers have been forecast for Christmas Day then becoming fine and hot on Boxing Day. 

 

Top end of NT have residents preparing for the worse this weekend as the forecasters are predicting a category 2 cyclone might hit on Christmas Day. I think mother nature is a repeat of 1974, that's for sure.  In 1974 Brisbane was unindated with floods in January then in December around Christmas time, TC Tracey hit Darwin.  I will keep you up to date with this year's cyclone progress.

 

The girls and I were up early and hit the shops at 7am to get the grocery shopping done before the huge crowds filled up the carpark. To my surprise I spent more then I originally planned as my eldest daughter decided to purchased three bath towels as Christmas presents to give to her Auntie, Uncle (on my husband's side) and her sister. 

 

Also we came home with a 43cm tall animated singing reindeer (see attachment) for under $20. I just had to purchased it as I love seeing it, sitting in my lounge room. But I wasn't expected to come home to see Gismo to be freaked out by a singing toy.  He doesn't want to be near the toy when it sings and does a little dance.  I will have to try to remember to take the toy to my parent's house tomorrow to see how their cat reacts to this toy.

 

My DH worked until 2pm and spent the next two hours shopping for a present to me.  Well...I know where the present came from as I had seen the shopping bag he came in with.  I assume it is something electrical or computer related but I will be an excellent patience woman and wait until it's time to unwrap presents tomorrow.  He told me he didn't buy anything for the kids as I purchased enough gifts for them. I think the kids are more interested to know what the big present is (which you will find out like everyone else after Christmas Day).  I decided to put the presents under the tree early as the girls already knew where the big present was hiding.  It turned out they didn't know what was in the other box as they never looked.  They just assumed it was something that their Dad has stuff stored into.

 

Remember nine days ago I announced about Molly Meldrum's accident.  I read online today he is still highly sedated in hospital.  We found out more details about the injuries.  Besides a fractured skull, a punched lung and broken ribs, he also got a broken collarbone and a fractured vertebrae. It's no wonder why the doctors put him into an induced coma.  Apparently the doctors don't know how much longer Molly will be sedated but they are starting to reduce the amount of medicine to use. Also they don't know what to expect when he really wakes up to see if/what real damage has been done to his brain or spine.  They said they couldn't find any brain damage but Molly isn't out of the woods yet.

 

All the best for an enjoyable Christmas this weekend!

Christmas is getting closer

Hi followers!  I can't believe the start of our Christmas weekend is happening from tomorrow. All the time of spending money and preparing for the festive season is almost here.  I hope all of your preparations are completed. Tomorrow I just got to go to the shops very early to purchase fresh food and do some cooking ready for Christmas Day.

I think New Zealanders who live/visit Christchurch might not have a festive season thoughts as they copped three earthquakes in their city today.  I really feel for them because I think they have copped enough earthquakes in the past 12 months or so.  Has anyone been affected by earthquakes? 

I read an article months ago stating the globe has about 200 earthquakes hit a day.  But majority of these quakes hit in non populated areas or the scale isn't high enough to make a worth while releasing to the public. 

Did you know our continents were situated as one big mainland once?  I think the huge mainland became smaller islands and smaller mainlands of countries after earthquakes and asteriods hit the planet when dinosaurs were around millions of years ago.  Right now our planet is moving 5cms north per year.  It might not sound much but I think this might be the issue to trigger more earthquakes happening throughout the globe.  I am sure our continents will reform back to one huge mainland again in thousands or millions of years time. But none of us will be around on Earth to see that event to take place.

This week is the second week of school holidays. I have been busy with things to do at home as well as being out on most days of this week.

The girls and I went to the cinema on Tuesday to see Dolphin Tale. This movie is based on a true story about WINTER who lives in a marine park in Florida.  For further details about the marine park go to http://www.seewinter.com/

On Thursday morning I decided to take the girls for a social play of bowling at Mt Gravatt Lanes. I haven't bowled in any leagues for a month and I was just about start missing my weekly plays. I overheard you can get a cheaper deal if you book to come into the centre to play before 10:30am daily.  I am not sure if all AMF centres have the same package deal but go to their website at http://www.amfbowling.com.au/ for further info.

All the best for a Merry festive weekend with your love ones.  Please play it safe on the roads!

Quiet weekend

Hi followers!  How was your weekend? It's hard to believe the first week of school holidays has been and gone already.  What's the next five weeks going to bring?

This weekend I decided to have more a quieter time at home after the girls had their bowling presentation yesterday. They did well and for further details you need to read from my sporting report blog.  Yesterday afternoon I spent afew hours on updating our bowling reports from this year.  I didn't improve my average that much but my eldest daughter did well with hers. Of course she did come home with a trophy for most improved bowler from Sunday night leagues. i think it might have something to do with owning her own gear and entering tournaments.

In the evening I was busy playing scrabble online with a friend.  We started four new boards of playing and we were about half way into all the boards by the time I went to bed sometime after midnight. A good thing about scrabble, it helps keep my mind active.  Also I like to solve crosswords, do word searches and crack the code kind of crosswords.

What is your favourite board game? When I was a kid, I used to love playing board games with my cousins. My favourite game would of been monoplay. We used to play it for hours while our parents were chatting away in another room.  But now since modern technology is here I probably more play games online.  Facebook has alot of games which I try to find to play by myself or with friends.

Today I was busying making a start with preparations of scrap pages ready for next year's workshop.  Also I entered two show 'n' tell swaps for a yahoo group I joined last week.  It's an Aussie craft group for members who do any form of arts and crafts.  It's only a new group started up last month.  The owner (who I already know from a different group) sent me an invitation to join.  Members who enter these show 'n' tell swaps need to create either a card or scrap layout with the theme about Christmas and Australia Day then scan/photo take their work and add them to a particular album on the site. At first I thought I done the swap wrong as I didn't read the instructions for the second swap right but it turns out I was lucky my page layout I used to scan was very similiar to the example layout used from the host.

Well... my readers, better go as I have dinner to make for my family. 
Have a good week! 

Week one of School Holidays

Hi followers!  How was your week?  It is now school holidays for our kids.  QLD just had the first week passing by quickly.  The girls and I had abit of a busy week. Besides making a start with spring cleaning updates, I have been on abit of a shopping spree as well. I purchased some craft supplies at bargain prices.

 

On Tuesday we had our girls day out by doing abit of shopping, watch a movie and had lunch at Pizza Hut.  At the movies we watched Arthur Christmas.  I guess if younger children go and watch this movie they will wondered how Santa will arrive on Christmas Eve. 

 

My eldest child had her report card arrived via snail mail on Monday.  I am proud to say she did very well this past semester.  She's on target for English, Maths and ICT.  Triple A's for Art and HIgh Achievement for other areas.  The best comment was in Art where it reads: YOU ARE A PLEASURE TO TEACH DUE TO YOUR RARE TALENT, INSIGHT AND DEDICATION TO THE SUBJECT. Only six art students of her year level have received an A for achievement. She is going to study Art next year!

 

This morning I have been busy watching two morning news shows as I found out last night on breaking news during a movie about our Aussie Music Guru named Molly Meldrum.  Molly was admitted to hospital last night after a serious fall at his home address in Sydney.  His injuries included four broken ribs, a punctured lung and a fractured skull. He had an emergency surgery last night to release some pressure from his brain. He is currently in a deep coma but he has managed to surived the first night intensive care. His neurosurgeon said on TV this morning that Molly is stable at present time but Molly is in a life or death situation right now. It's too early to indicate what changes will happened in the next 24 hours or more. Molly will have another cat scan this morning to see what the latest is happening to his brain.  Please pray for Molly to recover from his ordeal!

 

Better go as I have afew things I need to do today.  Have a good weekend! 

Busy weekend

Hi followers!  How was your weekend? We were busy with afew things on.  Frank spend most of his weekend over a friend's house to work on his friend's vehicle.  The girls had their last morning of bowling competition played on Saturday. Frank had his break up and prize presentation on Friday night. I will send results in the sporting blog after the kids have their prize presentation this weekend.

 

I had abit of a look on eBay this morning to see what I could buy. I bidded on one item but just missed out by one cent. Who uses eBay?

 

Today Rachel and I went to the Special Children's Christmas Party held at the Convention Centre, Southbank.  It was a good thing it was held under cover because the first brief storm past over at lunchtime. This party was organised and sponsored by many local businessses for children up to 12 years with special needs.  The only thing I had to pay for was to park my car under the convention halls.  Food (sandwiches, packet of chips and ice cream) and drinks (soft drinks, juices and water) was given out for free.  Coffee Club handed out free coffee or tea to carers but I didn't get one because the line was too long.  

 

I was so surprise to see full of children of all ages with their carers having a great time.  The time we were there was a stage entertainment with Scooby Doo and friends and they had a couple of local singers.  RIchard Wilkins was the co-host and made afew annoucements of lost children and other things.  Consider how big this room was, surpisely our kids managed to get away from us and get lost in one huge room of people.  When we were sitting down having lunch we saw one upset child been lost but it was lucky for her to be found quickly by her carer.

 

Rachel's SEU teacher organised our family invitation to go to this Christmas party.  It aren't very often a school organises an invitation to a variety event for kids.  Rachel has been diagnosed with SLI since her preschool days.  SLI stands for Speech Language Impairment which means the person has problems of understanding the written and verbal communication of English language.  My daughter is 11 years old but her reading level is still around like a 7 year old. She doesn't seem to wish to go forward with new challenges. Her grades are going lower and lower now. I am not sure how she will be once she starts high school but I don't think she will ever improve her learning anymore.  She has two aides by her side daily to assist her with her reading.  Her class teacher wants me to work with her reading over the holidays but I can't see that plan will work because she doesn't like any form of doing school work.  Only today Monique found what Rachel wrote about her school.  Not sure if I should bring it up to her new class teacher or the school principal next year.  Right now I think I should just focus on surviving the school holidays with her at home 24/7.  She isn't the sweet child, everyone thinks she is. 

 

We just managed to get home on time from the Christmas party, just before the second storm hit us.  It wasn't severe here but it looked like we were going to get something at first sighting of those dark clouds.  All we got was abit of light gusty winds for a short time and a quick shower of rain.  But the lightning strikes were good in the distance!!  Our weather bureau does forecast thundery rain overnight.  It wouldn't surprise me if it does because we had quite a hot day here today with the temperature around mid 30's.  It's abit warm  and humid still outside and very overcast.

 

How's your Christmas preparations going? Consider it is now only two weeks until Christmas I finally got into writing up my Christmas card list over the weekend. Hopefully I will get to the post office tomorrow to post them off.   I decided to send everyone a card from my address book this time because of the experience with our internet service provider over the weekend.  I couldn't send or received emails for 24 hours as there was a security breach at their end. The company decided to terminate all customers with their connection until the bungle was sorted out. I am sure alot of unhappy customers and businesses had their arms up in the air this weekend. 

 

Did anyone see the full lunar eclipse last night?  I heard it was around midnight by the time full eclipse was on.  I was already sound asleep but I don't think we would of seen it because it was overcast when I went to bed.  I heard the next one might not happen until around 2014.  Like other predictions they say about our solar system, they are never right!

 

Have a good week!

School over

Hi followers!  How was your week?  Been quite another busy week for me with present shopping, present wrapping, start of card writing and attending craft events.  I had one craft party to attend to on Wednesday during school hours and the second party will be held tonight.

 

The primary school had their class party yesterday which I had to organise something for my child to take along to school in the morning of a wet day.  Also she came home with her supplies of books she had all year. On Wednesday she came home with her report card.  As expected she didn't really do well with her achievements.  Music was the only subject she done well to get over average marks. She has her final year of primary next year so it will be interesting to see how she will cope a higher grade as well as the National Curriculum introduced. Her class teacher wanted me to work with her Maths and reading over the holidays.  Honestly I can't see my child is keen on doing some schoolwork over the holidays.

 

Can't believe it's now the beginning of the school holidays for six weeks. Where did this school year go?  It doesn't seem that long ago my eldest child started high school and already her first year is over. I am still waiting for her report card from semester two to arrive by mail. The high school text reply my message yesterday to say the reports are going to be posted off today.  I am hoping on Monday my child's report card will be here for me to read.  I shouldn't have nothing to worry about because she is a fairly good student with her grades.

 

What's on your agenda for this summer?  I am thinking of taking my girls away on a holiday for a week before Christmas.  Just need to find out when the accomodation is available and have everything done before we leave.  We should be back in time to spend Christmas Day with my parents.  But the girls will be spending some time at their Grandma's (my inlaws) after Christmas. Not sure for how long as no concrete plans has been made.  

 

From mid January we will be busy getting school uniforms and booklist organised. I might need to get new shirts for my eldest girl as she outgrow the ones she wore this year. But I have to purchase new shorts because the ones she wore all year has started to have the fabric going quite thin near the stitch lines.  I don't think it would take long for the fabric to rip in the wash next year. 

 

Consider how much I paid for the skirts, one of them has the zipper broken.  Talk about poor quality zipper!  It least it's cheaper to replace a zipper then buying a new skirt. And a good thing I do know how to sew on the machine.  I learnt to sew with my mum's machine at home when I started junior high.  By the time I reached high grades I was sewing my own clothes and continue this until I was married.  One of my friends done the same thing because we used to borrow each other's patterns.  Now my friend makes and sells children's clothing.

 

The primary school might have a change of uniforms next year but I feel I shouldn't have to buy new uniforms when my child has only one year of primary school life left.

 

Gotta go as I have afew things to do at home before I leave in less then two hours night.           

Enjoy your time with your kids over these holidays!  Suzi

Interesting weekend

Hi followers! How was your weekend?  Been kinda busy here over the weekend with afew things to do at home. 

Yesterday we went to the movies to see Puss in Boots.  Inspite being a huge cat fan I loved the movie.  Full of action for an animation movie!! If you plan on seeing the movie with your children over the holidays, be prepared for particular scenes in 3D.  I was abit motion sickness after I seen it in 3D.  If I take the kids to see it again over the holidays it will be seen in 2D instead.  But the next movie I love to see is Happy Feet 2 which is released on Boxing Day.

Where has this year been going? Can't believe the end of the school year is coming up so fast.  After this Friday the kids will have six weeks off school.  What a nightmare for parents, finding activities for them to do during this time!  For me I am hoping to have some time away on a short holiday or weekend with/without the kids.  They might be going to their Grandma's for a short holiday after Christmas.

Consider it's only 21 more days until Christmas, have you started on your Christmas preparations yet?  Only this week I started on my list with Christmas cards and purchased a present for one child.  I only now send cards to people who don't have internet connection.  All the other people on my list will received an email message closer to the time of Christmas.
I will have to finish the present shopping this week otherwise it will be hard to shop while the kids are on holidays. I am not planning on making a big spend out on presents this year as I need the money to pay for the course/s I am planning on to study next year.  There is two courses I am thinking of doing but I have decided on which one to do first.  Thanks to the person who gave me the right advice.  All I got to do is find my vocational placement to use for next year. 

I have no clue on what to give for a teenager or a husband for Christmas. I think some gift cards will be the ideal thing for my husband this year as he seems to purchase on what he wanted throughout the year. I know what my teenager daughter would like to have as she's been nagging for it for some time.  Not sure if I will go ahead with her wish list this year or wait another year.  It's more her sister I am concern about when it comes to other people's personal belongings. Rachel has wrecked afew items we preloved over the years. Of course now it's impossible to find a replacement in excellent condition. 

I have already purchased my parents a present in November.  Like my husband they intend to have collected alot of stuff over the years. Some items they won from the club while others are presents that don't intend to come out of their box. There will be a time in my life when I have to go through all their belongings after their departure of old age.  It probably take me weeks to go through everything they owned.  I think I will have a garage sale instead for the new stuff in boxes!!

Guess it's now my bedtime as I need to get up early in the AM. I will have a busy day at home to get afew things done while my little darlings are at school.  I guess by the middle of the week I should receive my children's report cards to view and keep in their scrap albums.

Another busy week

Hi followers!  How was your week?  The kids only have another week of school left for the year then they will have six weeks off over summer. 

 

This week was quite busy with the start of preparations for this Christmas, attended to one scrap meet and finished bowling for the year.  The kids will finish up competition next weekend.

 

On Wednesday I had my parent teacher interview at the primary school.  Rachel has made a slight improvement with her grades but I do wonder how she will struggle to do the year 7 workload next year. Her teacher would like me to work with her Maths and reading over the holidays.  We will know by this time next week who will be her new class teacher for her final year of primary school.  She had her first male teacher all year and it was nice to get to know him with his occupational experience.  I feel he is a great asset for any classroom of any grade at any school but really I hope he will Rachel's teacher again next year.

 

Before school ended on Thursday, three male staff from the primary school had their moustache shaved off as part of the fund raise event for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia. The idea of this fund raise event is to get males who register to grow their moustache during the month of November.  For further details go to http://au.movember.com/

 

How's your weekend been going so far?  This evening we went to the cinema to see Puss in Boots in 3D and we had Maccies for dinner. Surprisingly the cinema wasn't even a full house.  Guess there isn't too many kids who love cats but then again maybe the parents are waiting until school holidays (from next weekend) to see it. You should take your kids to see it!  They will love it!  We love it and I probably go again on the holidays to see it in 2D with the kids.  They won't get bored because there is so much action in it.

 

Speaking of cats, I better go and see what the problem is with my cat.  Sleep well! 

Busy weekend 2

Hi followers! How was your weekend?  My weekend sure flied on by so fast as I was quite busy throughout the weekend.  Friday night was the only night we had time at home.

 

On Saturday I had my scrap workshop/break up party at my CM consultant's home.  Normally our meet finishes at 1pm but she allowed us to stay an extra two hours.  I didn't stay for too long because I knew I had to finish off a project at home and then get ready for Saturday night's outing. Monique and I had our break up party for Sunday night league.  For further details check out my sporting report blog for details of our winning of goodies. 



Entrance to Whitewater World





Yesterday it was the girl's turn to have their break up party for bowling.  We all went to Whitewater World and Dreamworld with many other junior league bowlers from Logan.  At least our co-ordinator had organised the right day to go because it was so hot and the water was so lovely to be in.  I went into the wave pool once to cool down but majority of the time I was busy relaxing on the recliner and reading a novel while the girls were off on the variety of waterslides and wave pool for five hours.  

Train Ride at Dreamworld





Tiger Island at Dreamworld



For the last two hours of our day we went to Dreamworld (it was included in our package deal). It was hard believe how quiet this theme park was by 3pm.  I guess it was just too hot for visitors to go for a full day there.  But we hanged around to go on a couple of rides and watched the tigers presentation for 30 minutes. Before we left we all consumed an ice cream and drink.

 

I was quite tired by 7pm last night which all of us girls slept in abit this morning.  So the girls were abit late on getting to school.  Feel sorry for them as it appears to be another hot day again today.  Currently the temperature is 32 degrees!  Most of this week BOM website forecasts mostly fine weather but thundery rain developing on Thursday. 

 

It's already past the lunchtime hour and I only have an hour left before it's time to travel back to school to pick up the little darlings.  Have a great week! 

Busy week 2

Hi followers!  How was your week?  Actually where is this week going?  It seems to be passed on by too quickly.  On Monday I stayed at home to recover and caught up on my sleep hours after being away all weekend. 

 

You think I would of lost my creative mojo after the weekend but no...back to the craft store on Tuesday for my weekly casual scrap with the ladies.  No workshops occurred on the other side of the room and only one lady showed up from our little group. I didn't get to scrap much as I was too busy helping her with some layout ideas.

 

On Wednesday I had my social league on which I am happy to report I won all the points again.  This league ends in two weeks time but I only have one more week to play as on the last week I have a break up party to attend to elsewhere.

 

Speaking of break ups, I have three to attend to this weekend.  Two on Saturday for craft and bowling.  On Sunday it will be the kid's early break up event. Hopefully the weather will be great for the waterpark fun. 

 

Sunday night was the last night of our bowling league to play.  A great night to win all the points and moved up three places on their standing sheet.  The break up and prize presentation is held tomorrow night.  We aren't expecting much of a prize fund from bowling this time but hopefully we will come home with some exciting goodies from the raffles and Secret Santa.

 

This morning I was busy with some run around things to do.  After I dropped the kids off to school, I visited a craft shop to pick up some black cardstock for Monique.  She needed cardstock for some artwork she's currently working on.  But I came home with more I plan on buying as the store had some printed papers on sale for 50 cents or $1 each.  I am just starting to sort out what stock I have got as it's time for a spring clean of my gear. Guess I will surprise myself when I realised what I forgotten I own. 

 

This week the school had organised a book swap where students and parents bring in preloved books for others to buy for a $1 each.  This fund raise event is for an Indigenous Foundation group so they can use the money raised to buy books for the kids.  As you know most schools today are more focus with reading.  Some schools have an incentive program for the kids to receive awards to read more at home.  Anyway I had a look after parade to see what inspire me to read over these upcoming summer school holidays.  I managed to pick up three novels for myself and another novel for Monique.  She wanted to go and have a look herself before school but we didn't get to the primary school earlier enough.

 

Better go as I have some things to do at home before it's time to pick up the kids from school in over three hours time.  Have a good weekend!

Busy weeks

Twelve days has past since I last blogged on here.  How was your past week?  Boy!  Wasn't it hot last week?  Summer is already here in our state and possibly be a long and hot summer this time.  Not sure about the weather prediction about being a wet summer as this month has been a fairly dry month at where I live.  The problem is: it's hard to plan for a holiday during the time the kids have six weeks off school incase the weather turns nasty like last summer. If I travel north, it's more a cyclone season and if I travel south, either it will be bushfires or wild storms.  At this stage I will just play it by my gut feeling. 

 

Besides suffering a migraine for 24 hours last week, I had a busy week getting ready for the weekend.  And what a weekend it was!!  For further details you will need to read my craft diary blog.

 

Looks like another busy week is coming with one sporting competition, a child away on an overnight excursion, two scrap meets and two break up parties.

 

Have a good week everyone!

Quiet week

Where does the time go?  It's already the 11th day into November...Remembrance Day in Australia.  Also it is the day my grandfather was buried 30 years ago.

How was your week?  Compared to last week I had more time at home and not much on is planned for this weekend either. So I have been using this time to catch up on things to do at home.

After going to John's Farnham concert on Sunday night I spent most of this week playing the CDs at home and in the car while travelling about locally. It taken me a day to recover from the concert.  All the excitement, loud music and lights was still in my mind for 24 hours.

This morning I visited an op shop to grab some bargain priced linen for next weekend's camp.  It's not like I am going to sleep much that weekend anyway.  You have to take your own linen and pillow/s to use on a plastic covered mattress.  They aren't really comfortable beds to sleep on but I am thankful they aren't bunk beds, otherwise I would smack my head onto the upper bunk when I am still half asleep in the mornings.

I finally got to finish watching all of season three of the new 90210 series on DVD this week.  Each disc gets better and better with drama stories about teens.  I can't wait for season four to come out. I wish this show was shown on TV here in Australia but I guess the show doesn't suit enough viewers to sit and watch it.

Whatever plans you might have for this weekend, I hope it will be enjoyable one with your family.

The concert

Hi followers!  How was your weekend?  What a weekend I had!  Tonight was the best part of my weekend.  Frank and I were at QPAC in South Brisbane to see John Farnham in concert. If you have been to the lyric theatre before, we were sitting in balcony two.  Inspite the height it was still a good position to see the concert.  The concert performance was almost three hours long and he sang his past hits from a couple of albums but Whispering Jack was the main album he sang songs from to celebrate his 25 years since the album was first released.  The encore song was: YOU'RE THE VOICE!  And it was so beautifully sang and he had six bag pipers playing.  Most of the audience in the lyric theatre stand up after the performance ended.

Consider all the years I have listened to John's albums, it was so different to hear his songs live.  I am so glad we had this opportunity to go and see one of his concerts before John really retires. He is only twenty years older then me!

 

Four of my bowling friends from Wednesday's league was at the same concert but they were sitting in balcony one.  We were so lucky to see them sitting outside a cafe as we arrived so we had dinner with them.

 

At the time of booking the tickets, we had the encore package deal where you have a free drink and a little souvenior bag.  Inside the little bag was some chocolates and the CD/DVD of John's latest album which we played in the car while driving home.  Also I purchased the program where it has alot of photos and information about the two albums.  And I got the whispering jack in concert on DVD.

 

It's getting late and I should really get to bed. I might sing in my sleep because I still have his songs on my mind.  I couldn't help myself I had to put the Whispering Jack album on now.
Goodnight!

School events

Hi followers!  How was your week?  I hope you had a better one then I did.  Like they say another week of income earned but it was definiately not saved in this household.  In one week we had three major expenses to deal with.  On Wednesday I blogged about our expenses for the pool and my car but this morning it was my hubby's ute that needed repairs.  He needed a new exhaust pipe!!  How much more rain is it going to fall?

Besides our roller coaster ride on Wednesday I attended two high school events on Thursday and Friday. Thursday morning was a morning tea made by food studies students for year 8 students and their carers in recognition of their gold plus reward given recently at assembly.  I didn't really count on how many students received this reward but I am only guessing it was around a dozen who excelled in their effort and behaviour in all subjects throughtout the year.

On the following day it was a big buffet breakfast and sporting reward presentation at a nearby hotel's function room from the school.  My daughter came home with two medals for participating in the Pacific Districts Premiers in Futsal and Basketball.  Well done my darling! 

Time for me to have a Nanny nap as I was out very late last night to a scrap meet. It didn't help when I already had a long day with an early start yesterday. 

Have a good weekend everyone!

Extra expenses

How's your week been going so far?  It's hard believe it's already the second day into November and I think this will be quite an expense this month with unexpected extras to spend on.  Less then a week we have two big expenses to deal with.

On the weekend we had to get a new pool motor because the old one was dying away after six years of daily use to keep the filters and chloride levels right at all times.  Tomorrow morning my car been booked in to have a side window fixed. 

Today's plans have been all mucked up because of what happened to my car this morning at the primary school.  I was just about to get out of my car and walked my daughter to her classroom because she was abit late but my seatbelt medal decided to flip on me and hit at the very top of the driver's window (as I had my window down for natural air conditioning).  Since the window was tinted, all the glass was shattered into millions of pieces inside the tint and went down the door instead.  Guess I should be thankful I have tinted windows otherwise I might of wore that broken glass on my skin. Could of been worse....broken glass in a school's carpark!!

I hope to had the problem fixed today because I had a couple of places to attend to but that aren't possible now. After a couple of phone calls, the window can't be fixed until tomorrow AM because the part isn't available locally.  Apparently it is down at the Gold Coast and the company I am using said it would have to come up later this afternoon. 

I can still drive my car, just I can't leave my car unattended in a public place without a window up and secured. 

The lesson I learnt today:  watch my seatbelt at time of removal and have my window all the way down for natural air conditioning.  Normally my seatbelt doesn't flip like the way it did so I don't know why it did it this morning.  The spooky part is I started to have a problem with winding up and down that window last week so today's incident might of met to happen for a reason. YEAH!  But I am not happy with the expense to fix it through. 

October report

Hi followers!  How was your month of October? I hope you had an enjoyable month.  As you will see below I have been busy as usual. 

It’s now half way into spring and we already had some summery temperatures.  The storm season had already started which four storms hit SE QLD in one week.  Some storms have been severe and has been reports of large hailstones, lost of power and lots of lightning strikes throughout the state.

This month I decided to make a start with camp preparations ready for next month.  I am planning to work on a second picfolio album involving my family that weekend.  I am going to give this album to one of my Aunties who live in Central QLD.

Monique and I started to watch the new 90210 series on DVD.  We watched season one and two and just purchased season three to watch throughout November. It gets better and better after each disc. It’s very a similar story plot like the original series of the 90’s but the character’s names are different.  The only characters who stayed in the new series are Kelly, Nat (Peach Pit owner), Brenda and Donna as special guests.  Kelly is now a single mum and works at the high school as the guidance councilor.  Her sister Silver is now in high school and their mum lost her battle from breast cancer in season two. 

After a two week break of school holidays it was time to get back into school routine for term four. It will be such a busy term finalizing the entire school curriculum program, events happening and the teachers will be busy writing up reports for semester two.  It’s hard to believe this year is going so fast!  Only have another year of seeing Rachel at primary school then it will be farewelling her school and staff which I am sure I will miss some members (if they are there still for another year).

On 26^th October the primary school had their gala concert in their new hall. The concert was only 90 minutes long and involved all the musical groups and choirs, one junior class and three senior classes (including Rachel) done the stomping competition where the students had to find some recycling parts in the school to use to create music.  But I think the best performance of all was the junior class who sang a song they created about loving school.  It was so cute on how they performed.  I reckon they should audition for Australia’s Got Talent.

Back to school means it was back to Tuesday’s craft meet and Wednesday’s bowling again during this final term of the year.  It was nice to catch up with these friends each week.  Also I had three meets at my CM consultant's home this month to learn a couple new layout ideas using the new products….the border maker system was my favourite tool to use!

We had only two tournaments to be played this month.  It was Monique’s TQI tournament played at Logan Lanes on 16^th October 2011. Third time lucky to win another medal….Her team came 2^nd!  On the following Sunday the girls were involved in a casual play tournament called 7 No Tap.  It means the player needs to bowl down 7 or more pins to receive an automatic strike at each frame. After three games Monique came 1^st for the girls and Rachel came 8^th out of 12 girls.

All the best of luck for November.  Has anyone started on their Christmas preparations yet?  Christmas is now only seven weeks away.

Storms are on their way

Hi followers!  Just a quick blog entry as I need to shut down my laptop for the night as a severe storm is heading towards Brisbane.  I live between Brisbane and the Gold Coast so this storm is predicted to hit us within 30 minutes.  BOM website predicted this storm is dangerous but I am praying this storm cell will calm down after it passes the Tamborine Mountain. Just look out the front door and the lightning is coming closer and closer as the minutes past on by.

How was your weekend?  Besides bowling we basically just had a quiet one at home.  I decided to continue with camp preparations while I have the chance to because this week will be full on with normal commitments and extra events at school as well.

To all the followers who live in SE QLD, please remain safe indoors and I hope you will have a good sleep after the storm passes.  Goodnight!

A busy week

Hi followers!  How's your week been going?  It seems this year is drawing to a close faster then we think.  The kids only have another six weeks left of school then they will have a six week summer vacation.

Four hours ago a couple of mums from the primary school were discussing during assembly on how quickly this year is going.  I grew up believing as the years we grow older, the time seems to travel faster.  It is because adults have such a busy lifestyle or it is really what I read from an article some time ago about time travel might have something to do with the procession of our moon.  Professors think: as the moon travels further away from Earth, it seems to take the time travel on by more quickly.  What do you think??

I had another busy week with normal commitments, attending two school events and I made some productive progress with my camp preparations.  It's only three weeks away now and I still have alot of photos and page layout ideas to organise to complete in one weekend.

On Wednesday night the primary school had their annual gala concert.  Consider the school is only a small population the concert was over in 90 minutes.  Three senior classes had a stomping competition (which my daughter was in one of them) when the students made musical noises from recycled items they could find in the school.  There was a small singing choir whom sang imagine (by John Lennon) and another song.  There was three ensemble groups, a beginner's and a senior's band and two string's groups.  But I think the best performance of all (and I feel they are the next Australia's got Talent winner) is the junior grade singing a song they created about engaging in learning.........do you love school???  Their class teacher is such a good performer and can sing very well.  I don't know why she chose to be a teacher instead because I feel she is a natural to have an occupation in the arts.

Gotta go as I have afew things that needs my attention this aftero.  Have a good weekend!

Where did the weekend go?

Oh boy!  Where did the weekend go? It's only another 90 minutes until midnight and then it will be the start of a new working week for some.  Myself I am only a SAHM but I am planning on returning back into the workforce once my youngest starts high school.  Next year I am hoping to get myself motivated to complete a certificate course within 9-12 months. Depending on the results afterwards, I will see how much further the qualification I can study then.  The problem in today's society you need a good qualification and a number of experience to get a good position with a good salary package. And with the age I am now at, it's going to make it harder to find a job with limited experience where most positions preferred younger age.

Mmm!  I seem to went off course here about the weekend, didn't I?  What did you all get up to this weekend?  For me I had a busy weekend with attending to one scrapbooking workshop (which you will find further details in my craft diary) on Saturday. 

Our time was spent at the bowling alley today as the girls played in a different tournament this morning.  For further details about the tournament and results, feel free to read our sporting blog.

What's on your agenda for this week?  I am hoping to make more progress with the scrap camp preparations while my kids are at school.  The camp is only less then a month away now and it's the time for preparing pages beforehand can take up alot of my spare time for a week or two.  I like to be a productive person and use my weekend away to complete many pages as I can without being home with interruptions.  Also I am known as the worse nightowl at camp and intend to stay up until well past midnight and still be creative while others are asleep. I never sleep well in different places so it is just wiser to stay up and use the quiet time to be productive. At one camp I stayed up all night and went to bed when it was sunrise.  Might you that was the first camp in the middle ofsummer so the sun would of been up at around 4:30am. How I survived the next day with only two hours of sleep I don't remember!  I am the type of person can survive on limited sleep hours quite easily but I wouldn't recommended in doing that very week. It wouldn't be good for your mental health.

Speaking of sleep it's definiately time for me to go to bed.  I will be up in less than seven hours. I find the later I go to bed, the better sleep I will have.  I did find out afew years ago why I don't sleep through all night. I have active muscles and they will continue to work all through the night and day.

Have a good week!

A busy week

Where did this week go?  It's hard to believe it's almost weekend again.  What did you get up to this week?  Whatever plans you had, I hope you had a good week. I had a busy week with normal commitments, two craft meets and started on camp preparations.

Besides the normal commitments of driving daily to/from school, bowling and craft meets, I have observed different events that I passed through or stopped for a short time. It was abit of a mixed bag of emotions of what I had seen on our roads this week.  On Thursday afternoon I was abit delayed on picking up my children from school as there was a road incident near my home address.  To what I had seen while I was waiting at the traffic lights to change to green at my end, it looked like the driver had to made an emergency stop at the left exit side of the road which happened to totally blocked the road for other road users (with the police vehicle beside the incident car).  Not 100% sure what really happened to the driver but I am only guessing it was something that happened quite seriously that needed police and an ambulance attention. I couldn't see if the driver was a male or female as their face was covered with a cloth/towel and the seat was placed down.  I take this driver either taken some form of seizure or had a heart attack. The way I had seen the driver at the lights, it totally shaken me up, thinking it could of been someone I knew or close to.

Great news! Today I received another invitation to a breakfast event for the high school. My daughter will be presented with a sporting reward next month. It's her recognition for playing sport well all year.  I am amazed she is doing quite well for her first year of high school. I will be attending two breakfast events in one week. The first one will be held at the school for curriculum achievements and the second one (which I just mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph) will be held at a different venue from 7am.

Time to get myself to bed and have this beauty sleep of mine. My day will start early as I have a scrap workshop to attend to in the morning.  My husband will take the kids to sport instead!

Have a good weekend!

Student Free Day

Hi followers! How was your weekend?  Basically we lived at the bowling alley as we had leagues and one tournament to be played.  For further details you need to read from our sporting blog. We will have another weekend to be at the bowling alley this coming weekend as my kids will be bowling into a different tournament on Sunday.

Today the kids are at home because it is their student free day.  It means only the teachers will be work without any kids. Generally the teachers use these days for meetings and further programming of their curriculum. I doesn't affect me as I am already a SAHM but I do feel sorry for the parents who have to work and need to find babysitters or use vacation care for the kids to go to.  It least it will be extra hours for childcare workers who work with school age children.

I have decided to go back into this field myself but I must study Children's Services first to gain my qualification.  I am planning to start studying next year and I have found the appropriate college instituation for it. Just need to find my field placement at a primary school who will accept me to work volunteer there two afternoons a week and work out where my youngest child goes after school. If the centre is happy with me I might get lucky and have more hours to work with pay while studying.

This course is external which means I can study from home while my girls are at school.  The course is quite flexible so they don't really have a limited time to finish before six months but I am hoping to finish my first certificate within twelve months.  I have the enrollment package emailed to me already but I am just waiting for Centrelink to pay me the money they owe as the income was under estimated for the past financial year.  This money will help me get started in January.

I read some information online last week that the education department is thinking of making some holiday changes in the future.  They think of changing our Queen's Birthday holiday to semester two as we have enough public holidays in semester one.  Also there is thoughts about two weeks off over Easter.  Really there is enough holidays as it is.  Summer is really the time I feel six weeks is too long for a break.  I think four weeks is enough over summer.  Really how many working parents are there can get 12 weeks off for holidays per year?  If parents have four weeks annual leave, why don't kids have the same?  Okay...maybe the primary age children need more holiday time but I feel the high school kids need to get used to less holiday time because once they hit the workforce after leaving school or college, they will realised what the real world out there is all about.

Guess you all have heard about the curriculum change in 2012. It means all states of Australia will have the same curriculum learnt.  I am not sure how much of an impact it will effect on students who have a learning disability or who are behind in their learning curriculum as it is.  Also each state has different terms starting and finishing too.

They are doing this because alot of students are coming from different states of the country and their level of learning is different from the rest.  South east states are more ahead then Queensland.  A couple of years ago I heard South Australia is abit behind than QLD. Not sure what Northern Territory is like.

Summer is coming

Hi followers!  How was your week?  Basically it was just the same old routine I have each week but I had two craft meets in one week. 

Since the girls resumed back to school two weeks ago for term 4, I started to watch the new 902010 series on DVD.  It started to air the first season about 2-3 years ago but it didn't last very long as the ratings for the show wasn't good in Australia. The show started as a family (like the original) moved to LA but this family came from Kansas.  The father is the school principal at the high school has an adopted son and daughter going there.  Like the original series it has dramas with teenager kids!

If you watched the original BH 90210 series in the 90's, it was only Kelly, Brenda and Nat (the peach pit owner) are in the new series.  Kelly is now a single mum with a young boy and works at the high school as a guidance officer.  Have a guess who the father is of her child?  Brenda is an actress and only has made brief appearances on the show in the new series.  She just went to China and came back with an adopted child as she can't have any children of her own. Donna has came back in disc 2.  She's thinking of coming back to LA after living the short married life with David in Japan. They have a baby girl!

If you can remember in the original series, Kelly's mum had another daughter after she was married briefly to David's father.  Now this daughter named Silver is in high school.  Her character is totally different what Kelly was.  But I won't say what happens to Silver or their mum incase you decided to buy/hire the DVDs.

Summer is definiately on our way as storms have already started this month.  Just in one week, three storms have hit SE QLD.  Two storms hit today (for further details, read in Expression of Interest blog)!  I was thankful the afternoon storm wasn't 3pm on Friday as it would of been another scary experience to drive through for after school picks up like it did on Thursday afternoon.  Twice we were lucky and only had the tail end of the cell with pouring rain and strong wind.

What's been on your agenda for this weekend? Last night I was up very late as I had a scrap workshop to attend to until late.  My sleep pattern was short lived as our AM storm hit on daylight.  The girls played sport this AM and I caught up on sleep this afternoon and only woke up when the afternoon storm hit.  Tomorrow will be a busy day with one bowling tournament and league that night.  I will report in my sporting blog on how the tournament goes afterwards.

Have a nice Sunday!

Interesting Sunday

How was your weekend?  Besides bowling leagues, we had another weekend at home. The girls and I didn't get to go the movies as we had visitors over today.

 

I won't report about Saturday's junior bowling as it wasn't a good match at all by Rachel. It was the worse games she has bowled in her history.  But tonight my bowling league was great!  I bowled all games over average and we won all the points. YEAH!!  We finally are moving up the ladder.

 

Yesterday morning most of SE QLD residents would of woken up to a morning thunderstorm. I think it was a surprise for all if you didn't see on the weather news forecast on the night before.  I checked on BOM website just before midnight for Saturday's forecast and it was written an early storm and showers and become fine in the afternoon.  I thought the storm might of been happening around mid to late morning, not at breakfast time!  Oh well...it least it was my alarm clock for Saturday as I normally get up early and get organised for sport.  News reports said later on, it was severe in some areas with hail, wind and heavy rain.  We weren't too bad here!  Only had abit of water in our garage and our backyard was like a flowing river when it rained for two hours.

 

Today it was nice to have abit of sleep in until around 8am.  Our TV was on all day as the Bathurst 1000 event was on.  I managed to watch parts of the race throughout the day.  Two years ago we drove past Bathurst on our way home from ACT.  We stopped at Mt Pamorna and drove on the track as a normal speed driver on public roads.  It taken us about seven minutes to drive on this track.  If you watched today's race, you would see there is some good curvy bends to drive on, once you are at the top of the mountain and coming down again. I don't know how these professional drivers act on this but I was quite scared to drive on curvy bends at normal built up speed area.

 

We sure had some exciting events in this household today. We found a green tree snake in the mango tree and all afternoon Monique gave me such a hard time about it (with the rubber snake) because she knows I have a fear of snakes. Rachel was next door at the time we knew about the snake. It was the time we got home from bowling she found out about the snake and she decided to give me a hard time.

 

Secondly our cat fell into our swimming pool. Not sure what actually happened as I only seen the last third of his body wet.  It might of been him trying to catch an insect or drink the water.  But he's fine!  Only think was hurting him was his pride for about 30 minutes.

 

Better go and think about my bedtime.  Got afew things to do tomorrow while the girls are at school.  Have a good week! 

Mother Nature

What a start for the weekend from mother nature!  I didn't need to set my alarm this morning as God decided to wake up all of SE QLDers with a breakfast storm.  Going by BOM radar (which is currently not working since the storm hit)the movement of this storm hit from Gympie to the border. 

I read online later on about 11 000 homes lost power.  We weren't one of them!  All we really got was some great sounds of thunder, strong wind and heavy rainfall for two hours.  Not enough rain filled up our pool but our backyard looked like a flowing river along our fence line.  The rain died down by the time we walked out the door to go bowling. 

I had done a couple loads of washing yesterday aftero.  It was too late to have the loads dried so they stayed under the verandah overnight.  Of course they got extra wet this morning and they didn't dried today.  And guess what happened, we had another brief storm passing thru at dinner time tonight and they would of got wet another because of the wind and rain. All I really hope Sunday will be a fine day to get all the loads dried.

Back to School

Hi followers!  How was your week?  I had a busy week with school drop offs and pick ups, one day of casual scrappin' and Rachel started going to the chiropractor to get adjustments done to neck and spine regularly.

Unfortunately it wasn't the best week for me as I coped some unexpected news.  I had one bowling friend in hospital to have day surgery.  All went well and now back home recovering!  I have a craft friend going into hospital next week for her day surgery. Who's next??

To all the people who work and play out in the sun all the time, I hope you all will remember the simple three S rule...SLIP, SLOP and SLAP. My dad has been at his doctor too this week to have a small melanoma removed. It's the second time in twelve months he had melanoma.  Lucky for him, these small cancers has been found very early. His specialist was saying melanoma can go down the family tree and this cancer isn't always caused by the sun either.  His brother has one or two removed on his face.  He was very unfortunate to lose an eye from this cancer! 

This week was the first week for our students to go back to school to learn their new workload in Term four. This term is only ten weeks long and I am sure it will fly on by so fast. It was that time of the month to attend to the school's monthly P and C meetings at the primary school on Tuesday night.  This meeting was about 90 minutes long to discuss past matters and plans for the future.  I heard they did success well with their school fete last month.  Right now they are discussing on what to spend these funds on. 

Also there was discussion about possible changes to their school uniform.  It was a newcomer into the school giving a negative outcome on how horrible the colours are.  Basically I said if they wish to change, bring back the shirt (they use for school musical performances) and keep the polo shirt for sporting events.  Don't know why they wish to change because I am quite happy with what these kids wear casually.  Kids will be kids and they will always get their clothes dirty from play and art. Because this suburb is more upper class, I think the P and C committee want changes to keep up with the Jones.
I am sure the school community will be over the moon right now as they had finally got their resource centre (ie the school library) renovation completed on the school holidays.  The centre was opened this week for the students and parents to have a look.  My daughter was late to school twice this week and I decided to have a quick look through the windows and doors to see how the new centre looks. I will have to go one day to take some photos of the new library before the school year ends in December.

Apparently at the primary school they introduce goal setting where the students list on what they are going to excel this term.  I can understand this pattern happening in high school, but primary school!  I guess today's kids aren't little kids once they start school. They learn at a very young age on how to prepare a list of goals for their future. Unfortunately over two decades ago, I didn't do that!  I just taken a day at a time to live and I happen to still do it today! It doesn't matter how small I might plan to do in a week, it doesn't always work out the way I want it to.

Gotta go as my kids need my attention. Enjoy your weekend!