Monday 31 October 2011

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 26th 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 16th October 2011. Third time lucky to win another medal….Her team came 2nd!  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 1st for the girls and Rachel came 8th 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.

Sunday 30 October 2011

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!

Friday 28 October 2011

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!

Sunday 23 October 2011

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!

Friday 21 October 2011

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!

Monday 17 October 2011

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.

Saturday 15 October 2011

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!

Sunday 9 October 2011

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! 

Saturday 8 October 2011

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.

Friday 7 October 2011

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! 

Monday 3 October 2011

Term four

Where did September go? It's hard to believe it's now the third day into October.  I am sure alot Christmas products will be all out for sale at the shops by now.  If my calculations are correct I think it is only 12 weeks to go!

How was your weekend?  For me it was basically the same old routine with bowling leagues and be at home majority of the time.  Girls bowled crap on Saturday AM but we did quite well on Sunday night.  We managed to win most of the points.

This weekend was the Grand Final of two different football matches. I didn't watch the AFL Grand Final as I am not really an AFL fan. I think you could work out why I was happy to hear the GEELONG Cats won! I did watch the first half of the NRL Grand Final.  I heard after bowling Manly won 24-10 againt the NZ Warriors.

Today was the first day back to school for Queensland students.  Inspite the heavy traffic flow on Kington Road this morning, the day started off well as my girls arrived on time.  By lunch time I had a phone call from the primary school stating Rachel had an accident and hurt her ribs.  Thank goodness there wasn't any broken bones but she's getting a nice bruise on her body.

While the girls were at school I watched last week's Survivor (recorded as I was too tired to stay up and watch the first episode of the Pacific Island series) and then decided to get my scrap pages prepared for tomorrow's meet and get a load of washing done.  Really I should of stayed in bed because my day plans weren't working out the way as planned.  The heavy rain happened so the washing didn't dried and my ink cartridges from printing was running quite low and it taken over an hour to work out how to download over 400 photos from my new camera to my laptop.

Today it was the first day for Rachel to visit her chiropractor for her back and neck adjustments to be done.  This month she goes twice a week!  She wasn't really impressed on having the adjustments done but she seems to be over it now as there is no more complaints.


Well..... I only have an hour to consume dessert and have a nice hot shower before I settled down in my PJs to watch The X-factor for two hours.  Tonight the singers perform to rock songs.

Have a good week!

Saturday 1 October 2011

September Report

Hi followers!  How was your month of September? The first month of spring has finally arrived.  It’s the beginning of the season to see wildlife have new life introduced.  But also it can be a sad time for families and friends if they lost a family member or friend.  This is the third time in three years I have lost someone in late winter and their funeral service was held in early September.  Guess that is just the way the circle of life goes. I heard when someone dies, a new baby is born. If that is the case, why is the population of the world so huge?

I have been on facebook for twelve months now and I have found around 50 people who are either my friends I met in person or from craft.  Also I have a couple of family members on my list.  Majority of the time I intend to be playing games which I have found afew challenges that I either loved or hate.


The only family member who celebrated their birthday this month was my Mum.  I didn’t get to see her that day because I was already busy with junior bowling, present shopping and attending to a friend’s Baby Shower for three hours.  It was nice to catch up with my friend and meet her friends and family.  Unfortunately we all missed out on meeting her little baby daughter (who arrived six weeks early) as she was still in hospital.  The baby did come home after Father’s Day.

It has been a busy month with afew events on.  Monique’s first year of high school is passing on so fast and it was time for her to choose her year 9 subjects this month.  Next year she will be studying five core subjects and two electives which she chose Art and Food Studies. On 5th September she was rewarded as a Gold plus Student from high achievement results of effort and behaviour in all subjects throughout the first semester.  I have been invited to attend to a morning brunch in November in recognition of this reward with many other Gold Plus students.


At the primary school they finally had their school fete on 2nd September 2011 from 2:30pm to 7pm.  Due to the day of my late Auntie’s funeral, I wasn’t in a sociable mood to be anywhere.  I was only at their fete for a short time to watch the girls go on afew rides and the school’s entertainment on stage.  I came back just before 7pm to pick up the kids and watched their closure:  The Fire Show with professionals doing their stunts involving fire. They were excellent!Bowling continues to be busy on weekends.  Over the holidays Monique and I have been hanging around the bowling alley abit longer on Sunday nights to socialize with afew other bowlers or watched afew of our league bowlers prebowling.

On Father’s Day we all were involved in a scotch tournament at Logan Lanes.  It’s a casual play involving an adult to finish off the frame for their junior team members if they didn’t strike out at first go.  Frank played with Rachel and I played with Monique because our averages had to add up to no more then 300 (for a team each).  We only played three games and we came 26th/42.  Rachel and Frank came 40th/42 teams.

There was no TQI tournaments played this month but there was a big serious one known as Ken Mills Kup, played with SE regional areas (Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Logan and the Gold Coast) on the weekend of 10th and 11th September. Monique bowled 18 games (9 games per day) in a five man team with players from Toowoomba at Kedron Lanes. The tournament started from 7am and finished around 6pm.  The players had up to an hour’s break for lunch.  During the 24 hours I was there to watch Monique, I done some craft work involving the craft booklets and making Christmas cards from recycled cards.  The overall winner was the Toowoomba’s centre where Monique and four other players from Logan played with their centre.  I heard this centre has won two times in a row.

Term three came to a close from 16th September.  QLD students had school holidays for two weeks. Besides the kids getting involved with their school holiday programs, we managed to catch up with two friends in Gladstone, social afternoon of bowling four games, leagues club for my mum’s belated birthday and watched a movie at the cinema.

Over the holidays Monique was involved in KRANK which is a school holiday program for teenagers aged 13-17 years.  She got involved with water games, high ropes, rock climbing, go karting and learnt about how to do a minor service to a motor vehicle. 

In the second week Rachel was involved in her sports program she has been involved with for the past five years but at a different venue this time.  There were only three groups getting involved in about 30 different kind of sports over five days from 9am to 3pm daily.

Until next monthly report is issued, have a good month of October.