Our Festive Season

Keep Calm!  Christmas is just about over!  I thought this was brilliant to see on someone's shirt on Christmas Day. The weather was warmer then predicted. It was more warmer on Boxing Day!!

I am glad Christmas is now over because it's never been the same for the past few years.  Any single parent with custody issues would understand how it feels not to see your kids on Christmas Day. It's the second year I didn't get to spend time with Rachel as she prefers to spend time with her father's side of the family instead. Monique wanted to spend some time with her father on Christmas Day but he was more interested in seeing his own mummy instead.  I only got to see Monique on Boxing Day for about four hours as she had previous plans over Christmas with her own bf.

But I did manage to have my family time with my girls and my parents on Tuesday.  After watching a news story about Christmas food shopping on TV I did managed to spend just under $50 for the food for us. I baked some Garlic Chicken Mignon and made fresh potato salad.  Since none of us aren't large meal consumers we didn't have any dessert. 

While waiting for the chicken to cook, the girls and I played monopoly on Rachel's iPad.  You can get a free app from the app store. This app only suits users with iPhone, iPod and iPad which I am sure most of you would have some device.

I spent five nights at my bf's house to spent time with his family on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.  I am pretty sure this family would of spent a lot more then $50 as my bf came from a family of 8 children. We had the same lunch and dinner for two days which I was getting sick of by the last night. We had roast chicken pieces, ham and some other meat roll made.  It was yummy through as I never had it before. Similar made like a meat loaf but wrapped in bread crumbs. We had various home made salads. My favourite salad would have to a pasta one with added walnuts. For desserts we had a choice of trifle, a fruity ice cream pie, ice cream with jelly and fruit salad or plum pudding with custard. Take a guess what I had!! The first year I had some alcohol (mostly wine) consumed since I wasn't driving!!

My bf only lives a short walking distance to his parent's house. Actually four of his siblings live in the same suburb.  Only one of his brothers didn't attend to any Christmas gatherings as he is currently working in Western Australia.

On Christmas Eve I went to the local shops to buy the last of presents for Pete's siblings. I made that simple I purchase a handful of scratch its as I didn't know what they really wanted.  They had their family opening presents at 9am on Christmas Day.  The main focus was more on the baby as a new addition was welcomed about three months ago. I wasn't expecting much from his family but I did get a nice gift from his parents and two of his sisters (they are twins!!). From my bf I did get a hello kitty oven matt and a lovely necklace. Monique did get me two colour in books. Afew scratch its and a fuel voucher from my parents.

In the evening we went to Midnight Mass with one of the twins. She came to pick us up.  We arrived half an hour early to listen to the Christmas Carols sang by a choir. A lot of religious songs I haven't heard for years.  Return back after 1am and consumed supper of Christmas nibbles with two drinks. I think I only had about 3-4 hours sleep as we had to be up early.

Would you believe me one of the cinemas was open on Christmas Day?  My bf and I watched the late session of Star Wars 7 (The Force Awakens) as it was released at the cinemas a week before Xmas. I am not really a big fan to science fiction movies but I did enjoy this action pack movie. BB-8 would be my favourite character!!

Avoid the shopping centres on Boxing Day but my bf and I did go yesterday afternoon as I knew it would of been abit quieter to attend.  It was more clothes shopping for me this time! Another Xmas present from him.  I only got a nice shirt, a cotton vest and a new watch.  There were other clothes I like but none in my size.

All the best for a safe and happy New Year! Best of luck with your ambitions in 2016!

Festive Season begins

School holidays started earlier this week but my girls finished school 2-3 weeks ago. My 15 yo plan on alternate weeks of spending time with me and her father in Logan.  This week she's in Logan until Christmas Eve then goes to Hervey Bay for two weeks to spend time with Grandma (on her father's side).

This past week my vacation care hours started.  I worked for over 15 hours this week.  Both days they had special guests in to educate children about indigenous culture and preparing for storms.  On Friday we had water play fun!  I think it may been abit too cold for some children as we didn't really have a hot sunny day. I will have another two shifts to do before the centre closes over the Christmas and New Year week.

On the other days of the week I spent time with my 17 yo as she had errands to do and business appointments to attend to. She tried to make a claim for youth allowance but sadly her eligibly was rejected as her father earns more then the quota states. On Thursday I had my full day with my 15 yo. We went to the cinema to see Hotel Transylvania 2. In the evening we went to the club with my bf (as I wasn't seeing him this weekend due to him working night shifts) for dinner and seen a free movie upstairs. The movie we seen was called Tomorrow Land.
 
Only 5 sleeps to go and I still need to get motivated to finished my Christmas shopping, present wrapping and post afew Christmas cards. I won't be spending much Christmas hours with my girls this year. Like always my 15 yo prefers to spend Christmas with her father's side in Hervey Bay. This is the third year she done it!  Since my 17 yo has a serious relationship with her bf she will spending time with his family over the weekend. Don't worry I already got plans of my own now!! I will be away for 5 nights to spend time with my bf and his family.

All the best to everyone for a safe and Merry festive season.  Safe travels and take care during the severe weather moments if it happens in your area.  As far as we know we should be expecting good weather over Christmas here in SE QLD.

November report

Only 22 days to go until Christmas!  Almost finished my present shopping but still got to my yearly newsletter and post off a handful of cards this year after I write them up.

I had a busy November with normal commitments.  And recovering from a nasty flu virus vs asthma.  It seems I'm getting asthma again after returning to the same environment from previous years. 

My 17 yo has now graduated high school two weeks ago.  The previous week she had her senior formal held at Dreamworld.  She was beautifully dressed which I attended to the photo session with my boyfriend.... Yes..... I do have a man in my life now!  I'm so happy to be with him on most weekends while my 15 yo stays at her father's.

My 15 yo just finished year 10 last week and she's already complaining she's bored.  Typical teenager! So this week we have been at the club to dine in with friends and seen a movie with her sister and my bf this afternoon. We watched The Hunger Games, part 2 of Mocking Jay at the cinema. On Sunday night my bf and I watched Spectre at the cinema after a social game of bowing at a different centre.

My bowling league is now finished for the year. We had our break up party on last Saturday night.  The night wasn't appraisable.  I was happy with the prize presentation and raffle draws but not so happy with the buffet meal served.  The food could of been a better quality for the priced we all paid. But all will changed in 2016 as I will join a new league at a new centre.  I already been introduced as I have bowled with them socially for the last two Sunday nights. They are a friendly bunch!  They even invited me to attend to their break up party next weekend. 

All the best for a safe and happy festive season with your loved ones.  Be safe on the roads if you have any travel destinations. Our road toll has been quite bad lately in our state.

October report

How was your month of October? It supposedly been half way into our spring season but we had summer temperatures and severe storms already.  BOM has predicted good cyclones to hit our country this upcoming summer season. Going by international news I have heard some stories about what mother nature has been up in the northern hemisphere.  We had a couple of minor earthquakes hit in our state too!

 

Had a busy month as usual with my study commitments and attending to only a couple of craft meets. Two weekends ago I had attended to our craft retreat at a resort on the Sunshine Coast.  It was a good weekend and mostly worked on some craft swaps and made a lot of cards.

 

Back to school happened after Labour Day weekend.  Pupil free day happened on 19 October which I worked almost a full day at work experience. The centre had organised two jumping castles for the kids to play in and a special guest from Reverse Garage QLD came in to educate children about being creative in arts from using recycled products. 

 

Ten days ago our beloved neighbour's cat named Theo passed away.  The cat was only 2 years old and it was quite a shocked when the owner approached us with the bad news. We don't really know what happened but we just assumed it was either a bad accident or sudden illness to take the cat's life away from everyone.  I do really missed the little guy! Theo was a beloved and friendly little guy who loved most of us in our street. He would visit our house on a daily basis as he was best friends with my cat which I am sure he misses him too!  My cat was sad for afew days! Theo loved to be in my car too! 

 

My 15 yo had a near health scare last month. Two weeks ago she spotted two moles on her back. On last Thursday she had her full body scan done at a Melanoma Clinic.  Luckily for her she doesn't have any skin cancer at present. Because she has very fair complexion and has a family history of melanomas, she is required to have her skin check now, every two years. Just a reminder to all parents and grandparents (who babysit) about their child/ren who have sun exposure. It might be a big deal to children now but once they are adults, the damage is done!  The doctor who seen my daughter on Thursday did say it's important to look after your skin for life. Not only the sun damages your skin, it also premature your skin too!!

 

My 15 yo had work experience this week, worked at a doggy daycare shed. It's similar to childcare but working with small dogs. Owners bring in their dogs to be supervised for the day.  Rachel had alot of interactions with the dogs and learn behaviour traits. She worked from 8:30am to 5pm and had a 2hr lunch break (that's when the dogs napped) each day.

 

Did you celebrate Halloween?  This celebration isn't my cup of tea!  I wasn't home this weekend to even know if there were any Halloween celebrations happened. 

 

Enjoy your month of November!  At the end of this month I will have a 17 yo who will be graduating high school.

Work experience

How is everyone?  Guess you are all wondering where I have been for the past two months?? Actually I have been too busy to do other things since work experience had started.  In August I started my work experience at an OSHC centre.  I work two afternoons a week and had four days during vacation care in September. Its going well so far!! 

All I have really done for the past two months is study and more study!!!  At times it can get quite stressful thinking of getting my hours up. I don't know how a lot of single parents can cope with raising a child on their own, do the damn housework, employment work and study too.  I tried to have two nights a week to make up my study hours too.

We recently had school holidays for two weeks.  I didn't get a lot of time with my girls due to studying and work experience.  But we did get to manage to see two movies: PIXELS and PAN at the cinema. My 15 yo had her second week of school holidays at Grandma's.

Gotta go as my battery is getting low.  Have a good October (well. what's left of it)

July report

Consider it is only four days to go until we say farewell July, we are half way into winter season we had a mixed bag of weather.  Either had snow (in places where residents had seen snow since the mid 80's), rain, wind but only in the past couple of days we had lovely warm sunshine.

My neighbours moved out today so my narrow street was busy with vehicles everywhere.  I had to park a four houses down after I dropped Rachel off to school this morning. The neighbours auction the house off in June but I won't say how much because you might fall off your chair!!  Its sad to see them go as they are a nice family.

Earlier this month we had school holidays for two weeks. Didn't do a great deal in the first week as I had the flu but it is now doing the cycle to other family members. In the second week the girls and I caught a couple of PG movies at the cinema. My eldest girl and I seen Magic Mike 2 at the cinema.  I was abit disappointed as there wasn't enough male action from the boys compared to the first movie.

Last weekend I had a cousin up from Sydney. I went out for lunch with her and her partner in the city on Sunday. They were up here for a major soccer match live for a preseason English match in Australia.  On the weekend I attended to a 55th birthday dinner for a bowling friend. 

That reminds me I have a couple of birthday cards to finish which I better get them done this week.  I had been to a couple of craft class and days too this month.  I have a couple of classes and meets this week.  At least it gives me a break from studying, otherwise I would go crazy.

Speaking of studying I better get my brain back into studying tonight as I didn't get the chance to do any today.  I had a busy day being online, sorting out some business affairs and my car had been booked for its 50 000km service to be done at lunchtime.  All is good!

Enjoy your month of August!  There are two family members who will celebrate their birthday this upcoming month. 

June report

WOW! Half of 2015 has now passed. How was your month?  June was a busy month trying to finish off three modules for semester one. But only managed to have one module assessed so far! Also attended to a practical day for first aide.  I can't believe how much energy is taken out on you when to manually perform CPR to save a person's life. Since I have completed this course I have noticed on some TV shows how wrong the act is on performing CPR to a person.

Since our annual passes for theme parks was coming to a close in June we managed to have two more visits at Dreamworld and SeaWorld. It seems its cheaper to purchase a yearly pass now as I last knew one day entry for an adult is about $90 now. It was good to have a pass to go but if I continued to go regularly it was getting too tedious.  It was good for the kids as they intend to love to go on rides more!! But if you aren't a ride person it is no point on visiting theme parks all the time.  Even when I was a kid I wasn't really a big fan to lots of rides. The favourite things I used to love was viewing the animals and watching the shows.

Enjoy your month of July!  It's currently school holidays for us. I did have afew plans organised but it went out the window last week. My first week was mainly spent at home recovering this nasty flu virus I caught. I am now over the worse symptoms of the flu and hopefully be back to normal by the time school resumes next week.

May report

OMG!  Where did the month of May go?  I can't believe its the first day of June.  It's supposedly be the official start of winter but I think most areas of country already had winter hit early.  I know some areas of US had bad experiences with wild weather recently.  But on 1st May Brisbane had the most wettest storm afternoon in history.  From 2pm (the time my Aunt's funeral started in Mackay) the first sound of thunder started and continued with heavy rain until about 7pm. Most motorists had the longest journey home that evening as a lot of roads were under water.  I did have an outdoor event to attend to that night but it was proposed to Sunday afternoon.
I had a busy month as always with normal commitments to deal with.  I had some run around issues to deal with my field placement.  I may found a successful venue as long the college doesn't give me the run around with relevant paperwork this week.
The only highlights of the month was attending to a live football game and to attending to a Dr Who event in Brisbane.  I don't watch the show religiously but I only attend to this event as my friend had spare tickets.  I got to meet the main character of show very briefly and witness the question forum in the afternoon where fans of the show was allowed to ask many questions to the three actors for two hours.  I found the forum was educational and learnt more about the actor's career myself.
Time to get some studying done this afternoon.  I have two assessments to complete in the next 3 weeks.  It's been a very long time since I last completed an assignment successfully. One assessment is a very long essay to complete.  I started on this assessment last night at Maccies while waiting for my friend to show up after he played sport.
Enjoy your first season of winter or summer!  I know which hemisphere I would love to be at right now.....wherever there is summer!  My 14 yo child was home from school for 3 days last week as she had the winter flu cross chest infection. Can you see why I hate winter?  It's not the cold temperature its all the winter viruses anyone can catch.

A Sad April

Last week of April wasn't the best week of the month. Sadly my Auntie died on Monday morning of 27 April after a short battle with cancer.  I only seen her 8 days before the worse of the cancer set in.  Within 3 weeks (between two scans) the cancer rapidly spread throughout her organs, bones and her brain but in the last three days of her life was the worse situation of all. The poor thing!! 

I am grateful I had the opportunity to see her on the school holidays and said my goodbyes to her then as we all knew she was terminally ill.  Just no one wasn't expecting to hit so fast!! Sadly I didn't attend to her funeral as I met to had a Friday night commitment on but it was postponed due to a super wet day in Brisbane.

Other than that, I had a busy month with school holiday activities.  The first week I spend time with my girls.  On that weekend I spend time with a family friend who was in town for afew days.  We went dining out for dinner and seen a movie on Saturday night. On Sunday we had a day at a theme park.

In the second week Monique and I had afew days away up north.  The purpose of this trip was to see my belated Auntie for the last time but we managed to spend time with afew of my other relatives and friends of mine. And went shopping and social bowling.

Back to school for term 2 started on 20 April.  On last Thursday Rachel's school had their annual cross country event.  Good timing really as we had a super wet Friday with heavy rain and thunder for hours.  A lot of roads were flooded so it was a long journey for motorists to get home from their destination that evening. Normally it takes me 30 minutes drive to my bf's but it taken me 3 hours to drive there that night.  He was such a sweet heart to wait for my arrival so late! We had a hamburger with the lot that night.  He even made the meat patty himself!!

I hope everyone is well and will enjoy the month of May.  To all readers who still have a mum, enjoy your Mother's day with her this Sunday. 

March report

WOW!  Where did March go? I had a busy month studying my course, attending to only a couple of craft meets and continue bowling on Sunday night. 

My team Is currently in first place. The second team (who has the top bowlers with 200 averages) is only one point behind us. Myself and my team mate had star of the week rewards and I won the one of the raffle draws once.
 
Besides the normal commitments I managed to see 1927 in concert with my boyfriend.  Wendy Matthews was their special guest.

Every Wednesday Rachel and I were at the club for dinner and see a free move upstairs.  Watched the movies we haven't seen before. 

Speaking of new release movies my boyfriend and I had seen STILL ALICE at the cinema.  It's a fiction story about a professional doctor in her 50s with Alzheimer's Disease. This story plot was too close to home as I had a grand parent with this horrible disease. The actress who played ALICE won an award for the best actress!

I can't believe the start of Easter is only two days away.  I plan to do some Easter shopping in the morning after I drop my daughter of to school. At this stage I don't know what we are going to do as my boyfriend works night shift on Thursday night and day shift on Easter Monday. Also I won't see my girls over Easter either as they will be away with their father. Rachel's birthday is on Easter Monday.

The girls will have the start of their school holidays on Good Friday.  We haven't made any concrete plans as this weather is so unpredictable.  Also I have some study to catch up on. 

All the best for a safe enjoyable Easter break! Safe travels on the road if you have any travel plans.  I don't think I will be driving much over the weekend as we have been forecast a wet and/or story weekend.  It's heavy rain right now while I am typing up this blog report.

February report

Goodness me! Where is this year going? It's now the forth day into march already. If my belated Nanna was still on earth she would of turned 105 today.
Australia supposedly have the start of autumn season now. It might be for some states of the country but not for SE QLD. We are forecast to have high 30s temperature for tomorrow. I don't know how global our weather report goes but Central QLD did experienced a tropical cyclone two weeks ago. A category 5 hit Shoalwater bay and Yeppoon at breakfast time. As it downgraded to a tropical low the storm cell moved south to the border. All we had was rain for a couple of days.
February was a busy month with normal commitments. Also Managed to see two new released movies at the cinema with my male friend. We had seen jupiters ascending and 50 shades of grey. I started to read the first book of 50 shades too.
Bowling has been going well lately. My team is currently in top place. My daughter and I bowl together now as the previous team mate ditched me on the first night back in January. Both my daughter and I had star of the week rewards last month too.
Last week I enrolled to study a certificate course thru a private tertiary institute in the city. I met to start at home this week but my first module hasn't arrived via post as yet. OMG! I hope my mail hasn't gone to Sydney instead if Brisbane. All the years my family lived at this address our mail intends to travel the country side.
All the best for a happy and healthy start of autumn or spring for northern hemisphere readers.

My Summer report

Goodness me!  Almost three months passed since I last posted on my blog.  The main reason I haven't posted until now because we had six weeks of summer vacation and I had serious issues with my old laptop which only now the problem is now sorted out a week ago.

December was the last month of 2014.  It was the beginning of officially summer season in Australia and getting prepared for Christmas.  I was busy with break up parties for craft, lunch with friends and finalized Christmas shopping. We had quiet festive celebrations with the family. Before Christmas we viewed the festive display in the city. I was abit disappointed as it wasn't a big display like the previous year.

We had six weeks of summer holidays until late January.  It was a busy time with my kids and spending time with the family and friends.  We had a lot of dining out moments, four birthday celebrations, 3 day visit to Dreamworld, Movieworld and SeaWorld, 2 day visit to the QLD museum and watched 6 movies at the cinema.

My girls are now back at school and settling into their new grade well.  Last week my 14 yo had her school's swimming carnival which her sports house won!!!

Since the girls are back at school, my bowling resumed and craft meets started.  But I might not be attending to many craft meets now as I plan on studying my qualification.

All the best for a healthy and happy 2015!