Back To Daily A Routine....At Last!

The past 2 weeks have been busy....but don't ask me what I have been doing as I really couldn't tell you any specific 'events', I think it is just having all the children at home over the past 6 or 7 weeks for the summer school break makes for a busy household.

I did manage however to get myself off to the Doctors to confirm my pregnancy and get the appropriate forms for the appropriate tests to be done, which meant a few days after that I had blood tests and a 'dating' ultrasound to find out when exactly this baby is due. As it turns out the baby is due on the 6th of September - ages away, I know! After seeing the flickering of our tiny babys heart on the ultrasound makes it all a bit more real now. I felt very excited, but also relief to see that everything was on track, so far. Next is to get over all the pregnancy nausea I have had this time around. Of my 5 previous pregnancies, I have never really suffered from morning sickness. I wouldn't say I have really been 'sick' so to speak this time either, just the yukky feeling of feeling unwell at the most inconvenient times, particularly at meal times. I am sure this will all pass soon enough though.

On another note, the girls all go back to school next week which they are all very excited about. I must admit, I am just a bit excited about it too. It will be nice to be back into the day routine that school time brings. It will also be nice to have a little bit of peace and quiet around the house during the day (not forgetting the 2 littlies will be here) - it does become very noisy with 3 older girls constantly chatting all day long. So as we all get ready for the return of school, holidays for the girls draw to a finish - they have been fun, but very long, bring on school days!!

..... Just another day ....

School Holidays, Beach Trips and Shabbat

School holidays can be so tiring. It's not that we are doing a whole lot, but just having everyone at home at once in a small house it gets crowded and noisy really quickly. By the time 3pm comes around, I need to have an afternoon sleep on the couch! I suppose that has a lot to do with my pregnancy to. I'm looking forward to Monday, I have an appointment for my first ultrasound to see how bub is going and to get a 'due date'. I had a Doctors appointment on Wednesday, he said I'm 9 weeks and due on the 8/8/12, but I'm not sure I'm that far along, I think I may be around 7 weeks.

The past few days the 5 girls and I have just been going out and doing some grocery shopping. Yesterday it was hot (like everyday here!) so we went for a swim in our pool in the morning. The water was cool, but very refreshing. We are supposed to be having a bit of a heatwave here over the next few days so I suppose swimming will be on the cards once again. The funny thing is, we swim a lot in our pool, but we live right on the beach front and although the older girls go down to the beach sometimes, I hardly ever do which means the babies miss out. Yesterday afternoon I decided to take all the girls just down the front to the beach. The 'getting ready' stage took way to long, organising drinks for everyone, getting the babies into their sun safe suits and getting their sunscreen on, getting the older girls ready - it ended up taking about 1/2 an hour. Anyhow, we eventually headed down to the beach and once we got there Topaz cried the whole time and Sapphire didn't want to leave the blanket we were sitting on as she didn't like the sand!! Not a very successful trip. I suppose I couldn't expect to much they are only little and don't go to the beach very often.

Today, I have a lot of cooking planned for Shabbat tonight. One of the things I'm making is one of my favorite meals, Pumpkin Broccoli and Chicken Hot Pot. I'm looking forward to a nice peaceful and relaxing Shabbos with my family. Shabbat Shalom!


.... Just another day ....

To Step In... or Not?

Every day it amazes me just how fast children grow. I find myself looking at my 3 'older' girls thinking  how it seems like only yesterday that they were tiny, brand new babies, and now, here they are in front of me 8, 10 and almost 12 years old. In that sense, the past 10 years has gone so fast.

Since we live in a fairly quiet and safe area we allow the girls to go out by themselves on their scooters. It teaches them some responsibility.  We have very strict rules that they must follow such as being home on time, staying together at all times, carrying a mobile phone at all times and behaving themselves whilst in public etc.

A couple of days ago, the girls were out on their scooters just down the road on the beach front esplanade. They were just playing and having fun when they saw a little boy aged about 2 or 3 years old running away from his mother, basically just being naughty. They didn't take much notice and continued playing until a few minutes later the same little boy was about to head out onto the road. My eldest daughter Jade stopped him while Amber and Ruby questioned where his mother was. The mother came stomping over and said 'I'm here!' and was really angry and snatched the boy away. The problem was, the girls had just stopped the boy from running onto the road where he could have been hit by a car (it's tourist season here and there's lots of cars around) and instead of showing some appreciation towards the girls for their fast actions, she took her anger that she had for her son running off on her out on the girls! She not only failed to be thankful but was straight up rude.

It seems all to often some people are quick to say there is something wrong with our society - that people just don't care about each other and it's no wonder when some people like this lady react as they do. I think it is fair to say the girls did the right thing and had noone taken action and her child been hit by a car she'd be complaining that noone had stopped him and society doesn't care about each other!


.... Just another day ....

Our Own Little Hanukkah Miracle

I've been contemplating whether or not to share the news we received on the first day of Hanukkah. Most people would wait until a bit further down the track, but I figure, why not share the good news - it's kind of our own little Hanukkah miracle! Such a blessing should be shared! Mr Bagel and I discovered that we are expecting our 6th baby. It's early days yet, I'm around 5-6 weeks and due toward the end of August 2012. I'm hoping everything will be ok and we'll have a nice healthy bub.

We have chosen to tell the girls, they were all a bit stunned as we already have two babies under 2 years in the house at the moment. By the time this one arrives Sapphire will be almost 2.5 years and Topaz 16 months. As I said, it's exciting news for us and as I haven't shared the news with anyone outside of our immediate family, my blogging friends are first to know! I have decided I will wait a few more weeks until after I have had my first ultrasound and when I'm out of the 'danger period' - when I'm about 12 weeks before I tell my 'local' friends.

I wanted this Hanukkah to be special and being able to spend it with my husband and our 5 girls makes it very special of course, but this new makes it even more special. I wonder if this will be our 6th girl?!?


.... Just another day ....

Hanukkah Preparations - Are you ready?

It's the 20th December today, and tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! I'm not sure who is more excited, the girls or I? Without putting to much focus on presents, I must say, I am looking forward to seeing them open their presents over the next 8 nights. As I said, it is not just about presents though, I also am looking forward to lighting the menorah tonight, watching the girls play dreidel and teaching the girls the history behind Hanukkah.

I have been making plans since mid year for Hanukkah and even though last Hanukkah was a good one, I wanted to make this one even better! The past few weeks have really dragged on awaiting the 20th December to finally arrive. Presents have been organised for many weeks, and now, it is a bit hard to believe Hanukkah is almost here!

This morning I put my final preparations in place and went grocery shopping with all 5 of the girls - who, thankfully, were well behaved while we were out (that always makes the trip easier!). Two hours and two trolley loads later, I have finished my grocery shopping also. I have many different recipes lined up for the next 8 days, so look out Kosher Cooking Carnival, I will be submitting a few recipes for the next carnival!! Hmmmm....I wonder if the 8kgs of potatos I brought will be enough for Latkes this year??

This video is one of my favorite for Hanukkah, I'm sure you have all seen it before, but I thought I would share it anyhow :)

Chag Sameach!! Happy Hanukkah to all!!

..... Just another day ....

Why do we really blog?

It has been a very long time since I last blogged on this blog. I've had some major changes in my life since then - including the addition of 2 baby girls, one now aged 21 months and the other almost 8 months. That's right, they are only 13 months apart and I now really have my hands full with my 5 girls. We have also moved house once again to what was at the time a reasonable sized house to us as a family of 5...now we are a family of 7 and have quickly out grown this house over the past 2 years. It does have its perks though, we are right on the beach front and have fantastic views which somewhat compensate for our crowded house. Ultimately, we still dream of one day making Aliyah to Israel, I don't know if it will ever happen, Aliyah from Australia is quite a bit harder than it seems to be from the USA or UK. I would move tomorrow if I could. There are no programs for Aliyah from Australia, which is pretty disappointing, but, I will not give up on the hope of getting there in the end.

There are many other changes that we have had as a family, some big, some little, some significant, some not. Many to mundane to even bother listing here. I assume in the past 3 years since I have really blogged on a regular basis that there have been many changes to the Jewish blogosphere also. Bloggers come and go all the time - I've looked up a few of my old favorites who are still on my blogroll to sadly discover that they no longer blog. Even after taking such a long break from blogging myself, and after contemplating it numerous times, I have not been able to call blogging quits forever like some of my favorite bloggers have done. In my quick browse around the blogs, I have noticed Jewish bloggers who I have never heard of before, who are blogging regularly and climbing the ladder to the top of the JBlog world. So, I wonder if this post here of mine, on my blog that I haven't written on regularly for 3 years will even get read? Why do we really blog anyway? I guess it really doesn't matter anyway - for me its more about therapy rather than about pulling massive reader numbers - therapy that I would like to take up on a regular basis once again. At the end of the day, I guess everyone blogs for their own reasons...whatever they may be.



.... Just another day ....

Smooth Sailing??

On Friday I experienced some health issues (which I won't go into detail) which made me seriously concerned about my baby. So at 6am, I found myself going off to the emergency department for a day of blood tests, ultrasounds, IV drips and any other test you can possibly think of! Thankfully, there wasn't anyone else waiting when I arrived, so I was seen by the Doctor straight away. It wasn't until about 8am that people started filing in with all sorts of ailments.
After numerous hours and all the tests, it turned out that the baby is fine and they sent me home with 3 days of bed rest ahead of me and no real explanation of what caused the problems. I have been resting, but not in bed, I think I would go crazy spending 3 days in bed - I have had enough trouble just sitting about not being able to do anything much.
The girls have been pretty good at helping out - it took them about an hour to hang out a load of washing and a whole lot of arguing over who was hanging what and where!
It's back to work for me tomorrow, I just hope that it will be smooth sailing from now on!


..... Just another day ....

224 Days To Go

The girls are home from school this week - no, it's not holidays, a couple of the children at school have swine flu. I spoke to Amber's teacher last week, just to remind her of Amber's heart condition and her higher risk to swine flu. She suggested that if a child in the class appeared to have flu symptoms or a child in the school had been diagnosed with swine flu she would give me a phone call to come and pick up the girls. So on Monday the phone call came... while I was at work of course. Anyhow, the girls are home with some school work to do for the week. We just can't have Amber get swine flu - she has enough trouble handling the common cold at times.

On another subject, yesterday I went to my first antenatal appointment, which really just consisted of the doctor printing out an ultrasound request for me to take to the x-ray department to have a dating scan and find out the due date. This morning I was up at 7.30am drinking the required 1 litre of water before my ultrasound at 8.50am. The scan went well. I am officially 8 weeks pregnant now with the baby due on the 10th of March! Only 224 days to go! Lol!


.... Just another day ....

Good-bye Girl

Needless to say, things have been kind of crazy in the past few weeks - hence the lack of blogging... I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted.

As many know, we are gearing up to do the 'big move'. We have a half empty house now - well, half empty compared to what it was... and trust me, it was pretty full! We have sold a lot of our things, but I feel like we have so much more to go and we are quickly running out of time to get rid of them.

About two weeks ago we gave our beloved pet dog away as we will be unable to keep her when we are living in Sydney (no backyard = unhappy dog!) Thankfully we were able to find a really good home for her, infact we couldn't have hoped for a better home for her. The people have another dog - same breed and same age, and they live on a really big property with a couple of dams so the dogs can go swimming whenever they like. It was a sad day, the kids were pretty upset, but, considering she has gone to such a good home makes it a bit easier for us, we know she is being spoilt!

So, today, I thought I would do a quick post to let my blogging friends know I am still around and everything is ok...

...Oh and don't forget to drop back in and check out JPix on Thursday, I am hosting - get your picture posts in!!


.... Just another day ....

Hoping For A More Peaceful Night!

Just thought I would post a random photo today, it is not really related to this post... but anyway.

I had a terrible sleep last night, Amber has croupe again so I pretty much slept with one eye open - ready for a coughing fit from Amber and ready to leap out of bed and down the stairs in the darkness to see if she is ok. Thank goodness she was ok last night although I think she will be worse tonight.

Apart from having a restless sleep, once I did fall into a sound sleep I woke to our dog's incessant barking at 2.30am. I ended up having to go outside into the cold misty night to call her back home and to get her to stop barking, which, she pretty much ignored once I went back inside.

The last time I looked at the clock it was 4am, the next time I looked at the clock it was 7.30am and time to get up - needless to say the night was too short.


Here's hoping tonight will be a more relaxed and peaceful night!


.... Just another day ....

Through The Stormy Clouds

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been really busy working over the last couple of weeks. Part of my work included driving 2 hours on Sunday to deliver a package. Considering once I would get there it would take 10 minutes to drop off the package, I decidnger to take the whole family - we don't go on day trips very often.

It ended up being a really nice trip, the girls were so well behaved in the back seat for 2 hours and I dropped off the package with no problems at all - I didn't even get lost! Earlier on Sunday we had visitors and we didn't get to leave for our trip until 2pm, so we arrived to drop off the package at about 4 pm. At 4pm on a Sunday afternoon there are no shops open or anything like that, so we decided to take the girls down to the forshore to have a look at the boats.

The sun was setting and looked so pretty shimmering on the water, the breeze was getting colder and stronger by the minute, but I did manage to get out of the warm car and take some photos which I have posted some of today and will post a few more over the next couple of days. Enjoy!



.... Just another day ....

Down To The Bus Stop - Slideshow

Aaron brought me a new digital camera last week, our old one was getting to be just a little to old and to slow - it was time to update. I have been giving it a bit of a workout since I got it and took a few photos on my way to pick up the girls from the school bus stop down the road the other day.

You can view the flickr slideshow here to see all 28 images. All photos are optimized for fast loading/viewing.

The trip starts off going down our VERY long, steep, drive way and shows some of the sights on the way to the bus stop. Then you will see Ruby in the car waiting at the bus stop for the bus to arrive, the bus arriving, sights back to home and finally heading back up the drive way.

Enjoy!

.... Just another day ....

My Reasons...

After posting yesterdays post that gave just a peek into my late teens, I am sure a few people are wondering how I came to where I am today - wanting to convert to Orthodox Judaism. Rafi G from Life In Israel was a little concerned about asking, but he did ask what made me decide to convert to Judaism. When I thought about it, I guess, after now knowing a little bit of my background you would kind of wonder.

There are so many different aspects of our reasoning, I am sure my husband has his own personal feelings and reasons on this topic and I have mine. There are some reasons that I don't need to explain, such as monotheism - my belief that G-d is one, the ability to daven directly to G-d, G-d created the universe in 6 days, there is no original sin - we choose our own path of good or bad on earth, and I have never really understood the point of Jesus and Mary statues and paintings etc, but then there are the more ingrained reasons, things that have happened over the years to make me come to the realisation that Judaism is for me and my family that need a bit more explanation.

It has almost been 12 months since my husband and I started to learn about Orthodox Judaism and decided we want to convert. I guess we have my husbands Grandmother to thank, she was Jewish. My husband had mentioned to me that she was Jewish and we started to do a bit of research about Judaism, it was then we discovered that we both held similar beliefs as Jews do, infact it was quite strange to make this discovery. After more research, my husband phoned a Rabbi in Sydney and told him that we, as a family of 5 wanted to convert. I think he was pretty shocked, I get the feeling that most people that want to convert do it for love - so they can marry someone who is already Jewish, but here we were, a whole family. I must say, he has been very supportive and very patient, he has already been waiting 12 months for us to move to Sydney to begin our conversion. Since then we have continued to learn more about Judaism and have lived as 'Jewish' as we can considering we live in the 'outback'. We have also made the commitment of making the 400km journey of moving our family back to Sydney to officially begin our conversion in June this year. Why June, why not now? Because we are in a lease that ends in June and we need that time to be able to save enough money to be able to move back to the city.

For me personally, my reasons for converting stem back further than 12 months ago. In fact some of the reasons are closely related to my previous post about my past.

I come from a family that wasn't religious at all - although I was Christened as a baby and I came from a Christian family, you would never know it. If someone in our family said they were going to church other family members would probably have looked at the person like they were some kind of alien, not because it was wrong to go to church, but because we just didn't do it.

When I was growing up my Mum was best friends with the lady next door, Sue. Sue was a Christian lady who always went to church. I don't have a problem with Christians at all, and I didn't have a problem with Sue being a Christian or with the fact that she went to church all the time - that was fine, whatever, I didn't really care, each to their own. What I did have a problem with was the fact that she was constantly trying to push my Mum into going to Church with her. My Mum felt that because she was Sue's friend that she should go, she didn't want to be rude and say no. Even though I was about 11 or 12 years old I disagreed and made sure Mum knew it. I felt like she was being bullied into going to Church and that since Sue was being so insistent she was almost trying to recruit my Mum to Christianity. It really bugged me.

So as a teenager, I wasn't to excited when Sue came over to our house, not because I didn't like her, she was a lovely lady, but I hated that she continuously tried to force her beliefs of Jesus down my Mums throat and now that I was older, my throat too, 'Why don't you come to church, it would be really good for you', 'Oh, we just had a prayer meeting, it's a pity you didn't come', 'It would be good for you to have Jesus in your life', blah, blah, blah. It wasn't mentioned just once or twice per visit to our house, it was constant talk - it was all she ever said.
It drove me insane, and I think it is the years of growing up, having the only religion I was ever really exposed to forced down my throat all the time that has really pushed me even further away from it. I was raised to be a leader, not a follower, and I didn't believe in Jesus, so I wasn't going to church! And I certainly don't believe in proselytism!

I have never believed in Jesus, I have never believed Jesus was the son of G-d or the messiah, if other people want to believe that, well that's fine, but for me personally, I can't be part of a religion that I don't believe in or feel any spiritual connection with.
I think my parents also expected me to get married in a church - well that was never going to happen. I always said I would never marry in a church because I would feel like such a hypocrite, it just wouldn't be right, being in a church makes me feel uncomfortable, I can't even begin to imagine getting married in a church.

Even though I was a bit of a rebel growing up, I come from a close-knit family, so family values have always been very important to me. In a sense, I feel that by converting, we are in a way continuing family heritage since my husbands Grandmother was Jewish. I really admire the strong sense of 'family' Jewish families have and I also admire their close community and the fact that everyone is willing to help each other. Besides wanting my girls to have strong Jewish beliefs and structure to their lives, this is the environment I want my girls to grow up in, I want them to have strong family and community values, I want them to be active in the Jewish community - if someone needs help in some sort of way, I want them to be able to stand up and help if they can (that goes for myself and my husband too). We have been amazed at the support we have received from the Jblog community over the past few weeks while Amber has had her surgery, it has made such a huge difference in our lives.

Although I am really excited and looking forward to our conversion, I do hope that when the time comes to go before the Sydney Beth Din that I won't be to nervous to be able to explain my reasons and desire to convert. How do you explain something that just feels so natural and so right in your heart?



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.... Just another day ....

Hot Days and Water Worries

Well, there's not a whole lot going on in the world of Baleboosteh at the moment. Besides taking Amber backwards and forwards to the Doctors for blood tests, things have been very quiet... very hot, but still quiet.

We did have one scare though...

It is the middle of summer here right now and we have had a few hot days. I know numerous people from Melbourne, especially some of my family members, were complaining about it being 40 degrees there the other day. As many of you know, I don't live in the city where many of the houses and apartments have air conditioning and are close enough to the coast to get some sort of breeze from the water. We live inland a bit, close to the coast but far too far away to reap any of the benefits of sea breezes. We have a real dry heat here and we certainly don't have an air conditioner, our house isn't even properly insulated, so we might as well be living in a tin shed on hot days. Our house feels like an oven on 26 degree days. We often have days with temperatures in the mid 40's, so to listen to my family whinge about one day of 40 degree heat while they are sitting in their double brick house with the air conditioner on, well, let's just say I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

Since we were in for a few hot days, I decided to fill up our water tank... that's right 'tank'. We live to far away from town to have 'town water' - mains water supply, we live on tank water and mainly rely on rain water from our roof to fill the tank which is a bit of a concern when we are in the middle of one of Australia's biggest droughts on record. So how am I going to fill the tank? Luckily we have a bore down under the river that we overlook and we are able to pump up water when it hasn't rained in a while to top up the tank.

We have lived here at this house for 4 years now, and since we have been here we have never seen the river so dry - it is a huge river, really wide and very long and at the moment we have the smallest little trickle of water running down it. This is a river that we have seen 120ft trees float down in the flow of the water during previous wet seasons. You really wouldn't know it was the same river.

So, I went to turn the bore on to fill up the tank. Sometimes it can be a bit slow, but when it had been on for a few hours and the water level in our tank hadn't changed, I though it was a bit strange. Maybe, considering how little rain we had the bore was a bit low... too low to pump any water up. I decided to try it again 2 days later... still nothing. We reported it to our real estate agent (we rent). After contacting the owner, she told us the bore had run dry and we would probably have to buy water.

Ahhhh, are you serious??? I do between 2 - 5 loads of washing a day, not to mention loads of dishes, showers, toilets, there are after all 5 people living here and with the kids on school holidays we are using even more water than usual. Not only that, we live on top of a ridge, with a very long, steep and very bumpy drive way, I doubt a water tanker could even get up here. Also, not forgetting our landlord has made it crystal clear we are not watering the garden enough. I think them coming over here and watering the garden ALL day long is a clear enough message! So, since I can't stand them hanging around the house all day, I have been watering the garden myself - so they wouldn't have to, but it seems kind of ridiculous considering the rest of our area we live in is on level 4 water restrictions. I have now been doing what they consider the 'right thing' and watering the garden, using all our tank water and now the bore is not working and they are telling us we have to buy water in! HA! Gotta love that!

I was doing a good job at what I do best... getting worked up about it, when the landlord came to have a look at it today. After fiddling around with it for 10 minutes, suddenly it was working again. We now have a full tank of water again! Woo hoo! What a relief. I think what happened is that they had the little tap to the bore open to one of the other tanks on the property while we were away in Sydney and have forgotten to turn it back. Bore water is not very nice, it smells disgusting, it leaves huge red stains in the shower and leaves a thick white build up of calcium on our kettle, but in situations like this, it is better than nothing. Right now every drop is precious.

For the last few days I have been hoping it would rain so the tank would fill with nice fresh rain water... did it? Of course not, but since we now have a full tank of bore water again, guess what?! This afternoon.... it rained...

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Above photos were taken from our house during a recent bushfire of the river we overlook, click on the images to view larger. You will see just how dry the river now is - it even has trees growing in it!


.... Just another day ....

Scary Night Sounds

I have often wondered to myself, am I the only woman who is scared of staying at home alone at night?
For some bizarre reason, I get really scared at home alone at night, I don't know why. I trained really hard a couple of nights a week for 6 years doing karate, I know I am strong for a woman, I was put into the seniors class to train with mainly men as I was the highest graded woman from our dojo. I feel that I could protect myself somewhat if I was attacked - we were taught how to kill a person with our hands if it really came down to it - something I don't know that I could do even put in a serious situation and something upon reflection, I don't know that it should have been taught to us. This was a dojo that did not hand out karate belts to just anyone, we were made to work very hard for them and had to have a certain amount of training to be able to go to the next grading. I myself, after 6 years stopped training after receiving my purple belt as I moved away from the area and never got back into it. (Belt order was white, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, black.)
I don't think I could handle it if my husband had to go away on business trips or spent a lot of time away from home at night for whatever other reason - I can hardly sleep with him in hospital for a few nights! Last night I went to bed late so I would be tired and fall straight to sleep... that part worked pretty well, but I woke up pretty much every hour. Maybe I read to many true crime books?! I don't know what it is, but I know my heart rate is constantly faster than normal and I constantly feel nervous that someone is around - I know it sounds ridiculous.

Well, I suppose I only have a couple of nights to go and he will be back again and I won't feel so insecure! All his test results have come back showing no problems so far, which is very good news!

.... Just another day ....

Jade's 7th Birthday

Aaron is finally home from hospital, although I am not totally sure he is well enough to be home. It turns out he has had a golden staph infection in his leg, it has been pretty nasty. He went into hospital with a leg infection and got the golden staph from the hospital. Anyway he is home and resting and slowly recovering now.

It was Jade's 7th Birthday on Friday. She was very excited of course, but also a bit disappointed that her Dad was still in hospital and wouldn't be home for her Birthday. She opened her presents in the morning before school. Apparently she had a good day at school, but then again when doesn't she?? When she came home we had a big chocolate Birthday cake for her - we lit the candles and sang Happy Birthday to her before Shabbat started.
I took some photos to show Aaron when he came home from hospital but they didn't really come out very well which was a bit disappointing.


It is so quiet at home now with Jade and Amber at school, it is amazing how much work I can get done and how tidy the house now stays.




.... Just another day ....

A Helping Hand

Some of the things Aaron has missed out on enjoying over the past 2 days while he has been in hospital....


Amber's first day at school. Poor little thing, I think she was quite nervous in the morning until we arrived at school where I hardly even got a goodbye out of her - she was far to busy colouring in with the other kids in her class, which was great to see. She had a good day although she was quite pale and tired when I picked her up from school. Here she is before school yesterday morning:







And here she is with Ruby and Jade:












With 2 of my 3 girls now at school, I had time to bake 40 muffins yesterday with the help of Ruby who thought it was great fun! And since it is Jades 7th Birthday tommorrow, Ruby and I have been making her a chocolate Birthday cake today. Here is Ruby's idea of helping Mum cook...


























.... Just another day ....

Irregular Blogging - Hospital Stays & School Holidays

Since there are a few things going on at home at the moment, I may not have the time to update my blog everyday. Hopefully things will be back to normal in the next few days.


My husband had to go to hospital last night in the middle of the night. I won't go into details just yet about what is wrong as he will be there for the next few days having some tests. Hopefully it is nothing serious and he will be back on his feet very soon.


Meanwhile, I am at home with the girls who are keeping me very busy. Jade goes back to school tommorrow as the school holidays are now over, and Amber starts her first day at Kindergarten (same school as Jade) on Wednesday. That will be a big day for her considering what she has been through over the past few weeks.


So with Dad in hospital and Jade and Amber at school, that will leave just Mum and Ruby at home. Wow, things will be quite, although I will need to go and see Mr Bagel in hospital over the next few days - our closest hospital is almost an hours drive away.


Anyway, that's it from me for now :D



.... Just another day ....

Is This The Right Thing To Do?

Since we are renting the house we live in and have lived in for the past four years we have had to put up with four monthly inspections carried out by the real estate agent. Every four months over the past 4 years we have had our privacy invaded by these inspections in which the first one (which was done 6 weeks after we moved in) they pointed out a couple of small cobwebs that needed to be removed. I think it is quite obvious now that we are not the 'punch holes in the walls' kind of people and we respect and care for the property.

Other than the property damaging cobweb(!) there has really been nothing else for them to kvetch about, even today there was no problems. The real estate agent knows that we are good tenants and has even asked the landlord if we could make it 6 monthly inspections, but they said no. Even though the landlord and his wife spend every weekend up here in the small cabin just a few metres from the house and even though they come up here numerous times a week - at any minute they could just arrive out of no-where, they still said no. They made out that they would rarely be here when we first signed the lease and now at times they basically live here, which I really don't like - who wants to live with their landlord? And worse still who wants to live always under the watchful eye of the landlord?

While we were in Sydney for Ambers heart operation for 2.5 weeks the landlord decided to mow the lawn while we weren't here. The lawn was mowed by me the week before we went away and considering the lack of rain, I would imagine that it was not an 'emergency'. When we arrived home to find the lawn had been mowed, we wondered why it had been done. I told my husband that it was probably a good will gesture and that the landlord was just being helpful considering our circumstances at the time. We know that he is a snoop when we are not at home and has no problems wandering around the backyard etc and to think that the lawn was probably 3 inches long, to him would be mind boggling - he probably lost a couple of nights sleep over that!

About 2 days after we came home from Sydney I went to turn the pool filter on so we could use the pool. We had two very long outdoor extension leads joined to reach the outside power point. I plugged them into the filter and nothing happened... so I followed the first lead to the other end where the plug is... and where the second lead is supposed to be... it wasn't there. I looked in our carport to see if it had been wound up while the lawn was mowed and left somewhere, but it wasn't there. I went back to the end of the first lead where the second lead was supposed to be and laying in the garden was a one foot piece of the 'missing' extension lead... badly severed at both ends and obviously run over by the landlord while mowing the grass.

What really annoyed us was that he had not approached us to say what had happened, he had simply removed the extension lead and hoped we wouldn't notice. It was nice of him to mow the lawn for us, but I think it was pretty rude to take away the cord and say nothing. We explained what has happened to the real estate agent today and we made it really really clear we don't want this to turn into a major problem, but it has been annoying us and we felt that it wasn't the right thing to have done. If we took or damaged a $35 extension lead of his there would be a major problem and he would have no trouble bringing the topic up, infact he would come straight over and confront us about it.

I really don't know if we have done the right thing in telling the real estate agent about it or not. I know he has done the wrong thing in not saying something and trying to hide it too, but I just don't want conflict over the next few months we are here either and we know from experience he is quite a moody fellow.


What do you think? Should we have mentioned it or not?

.... Just another day ....

All Th Current Going On's

I know since we came home from Sydney after Amber's heart surgery my blogging has been a little sporadic. I am really hoping to get into a more regular routine of daily blogging again over the next few days.
Right now it has been quite hard for me to blog regularly - you have got to understand, it is school holidays here right now. I think anyone with children knows how hard it is to get anything done around the house when the kids are on school holidays, let alone sit down and concentrate long enough to string a few sentences together with out being interrupted 100 times.
In about 3 weeks time school holidays end and the kids go back to school. This year I will have 2 out of 3 of my girls going to school, things sure will be quiet with just little Ruby following me around the house and helping me with lots of jobs. Who will she argue with if Jade and Amber are not home during the day??


Since we have been back home I have been backwards and forwards to town taking Amber to our local GP for blood tests to check the levels of her medications (and just trying to keep up with her medication too!). She finds it quite traumatic and even started crying in the doctor's surgery waiting room today because she knows when she goes there, it is now for blood tests - which she hates. The best thing about it is that Mum buys her a surprise afterwards to try to smooth things over - which she loves!


Going into town is a real nightmare at the moment as it is peak tourist season and it is just soooo busy. Funny thing is, I don't know many locals in town, but the tourists stick out like sore thumbs, for a start while grocery shopping they ALWAYS have their bathers, sunglasses and straw hats on - rain, hail or shine and they must have sunburn which closely resembles the colour of lobsters (I know, not kosher - but there is not much about this town that is kosher!).
While they are all busy leaving the city to come and enjoy the beautiful sun and surf here, we are heading back to the city this weekend. Amber has an appointment for a post surgery check up, echo and x-ray with the cardiologist. We are booked in at Ronald McDonald House to stay again. I really don't know what we would have done over the past 5 year without being able to stay there. I will also be getting the photos of Amber in hospital developed shortly, which I will be posting. They show all the different stages of her recovery - from arriving in ICU and hour after surgery to 2 weeks later, having her last stiches out. It has been an amazing journey and we have been truly blessed.


Well, its getting late and I am sure the girls will be up in the morning bright and early and all excited about another brand new day to be had, so Mum better be off to bed!


.... Just another day ....