Recently in Personal Category

This year has been marred with bushfires and today is no different. Fires in the Grampians in Victoria have been raging for days with 27 homes lost. You have to admire the fire fighters, they just keep going and going. Crews that were here fighting our fires on New Years Day are now helping out in Victoria. This blaze has over-shadowed ours by far, and that was bad enough. My heart goes out to all the people there.

We had a lovely day. I met Mum and Aileen at the pool and spent a few hours there. My shoulders and back are quite burnt and I was sitting in the shade! The water was lovely and coming home to the new air-conditioner was lovely too. It's such a pleasure to sit in the lounge-room now; not like last week when I had a wet towel draped around my neck and temperatures were 42C. The electricity bill will be of interest when it comes, I hope I'm in for a pleasant surprise, not total heart failure.

Carly and Alex spent most of today at the pool and tonight both are very red and shiny. Lots of moisturiser!! Everything at the pool was free today, and there was a giant blow-up sea monster looking thing that the kids were lining up to go on. There was a guy with a hose keeping it all wet and making it difficult for the kids to stay on, I saw Alex slide off it a few times. They had heaps of fun. Amy went home with Aileen so tonight it's just me and the kids. Alex in his room and Carly in hers and it's nice and quiet. Shame I have to go to work tomorrow. Lots of others at work are taking RDOs. I'm taking two days without pay to take 2 weeks holidays and I have lots of last-minute work to do.

My head is focusing too on what we'll need to pack and I'm already panicking that there won't be enough room in the boot.

Remember...
Riches add to the house...
Virtues to the man.
Master Chen Hai Yang

Every day has been so busy the last couple of weeks since I started back to work. Carly has touch football training in Wagga on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. That gives me half an hour to fly home, change, drive to Wagga then get through peak-hour traffic. Carly got selected to play in the State Cup in Wollongong at the end of February. Training is pretty intensive. There's another week of school holidays left and then we're off to Queensland for a week for Emily's wedding. I got a car converter for the laptop yesterday so the kids can watch DVDs during the 12 hours or more we'll be on the road. It's getting exciting.

I've been doing more work on the Council website and installed Fireworks to edit the images. Another learning curve coming up. I created a cool donation thermometer to show the proceeds from the bushfire relief appeal but I fumbled around in the program and a few lessons wouldn't go astray. I've managed to clean up my pile of work and am hoping to stay on top of it all next week so I can have 2 weeks off without thinking about work.

Alex has been busily re-building and painting his bike. He got a better frame from a mate and has been tinkering away all week. Tools all over the place. He's supposed to be in his rooom cleaning up: it looks like a tornado has been through there. I can hear "Fat Albert" playing in his room so I doubt there's much cleaning up going on. Tomorrow night both Alex and Carly are staying at their father's house and I'm off to my cousin's 50th birthday celebration. I'm looking forward to it.

Lauren and I went shopping last Saturday to buy our wedding outfits. With sales going on all over we both did pretty well. I got a really nice dress, and Lauren bought a gorgeous skirt and top. Aileen has given me a bag to use and beads for Lauren to wear, Emily has organised the hairdresser in Queensland, and I finally ran into Kai's mother last week too, so now it won't be 30 years since I've seen her when we're at the wedding. We'll have a few days all together at the resort to catch up and finalise all the preparations. My head never seems to shut down, there's so much going on.

We had searing heat of 42°C and winds of up to 125 km /h and bushfires raged on all sides of the town. Everything in the house is covered with a fine film of black soot. I've just used 2 buskets of water and the vacuum cleaner to do my bedroom and I can still smell the smoke and dust.

We went to Wagga today around lunch time and on the way out of town noticed a huge grass fire that was racing across between the two main roads. A fire truck was there on his radio so I just thought everything would be okay and the fire-fighters would put the fire out. Not long after we went to visit Nanna in the hospital (it was her 87th birthday), I got a phone call from a friend asking if I was okay because he'd heard that Junee was burning, and homes had already lost. I rang my neighbour to discover they were evacuating homes only a few blocks from us. Because of the heat and the smoke we stayed at Lauren's for the afternoon (she has wonderful air-conditioning), and around 4pm decided to head back home.

Mum and Reg are off on the rodeo circuit and Reg rang me from Tumbarumba a little concerned about his house, which he'd heard was surrounded by bushfires. This got me a little alarmed and when we got to Junee the police had the road blocked and we had to keep going and come in to town from the other direction. Fires were raging in paddocks and the grassland on either side of the road was black and smouldering. When we got to near the sports fields we were again turned around by police roadblocks. Fires were racing across the soccer ground and threatening homes in Junee.

In all, 5 homes were destroyed and one man was rushed to Sydney with burns to 60% of his body. Helicopters and planes circled the town until 7 pm, dropping water bombs and fire retardant. At around 8 I drove up to Mum's to check that their house was okay. Trees and fences were still burning on either side of the road, two blocks from where we live. In Mum's street, the first house had no grass, just blackened ground that was smoking. I was to water mum's garden tonight, but with the wind raging and turmoil all around I felt I had a good excuse to not bother. There was enough cleaning to be done at my own house.

Note: The photo was taken by Junee Shire Council's Cadet Engineer who is a great photographer. You can view more photos of the fire on the Junee Shire Website. For more from the photographer, visit Blue Mountains Photography.

I've had one of the best family weekends ever. Merry Xmas and happy New Year to everybody and may you find joy and happiness in this holiday season. I know it's not always like that for everybody but I wish you the best all the same.

My grandmother is very ill in hospital and we're all hoping and praying that she pulls through, but whether that's what she wants I'm not sure. She's 87 next Monday, and for the last few years has kept telling us she won't be around the following Xmas. Now this Xmas she has spent in hospital and we went to visit her on Saturday (Xmas Eve, Carly's birthday) and all she wanted to know was when she would get out ot there. "Death Valley" she called it. Nanna had a bad Christmas Night and the hospital got the priest for her because they thought she wouldn't make it through the night, but today she has picked up and we're hoping she'll be okay. The doctors are not so confident that she'll get back home but we're still rooting for her. It put a bit of a damper on Xmas lunch when the call came. Mum was unsure what to do, but Reg came to the party and they got rid of us pretty quickly and went to the hospital.

Update Dec 29: I visited Nanna in hospital today, took her up a box of Cadbury Roses chocolates, and was pleased to see they are moving her out of the high-dependency ward. She's off the "worried about" list for them and for us that is a huge relief. Nanna is looking much like her old self again. Thank God.

Remember...
Heaven lent you a soul...
Earth will lend you a grave.
Master Chen Hai Yang

It's the silly season and I'm coming to terms with the fact of no money! We'll eat, drink and be merry and worry another day. Carly and Alex have finished school for the year and both are going to do the lawns tomorrow while I'm at work. It will probably take them half a day, we have a fairly big back yard, and there's lots of whipper snipping, so if one's on the mower and the other on the whipper snipper there should be little chance to fight and argue.

Tomorrow evening Alex has to be in Wagga for the touch football State Cup try-outs and my mum is coming over with us and after touch we'll see "King Kong" at the movies. I'm looking forward to it. We saw the scenes about 6 months ago and it looks to be one of those movies best viewed on the big screen.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at my brother Warren's house. Julie put on lunch and the kids swam and played tennis and played with a dozen or so other kids that were there. The cousins exchanged gifts because they're off on holidays on Wednesday. Most of the family came and Julie had a few friends and it was a lovely day. A bit too windy for me to have a swim, and I didn't get on the tennis court but it was nice to catch up with everyone. For me, that's what Christmas is all about. Warren and Julie have the perfect house for entertaining and I never want to leave once I'm there.

Carly turns 13 on Xmas eve and she's asked to have about 8 girls over on Wednesday night. I can see we're in for a hectic week. I don't mind all the girls sleeping over but am a bit concerned that I have to leave for work earlier than any of them will be up. Unless I get mum to come here Wednesday morning, though Carly wouldn't be impressed with that suggestion. As long as the parents know and are okay about it. Carly was hoping to have the double bed by Wednesday but I can't see that happening until pay-day which is Thursday at the earliest. I'm not really in to giving early presents, it takes all the fun and excitement away from the big day. Tonight when it gets dark we'll do the christmas lights tour of town and am feeling like both Carly and Alex are growing up because they haven't asked to go xmas light looking this year.

Remember...
Water and words easy to pour...
Impossible to recover.
Master Chen Hai Yang

Carly and Alex both had their school parties today, the High School gave the kids a reward with a bus trip to Wagga and a movie. What was a reward for them felt like a punishment for me, I had to pay out $30 so she could go. I hope she enjoyed it. Alex only had a class party and we had to provide chips so I got out of that for very little.

Work is having their Xmas party tonight but I'm not going. It was to cost non-social club members $60, and unfortunately, at this time of year I can think of more important things to spend $60 on. I still have Carly's birthday present to collect and I owe another $200 on it, and a week to get it.

So far the lead-up to Christmas has been terrible. I haven't had the time for Xmas shopping and every time the kids have told me something else they want I've gotten angry. Money is tight this year and every bill was due last month and what with Emily's wedding in February I'm stressing about where all the money is going to come from. I'm afraid my attitude has taken the fun out of Xmas for Carly and Alex. I've promised myself to have a better attitude next week, and try to make it the joy that it should be.

I spent the day in Wagga at the Courthouse. I was to be a witness in a court case and we sat around until 3pm only to be told it will get adjourned until next March. This court case has been going on since last February, and everyone was really hoping it would be all over today. I'd love to talk about it but can't. I didn't get paid for today and although I should have been reimbursed through the court, I didn't fill out any forms so am wondering how I get some money. What with Xmas only a week away I don't imagine anything will be done about it until next year.

I was so looking forward to Friday and the weekend. Work has been busy piling up and today I managed to clear all the clutter. I still have jobs to do but am no longer snowed under. I have a job description to complete over the weekend for work so my job can be re-evaluated. I'll be starting full-time after Christmas with a pay increase more responsibility. My original job was wordprocessing and filing. That will now include responsibility for tracking all the development applications that go through Council, from lodgement to completion. For some applications it can take years! I'll also be responsible for updating and maintaining the Council website which so far I've only done on odd occasions.

Tomorrow the touch football grand finals are being played and both Alex's and Carly's teams are playing. I'm hoping to get some lay-bys paid off while I'm in Wagga or there'll be no money to pay them closer to Christmas. I have about $500 in bills due next week and presents are a bit of a worry this year. It seems the more you earn the more you tend to spend. Kinda takes the joy out of Xmas.

My grandmother is in hospital with a broken hip only a month after being home from hospital after a broken ankle. On the way home after touch I'll call in to the hospital. I know how boring and depressing it can get when you're stuck in a hospital for any length of time.