Sunday

Another early start this morning with the kids and I dropping Ben off to his photography seminar at 8am at Southbank.

The kids and I spent the morning at home, and we watched Arthur and the Invisibles and also Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium on DVD (Helen gave them to us to watch as she got them from Bali).

Then we went out to the park in the afternoon and did a quick grocery shop for some dinner.

Ben phoned at 5.30pm (which I missed as we were still out) and said his phone battery was flat and had to turn his phone off.

I must admit I sorted expected him to be home by 9pmish - since he has been out all day, but I went to bed at 9.30pm because it was obvious he wasn't coming home for a while - little did I know it would be the start of a huge fight, something we have not done in a long, long time!!

Saturday - a lot of racing around

Wow what a busy day!

Up early with Dom, since he wakes up at about 5.30am every day now!

I dropped Kenz off at gymnastics and I took Dom and Oscar for a drive to the dog groomers at Eatons Hill. Left Oscar there and Dom and I went back to gymnastics - bad move - Dom just runs around everywhere - it is exhausting!

Once Kenz finished, we raced home, I dropped Dom off to Ben and Kenz and I changed to my little car and we went to Mt Coot-tha to catch up with Tresona, her new partner Aaron and his little girl. Kenz and Grace fed the ducks and ran amok, and we had morning tea at the cafe. It was so hot too!

Then we unfortunately had to race off (sorry about that Tres) to come home. At that stage Ben went back with Dom to pick up Oscar from the groomers. He looks like a Poodle!

Ben and I both got home at the same time, we jumped into his car (as Dom was asleep) and then we went out to Helen's Showroom at Samford. Helen owns/runs HG Unique Spaces and the showroom looks fantastic!!!

Then we went back to Helen and Garry's place - which is also looking fantastic as they last time we were there was back in Sept 2006 when they got married in the shell of their house!!

Then Helen came back to our place to give us some ideas on how Ben can modernise the front office and studio as she said it's a bit of a mix of stuff.

It's Colonial, colonial colours and then there's Meditteranean floor tiles and the kitchen tiles, it's also got the funky purple lounges and then it's got the casual leather recliners! So we need to do a bit of work to it!

Helen suggested getting the tiles 2packed a dark grey colour and have the wall times changed as well, paint the walls white, get some new bits and peices of furniture and turn it into a funky New York style Bachelor Pad. I'm quite excited about it, because we do need it to look professional and up to date!

Helen also made some great suggestions for our lounge/dining/kitchen upstairs!!

Helen and Callum (her little boy) left about 8pm.

Thursday / Friday

Thursday - F&P arrived at 8.10am to look at the fridge which has been broken down since the weekend. All it was, was that the seal is damaged and the fridge had frozen up so I have to defrost it for about 24 hours and then it should be working ok and then he had to come back with a part in about 2 weeks time, so hopefully it keeps running ok until then. Then I took Kenz to school (Ben went to his photographers breakfast) and then Dom and I raced off to the gym. No joke, there were about 50 people in that Body Pump class - Alex is a great instructor - she's so fit!

After the gym Dom and I went grocery shopping but I couldn't buy too much because we only have the small drinks fridge on the deck to put everything in. I have thrown out so much food from the fridge and freezer, it's not funny!

Dom's child care phoned to say they had a Thursday for Dom and he can start his 4th day next week!! I am so not ready for him to 4 days yet.

Then we picked up Kenz from school and Dom fell asleep in his pram, so he slept until 5.30pm! Kenz, Ben and even Oscar fell asleep too - I should have had a sleep since Dom had me up at 5.15 am but I just couldn't go to sleep.

Then I went to the gym again to do my body balance class (this makes is 3 times this week) but our teacher is on holidays, so we did a yoga class instead (Sharon E came with me again).

Ben and I had a good talk about me working an extra day, but we worked out by the time we paid the extra mortgage repayments, paid child care, after school care, I caught the train in to work and the organising and re-jigging that I would have to do (like changing grocery days etc) we worked out I'd only end up with about $30- so it's just not worth it!!!

So Ben is just going to have to talk to his boss and ask for a payrise :o)!!!!

Friday - the fridge is finally getting cold. I took Kenz to school as Ben left at 7.30am to head up to Noosa with a group of photographers. Then Dom and I took Oscar to the vet to have his annual vaccination - Oscar sat in the front seat of my Peugeot - and he was great - like he was totally used to it - even though we normally just put him in the back of the Patrol (which Ben had up at Noosa). Osc has an ear infection so I have to put 8 drops in his left ear twice a day until the drops finish (in about 10 days). Poor dog.

I got all my blood test results today - and everything is NORMAL! So that means - no thyroid, no diabetes, no antibody problems - which is great - but still doesn't explain my mood swings, feeling exhausted and run down -etc etc. I still think it's hormones...

I think I might try those 30 Plus tablets that Lisa Curry-Kenny sells - it's worth a shot!

Came home, phoned Liz to see how her hand was as she hurt it whilst camping (but it's all good), and she mentioned she was looking at trying Shaelie at Girl Guides - which I had also been thinking about for McKenzie, so I'm going to take Kenz next Friday night to see how she goes. She can go up to 4 times before she has to join.

Took Dom swimming - geez he's doing well and then raced to get Kenz from school.

Then the children went a bit feral in the afternoon! Dom was in bed by 6.15pm and Kenz went by 7.30pm (even though I wanted her in earlier than that!).

Ben's been phoning throughout the day and it doesn't look like he'll get home from Noosa until about 10pm - if not later. A long day, but I'm sure he loved it!!

What a crappy start to the week

So where do I start?

Lets see, over the weekend the fridge wasn't feeling very cold and I was pretty certain that it had died, so first thing Monday morning Ben phoned Fisher & Paykel to get someone out to look at it. They can't come until Thursday! This fridge is only 2 years and 2 months old (thankfully we bought an extended warranty with it!). Lots of stuff thrown out of the fridge today.

Tuesday, nothing majorly exciting happened for me. Just the usual work, school, child care etc.

Tuesday Ben went to go a great photography Seminar, so that was a positive for him!

Wednesday I phoned our bank about our mortgage, as we got a letter from them, because every February they up the interest rates (in other words, they don't do it when there are rate increases- and got the shock of my life when I was told that we were underpaying our mortgage and it is now going up $88 a WEEK!!!! I was almost in tears at work.

Don't you think the bank would have contacted us within the year and said "hey, you need to increase your repayments?" - No that would be too easy.

Time to look for a mortgage broker, a new loan or a payrise!!!

Then after lunch I answered a phone call at work and a defendant was threatening to kill herself so she didn't have to go to Court, so that was a bit depressing for me and sort of wrecked my whole day.

Wednesday night I was also a bit stressed about how were were going to pay the extra mortgage repayments and if I should go back to work another day and do 4 days a week - only thing is work has just employed someone to do jobshare with me on Thursdays and Fridays - and I have Dom on a waiting list for child care - so that might take months yet before they get another spot there!!

A Cultural Experience

I love this photo!


Due to the wet weather, we decided to take the kids out and we've just spent 3 hours at the Queensland Museum, the GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) and went to the Kids section of the Andy Warhol Silver Factory and the State Library - the Corner and the Parlour (and all of them were free). The kids had a great time. The Silver Factory was good - they had a room set up like AW's studio he had in 1966 - it had floating balloons called the Silver Clouds - the kids thought that was fantastic!!!! (only thing was that you weren't allowed to take photos).....

But anyway, here's a few that I took.

Little DinosaursChess anyone??
Museum Zoo - need I say any more???

Gymnastics

I'm really hating that Dom is waking up at 5.30am every morning lately - it's driving me mad - especially since we don't get to bed until 11 pm or midnight mosts nights!!

This morning McKenzie started back to gymnastics and it's now a one and a half hour class and she's starting Level 1. Little Emma and Big Emma (big because she is the tallest) were in her class so Kenz was happy about that. Big Emma gave Kenzie a lovely photo of the two of them and the gym comp last year, so that was really sweet of her.

So whilst Kenz was at gymnastics, Dom and I raced off to the gym. For some reason I just don't have much energy on a Saturday morning. I only did about 45 minutes as I had to race back to get Kenz at 10am.

We came home and made scones for morning tea.

We used the easy recipe:-

2 cups of SR Flour
1 cup of cream and
1 cup of lemonade!!

They turned out really nice.

Ian, Sandy and the kids popped in as they were in the area and we had the scones on the deck.

Ben had his 2nd wedding for the year and he left at lunch time.

Dom and I slept for 2 hours in the afternoon - geez I wonder why we needed to have a sleep - Kenz just watched a movie.

I woke up with a shocking headache and felt terrible. Nothing that a couple of tablets couldn't fix though.

I cooked Corned Silverside for dinner, bathed the kids and had dinner when Ben got home at 7pm.

After the kids went to bed I sorted the washing and ironed until 10pm - another exhilerating night at home!!

February already!!

Where did January go??

Kenz went off to school again - she seems to have enjoyed her first couple of days which is great!

I finally made an appointment to see my dr about my Thyroid (since McKenzie's ENT specialist said I should probably have it checked out). So I felt like a hypercondriac asking if I could have my thyroid, antibodies, hormones and a diabetes check! But since thyroid and diabetes run in the family, I just want them checked to be certain.

And amazingly, I managed to get into QScan to have a thyroid ultrasound in the afternoon. The radiologist said she didn't think there was a problem, from what she could see, but a report would be typed and sent to my dr.

To have my blood test I have to fast for 10 hours - that's going to kill me!!

Ben took Dom to his swimming class and picked up Kenz (since I was having the ultrasound done).

I did some of the bookwork for the business until 10.30pm - only have 2 more months to go!! What a great way to spend a Friday night (not)!