I won a raffle :)

wow... we're up to 41/2 months , can't believe it. Anyway the week started badly in that Mark didn't get the parole job after 7 weeks of waiting, so he had a rubbish few days, felt lousy but has now picked himself up again and is now starting that tedious process of job hunting and filling in applications... so 3 done this week and sent in, a DT technician in the local state high school, museum education officer and a case worker...so watch this space. Fussy levels dropping..just wants a job now. However he did pass the interview for the parole service but they just had too many good quality applicants for the number of posts available but have kept him on the books for the next 12 months in case any more posts come up. 

So apart from doing applications.. he's been cleaning the house thoroughly, washing windows, painting dents and scuffed walls ready for our 3 month inspection by the rental company this week. How lucky am I having him to do it :)  He also visited another GP this week, recommended by someone in our church who has also got CRPS...anyway he was much better, phoned Medicare to get him a months worth of meds and wants him to try another painkiller...a new one...he's sceptical but going to try it. Anyway, he was much more interested than the last one. Its really odd trying different docs, a very alien concept, as was the bill :(

I had an interesting week at work... started with my nurses meeting last week, starting the changes I want to make, they were quite receptive on most things and willing to try but some big disagreements in other areas but we'll get there eventually. I then had a study day on Wednesday...self management of chronic conditions.. it was quite interesting but could have been done in half the time. Thursday I went off to Bayside to see how they run their respiratory service, quite different from ours but picked up some useful information and had a nice day out. I then found the British shop on the way back... it was great, Colmans bread sauce, Homepride sauces and After Eights... but at $20 I think not!!! It'll have to keep for Christmas... but butterkist toffee popcorn is what I was after, but they can't get it either :(((

Josh and Rebecca have had a good week, Josh is finding work tiring but loving the money. Rebecca had to be at school for 6.15 on Thursday as had a cross country race in which she did really well. They both had their school fete on Saturday which they also enjoyed. It had rides at some extortionate price, loads of stalls, lots of food and various events happening which included the junior school as well the high school. They have now both got involved in church youth group and enjoying it too.

Mark and I had our interview for church membership this week... already getting stuck in as well. We had a ladies conference yesterday which was excellent, Freedom in Christ was the topic and the speaker was amazing... lots to think about. The men also had a men's night showing the film 'courageous' to do with fatherhood which Mark went to, while Rebecca and I had a girly night watching chick flicks and the sound of music... don't laugh!!!

Today I had a lovely afternoon, I went to a book launch, fashion show and high tea with Mel at a hotel in the city as she had connections with the organiser. The book launch was a lady's story of her journey with their son who was autistic. The tea was lovely.. but the 3rd time I've had scones and cream this week (on thursday at the study day and yesterday at the conference) but.... NO clotted cream...they are just not the same however much I shut my eyes and imagine, still I guess there will always be some downsides:(  However I did win a raffle prize, a $100 voucher for Toni & Guy hair salon... question is, can I afford the rest??? It'll be a real treat going to a posh salon!

House is still progressing...going back and forth between us and the customer services agent we have about variations we've made... had to phone her this week... not sure she has a brain, but we'll have to see if she gets any better or it could be a long journey. 

Anyway...its been colder this week, apparently 8 degrees lower than what's expected for this time of year, 11 degrees when I took Josh to work at 8.30am this morning... did make 18 degrees by lunchtime though, not bad considering its officially winter on Friday :)  might need to up the duvet tog this week though!

Right, am off to join Mark watching the Darling Buds of May, if you can remember it....classic David Jason comedy. 

anyway... thought I'd change the blog colour for a change too !

highs, lows and beauty!

well its been an interesting and emotional week with a multitude of decisions, not least what was I going to cook for our first Aussie friends for a Saturday evening meal, when Mel is a chef!!!

Anyway, work this week has been pretty good, I spent the beginning of the week revamping assessment forms,  audits on the electronic documentation of the others and generally getting a handle on the patients, what and how many referrals we get and other admin stuff. Wednesday I saw my first 2 patients and tried out the new forms... they didn't work :((( the flow was all wrong, so they got re written again on Friday. The downside at present is that all that's written has to be then typed up when you get back in the office, but in order for it to be scanned onto the system as written in the house, it has to be shown to the other respiratory teams in the district, then sent to some computer people with another form to say why you want to change it, and can take months to finally get approval! The bureaucracy of large organisations...did you ever !!!! Anyway we then had our monthly 3 hour team meeting on Thursday am with coffee and cake (or in this months case, chocolate fondue) in the middle, ands then I went to the Director of Nursing's senior nurses meeting in the afternoon...most of which went over my head, although I'm sure will get better. Friday I went up to the PA hospital to see a respiratory research nurse which was interesting and then came back and spent the afternoon with my unit manager discussing my plans and discovery's!!!  watch out guys.... I'm starting the changes tomorrow :))
So that was most of my week.

Marks however was much more varied. He has spent the week meeting pool guys and builders at the plot... concrete or fibre glass, concrete / wood / colour bond retaining walls, up to the boundary or space around? all these decisions and we got nowhere.
He also had some battles with metricon (our builders), from being ultra efficient, now we've signed the contracts they've got decidedly slower at replying to emails ... trying to arrange appointments to go down to make our choices is becoming quite complicated and it takes our customer services person ages to reply... words are going to be said before long.
He also emailed the parole service on Wednesday re the job as its been 7 weeks since interview and they said they'd let him know on Friday, but didn't, so as you can imaging he is totally gutted and convinced he hasn't got it, so feeling very low at present re jobs and all this time wasted.
Wednesday he went out to see a footie match with our lovely new friends Ivan and Mel, and saw the Brisbane Roars and really enjoyed himself although chuckled at the number of hats scarves and thick jackets he saw:)

well Josh has worked hard this week.. spent all day today on the tills at Woollies and it's doing wonders for his incentive to work hard at school so he doesn't end up doing this forever. He finally got paid too, don't know if I should say how much, some might get upset.... but its $12 / hour (approx £8/hr), so Oz is looking slightly more attractive now :)
Rebecca had to sing again for the singing teacher this week and this time she has decided that she is good enough for not only singing lessons but also to put back in the competition, so I have a happy daughter again :)

So the weekend arrived, I finally decided to do Roast dinner on Saturday as Jamie (Mel and Ivan's daughter) had requested Yorkshire puddings so Friday evening spent ages wandering round shops... but could I find frozen Yorkshire puds..No! and neither could I find proper large Yorkshire pudding tins to cook them in.. so ended up with a muffin tin, which seemed to work ok.
Saturday Rebecca decided to have a Harry Potter marathon, Josh did assignments and Mark and I went down to metricon to trying and make some more decisions. Mostly got done although I think I might end up changing the tile selections (much to my husbands horror), but we did get thoroughly cheesed off as there is no price for any of the upgrades.. don't they realise people have budget to work to... you make your choices at your appointment, then they send you the price about 10 days after, then you have to down grade it all again coz its gone way over except that you've set your heart on it by then.... not fair system, but one we've got to work with.

Anyway we were cheered up in the evening and had a lovely time... but look at these cakes Mel bought that she'd made... amazingly beautiful works of art!!!
Very scrummy cake too... almost too gorgeous to eat.








So today we went off to the Brisbane pool and spa show after church, hoping it would give us some clarity about the pool and how and what we were going to do. Josh was working all day so it was just the 3 of us.  Well we bought something, but it wasn't a pool... its a swim spa...

                             

So will be the grey one but look like the blue one but in a grey frame.
Its basically a jacuzzi at one end and a swim pool at the other and has swim jets in which create a strong current to swim against. You can heat them with different temperatures at each end, sit and drink wine in, Its got lots of party lights in and a sound system and docking station for an ipod which were all upgraded show special prices. However Rebecca looked at him sweetly and said we couldn't buy it coz we didn't have an ipod... all have android phones, so as he was so taken with her English accent he's going to send her a 16 GB ipod this week to go with it, with her choice of colour.. it was really quite funny.
So no more having to look at squeezing a pool into a small space, it will last us longer than kids growing out of it, you can swim further in it... and best of all we can take it with us if we ever move house again!!! Am so excited, just need to get the house built to put it in.

So another week rolls around.... what's next I wonder?

4141!!!

I finished last week stating we were going to the beach on Monday which we did. We ended up taking a friend of Rebecca's, Alyssa who is madder than she is!! Josh had gone out with some friends from church youth group so didn't come but he had a great day anyway. However, we had a lovely day at the Gold Coast although the sea was quite rough so the area being manned by the life guards was only very small. However the girls enjoyed themselves splashing about and even though we're officially at the end of autumn the sea was still really warm. So we came back and then went out to Maccys and the cinema to see 5 year engagement which was very funny.

Bank holiday over it was back to work. I spent the rest of the week at cardiac rehab, met the diabetes team, went to an International Nurses Day conference...(didn't even know there was an IND!) did some home visits with Andrea (one of my nurses) and a hospital clinic with Noel (the other one), looked through lots of their notes, had a respiratory team meeting (which one of the consultants comes too) and generally tried to get a handle on the service.

Mark spent the week sorting out retaining walls for the fence that needs to go up on the plot, swimming pools:) putting weed killer on the plot, and dealing with the neighbours that don't want us to move the house nearer their boundary... anyway all sorted now. Still hasn't heard from the parole service, I've decided its their ploy not  to tell anyone they are unsuccessful but just wait long enough and they'll have found another job....3 1/2 weeks now he's been waiting... ridiculous!!! at least he's been able to sort the house stuff out. He also went to visit our pastor mark who's still in hospital.

Josh started work properly this week, had more training Tuesday and Wednesday on till and stacking shelves and then worked 5 hours today and was somewhat tired when we picked him up. However he seems to be enjoying it so far but still hasn't found out how much he gets paid... so unlike my son.

Rebecca has had a good week, played her first hockey match yesterday except the other team was an open team so had yrs 9-12 in it whereas hers was just yr 9 so unfortunately they lost. However her team won the debating competition on Wed evening by 1 point which she got :)) She did really well with some fab arguments about why 'music with offensive lyrics should be banned'.

So yesterday was a right off with sport all morning and Mark had gone to a working party at the pastors house. I managed to sort Ceri's room out in the afternoon which didn't take me as long as I thought... but how she's got so much stuff here I know not... it seems more than anyone else and so many scarves.. not sure they'll ever see the light of day for a while! I then went out last night for pizza and bowling with a group of ladies from church which was really good fun.
Today was Aussie mothers day which was odd... but anyway we went up to South bank after church and picking Josh up and had a wander along the river and around the craft stalls which was lovely although quite windy. The only tell tale that its autumn is that it gets colder quicker in the evening and when the sun goes down.

So I'll answer the 4141 question that I'm sure has been a puzzle to you... that's how many viewings my blog has had since I started writing it in January... I'm overwhelmed that so many have read it... but it seems it might be worth carrying on with for the moment, so happy reading!!!