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Monday, 25 February 2019

A blog post a week 8/52 - FAMILY!

I have had another very busy week and I haven't really had a opportunity to sit down and blog.

So, I will leave you with some pictures of my very crazy week!

We are family!

Pimm's @ Noosa


Down the back of our place


My girls!




We all were very lucky to have Alex come to stay, with the bonus of Miss Jemma making a flying trip up here too.  How lucky am I!

We are very proud of Michael as he got the GOLD AWARD at school in his class.  Well done Michael you are very clever.



A great week.

Thoughts for the week:


Have a great week 💗

Will have more to say next week as all our visitors have made it safely home and I will have some more time as I hope to not have as many meetings etc to attend.

Rach xxx

Monday, 18 February 2019

A blog post a week 7/52 - BUSY!

Hi everyone

It has been another lovely week here on the Sunshine Coast.

The best news of all was Alex, Ben, Summer and Blaydon have come down for a little holiday.

Some photos as I don't have a lot of time to write this week!!












Lots of pictures!!!

Alex's partner Ben just found out he has gotten an new job and had to go up to Cairns to do a course that was required.  He took Miss Summer 😢 with him so she could see her cousin who lives up there.  I'm sure she will have a lot of fun.



The boys had their swimming carnival and Michael got a 1st place and a 3rd place.  Well done to him!  Go Michael.  Having a pool has certainly made such a difference to the boys' confidence.


Some pictures at the park



Happy Valentines Day💗

I also got some lollies and Gaytime icecreams!! (Lost the photo)
Thoughts for the week:


The human race is mentally ill and I don't know if it can be helped or fixed.

Have a great week.

Rach xx




Monday, 11 February 2019

A blog post a week 6/52 - I love pre-loved stuff

Yes this is me
This week has been a pretty stock standard week - we are now getting back into normal life.

Work was a bit crazy for me, as is the first 4 weeks of term.  Lots of new students in the library (I love it).  I will quieten down over then next couple of weeks. 

The boys are settling well into school and our therapies/skills development is about to all start up.  Greg will start helping out at school and afternoons will be busy with me completing homework etc. 

I admit, we have quite strict routines and we run our house like a bit of a military camp.  But you know what, it works for us and the boys.  They don't really do relaxed, easygoing parenting.  The meltdowns are epic and I don't recommend them to anyone.  We prep the boys for everything so they know and there are no surprises.  We have a VERY busy house with everyone coming and going.  I know in the long term the work that we are putting in now will benefit them in the future. 

I think back to the days with my girls.  OMG it was so easy and I was so ignorant.  How times have changed!

Anyway, back to life. 

We celebrated Mum's birthday.  Greg and I took Mum and Dad to Aussie World Pub to try it out.  It was really nice.  I forgot to take photos until after we had finished eating *sigh*, but Mum was still going as she is a slow eater LOL.  My sister came along too which was great.



The food was very nice, the service was wonderful and it was lovely to sit on the balcony.  The noise from the Bruce Highway was "there" as a constant background noise.  I would have thought they would have tried to block it in some way but they haven't. 

They have renovated - or are in the process of renovating the place.  Hmmmm, my honest opinion is that they have really missed the mark unfortunately.  It's clear they have spend an awful lot of money on it, but it looks cheap and nasty and gaudy.  It could have been classy and classic - with a bit of funky fun, but it just screams run down carnival to me (really bright distressed paintwork), with a bit of cheap pub tropical (grass thatched roof look).  Each to their own I suppose, but it really didn't look very nice to my eyes.  It will be interesting to see what happens to it in the future.

I got myself a new handbag from the op shop for $3.25! (they were having a sale LOL). It is a Forever New brand.  I was looking for a big black bag and this fit the bill.  I couldn't complain for the $$.  New it's about $60.


I'm still revamping the bedroom furniture.  I finished my second bedside table this past week and it looks great.  Unfortunately the bed frame was going to be an issue, due to the colour not matching and it being difficult to paint etc.

I bought that bed frame many years ago off Ebay (before Gumtree was even around I think) and when we came here and set it up, Greg went to move it and accidentally cracked the frame.  So, I decided it was time for a new bed frame.

I found this very cool iron bed on Gumtree and fell in love (I think a number of people did actually as she had a waiting list of 4 people).  It was located in North Brisbane - about 1 hours away, so we loaded up the kids and the trailer on Saturday and headed down.  The lady I bought it off said she paid quite a lot of money for it (and I believe her) and had it shipped up from Sydney.  She is an interior designer and was downsizing so needed to sell it.  I'm very happy with it (and I saved a lot of $$ getting it second hand).  It's not a chunky as the wood bed and it makes the bedroom look more spacious.


Loving the new bed frame

We have had a week of on and off good rain and the plants are all looking fantastic.  We desperately needed the rain so it was very welcome.
Front of house looking good - these are the little standards that I got for $10 ea on the half dead plant stand.  They are going great guns now.

I decided I would do a project crochet blanket this year and the pattern and yarn came all the way from the UK.  This will be my biggest project to date.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew (hopefully not) but I started the first bit of it and am a little confused.  I contacted the writer of the pattern to see if she could video herself making the square (so I could follow - I'm a visual learner), but she said she wasn't allowed due to copyright to the magazine (OH NO)  😞😢.  However, she asked me to send her a photo and she will let me know where/if I am going wrong (YAY)  😍.  I hope to be able to get through it with her assistance.  I'll show you progress 😊  I still have to finish my other blanket, so will show that too once completed (not enough hours in the day!!),


Have you ever tried a Dragon Fruit?  How cool do they look.  They are in season up here and I hadn't tried one, so Greg brought me one home.

It tastes fairly bland really - no real strong taste of anything.  Apparently they have lots of anti-oxidants so I am putting some in my smoothies.  Very yummy. 



Greg is busy painting the outside of the house (mainly down pipes) and doing little fiddly jobs around the place - that's all he could do with the rain this week. 

In more exciting news - we are getting some visitors for 2 weeks and I can't wait. 


All ready for our visitors!

Thoughts for the week 😂







Monday, 4 February 2019

A blog post a week 5/52 - Hello February 2019



I cannot believe that we have ticked over into February already!  Goodness time is powering on.

As we had a fairly quiet holidays, I decided we should take the boys to a place called Thrill Hill.  It is a water slide which is about 20 minutes away from us.  I thought they would absolutely love it and they absolutely did!  This was good prep for them when we take them to Wet & Wild on the Gold Coast once school is settled in.





 Everyone had a great time and I've got to say that everyone there was polite and kind - there was not pushing in or anything like that - even from the teens.  Very impressed.

The boys started school and it went absolutely, wonderfully, perfect.  Can you guess that the beginning of the school year is a bit stressful for me - my main stress is little Ben.  However, I prepped the boys for the return and Greg showed them their new classrooms, we discussed their new teacher etc.  So on the day there was no dramas and they are all very happy.



Michael has the same teachers he had last year (YAY!) and they boys got a new teacher but they knew her from last year and all was happy.  Rhys told me he has been having really good days (Michael too) and Ben hasn't said he doesn't want to go (yet LOL) and when I ask him how his day was he always says good.  Trust me, that means really good!

Such a relief for this stressing mum.

Greg and I went along to Bunnings again as we needed some things (mainly Greg not me) - I swear we should have shares in that place.

As my other two plants that I tried to re-pot died, I got these two on sale for $4 each in the half dead plant stand (can you tell I love looking there). 



Hopefully the do ok out the front.

We haven't had much rain for a looooong time and everything is getting very dry.  Thank goodness we have been getting some showers this week, on and off.  Although it is still very hot.  Fingers crossed we get some more rain - although not as much as poor Townsville who is in just awful floods.  Crazy.  And then Tassie is in bushfires. I saw the Tahune Bridge walk was fried (this is where Greg and I got engaged).  So sad for everyone.

Tahune Airwalk in Tasmania burnt


The garden is loving the rain

Top left - Greg planting.   Right is the Cycad we found in the yard

Greg is planting the Grevillias that I got off the reduced trolley.  I brought them back to life and since we a meant to get rain for the next week, we thought it would be good to get them in.  This is to give some extra privacy to the neighbours yard.  There were some very old, falling over bottle brush plants here before which we had to cut down.

Greg found this little Cycad bulb in the ground.  It would have gotten chopped by the mower, so I have potted it up and put it in my soon to be kitchen garden.  Fingers crossed it starts growing.

We were not the only ones enjoying the rain!


Its pretty much been normal life plodding along.

I baked some Apple and Cinnamon muffins


I finished painting the bedside table
One more to go and two tallboys and one love seat!!  It will look great once done 😀


I bought myself some funky book earrings for work for a bit of fun (got lots of lovely compliments!)


Thoughts for the week





Have a happy week 💗

Love Rach xxx