But I want to keep them....

Parents of the world - I know I am not alone in this - Kid's come home from school with stuff they have made, written, moulded out of clay etc virtually every day. And they expect that you are going to lovingly display and store, each bit of paper that comes through your door (bless their cotton socks)

I had an argument with one of my 8 year olds about him wanting to keep his spelling list! Not spelling he had done... not a spelling test where he got 100%.... we are talking about a list of words he had to learn, written by his teacher! Clearly not a keepsake. But he was devastated when I threw it in the bin. I swear, given even a little bit of opportunity, my kids would be hoarders. You would see them on reality TV in 10 years drowning in a sea of useless crap.

And me, being the least hoardy of all the hoarders, had to put a stop to this, and quick! So with the help of suggestions from friends - I came up with this idea. I went out to the reject shop, invested 30 dollars in rolling tubs, and labelled each with their names. I took the kids with me, so they could choose which colour they wanted, so they felt involved in the process, and viola! Problem solved! They now know that they each have a container that keeps all their precious school momentos, BUT once the container is full, that's it. 12 years will have to fit in that one container. That way, when they move out, they can just pick up the container, and take it with them. No confusion about who's artwork that is, or who made that papier mache duck... Organised. And delicious.

Storage

I am always looking for good, and let's face it - cheap - storage solutions. Howards Storage World is my nirvana, but I don't have a million dollars to spend on shoe racks and draw separators. So sadly, my eye is on the flat pack generation of storage.

So I was pretty damned excited to find out whilst shopping for groceries at Woolies, that they had some storage going cheap cheap cheap!!

Had I enough money to buy them all, I probably would have, but settled for just one. A 3 shelf, cube bookcase - perfect for my daughters room - cleaned up all the random bits and pieces she had lying around her room.

And the best part? $20!!! AND I managed to put it together without having bits of wood left over! Yippeee!!

And then there were none....

I have a certain reaction to natural disasters. It's a pattern that has formed over the past couple of years, and may stem from certain childhood events - but lets leave that to the psychiatrist to decide.

The Victorian bush fires, the Toodyay bush fires 2009 and now the QLD floods... I NEED, and it is a need, to watch as much news, read as many articles, surf as many social networking and news websites as possible to satisfy my attempt to understand and process what is going on. It's not just natural disasters - I do it with all things I do not understand, but because the QLD floods are top of mind, this is what I am referring to.

During the Victorian bush fires, I was running a radio station in Central NSW, and had a lot of friends, and indeed workmates who were being directly affected by them. We worked hard to put together truck loads of supplies - fencing, bedding, pet food etc to travel down to the affected areas, and obviously keeping our listeners up to date with what was happening down there. So clearly it was part of my job to stay on top of the situation, but it definately fulfilled a personal need as well.

The Toodyay fires directly affected me. My parents were evacuated and two of my children were staying with them at the time. They got out fine, but we spent many frantic hours hoping that the house wouldn't burn down. For quite a while, we were sure it was gone. They kept telling us our street had been impacted by the fire and simply had to wait it out until they finally let us back into the area. Thankfully - the house survived - we were very lucky - a lot more lucky than many. 38 properties were lost in that fire. And when the town has 3500 residents, there is no way you don't know someone who has been affected.

As for the floods - well again I know people in the area - Toowoomba, and many friends in Brisbane. The sheer magnitude of the devastation is hard to comprehend - who knew water could do so much damage??? As someone who has never been through anything even remotely resembling a flood, it's hard to understand. But the pictures coming out of Toowoomba and Grantham speak for themselves. This water was deadly. And many people have ended up losing their life as a result.

I think what strikes me the most is the stories. Clear as if it happened yesterday I remember certain people who lost friends, neighbours, relatives in the Victorian bush fires. Like the grandmother who got out of her house but some of her children and grandchildren stayed inside... and perished. A split second decision that cost so many lives.

Or the mother and her children who sought refuge in the river with a rescue vehicle... barely able to breathe through the thick smoke, she could only pray that her infant daughter would live through the ordeal.

In Toodyay no lives were lost thank goodness - but there were still plenty of stories of people who had no idea they were in danger until they opened the front door and realised their doorstep was on fire - piled into a car but took a wrong turn and found them self heading into the fire instead of away from it so had to scramble back to their house and just sit there while the fire burned all around them thinking... believing... that their time had come.

Or property owners being allowed back onto their land to find groups of cows and sheep horrifically burned but still alive, and having to shoot everyone of their livestock.

And the floods....

James - a father and husband - clinging to the roof of their car with wife and child in the middle of nowhere - spotted by a news helicopter and finally the mother and child winched to safety - but had to return for James... and when they did he was nowhere to be found... the chances of a happy ending to that story get more remote by the minute.

The 4 year old child being carried to a boat slips out of the rescuers hands and is swept away... the family trapped in their house, screaming, as their house is swept downstream. The parents, washed away while saving their two children.... the stories go on and on.

This post is in dedication to all those who have lost their lives in the increasing number of natural disasters in not just this country but the world.

And they are increasing. I do not believe that these events are in any way random. Mother Nature is sending a very clear message. DO SOMETHING, or you will be exterminated.
Will you help to make a difference? Will I?

For tonight at least - I hope. Hope for a better tomorrow.

What will kill me today?

Morbid start I know, but hear me out.

I was watching an episode of Greys Anatomy where a woman believed she had stomach cancer - because she had all the symptoms according to an online diagnostic tool.

She didn't. She had bought some antibiotics online that made her sick. But that's not the point here.

The point is - she talked about the fact that there are 1000 things a day that can kill you. When I saw that, I had a little cry. Because its true! I feel that way ALL the time - not so much about me. More about my kids. Let's face it - we are universally destroying this planet. Whats it going to be like for our kids? If there are a 1000 things potentially waiting to kill us now, how many when they grow up?? I am constantly stressed about what could kill me and leave the kids without me - what could kill them... what could kill my husband... I am actually terrified of him driving to work each day. How ridiculous is that?!

Ok - this is dark - and I know it, but I also know i am not the only person who feels it.

All this is stemming from the fact that my mother is forcing me to go to the doctor. I have been 'in the wars' as she puts it. Tripping over things, walking into things, shutting doors on my toes, bashing elbows, closing the boot of my car on my head (yes that really did happen) - long story.

That, coupled with the fact that I have had persistant headaches for the past week or so, to the point of being bedridden yesterday with a migrane has bells ringing in her mind - so wants me to go see the doctor.

Chances are - I am distracted, I am trying to do too many things at a time, it's Christmas and I am stressed to the max... all of the above.

But what if..... the question always lingers.

Just thinking out loud.

Card making

Yes - sounds like an old person's persuit. But I actually really enjoy it (much to my husbands bewilderment) - it's my creative outlet every couple of months. So I thought I would start documenting the things I have made considering I usually give them away and then have nothing to show for all the classes I do!!

Bushfire near our house.

Just thought i would share what we have been able to see for the past couple of days from our house. Karnup bushfire and the bushfire sunset that followed. Scary stuff!

My Husband. The catalogue whore.

So the hubby rather enjoys sitting and having a good browse through the catalogues each week, on the search for his next ill-fated purchase.

I say ill-fated, because at this point, hubby is banned from making any decisions regarding large...or even small for that matter, purchases. Why? Well as I have previously discussed, he has a penchant for buying useless crap that he truly believes will make his life better - and because he buys these things second hand most of the time, there is always a good chance that they will not work.

Like the video camera. And the Holden Vectra. And the 45 lunchboxes, and most recently, the Toyota Townace.

Now, the toyota is running, and well I might add.....now..... but it was looking dubious for a while, and we have discovered that the wheels have been modified to allow for larger tyres, which means the tyres will have to be changed more often, and each tyre will cost 200 dollars. Yippee.

So catalogues. I had to laugh (and then again when I was thinking about writing this blog) today - while out and about running various errands, we found ourselves in the vicinity of Barbeques Galore. We had seen in their catalogue a pizza block that we both identified as something we would like to get. I mentioned the pizza block, and immediately got this reaction....

'Oh I need to go there today to have a look at smokers...'
'Look at what now????'
'Smokers'
'yeah...no.'
'No i NEED to go there TODAY! I have a need to smoke some meat!!'

WTF.

Like I say. Banned from making purchase decisions. And with good reason.

Might have to start disposing of the catalogues before he gets home from now on. Just as soon as I have finished reading them :P