Ok, so the idea of regular blogging this year has gone out the window. It is already May! I guess the fact that I haven't been here much lately could be explained by my busy life......I am grateful for all the things that make my family life full: being involved in my children's activities (football, basketball, Catechist classes, school activities, homework etc) and my job as a kindergarten assistant. To balance all these things with my fibromyalgia is tricky. I have had some truly awful weeks lately with lots of pain and fatigue, not to mention a very foggy brain. The past few days have been better. There doesn't seem to be any reason for the peaks and troughs in my condition, despite all the things I do to try to heal my body. I'm starting to think that, no matter what things I do on a micro level, there will always just be cycles of "good" and "bad" times. That's not to say that I'm not going to keep working on healing. It is part of my life and I will never ever give up in my quest to be healthier and to minimise the symptoms of fibromyalgia in my life. As long as the overall trend is towards improvement, or at the very least, no deterioration, then I can cope with this fibromyalgic life.
I have been making lots of things over the past few months that have not made it here onto my blog. I have a beautiful new baby niece named Maeve (she deserves her very own blog post, which I will get to soon). She is the reason behind several of these creations - can you guess which ones? Rather than going into lengthy explanations about every item, I think I'll just post some photos. We all love crafty pictures right? So here they are:
Well that's our crafty photo post all wrapped up. Hope you liked it. See you next time in my simple, creative life. xxx
Saw this clip on Facebook and I wanted to share it here on my blog so that you can experience it, and so that I don't forget how moved I was by it. It is definitely worth 6 minutes of your time. Sit quietly and enjoy this reminder about the gift that is "today".
Once all the Christmas celebrations were done it was time to start focussing on the first big event of 2012 - Jayden's 10th birthday. Of course, with kids, their birthdays last more than one day. This year Jayden's birthday started with a wake-up happy birthday call from Granmama and Papa at 6.50am! Must remind them next year that the kids are learning to sleep in just a little bit these days, even on their birthdays! lol!
We started the day with presents at home - Lego, of course and Star Wars DVDs.
Then we headed off for a birthday picnic at the lake, celebrated with some of my dear friends from uni and lots of their kids. Mel is home from Singapore at the moment so it was a great opportunity to get together for a play at the park with the kids. Here's a few snaps from the day. Jayden had a plate of cupcakes for his birthday cake at the lake, however the persistent breeze meant we just had to pretend the candles were lit!
The birthday boy, enjoying his cupcake.
It was great to see our buddy Mel, and it was her first meeting with Em's baby girl Sophie.
Dan also enjoyed a cuddle with Sophie.
Miss Amy Joy - the cute daughter of my pal Joylene.
Joylene and her lovely sister Carol
Danny and his little "mini-me" Corey :)
Mel's beautiful girl Aleisha - she's grown up so much since her last trip home to Australia.
The kiddos: Lucas, Amy, Aleisha, Corey and Jayden.
Happy picnickers: Joylene, Erica, Mel, Danny, Anita, Emma (and Sophie), Corey, Amy, Jayden, Aleisha and Lucas.
It was such a lovely, relaxing day at the lake. The kids ran around and enjoyed the playground and open space. The adults enjoyed to company, the food and the sunshine.
That night we were all exhausted so we had fish'n'chips for dinner with (Aunty) Laura and (Uncle) Gary and, of course, had another birthday cake.
A brilliant birthday for a 10 year old boy, but that wasn't the end of it! The next day was Jayden's party with his friends at Laserquest. Apparently it's a 10 year old boy's ideal party.....not really my cup of tea, but he had a blast (pardon the pun). He shared the day with several of his school friends (and a few of their younger brothers).
Jayden finally found a Coke bottle with his name on it, and for a boy who's never been allowed to drink Coke before, this was a special occasion!
Happy 10th Birthday Jay. We love you to bits.
So that was Jayden's big "one-oh"! Can't believe my little boy has hit double figures, or that I've been a mother for a whole decade! Of course my fabulous partner in parenting, Danny, has played an equal role in helping shape our boy into the great kid he is today. As we enter his second decade, we hope he stays true to himself and knows that his parents will always be there to support him, no matter what comes.
Hello friends,,,,,I'm baaack! Yes I know that January is already half over, but I've been busy just relaxing and enjoying my holidays with my 3 boys (and one cheeky dog!)
Our Christmas was HUGE but fun. We had both sides of the family here for Christmas this year which was a big undertaking, but I had plenty of helpers so it all ran smoothly. After the insane thunderstorms and hail that hit us on Christmas afternoon, it was a miracle that everyone got here and home safe and sound. It will be a Christmas to remember.
As I noted in my last post of 2011, I finished up my Cert. III studies and I'm happy to have a lovely job as a kindergarten assistant. I'm working 2 and a half days per week, which I think will be just perfect.
Over the summer I have contemplated whether or not to continue blogging this year. I would really love to be scrapbooking my families memories (or capturing them in some written form) - I haven't done this for such a long, long time. All my time and energy in the past couple of years has been focused on trying to regain my health, and quite frankly, the motivation to scrapbook has not been there. I'm intrigued by the idea of digital scrapbooking - the concept of keeping memories on the computer in simple, digital layouts. No clutter, no bells and whistles, everything at your fingertips....there are a lot of pros. The only reason I haven't really dived into to digi scrapping is, well, to put it bluntly.....our computer is crap! There. I said it. I hope it doesn't take offense and have a meltdown right now! Sometime this year I'm hoping to upgrade and when that happens I'll be seeking lots of advice on how to get into digi scrapping.
Any-hoooo.....since I'm unlikely to find my way through the clutter in my craft room and have myself set up for traditional scrapping any time soon, I've decided to continue on with my blog as a type of online scrapbook to keep a record of our lives. Then all the details will be here if and when I ever get back to real scrapping (paper or digi). Or perhaps, my blog will just become my scrapbook from now on............we shall see :)
So if you want to pop in and see what we're up to, please do. I may waffle on a bit, seeing as I'm just getting down memories for my family, so please feel free to skip the wordy bits. Make sure you say hi. I've missed all my bloggy friends. I shall reciprocate by floating around in blogland regularly, visiting all of you.
Seeing as we're already halfway through January, I think perhaps I should do a recap of 2012 so far........
New Years Day - we went down to Anglesea and spent a couple of nights staying in a cabin at the Big 4 caravan park. We had a fabulous time and it was great to be down the beach during and incredibly hot couple of days. On the way down we stopped in at Barwon Heads to visit my friend Bron and her family. They moved down there about a year ago and are definitely loving the lifestyle.
Bron and I have been friends for about 18 years - since we started Uni together.
Jayden, Thomas and Corey having some bouncy fun.
Corey, Georgia and Jayden.
Georgie was so cute taking photos of us with her little camera before we left.
Family photo minus Tom who had to go to bed! It was so nice to visit Bron, Andy and the kids.
After a nice little visit we continued on to Anglesea - stopping at Torquay for lunch (Maccas which we took down to the surf beach) and enjoyed seeing all the people and hearing about Dan's childhood memories of visiting his Nan every summer when she lived in Torquay. The traffic heading into Anglesea was pretty busy, but we were happy to reach our lovely cabin about 2pm, and the boys couldn't wait to get down to the beach, so off we went.
After a few hours at the beach we dragged the kids away and went back to our cabin where we freshened up. We then went out to the Anglesea Golf Club for dinner. The setting, overlooking the golf course was beautiful. Dozens of kangaroos make the golf course their home and I can see why! The grass on a golf course must be a lot tastier than boring old bush grass!
The temperature reached almost 42 degrees on the Monday 2nd of January. We were really thankful to be in a cabin with air conditioning! We hit the beach in the morning and the boys enjoyed the waves on their $5 boogey boards, which we bought from Anaconda the day before we headed off. (This trip was VERY last minute - totally unplanned. We were really lucky to even get accomodation of any sort). Then we headed back to our cabin around lunchtime to escape the heat, and I took the boys to the indoor pool at the caravan park. After an early dinner, when the worst of the heat was over, we headed back to the beach. The waves in the evening were fantastic and the boys stayed in the water for two hours straight. Corey just kept saying "I want to live here!"
But sadly, the next day it was time to say goodbye to lovely Anglesea and our brief, but wonderful beach holiday.
Well, I've only covered the first 3 days of 2012 in this post, and there is still so much to tell. I will spread a few posts out over the next week and hopefully catch up. See you soon. xx
A beautiful bouquet of handprints made for my by the kindergarten children. Everyone at the early learning centre made me feel so special and appreciated on my last day of placement.
I am finished with my Cert. III in Children's Services. I know it's not exactly a PhD, but considering where I've come from in the last couple of years, it may as well be! I'm pretty happy to have completed it. There was a time when I thought I'd never be able to actually attempt and complete anything ever again! But here I am, arriving at the end of 2011, with an actual achievement! I know I sound overly dramatic, but those who've been along for the journey since fibromyalgia upturned my life 5 years ago will realise that this is BIG.
The best part about it is that I LOVE working with preschoolers. When I was a child, I adored kindergarten. ADORED IT! In fact, I mourned the loss of kindergarten for at least my first three years of primary school. Seriously, I was distraught that I couldn't go back to that magic place of playing and painting and singing and collage and playing and painting......Then I settled on the idea that I could go back to kindergarten by becoming a kindergarten teacher when I grew up. That was a great plan, and I held fast to it.........until my latter years of high school when I became interested in health and got detoured into choosing a nursing and health promotion degree when I went to Uni.
It served me well for a time......until my body told me it had had enough. Enough of the stress, the shift work, the understaffing, the exposure to latex, and to all those intravenous medications that became airborne as you were mixing them up....and did I mention the stress? Nurses have a HUGE responsibility, and with my health in rapid decline, I just couldn't do it any more. I always thought I'd go back.......some day.........but my heart just is not in it.
So this year I decided to explore the idea of returning to my first love.......kindergarten. I thought I'd try on the Cert. III in Children's Services for size, to see if I was still interested. After my first placement - working with 2 year olds - I wasn't sure if I'd made the right move. But now, having finished my second placement in a kindergarten room, I know that it is exactly where I should be. I loved every minute of this second placement. The days flew! I couldn't believe that I got to play with children all day long - to guide their learning through all those wonderful activities that I loved so much as a 4 year old. I mean, who doesn't want to spend their days doing great stuff like singing songs, reading stories, painting, making 3D artworks, building huge block constructions, dressing up, playing in the sandpit, going for nature walks and too many other wonderful things to mention.
The best news of all is that, on my last day of placment, the centre director offered me a job! So very soon, I will get to spend my days doing all those wonderful things I mentioned above AND GET PAID FOR DOING IT :-)
Do I want to continue on studying Early Childhood Education? You bet! I am super inspired by this new direction and I really want to jump in completely and keep moving forward. However, I am taking heed of the lessons I've learned over the past 5 years, and I'm pacing myself. There is no rush. I will take 2012 to consolidate some of the improvements I've made healthwise, and to enjoy beginning work as a kindergarten assistant. I will soak up this new direction and enjoy each day as it comes. I will learn from the Early Childhood Educators I meet in "real life" and online. Hopefully, come 2013 I will be healthy enough to take another step forward and start my Grad. Dip in Education (Early Childhood). One step at a time though......I have learned to (try to) focus on the present and not get too carried away about what might happen down the road.
For the present time, I am focusing on my family, our home, and preparing for the festive season. I'm also looking forward to enjoying some creativity now that my days are not filled with assignments and classes. I'm also very involved in working with my naturopath to help my body heal. We are focusing on my food allergies and how these contribute to my pain, fatigue and other fibromyalgia symptoms. Having more time to really concentrate on my health will be really valuable right now.
Hope to be back here again really soon. Have been having a little look around the blog-iverse and I'm liking what I see out there. You are all so clever. You inspire me endlessly. Have a wonderful week. xxx
Well folks, I am almost there! Almost finished my Children's Services course, that is. I have ONE assignment to finish, two days of TAFE classes left and four more days of placement. I am feeling excited and relieved all at once. By the end of next week I should have it all wrapped up. Yay for me!
I've thoroughly enjoyed my placement this time around and I have to say, it has reignited my interest in further study in this field, perhaps a Grad. Dip. In Education (early childhood). Not just yet though..... I think I'll take a year off study next year and just see how my health holds up to regular work (assuming I can actually find a job). I should know better than to plan too far ahead, but hey, it is nice to dream. I am looking forward to returning to a bit of creativity and crafting over the coming months, once the last of my study is done. So hopefully you'll see more pretty, crafty pictures here on my blog over the next few months. I've missed my bloggy friends so much recently. I'm off to bed now, but I'll return soon, hopefully with triumphant news of completing my course. Lots of love. xxx
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Dear family, friends, colleagues, fellow students etc.
You may have received an email that was allegedly sent by my yesterday relating to some "work from home" scheme. I did not send this email - I believe my email account has been hacked into. My apologies if this has had any negative effect. Please delete the fake email immediately. I have changed my passwords, so hopefully it won't happen again.
