One Good Thing.

I noticed that this is the 15th blog for the month of
February. As it only has 28 days this year that is
nearly every second day. Much better than the New
Year's Resolution to have at least two blogs a week.


However it is actually the 1st March here in Aussie land.

For the third week in a row we had to call the RACV.

They will soon have Cliff's address on speed dial. I
notded that Beryl does have the RACV in her mobile
phone and thought I must do the same.

Anyway it was her flat battery again. It was for her
flat baterry in the first week. Mine in the second
and now hers again. But unlike me she won't accept
that she needs a new battery.

The man told her she has to run the car for at least
half an hour to charge it up but she had no petrol
and said she could not do that!!

I'm sure she will ring me tomorrow and let me know
what is happening.

Feeling Better

Funny but when you are feeling down and scraping the
bottom of the barrel everyonne says it can't get any
worse and yet I find that no comfort because for me
it always gets worse!

Still feeing stressed out but coping with it much
better.

Meg cooked tea last night after she got home from
netball. It was just for her but the left overs
were for our lunch today.

Anyhow, her mobile rang and she got talking for about
an hour. I had thought she had tea, so wasn't looking
at the stove and I have NO sense of smell, but about
an hour later she comes into my room and says

"Can't YOU smell that?"

"What says I"

She then tries to blame me because she has burnt the
rice for the tea and lunch.

She is also insising that I do the washing up as she
COOKS. But she wants me to do ALL the washing up even
for the night when she doesn't cook for me!!

She also informs me she is sick of yelling at me.
(Surprise, surprise I am sick of it too!!!) She says
she going to move into a unit and I think that is
silly as she will be paying $120 a week and that is
money she could save towards her new house. It will
take about five years if she does that and only about
two years if she stays with me to reach her target!
The gap between what the bank will lend her and the
cost of the house she wants.

Will have to see if I can talk sense into her.

Cheers!

Heard from Kathy again and we hope to meet up on
the Gold Coast in July-August sometime.

Meg is still bugging me to clean the house and
there is still no sign of Cliff's car keys!

Brooke's 14th Birthday

Meg did mention to me that Donald was having a party
for Brooke as she was coming down last week end.

But then things started to go wrong! (Still cannot find
the keys to Cliff's car.)

On Saturday when I came home she did not remind me that
the party was that evening, so I completely forgot.

Cliff came home Sunday saying that Donald was MAD. We
always go to Kath's kids party but we don't bother with
his kids because they are HIS! What rubbish! But really
it's not like it's her 13th Birthday! Surley she is old
enough to realise that she shouldn't be getting a PARTY
every year by this age. Fair enough up to 10 but 14!
come on.

As a child I had ONE birthday party. I think it was my 8th.

I did not get even a 13th, 18th or 21st. My friend Kathy
O'Hara gave me my 21st!!

Things Just Keep Happening!

On Sunday 14th Cliff did remember it was Valentine's Day.
He bought me a packet of biscuits though he knows I am
trying to eat healthy!

Later that day I went to start my car only to find that
though it opened and the lights came on that the engine
would not turn over.

This is the second week in a row that we have had to call
the RACV man out on a Sunday as the week before Beryl's
car would not start.

He ran a battery test and I needed a new battery so that
cost me $132, which of course I don't have. But he also
said that my raditator cap was missing!!! What it jumped
off and ran away? Another $15.

On Thursday I had to go to Center Link and left it till
4 p.m. as I wanted to try to catch Norma before tea time
but after she would have come back from down town.

THE CAR WOULD NOT START!!!

I found the lights were ON.

How that was possible I don't know, as you have to actual-
ly turn the handle to put the lights on and not just flcik
it on. The last time I had driven it was lunch time on
Tuesday. So why would the light be on? As I said I could
not have accidently turned them on. Luckily I caught Cliff
going past mid valley and he helped me push it out onto the
road but the wheel jammed and I was stuck half way across
the road when a car came down the hill and would you
believe it was a young man from Dean's Smash Repairs!!

Well we got the car started down the hill and that usually
works but for the life of me I couldn't get it into gear.
It just keep crunching the gears. I tried second and
third with no luck.

The young man followed me down, THOUGH CLIFF DID NOT.

He put the cables on the car and we got it started that way.
Then Cliff turned up and we swapped cars so that it could
have a good run to Traralgon. What a nice young man he was
to help us.

But of course it was so late by then that I got to Center
Link with THREE minutes to spare to closing time. I burst
into tears when I handed my form in!! and the lady very
nicely listened to my tale of woe!

It was too late to go to Norma's so I will miss out on
collecting some of the money she owes me till next fortnight!

On Friday morning I went to get the keys for Cliff's car
to start packing it and I could not find them!

I searched from 10 a.m. till just before 12 p.m. Luckily
I was meeting John and he got my missed phone call. He
knows that I can be up to 10 minutes late but when it was
15 minutes he realized that something was wrong. He'd gone
to sit on a seat while waiting for me as it was too hot in
the car. Thatis why he missed the call. But he rang and
come around to the house. He had to go to the shop to get
some tubes so willingly gave me a lift. He was driving
his SUV and I found it almost impossible to get into!

Sue was of course waiting for me at the shop' but she did
not make it a quick visit so I ended up spending more time
talking to her that I did to Meg.

But in compensation for that she did drive me home, where I
searched for another 2 hours without finding the missing
keys!

More Blues

No happiness from the main office. I have to give
the orders from the party to another consultant.

They seem to think it fair that I get nothing for
the time I put into the party, the paperwork I did,
the gifts I gave out and the petrol I used to get
to the party. As well I have to give away the
party booking and the person interested in becoming
a consultant!!!

I can now understand why they are finding it hard to
keep consultants!

More Bad News

I had a e mail from my friend Kathy. Her recent CT scan
shows that her cancer has spread.

She may only have a year now, I'm hoping that when I go
to Queensland in August that we can meet up.

I Know Life was not meant to be Easy, but does it have to be this Bl..dy hard??

Well it seems it is raining more crap on me AGAIN.
Firstly a woman complained I was not giving her guests
enough time to pay. The company's policy is payment
ON THE NIGHT of the party. I asked for payment within
one week AFTER the party, but extended it to 11 days.

Then there was a power black out over the week end
and when I turned on my computer it sounded like a
street sweeper was passing by. In other words it
sounded like it would cost a lot of money to reapir!

I turned it off in disgust as nothing was opening
but came back to it later and was soooo relieved that
it started up with it usual gentle purr. Thank G.d.

But then there was a phone call from the father of my
neighbour, re the fence and not only does it seem that
the trees need triming because they are in the way (I
looked and they are about three feet or a meter above
the fence so I can't see how they are in the way.) But
now it seems they want to charge me $500 to remove the
dirt 'build up' on my side of the fence!

The dirt has always been higher on my side and the last
fence lasted twenty yeras before it needed repairs. When
I had the new fence put in between my other neighbour and
myself her 'dirt' is higher than mine and she did not have
to pay to have it removed. So I explained all this and
the father rang the fencing guy who is going to come out
and have a look at it on Friday.

I really must have been a wicked person in my last life
to be always encountering problems, such as these. Why is
it some people seem to breeze through life and others are
forever sinking?

Grass Cutting (CONT)

Finally one of the 6 grass cutters that I have
tried to get the grass at Yalloun Nth has rung
me back!

He will look at the block and see if he can do
it, but he won't take the grass away!

If he can do it, it won't be before the end of
February! He is just so busy so I might book
him for the about 25th of Nov this year so that
I won't have the same problem with the council
that I am having now.

Trivia Night at the R.S.L.

Saturday 6th Feb was the first trivia night at the R.S.L.
Cliff invited Tony and Bev, and Richard and his mother
Anita. I invited Karen and Chris. So that made eight
on our team.

There were 8 rounds of 10 questions per round. So the
total was out of 80.

I reckon at a quess Karen answered 25 questions correctly.
I answered 25 correctly ( there was some overlap about ten
between Karen and I) Tony answered 12 questions correctly
as did Cliff (once again there was an overlap of 4 questions)
giving us a total of 60 and the final point came from Anita.
Bev, Chris and Richard contributed nothing. Though Richard
said I was wrong about Sardinia being in the Mediterranean,
so Tony changed it to Adriatic. But I was right so he
actually cost us a point!

There was a question about the 'animal' on four different
countries flags. I said 'eagle' but Cliff outshouthed me
and said it was the Phoenix, I tried to out 'logic' him
by saying way would countries put a mythical bird on their
flags but he won the day and lost us another point as it
was the eagle.

So our score at the end of the night was 61, which placed
us third. Second got 62 points and the winning team got
65 points. So even with my 'other two points' we still
would not have won but we would have come second!

However we all enjoyed the night and Karen surprised Cliff,
as he though her not very smart, but I have known for years
that she does crossword puzzles and the sort of trivia
questions they ask are often found in crossword puzzles!

Christian

Accoring to my Oxford dictionary, a Christian is one
who follows Christ's teachings, one who is kind, fair
and/or humane.

Last night I encountered a Christian. I had said "Oh
my God" and she asked me to refain from profanity as
she was a Christian.

So I spend the night talking to the nice agreeable
young man next to me instead.

Later in the evening, I remarked to the Christian woman
"How nice the young man was." She replied "The poo..er"
in the most distainfull tone imaginable. I icily answered
"You mean the homosexual?" Even more forciably she
retorted "Poo..ers are what they are, it is a sin against
God to live that way!"

I did not go into it with her, but I thought "Did not
Christ say 'He who is without sin cast the first stone.'"
In other words it is not for us sinful humans to judge
the extent of the sins of others! Then I thought "I
think I am more a Christian than she, even with all
my swearing!"

Why Is There Never Enough Time?

Ever since this new year has begun I seem to be
pressed for time. Everyone wants a bit of me and I
seem to be over extended! Yet I'm sure that when
I was working, full time, studying part time, and
caring for three kids and a husband, who was like
a big kid that I had MORE TIME.

I am feeing really stressed!

I have not even had enough time to read my two
books per week that I have been doing for the last
two years. I had hoped to increase that to three
books this year, but that hope is slowly withering
on the vine!

Water, Water Everywhere!

It seems that today, my great love, water was to be
mybitter foe.

Firstly I am into recycling water from the washing
machine. When it has washed rather than letting
that first lot of water go down the drain, I fill
buckets and empty it on the back lawn.

Then with the final rinse water I put that into the
water saver mode and into the trough and use it as
the washing water for the next load.

But today when swapping over two buckets, (I had only
filled 4 and usually I get 12 out of a machine load)
the hose slipped out of my hand and fell behind the
machine and before I could move the machine out and
get the hose, about 100 liters of water ran all over
my laundry floor and soaked all my candles that I
keep there! Not happy Jan!

Then I was having my afternoon nanna nap when I
suddenly woke up and thought it is going to rain.
I had cut half the back lawn this morning and left
the lid off the bin and the mower out.

I raced outside and sure enough there were big fat
drops of rain starting to fall. I managered to get
the mower into the pergola area before the engine
got wet. By the time I git back to bed it was
pelting down and the wind was howling and talk about
thunder!

But I had gone out the back door and went back inside
the house via the pergola.

When I went out at 5.30 p.m. to check the washing it
was to find that the rain had come into the laundry,
up to ten feet inside the door and if I had thought
the candles were soaked this moring the package is
now just falling off!

It never rains but it pours! Not usually here! I think
in all the years I have lived in the valley, there has
only been about five times that I have needed to have an
umbrella when it has rained, unlike Sydney! It really
only drizzles here. That is why we have more WET days
than Sydney, but it actually has a higher rainfall.

Grass Cutting

Have tried to get a slasher and a mower for 40 North
Road ever since mid November, one let me down and two
have said they don't have the equiptment for the job
(have you ever heard of a man admitting 'he dosen't
have the equiptment'?) HA! HA!

In the mean time the council have decided that they
would rather have the money from a fine that prevent
a fire hazard and have fined me for not getting the
grass cut.

Just this last Monday I have rung two more contracters
but have not heard from either. I will ring another
tomorrow abd give him 24 hours and if I don't hear
from him, I will ring another till I get someone or
the list is exhausted, but I can't afford to pay the
fine.

The Good Family

Over the week end I started to count my blessings.

I may not have the greatest relationship in the world-
but it is not the worse either.

I may not have a job, power or money, but I own my house
and that puts a roof over my head, even if it doesn't
have all the bells and whistles, and leaks at times.

But the best thing I have are my children.

When another mother told me her son has threatened to
kill her, he is nearly 40 ( and the threat was at Xmas,)
and another mother told me her two sons who still live
at home, both are near their 30's are so bad that SHE
MOVED OUT, when another mother told me her 33 year old
daughter has not spoken to her in six years, then I
realise how lucky I am to have my three children.

Not only as my ex daughter in law said are we close as
a family but as I told my children all through their
childhood, friends may come and friends may go, but
family are always there, especially for each other.
More than any other, Meg has come to know that is true.

So my children not only get along with me but with each
other even going out clubbing together and on holidays
together.

So the good lord is looking after me after all.

God bless.