Just thought I would let all my minti friends know that the reason I have not been on computer for the last week is because I got put into hospital due to a heart turn and after 7 days in hospital  (actually 5 days in my local hosp and 2 days in prince charles hosp in brisbane) - I now have a stent in my right coronary artery and am back home all ok now and have over 200 emails to catch up on while I am convalensing.  Hope everyone out there is all well and ok and will send some jokes through soon

 

Well what a wonderful day we had today.  Unexpectedly my very dear friend of 25 years rang and invited my husband and I to go for a drive up into the mountains in their 4WD.  We started out from our home at Tewantin and ended up going north west and exploring quite a lot of theUpper Mary Valley and the Kenilworth, Connondale, Jimna and Amamoor State Forests and Camping areas.  We drove on more dirt roads than bitumen, we saw deer, horses, donkeys, lizards, goannas, kangaroos, wallabies, cockatoos, llamas and the sound of the bell birds was just magnificent.  We ended up travelling around 300-350 klms in the days journey.  We also went for a couple of short walks and had a bar-b-cue lunch at one of the camping areas.  I also took quite a lot of photos and the extremes in the country side from one minute to the next was incredible.  All in all it was a totally relaxing, enjoyable day and it was especially appreciated to be chauffered instead of having to do the driving myself as is usually the case.  This is the type of thing you need to be able to do occassionally to be able to get away from the rat race, the children, chores etc etc and just be able to chill out and up in the mountains and creeks are the place for me to do this.

 

My dear minti friends I must apologise for not being as active as I would wish but have not been well of late due to my angina but am on the mend now and hopefully will be able to spend a bit more time on here.   And I must send a BIG APOLOGY to Kim.  Sorry Kim I just commented on your article and called you Rachel - so sorry - I have been reading that many articles tonight trying to catch up on all the news and got a bit mixed up with the names.  I must agree with the article that was written about 'spoiling a baby' - there is NO way that a baby can be spoiled with love - you cannot love anyone too much as far as I am concerned.  If there was a lot more love in the world today there would not be anywhere near the amount of crime and negative thinking that we have.  I also believe that time, experience and consistency make us mums experts where our kids are concerned - we seem to have a sixth sense that kicks in where our children are concerned and as long as you grow with your children and stay tuned in as they mature you find yourself having a very valuable friendship with your children that will last forever.  They are so precious and as long as we as parents stay positive (which is hard sometimes when u just want to scream at them) and give them heaps of love and affection and encouragement they will grow into fine well rounded adults and that is our reward and what a wonderful reward it is.  Love to you all and may you find peace and prosperity in your lives.

 

Hi out there all my beautiful minti friends - i hope you are all doing great and off to a good start for the new year.  They say we are all here on this earth to learn and that we ought to learn something new every day - well guess what - i did learn something new today from one of my beautiful minti friends - thank you clay - very much appreciated.  I am so grateful to have so many beautiful friends

Well here it is the 6th January already and I have only just doing all the paperwork - where is the time going.  Just gotta pull the chrissey lights down from outside today - that is a must - then its onto the rest of the clutter.  Oh well one day at a time - it will get done.  We must be in for lots of rain shortly as we have a colony of those beautiful black cockatoos in the trees at the back of us and every day they let loose and make that really loud screeching noise and fly around in a circle - if your not awake before they let loose u sure are when they stop.

 

Well another year is over and so much has happened yet it is hard to recall half of it.  The years are just going through faster and faster and sometimes you get the feeling that you are going to be left behind but somehow another you manage to keep up.  I am actually looking forward to this year as I feel it is going to be a very interesting year the world over (call it a gut feeling) but yea there is going to be a lot going on.

 

It is so wonderful to see our foster son's facial expressions when we gave him a '18th key' for his birthday yesterday plus his presents.  He was just so overwhelmed by it all and could not stop thanking us enough.   We took him and his girlfriend and friends out to lunch and we had a great time.  We are so proud of him and what he has accomplished since being with us since he was 14.  It is amazing how far he has come since being brought to our place by Dept of Families 4 years ago.

 

Well what a wonderful xmas this year.  Full of surprises and lots of love and joy was had by all.  We had the most people at our place this year for many years.  We also had lots of visitors bringing their good wishes. 

Well they say you are never too old to learn and at the young age of 57 I have learnt something about blogs from my minti friend Matthew.  Thank you very much Matt.  I still have a lot to learn about them (blogs) but as time goes by I will become accustomed to them I am sure.  At least this is a good start to the week.