Well, I've not really been here to share some exciting news with you.  A few weeks ago we had several solar panels put on our roof.  It is a 1kW system - so that should be about 1000 watts an hour.  Sometimes it has been more, mostly a bit less - largely due to the weather.

So far we have over a few weeks generated enough power for about a week's free power!!  Isn;t that great!  And what we don't use gets sold back to the energy company!  Yay!  With all the bonuses from teh government (when they reimburse us) we will have only paid about $1700 and if the gross energy tariff comes in next year we'll pay that back in no time!

Now, we have a quote on solar hot water and that will be our next venture - we just need to try and decide on how big a system we get - 250l or 315l...  mmmm.... scary to think that by the time this system needs replacing our kids will be teenagers (we hope!).

ON a smaller scale I am so excited to discover a wonderful device - it looks like a normal quadradaptor, but when you turn off the "host" device, all other devices attached turn off too.  So, now when we turn off the tv, the dvd player, set top box and x-box go off too!  A real money saver for people like us where the power points are all hidden down behind the tv cabinet.  Stops everything running on standby!  Funny how such a small clever thing gets me so excited these days...

Where did a month go since my last blog??

We've been busy - toto busy and I am getting tired and frazzled, but nothing to worry about.  I come back on Minti and find 100s of things in my watch list - and such news I have missed!!  So, sorry everyone.  I'll try and wade through them all and drop in on you all - but maybe not tonight.  I need bed!  So good night and thinking of you all in all your dramas and illnesses etc....  Praying for peace for everyone tonight!

Two things I forgot to mention - one being the great "picnic day" at DH's work.  It is hard to get family time due to DH being a casual and on call - and never being able to plan ahead.  SO it was really good for him to be able to take us out for the day - courtesy of his work.  They had a lovely BBQ lunch, a snack stall (with free food/drink vouchers), a jumping castle, dodgem cars, a merry go round and pony/cart rides.  All for free!  We had a great day - despite the weather - and it was so nice just having fun as a family without having to watch the purse strings...

The other being the lovely time we have spent in the garden, which has been much neglected lately.  WE have just harvested asparagus, artichoke, broad beans, snow peas, turnips and rocket.  It is so lovely to eat our own grown food - though not always my choice in vege, it is making me try to cook new things and learn ways of making some things tasty - some we just eat raw of course.  Got a tip though - wash your artichoke thoroughly - I was warned and thought I had, but was was just getting through the delicious petals when I discovered a visitor - an earwig right in the heart, mmmm....  not so yum (but the rest, oh, yum, must grow more!)

I was sooo looking forward to school holidays - and they have flown by again, all too brief...  And what have we done?  Not half of what we had planned...  My cleaning out & reorganising the house has gone by the wayside - too hard with kids around.  We have slept in a few times, been to the library to learn about bugs, been to three birthday partes, been down to the National Park and spent the day with some aboriginal teachers, been to playgroup, done some craft - oh, and I almost forgot, sent the kids away with their aunty for a weekend.

Royston's highlights include spending time with his cousin (and aunty) and his friend (who we took out for the day - to the movies and McDonalds).  The downlights (is there such a word?) being the fact that his sister was around all holidays (except for movie day) - and they fought - a lot!  Leading mummy to ask "what do I have to do to get you two to get along together?", with the response "sell her to the moon - then I can go visit her when I'm an adult!"  (Note, In between they have played beautifully and been lovely together).

Bella's highlights included going with her cousin and aunty on her first "adventure" away from home - and Aunty S introducing her to chocolate milkshakes (previously she has only had pink or yellow).

My highllights - for sure a weekend without the kids - sleeping in, going to an open garden, out for lunch and dinner, and a spot of winetasting.  Lovely....  But I have really enjoyed not rushing around all the time, just being with the kids (& hubby) - and loving my big six year old to whom we no longer have to read (but still do for fun), to whom we cannot spell any more ( to hide words - like ice cream) and who has not said once "I'm bored", despite not being glued to the tv all fortnight.  Yay!

IN fact we go into the final term of Kindergarten feeling quite relaxed and refreshed and positive - after a very stressful time last term, this is great news - and I hope it will continue...

Here it was obviously a lot less dramatic than other places - at about 5.30am as DH left for work he told me the dust storm was starting - and he had to drive to work in it.  He said he topped up his wiper fluid half way and still used that up by the time he got to work. 

By teh time we left the house for school - 9ish - it was already pretty clear and settling, just turning cold.  My car - though normally brown anyway - became a lovely reddy brown.  I cleaned the windows at the petrol station, but not the rest (not wasting precious water on that!) so now I have a reddy brown car, with clean, shiny windows - ha! 

Everything is lightly coated, so I hope the rain will wash it off soon.  Speaking of which we have had several violent downpours in teh last few days - but not much rain to speak of - and we desparately need more.  I am told next month will be wet - I hope so!!

Well, apparently I am the featured member this month - what a privelege and a shock!  I haven't been on for a few weeks as life has been a bit crazy, but now I feel obliged to pop in and say HI to everyone - Hi!

My last post was to ask for prayer for Mum - well, someone was listening I have to say.  She has given us all a bit of a fright, but we are very thankful to have her here with us still and getting stronger every day.    The surgery went well as planned, but a few days later, while Bella and I were visiting, she had a cardiac arrest and had to have CPR, then emergency surgery and was on life support.  It was a bit dicey and worrying to say the least.  She was kept under for a couple of days and had a pacemaker fitted.  Now, after 2 1/2 weeks she has been transferred to our local hospital and is recovering well and undergoing physio etc...  She looks better and feels better - though this is just the beginning of a lengthy recovery.

I have finally understood just how tiring worry and trauma is and I have been struggling to stay on top of everything - I have only visited mum twice, but I hope now she is closer to see her every day.  My brothers have been brilliant - one visiting her every day and the other dropping everything when need be and being there as often as possible.  Things like this bring families closer together, I guess.

Dad has been beside Mum every step of the way and is now reaching the point of exhaustion, so I hope being at home now will mean he gets more rest and recovery time too. 

Somehow you never really accept that one day you will lose your parents - they seem immortal and super somehow - but I very nearly did and I am very thankful to still be able to hug mum and tell her I love her.  I hope I will never get complacent about that again - life is precious and very fragile.

For all my praying friends, please be praying for Mum as she undergoes her big heart operation tomorrow (Saturday, here).  I pray that it goes ahead, that all goes well and she recovers quickly. I love you Mum!

What a day!

To start with background, DH's car blew up by the highway again the other day, so we decided sadly to officially end its days and called the scrap yard.  This is sad as this car  - between us, dad and my brother - has been in our family for years.  It is the car my son came home from hospital in - as a new born.  So very sadly we say, good bye red rocket!

So today, while my car was in having its brakes fixed, DH had a look at an old beetle that a neighbour has lying around.  It is unregistered and needs a lot of work, but we wanted to know how much work exactly.  We spent the time both our cars were at the mechanic helping at preschool for a few hours.  They LOVED having DH there - a man, to do man things, like fix shelves and doors!!  I did some screen printing, cleaning, washing etc....

Then at lunch time we went home - with our CHICKENS!  Two cute little chicks are now part of our family.  (For those who missed it they were part of a hatchery at preschool and were offered to parents).  They have been named Dora (the explorer, the bigger chick who keeps trying to escape) and Bella ("cause she looks like Bella would if she were a chicken", says Royston).  They are only 2-3 weeks old so will be inside for a while - and in the meantime we are building a chook-house from an old swing set!

Having decided the beetle needs more work than we can afford right now, DH struck a deal with the owner and bought it anyway!  So we have three new members of the family - Dora, Bella II and the as yet unnamed beetle (our VWs all have had names).  The beetle will be a project car and we will still have to find a cheap daily driver as living out here with only one car is desperate  (especially as mum has her big op in a few days and they won't be around!).

So, we were quietly celebrating and enjoying time with R on his own, as mum and dad were picking up Bella from preschool.  They were late, but I was not surprised as they sometimes take her for a treat.  But, no, not this time!

It seems my darling daughter had got her head stuck in their railings just as all the parents arrived for pick up.  Apparently no other child in the history of the preschool has done it ever - just my daughter - and nothing they did could get her out - oil, soap, twisting, lifting etc....  After calling the fire brigade, someone thought to use a carjack to prise the bars further apart.  At last it worked - that milimetre made the difference and she was out!  Mum said they left just as the police turned up to see if they could help!  I was horrified - and, so I discovered, were the teachers, who later rang me to check on her and apologise.

I felt bad for not being there - even though I had been all morning.  But in some ways I think it woudl have been more distressing if I had been there - mum said she was getting upset as Bella was getting upset - and I would have been much worse!  She was exhausted from her distress and slept all the way home, then gave me a huge hug - before being distracted by the chicks, the new car and uncle Andrew's 4 boys who came to see the new car!  She is fine now, and we will see if it has worried her any as we go long I guess. 

What a child!  What a day!

We have been planning to get chickens for some time - I've looked at buying runs/tractors new and second hand, looked at building one, looked at doing a big permanent run etc...  You name I've thought about it, but thinking doesn't get you anywhere.  So, we said this year, 2009, we would do it for sure.  WE've talked about where to put them, what we''l build and got nowhere.

Then at preschool this week they have a hatchery.  They take eggs and hatch them and the kids can watch the chickens grow for a few weeks.  Then they go to new homes.  My kids were begging me to have one each, so I inquired and so far they've had very few inquiries.  So, we have our name down for some little chicks.  I think it is lovely as it means they have a story - and the kids have seen from grow from egg.

The downside is we only have a few weeks (well, maybe months, as we'll keep them inside for a little while) to build them something.

Today I saw a brilliant idea.  A friend has built a moveable chicken run from an old tubular steel single bed.  They have run fine guage chicken wire all around it, used the slats to make a platform up one end - on the shelf designed for the slats - for roosting, and used old colorbond fencing for the roof at that end.  All it needed was a little door and a ramp to the shelf and they were sorted.  What a great, cheap and recycled idea!  Now, I just have to find an old bed...

I was reminded strongly today of the cycle of life.  My best friend of almost thirty years - whose family semi-adopted me (though I have a lovely family of my own we never had extended family in Australia) - rang me a few days ago very upset as she was told her Pop was dying and in a matter of days, rather than weeks.

I have been waiting for her call today as she has updated me every day so far.

So, when my phone trilled to say I had a message, I checked it quickly.  The message was to say that my neighbour had their third baby yesterday - a boy, William.  What lovely news.

But when I opened my phone a second (delayed) message came in saying that Pop had passed away earlier today.

Life and death in a few moments and all the feelings that entails.  I guess that this is part of being human - we are all born and we all die and somewhere those are happening every second.  It is so easy to be blown away by the sheer numbers of births and deaths every minute - and yet, each of those matter to someone and mean something to someone.

I only hope I can live as long as Pop, to see my kids (and even grandkids and great grandkids) grow up.   To love and be loved and to be remembered by someone - and I know I have achieved that already. My two are like parts of my heart out there living their own lives, and I can only hope the same for them - to love and be loved in the deepest way possible.  Praise the Lord!