Hi Everyone

I am a little late in asking for sponsorship this year but have just participated in the Sutherland Shire 2008 Relay For Life fundraising event for The Cancer Council held today at Sylvania Athletics Track.  Funds raised through Relay For Life are spent on cancer research, education, support services and advocacy.  

So far, today by the time of this email, my team has completed more than 160 laps of the 400m track.  Our last runner and team organiser is Bob Fickel who has been competing and organising a team in the event for several years since the loss of his sister to cancer.  He is a seasoned ultra-marathoner and will be running from midnight tonight until 6am tomorrow morning.  He is hoping to cover about 50km or more in that time.

My plight for involvement in Relay for Life became personal this year following recent surgery for treatment of advanced stages of precancerous cells of the cervix.  I consider myself lucky that cervical cancer has so much research available that we women are able to diagnosed early, can take advantage of early treatment and now our daughters and granddaughters can even be immunised against it.  Wouldn't it be great if all forms of cancer could diagnosed, treated and prevented so effectively?

If you are interested in supporting this cause, please donate money towards my team fundraising by clicking here which will take you directly to my page on the Relay for Life site. 

Thank you for your support of my team's fundraising and The Cancer Council.  http://www.relay.cancercouncil.com.au/?2008/sutherland_shire_2008/southside_masters/

Regards

Sally

Ps...  Please also forward this message on to anyone else you think may interested in supporting Relay for Life this year or in the future.

Hi Everyone     On 23rd September, I am participating in the annual Blackmores Run the Bridge (Sydney) 9km fun run to raise funds for Osteoporosis Australia and I would welcome any contribution, great or small, that you could make!   To sponsor me and make a donation to Osteoporosis Australia, please click on my page http://gofundraise.com.au/sluxton and donate using your credit or debit card via secure transaction.  All donations to this site are electronically wired to Osteoporosis Australia  via PayPal a secure online transaction agent.   Alternatively, if you would rather send a cheque, please   1) make payable to "Osteoporosis Australia" & 2) post to 23 Alkaringa Rd, Miranda NSW 2228 with 3) your return address so a receipt can be mailed to you.   If you are a tax paying Australian Citizen all donations over $2AUD are fully tax deductible.
. For more info on prevention of osteoporosis, please visit their website http://www.osteoporosis.org.au.   Please forward this to as many people as possible.  Thankyou in advance for your support.     Sally

Hi Everyone!

I've been doing "other stuff" since last on.  As you do.  Trying to buy a house, but didn't get that one.  Not to worry, it wasn't the most fantastic house or anything, but the best we had seen in a while.  Nevertheless, things happen for a reason, and could be a blessing in disguise.

Finally got a job where I can work from home!  And none of this clicking to get paid 2 cents an email or any of the other crap that is out there that I just still dont believe can ever give you a decent income.  They are all scams and I've yet to be proven wrong.  More on that in a moment.  I got a job reviewing a subject for a financial services education organisation and really love it.  I used to like my job before I had kids and do miss it but could never give up the time away from the kids to go back to it, so this job is great to be back in some sort of contact with financial markets again.

Now back to the online money making schemes.  You know what I'd really like to do.....if all these people are really making that much money by doing what they do - signing up every one on the internet to click for them....etc, why dont we band together and set up a fund and test it out.  If 1 person can make x amount of thousands per month, then imagine what 10000 people could do with an hour a day for 6 months and donate all that money to wiping out world poverty.

Who thinks that this would work?  I think I'll put this in a group discussion.

 

As you all know, I am trying to find scam free ways of earning money at home on the internet.  So far, all I have come across is a load of crap.  The standard lines are:

Paid surveys

Search the net and get paid

Get paid to read emails

blah blah blah - you've all heard about them and that you can join for free but then when you do and get through all the rubbish - there it is again, asking for your $29.95 or $39.95 all on special though!  Oh you can pay by paypal in some of them.........FAT CHANCE!

Others are just link farms or webrings (see Wikepedia for these definitions). 

So instead of doing a google search for "earn online", I decided to do a search on "scams online" and came up with the reputable pcworld magazine article which describes a perfect scenario on phishing and now I think I've been phished out many a time - although luckily, I never put my credit card online, I usually use paypal, especially on ebay, not that I go to ebay all that often now.

Here's a link to the article http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,116186-page,1/article.html .  It's definitely worth a read and if you are registering your name and email on sites for surveys and all the crap I'm experimenting with, make sure you are using a separate free email.  I use my hotmail one for that as then all the extra stuff that comes through will not clog up my personal email where I get genuine emails from friends etc.

If anyone finds any sites that really are worth a look like Emailcash, which I'm already on, please reply to my blog.  I'm very interested.  I really want to know if it is possible to make money online other than via affiliate marketing or by having an actual business online.

Hi - I've been looking for ways to earn money from home and when looking though all the job sites like seek.com.au, jobsearch etc there are just so many "work from home, own your own business, earn lots and lots of money etc etc" , we've all heard the stories but never really know what the business is until we get 3 or 4 emails and long winded blurbs about how much money we make.  I'm so sick of it! 

I want to perform real tasks, utilise my administration skills, my it skills, my knowledge.  I'm not into partyplan, I'm not into network marketing, I'm not into telemarketing, I'm not into cold sales or face to face stuff which starts at recruiting your friends and family.

I am happy to do contract work, temp work, be paid for my real skills.  Sound familiar?  Sorry if I have offeneded any successful network marketers, this is not the intention of my blog.  If it's for you and you have done well out of it - that's great, but it's not for me.

So I have stumbled across this site DoMyStuff.com.  I've listed myself and have found there are lots of things I can do - just have to bid on it and see what happens.  So any other mums out there looking to be paid for "doing something", have a look!  You can sign on to put tasks you need done and also sign on to do tasks.

Good Luck!  By the way, this is not my site, but thought it might help some of you, so put it in my blog instead of advice as it is not really parenting stuff.

but I have still certainly cut down.  Only 1 glass of wine per night over the last 3 nights.  A semillon just goes so well with pan fried fish.  A cab sav goes so well with a nice bit of steak on a cold winters' night.  But I did limit myself to 1 only.  Tonight I'll have none. 

Over the last 2-3 weeks, on average, I have had about half to 1 unit per night instead of 5 or 6 units per night.  I'm getting there.  My body is feeling so much healthier and I am sleeping better and running better!

This is day 5 now without alcohol (except for the half a glass 2 nights ago) and I feel so tired and cranky and short.  Has it really affected me this much?  I thought on the whole my temperament was a lot better and had more patience with the kids but little things still really tick me off.

I just have to focus on how proud I am to be 5 days without grog.  And I've been exercising so that helps and sleeping better than I normally do.  There's merit in this yet.

but last night I had half a glass....here's my excuse....

My husband decided he wanted a potato gratin and that we should use the mandalin to cut the potato so it would be all nicely cut the same width.  Anyway, after fobbing me off about using the safety slider where you put the vegetable in and then slide it across to cut with another object you press down on it, he decided just to use the tool which you press down on the vegetable and slide it himself......at a high speed I might add, but only 5 times before

...slicing half his fingerprint of his smallest finger on his right hand.  Claret EVERYWHERE!

So, had to "attend" to that in between difficult children at meal time, getting our own dinner ready and then realising I better finish the potatoes, but not before, cleaning the gore off the blade, removing the last few pieces "just in case" and in the process finding that poor unfortunate bit of his flesh under the mandolin.

That was it for me.  (I studied Business for a reason .....I almost fainted whilst learning to strap ankles in Health & PE at school).   There was no way I could eat any dinner whatsoever.  I was tired, cranky, flustered, had to dress and redress this wound which which kept leaving claret everywhere and despite the several vomits and poos I've cleaned up after kids, childbirth, monthly periods, bleeding noses, which I was all fine with, nothing quite compares to a small amount of human flesh to gross me right out for 24 hours.

So he sent me to our room with a glass of wine & Desperate Housewives to get my appetite back but let me tell you, I'm still struggling.  If I was a nurse, I think I'd end up anorexic and an alcoholic!

 

I have tried to give up alcohol for some time now and have taken up running again.  I'm not an alcoholic or anything, but do enjoy a bottle of wine with my husband each night.  Cooking the meal, sitting down at the dinner table with the kids, and then after putting them to bed and watching tv on the couch together just goes so well with a bottle of wine.

But, as I am trying to get fit again, and cant seem to shift the extra weight I've put on over the last 15 years of not running and having babies and enjoying life etc, I am trying to give up the alcohol. 

It's a lot harder than I thought though.  So small steps at a time.

I've managed 1 night so far.  Getting through Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters tonight is always a test - especially when hubby is still enjoying his wine! 

Wish me luck.  I plan to go for 1 month and definitely need some help and support and if I have to report to my Minti friends to keep me honest, then I'll give it a go.  I have an 8km race on June 23 in Nowra and if I was just 5kg lighter - might make it a bit easier!

Hi all

I've have been rather quiet this week as we were interstate for a holiday with the kids and to visit my family. 

We went to Seaworld (Gold Coast) for 2 nights and what a great time of the year to go!  Still busy but not ridiculous and staying the Nara resort was just so easy with the kids as we could come back on the monorail just for about 30minutes in the middle of the day just to chill out and that was enough to recharge and go again.  The water was cold to swim in but the kids didn't care and it was so cheap!!  We only paid $99 per night and that includes 1 adult pass into Seaworld worth $64 so it's a great deal and you dont have to pay for kids under 4.

Also went up to the observatory deck of Q1 tower - the world's 20th tallest building and has the fastest lift - 80 floors in under 30 seconds! amazing! 

Kids had a great time and if anyone out there is from Brisbane - I am absolutely amazed in the change in Wellington Point.  It's great for young kids and plenty of cafes to eat at and the Wello is all done up.  Wow, what a transformation it has taken over the last 15 years.