Red Hat farewell

The girls decided to give me a going away morning tea and we travelled to Woodsford to CJ's bakery. Lynette who owns it had bought purple mugs for the occassion and we had any coffee and a cake for $6. Everyone went and picked their cakes and then gave me their coffee order and the money which I then gave to the head waitress. The service was brillant, there were eighteen of us and I reckon that we all had our coffees in about ten minutes. There is a great dress shop up there as well and she caters for red Hatters. there was a great orange dress winter long sleeved on the 50% rack which I am thinking about, it was priced at $49.95, still deciding about another trip there to try it on. Anyway during the morning tea, I was presented with a gift of a fan (coals to Newcastle!) but it had a dragon on it and a swing tag to go on my name badges with Dragon Lady on it so that is my new name/title. i took along my book to show people and a couple of girls asked if they could buy a copy! I said no but they could read it if they wished.

Gold Class

On Sheri's suggestion, Warren's birthday present was gold class tickets at Chermside and we went this morning. He had chosen to see the The sapphires, good choice. It was an excellent movie, based on a true story and at the end they had a photo of the four girls as they are now. Sitting in a darkened theatre being waited on with fries and coke and later devonshire tea but with coffee was very relaxing and a treat. We had the foot rest up but only discovered the back went back too at the end oh well, we didnt need it.

Pampered!

Sheri bought me a pressie. She said i probably needed to be de-stressed after having looked after Aidan for two years. i drove to Albany Creek to Bella Spa and had a very relaxing time. First was the back massage and she did find a sore spot, down low on my right side, maybe i have twisted it a bit. Lots of creams and finally a warm towel, then she left me to put on a fluffy gown and wander down the hallway to the facial room. everything was sudued lighting and mood music, no traffic noise or any other noise. The facial was a mini! well a full facial I dont know what else could be in it. Then there was a scalp massage, which was only for a few minutes and then dressed and down the hall again. It was feet time! Nice warm bowl of water with rounded rocks, cut my nails and filed the bottom of my feet then they were put into hot paffin wax inside a plastic bag and then a warm sock. Nice cream rubbed into my legs up to my knees, finally I picked the colour of the nail polish. i was drawn to a bright blue green colour and decided to go for it. my toe nails are quite small, i think (got to have something small!) and the colour just pops! what did we do without that word Pops! Anyway I just walking around with no shoes on to show off my painted toe nails. Gee, dont I have pretty toes!

Ekka!

My first trip to the Ekka! Aidan had to go to the hospital for his port, blood tests and an exray for his five year medical appointment. Always knew that the port and bloods weren't going to be good. After we left the car in the hospital car park and walked down to the ekka. I only took $40 with me and I didnt even think of the cost of entry fee, which was $26 but Sheri bought a familt ticket and then I gave her $25 and i bought a dagwood dog for lunch so I actually came home with some money as the show bag that I bought warren, i used a card.
it was a good day to go as it wasn't a special day, very few school were there so we were able to walk around at our liesure. The Woolworths tent area was the place to go, lots of free tastings of foods. Loved the helgas slice, like bread but can be used as pizza bases, sandwiches etc. The pet place was good too, saw a great cat, it was like a dog in the way that it loved being scratched etc, I think it was a Tonganese cat. Jordan and I walked to the petrol station with the show bags as we didnt want to go back through the hospital. But gee, i was tired afterwards.

Warren's birthday

We decided a couple of weeks ago to go into town for a nice lunch, a week later I realised that it would be his birthday. we delivered Aidan to school and went off to catch the train, It was a freezing day and we had light jackets on, luckily we had heavier jackets in the car so we changed into those. i drove and parked at the usual spot on top of the shopping centre giving us a ten minute walk. Got to town and we walked thru the mall and had coffee at yuppy place, they have brought out a menu so we decided to have fruit toast to share. It was cut in half and a real doorstop. Continued on to the river and caught a Cat and went all the way up, intending to have lunch at Riverside on the way back. It took longer than we thought but it was pleasant on the boat, we did go and stand out on the front for a little while and got windswept. Lunch time and we walked along the foreshore, heading to a seafood place which was up two stories, got up the stairs only to read that it was closed for a private function. Opposite was another place and the dishes started $25 and went up. warren said too bad its my birthday so lets blow the budget. Had to walk thru and down to the hosts desk, when Warren for a table for two, they said "Oh, you'll have to go on a waiting list" there were plenty of seats available. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 12.20 and we wanted to be back at the station by 1pm so said we didnt have time to wait. Visited DVA and was told that they were 8 weeks behind so that means I wont get my card in time to buy my meds cheaply before China. Dropped into a food court to grab something to eat and use the toilet, making a beeline for the station and Warren says we can turn here and go this way, it didnt seem right to me but I wasnt recognizing anything anyway so we did that, suddenly we were at Uni gates.  I saw a taxi rank and said we can grab one of those, his nibs were concerned about how we got there and the station wasnt far away. My concern was the time it was already 1.10 and we had to get a train back to Strathpine, walk to the car and then drive to the school. we got the taxi and were only five minutes late but the bus had been early. It was cold, lunch was awful, got lost, had fish and chips for dinner, boat ride was pleasant, that was the best part of the day. havent got Warren a pressie yet but told him that I will take him to Gold class movies next week. Yucky movies though, only one decent is the Sapphires and I want to see that but i should give him the choice shouldnt I?

Strawberry jam

I read on the Down to earth blog about making your own SJ. It sounded easy and as Warren cant eat all brands of ham, i decided to give it a go. I bought two punnets of strawberries and the sugar but I didnt have any suitable jars. I waited til I was at Sheri's, she had jars. Ended up with a kilo of strawberries and I cut out some of the sugar. Its okay a little sweet and havent set quite enough. Made three jars, left one here and it has been going into Jodans mikl shakes as he loves strawberries. Between us we are aiming for him to put on between 1.5 and 2kilos before next clinic, in the first week, he put on 700 gms, what a star! and he hasnt complained about having skantishakes. Three pots cost me about $12 and I have sugar and jam setter over. At the strawberry farm on Wednesday, they were selling same size pots of jam for $8!

Bus trip to Eumundi

i had organized a bus trip to Eumundi for Red Hats. Kangaroo buslines had advertised a trip but I was doubtful that we could all get on it as once its filled that it so i had contacted them re getting a small bus just for us. Woohoo, saved $30 each by doing so but we did have to buy our own lunch. $59 and $57 for pensioners for trip, lunch and tours but for us it was $22 each but we did charge $25 just in case we couldnt fill the bus. I went to the depot as some were starting from there, the receptionist looked at me in horror when I said that we were going to Eumundi and asked how many, I said 23, "Argh" she gasped and walked out the back. I was thinking about plan B if they didnt have a bus, she came back all smiles and said that she hadnt known about the seperate bus and it would be ready in about five minutes. thank goodness for that. Uneventful trip up and very quick, we were there in under an hour from morayfield, we set a time to be picked and wandered off. Coffee was first on the agenda, wow there was such a lot to see! some of the girls wanted to meet for lunch so we arranged to have lunch at the pub at 12.30pm. i bought what looked like a dress and was persauded to try it on, looks like a dress but far too short, I think i will get a lot of wear from it. Quite diferent from what i usually wear and its paisley so will go with lots of other colours. We had almost four hours there and I'm sure we didnt see everything, picked up and went to the ginger factory where I bought some ginger sauce for cooking, love the stuff. Then people were talking about the strawberry farm and we said that wasnt on the plan but bus driver said he would take us there. No-one picked strawberries, a few bought a couple of things, I guess it was a nice stop and something else to cross off the "must go there one day" list. As it was our fourth birthday, i had bought small gifts for the girls and handed them out on the way home. Lynne had also made emboirdered tissue bags with each one's intial on them. Everyone seemed to have a good time so it was decided to look at another trip for next Feb when I will be home. have a quote to go to maleny in Feb and its cheaper only $20 and thats allowing a small fudge factor.

Yay! Book is finished

I met my quota last November for nanowrimo with a day or so to spare. 51,000 words give or take a few. Didn't look at it again til after holidays in Feb then I edited it, found some errors and a couple of pieces that I decided to rewrite because the sentence structure was wrong. Two months it took me, twice as long as it did to write the thing. Then I asked Warren to read and edit it too, he did about 90 pages in four months! Sunday i decided to wait on him no longer and finished it off and wrote an epilogue as well. Asked Warren to format etc so that I could send it to Create space to publish it. Sheridan and Jordan visited in the afternoon and his nibs asked Sheri to do it as she knew what to do. Tadaahh! she sat down and did it and its now been sent off. Certainly wont set the litery world on fire but it has some of the family stories down on paper.

"Friends"

Last week I took the boys into clinic and Aidan was mumbling in the back seat, when i asked him what he said, I got the reply, "I'm not talking to you" He was apparently talking to someone else who was in the back seat with him. Monday we set off to get petrol and Aidan wanted "Donalds" for lunch, I said that I would take him to Hungrey Jacks as it was on the way, between petrol and fruit market. On the way, we had a disscussion on who was in the car, Mick was sitting with him. AD asked if I knew Mick, I asked if Mick had been at Poppy's house, yes, he said, he was cutting trees. Lots of chat in the back and no he informed he was not talking to me but he was talking to Mick. In the car park at HJ's I was told that Mick was just behind him, I asked how big was Mick, Mick was apparently the same size as Adian. Tuesday going home, Jim had joined Mick in the car to go to our place. Picked up a few food stuffs and while driving to the library, Aidan informs me that Mick had not got into the car then a few minutes later, he was there. I asked how he got there, he run very fast and opened the door while we were stopped at lights. He was abit naughty for not coming with us. That is the last (so far) that I have heard of Mick or Jim for that matter.

Twenty Wishes

A few weeks ago i read a book from the library titled "Twenty Wishes" It told the story of five women from a smallish town, all were widows, they were part of a book club and decided to get together for the holidays which were noramlly family get-togethesr. The main character was in her thirties and she had married a man twenty years older than her, he had children and stated before they were married that he wasnt interested in more kids. She was happy to go along with that but five years later her bio clock was ticking loudly. They argued over it and finally spilt, living apart for nine months but starting to come to terms and meeting again when he died, a car accident or heart attack. Anyway the five widows spent Thanksgiving or something together and decided that they should set themselves a target of twenty wishes that they could work towards as something for themselves. The book followed the MC and one of her wishes was to volunteer somewhere, one of the pther widows helped her with that as she did reading at a local school so that was one wish down. MC found it difficult to come up with 20 wishes, it took her a few months to put it in writing. Of course one of her wishes was to have a child and it does come true but not in the way she or the reader expects. I guess the book had quite an effect on me as I have been thinking about twenty wishes myself and also finding it hard to come up with a list. One wish that I did have was to go on another cruise and figured that if I didnt talk about it to anyone then nothing would happen. I mentioned it to Warren and probably nudged him in the right direction and he has booked a cruise for my sixth birthday. Thats a win win situation as i get what i want and he doesnt have to think of anything more for my 60th. Now to work out the other nineteen, maybe it does show that I am pretty content with my life. writer was debbie something and I have ordered a couple more of her books to read.

A Pensioner!

As of two days ago I am officially a pensioner. I qualified 31st of July on my fifty nine and a half "birthday"  Yesterday when I arrived home, there was an official looking letter waiting for me. Not that straight forward for every thing to go smoothly, they need more information! surprise, surprise! DVA had sent out the forms required, just a Part B and so that was what we filled in. I say "we" as I opened the letter and then Warren did the rest, he having the experience from his own. Yesterday's missile stated that Part A and Part B need to be lodged together, Part A is our bank details, assets and  trips to the loo each day (so they can track water usage lol). Part A from Warren's they already have and we wronged assumed that they would use that but no. It seems that each person is treated as an indivual BUT partners income etc etc are counted as well. At least, it was only ten days since lodgement day so we''ll see how much longer it takes until i receive any money. Warren's took five months, one can only hope its less. I would love to have it before I need to get my months worth of pills to take to China. $300+ down to $60, bring on the pension card! Pension, the word, gives me a bit of a giggle and sends Warren into a funk! While in China, he was doing a crossword puzzle, in bed and I was reading. He says I need help, What! I say being very obsorbed in my book. Well, I need a word for guest house, its seven letters and starts with a "P". I say "Pension". He says "Guest house" "Yes, pension". A few more words were said and then he got the dictionary in disbelief and to his astonishment, found that another word for guest house is pension! Admittly it is a French word but none the less, I was right. I told him that came from being very well read, tongue in cheek. He promised never to doubt me again, yeah, right, we'll see.