We have finally settled into our new house. Although we are still unpacking slowly, there is plenty to occupy our spare time.

We have been to the local shops a few times & are becoming accustomed to the area.

Fishing has been keeping us busy as well. Unfortunately we seem to be catching undersized fish only. Bream has been the most regular with a Whiting in amongst the mix. They were all sent back to their homes with messages for their older siblings & friends! We have heard mixed stories about Lake Illawarra fishing. If we believe the majority, then surely we are to catch something worthwhile soon. However we have also been told that we will keep catching undersized fish in the Lake & that we need to go elsewhere for the bigger guys. If anyone has an opinion or advice on this, please feel free to educate us. We are mere amateurs & don’t know a great deal about fishing spots etc.

Recently SK’s sister Duff brought home a long anticipated new game for the Wii. Guitar Hero III. We have had so much fun with this since it’s debut in our house. On Easy mode, I have already made Rock Legend status & unlocked a couple of characters & several songs. The challenge on Medium is to get my little fingers around to the Blue button. I don’t know what i’m going to do when it comes time to add the 5th & last Orange button to the mix.

I am currently still not working nor am I receiving benefits. Theres are a few reasons surrounding this however I hope to get my hands on some casual work real soon. My biggest issue lays with what kind of work will be available. I would love to involve myself with Family Day Care again, however this isn’t ideal given our living situation. Also the fact that i’m feeling spent on the Child Care field & don’t think I could continue to do it day in day out again. My hopes lay with the local baby shops.

So, all in all we are realy happy to be living in the residence we have found. we seem to have wonderful neighbours around us that realy do keep to themselves unless having a chat or sending out a smile & wave as you or they go by. We have plenty of fond memories of the Sydney house, like SK & My first Christmas together, Family Gatherings & Winter with the Firepit. However we have many more good memories to make in our new residence & look forward to making them happen.

Below are photos of the houses that have changed our life for the better…..                                                                                

Then:          Now: 

A HUGE Thank You to all participants in my Quote This comp. I set this challenge more for a fun experience, which I believe everybody including myself has enjoyed participating in.

I must apologise for allowing time to get away from me without announcing the winner earlier. Currently we have been moving house which we are basically finished physically moving & have had issues surrounding our internet. Cutting a long story short I am using the free “dial up” service provided to us until our ADSL is once again fixed.

Anyways, to announce the Winner. I have had a hard time trying to cull my fav quotes down to one. Therefore I have 2 winners who will each receive their 500 Entrecard Credits!

They are:

#10 Lightening
“Weeeeeee—-eeeeeellllll…..you know you make me want to shout…”

#27 Maria
“Stop laffin at me! I swearz! I kan fliez!”
(In LOLCat of course)

CONGRATULATIONS to the both of you! Your ECs have been sent to each of you. Thank you both for spending the time to add some humour to my site.Thank you to everyone else for leaving a Quote & hope to see you on my next blog.

As of writing this blog, we have 2 cars packed with boxes & a few odds & ends to fill gaps. Tomorrow we sign the Lease on the new house & begin moving. We have packed a fair bit however as we have a LOT of stuff, we still have a lot more to go. Over the Long Weekend we will be busily moving with a rental truck (which I can highly recommend this company as this is our 2nd move using them) to our new address. Although Saturday being Australia Day, has been kept for the annual day out to celebrate. We will spend the day relaxing at Carss Bush Park where the day begins early with a BBQ brekky, drifts into a mixture of swimming & market stall hunting, then ends with fireworks at 9pm. A nice deserved break in the middle of organised chaos?!

I am anxious to get down to the coast & very much look forward to settling in. This house has definately become too small for us. The living standards have dropped with the animals we live next to & the condition of this old house. With a big touch of TLC this would again be a wonderful house to reside in. I have however enjoyed being here & will miss the locality etc. But I am very much looking forward to residing in the Illawarra. I used to holiday a couple of times a year in this town & it has been a dream to move there with SK. The only thing left is to tie the knot (!) & to purchase our own house. All in good time.

Keep working on those Quotes! They are coming along well & I am overjoyed at everyone’s comments so far! You have all done an exceptional job & it puts a smile on my face. I am definately keeping the “Quote This” as a regular & I hope it continues to stay popular! Thanks everybody xxxx

For those who have not yet read or seen ShadowKnight’s Blog…. WE ARE MOVING!

We are finally heading down the coast to the Illawarra region where life can only be bliss …… At least it should be a little less stressful then the premises we occupy now! Surrounded with wild felines & an old house slowly falling apart around us, it is definitely well past time we shifted on.

We made the decision to head south quite some time ago after many discussions on our future & what lies ahead of us. We realised that this area was truly one of beauty & we enjoy everything about it. it is still far enough away from where I used to live down the coast yet still close by the city.

An estimated 2 hour train ride to central. I know this doesn’t sound good for SK, however we will see how it pans out once we settle in.

We look forward to signing the Lease next week & moving in begins!

I am placing a challenge to everyone!

Just for fun, I have chosen this oh-so-cute picture of Tiger cubs to display on the my site. I extend an invitation to everyone to give this picture a quote. At the end of January, the best suitable quote along with the picture will be placed on the site in a permanent position. I am considering making this a regular task where it can be updated monthly.

So put your thinking caps on! Quote as many times as you like & please, have fun doing it!

Competition closes & winner announced 31st January 2008.

**** For Entrecard Members: There will be a prize for Best Quote of 500 Entrecard Credits! The winning quote is chosen by myself as being the funniest and/or wittiest quote, in my opinion.****

I came across this pic on Facebook tonight whilst waiting to watch a video posted by my sis-in-law Duff. I found it to be oh-so-cute! So i thought I would share it & hope to put a smile on a few faces. In light of recent events around here, this kitten seemed suitable for that very job.

This evening ShadowKnight (my beloved Fiancé) helped me to make the return of The Weather Channel’s RSS feed to my site. I don’t know what it is about this feed however I quite enjoy having it placed on my site.

Also making a return:

1. The links section (Blogroll) in the sidebar. This allows others to access some of my favourite sites, out of interest of course.

2. Recent Posts section. This is basically a shortcut to read recent posts on the site without having to scroll through to find them.

Hopefully the site will start looking busy & full again. I left it bare last year with leaving merely a couple of blogs for the whole 12 months! I have as can be seen, made an attempt to blog each day about my thoughts & dare I say adventures. I am considering 2 new additions which will be discussed with SK over the next day to see how well it can be implemented onto the site.

For now please enjoy a quiet read & don’t forget to leave me a post!

Last night was quite a warm & humid evening at home, so I contemplated what I was going to do with myself. I thought about going to sit out the front where the slight breeze was much cooler, but as I was walking down the hallway I had a quick thought of just putting myself to bed with my Mcleouds Daughters Dvd’s I got for Christmas from Duff (Series 1 Boxset). Something made me decide that indeed it was best to go outdoors where it was much cooler. So I set about the task of taking a doona to lay upon the ground & a couple of pillows to make us comfortable. Duff & I grabbed mosquito repelling weapons, being Citronella oil to refill the Burners, Citronella tealights which we placed 4 of - 1 at each corner of the doona & the Repellant spray ‘Off!’. As SK watered & fertalised the plants the 3 of us sat & discussed near future plans for a trip down the coast to celebrate my mum’s forthccoming 70th Birthday in February. As we were nearing the end of our conversation, I heard a faint cry which sounded very much like a tiny Kitten. Upon enquiring, others heard it too but as we wern’t ssure of it actually being anything specific, we kept on chatting. After a few moments it was heard again by all of us. So off I went to investigate. Those of you who know me well enough know how emotional I can get about things very easily. So in the back of my mind I was hoping that everything would be ok & that knowing there are several pregnant cats next door, that indeed it may have come from that side of the fence. However I wasn’t going to give up until I knew for sure. So with torch in hand, I started searching around our carport area. Looking under the house in certain spots with close inspection & a careful eye came up with zilch. Poking around a covered & boxed Outdoor Setting on a pallet resulted in nada. As I looked, every few minutes I could hear the little cry. It could clearly be identified as the cry of a tiny kitten. A few times I heard a gentle rustle of leaves coming from above me. This I kept dismissing as possible wind, however it played on my nerves after a while. It didn’t take me long to retreat from the carport to report of nothing to the others though I hastly made a dash to the loungeroom to peer out of the window with the torch onto the carport. You would not believe what I found. In the light of the torch, there was a  tiny little kitten all by itself crying out for help. It broke my heart to see it & I immediately called in fear to SK to please  help me get this little kitten some help! Immediately I picked up the phone & called Yagoona RSPCA After Hours. I was given another phone number to call a St George After Hours emergency number. Once this call was made I was upset at how the situation was delat with. Once given the cat owners address, the information given to me was along the lines of: “We have removed over 30 cats from that property. The woman has Dimentia & they are all strays anyway”. I do not believe this has anything to do with us nor should it. The situation at hand had involved us for yet the 6th or 7th time in the 2.5 yrs we have resided here. We have not made any complaints until recently & to me seems everyone just likes to pass the buck & say “I don’t have authority to do anything about it” etc. Besides all of this, these people are removed from the actual daily occurances & obviously don’t realise that some of these cats have actually ben GIVEN to the elderly lady next door & most are now also litters from those that do reside there as well as the strays that enter the property on a one way visit. Anyway, I was told to actually call back once I got the kitten down from the roof. I asked why indeed did I need to make yet another phone call when I was already on the phone to them. I didn’t get a straight answer except “just call us back when you have it down”. But as asked, I climbed up on Dad’s old wooden ladder to the side of the carport trembling with fear. Duff handed me a broom as it was clearly unsafe to actually climb onto the roof. With a gentnle pulling motion I managed (almost in tears) to roll & slide the kitten closer towards me. Once it was in arms stretch, I grabbed it close & held onto it for dear life. We brought it inside & gave it a torn towel to snuggle up to inside a small box. The second phone call was made to come & collect the animal. I was informed someone would be directly on their way. After waiting well over 1.5 hours out the front for someone to arrive, we started speaking of many scenarios of why we were waiting so long. I realised only our address was given & no return number left with them so we decided to call them yet again. Duff spoke with the “gentleman” who I found to be fairly rude to begin with, who told her that indeed someone was on their way & he could not give a clear E.T.A. However when Duff thanked him in a firm & inpatient tone as she was about to hang up, he actually then informed us that the guy who was coming has been called out to a Dog injury & then also to a Dog attacking & therefore as it has been a busy night will make it to us when he can. We informed him of our concern at how hungry the kitten was at it was trying to suckle from the towel in it’s makeshift housing. We were informed to just try to keep it warm & offer some water. We understand that most of these people are either volunteers or have been through all this kind of thing before. However a little compassion goes a long way. Considering this was at 11pm on a Sunday evening I believe we had cause to be concerned. by the time we actually made the call we had lost count of how long had realy passed since our first plee of help. Basically, around midnight the guy finally poked his head at our window to call out to us. i took the box out to him & obviously to his surprise too as he held a cage in his hand expecting a large cat. He made motions to leave & headed towards his car so I asked a few questions like Who are we meant to get help from regarding these cats? What do we do about a cage to catch the strays? etc. He has offerred to return during the week with a cage so hopefully we have the ball rolling. It’s such a shame it takes so long to get help & in the meantime watch all of these animals suffer. Over the past we have seen a lot which hurts me to no end.

*I orginally ran over what seemed to be a Blind & Deaf cat in our driveway who was asleep under the car, which we disposed of.

*We found a litter of 4 kittens (4 weeks of age) at the side of our house under some old cardboard which I deleivered in tears to the local pound.

*SK picked up a kitten (2-3 mnths old) off of the road which had passed with no signs of injury & had to dispose of it.

*Duff removed a kitten (2-3 months old) which again we had to dispose of which died of malnutrition in our driveway under our trailer. this one was reported to the RSPCA just prior to Christmas & not a word of response have we received. Also this kitten’s passing realy broke my heart as during the week prior to this I began offering leftover foods to try to help mainly this kitten survive. It did benefit all cats on the property, however this kitten in particular was always sleeping by the gate or on the driveway & every single day I would see it & know that it was too suffering. Too little too late I guess in the long run.

*Now to find a newborn kitten with eyes still closed on our CARPORT roof & again have to deal with it.

This is all getting to be beyond the joke. I understand this elderly lady is on her own & the cats are her ownly family etc. I understand it would break her heart to see them all removed. but SOMETHING has to be done to help her maintain the life of these creatures. None of these cats/kittens ever asked to be put here & yet they are being left to suffer until death. I can only assume past tenants of this house had also had their fair share of problems. We have been good neighbours & put up with the pests over the time we have been here. But it is sad that when we do ask for help, there is either none available or simply no compassion. What is it going to take, I ask? I have been nothing but an emotional wreck with each of these situations & I know that moving away will help us greatly, however what about these cats & any future feline to reside in that house? Everyone in this street seems to close their eyes to the siuation or if they do take an interest tend to point the finger at us.

If anyone has ANY ideas or suggestions please feel free to offer it to us. We are pleeding for help!

I never would have thought that the idea of gardening would have created such a stir in SK & myself. I returned home from work after having a good & yet again exhaustingly busy day. The first thing I did was hop into the pool to cool down. Over the christmas period we purchasd an Intex 12′ pool which is large enough for us all to sit in & relax but not big enough to call anything “swimming” in it. One person could float around in it luxuriously without touching sides. The 2 nieces loved jumping & splashing about in it recently. So once I cooled down to the point of actually shivering (!) I then got out & wondered around the backyard looking at all of the lovely seedlings & plants we have germinated. This reminded me of the orders i recently placed & made me feel quite excited at the thought of what’s coming. I am looking forward to pottering around (as my beloved Dad used to say) & sowing more seeds to germinate seedlings. The last trip to Bunnings that we took had us securing a Yates Propagators Kit to use alongside our homemade ones. This will become invaluable within the next few weeks.

I contacted via sms all my co-workers from the Child Care Centre today & informed them of my resignation. I asked if anyone was interested in Greek Yum Cha in the coming week so hopefully we can organise a get together soon before the girls have to start back for the year. I am hoping that before we make the move to the coast that I will attend a few Wednesday Night Bingo sessions at Matraville RSL with a few of the girls. We went several times last year & found it to be a lovely way to relax away fromt he pressures of work. It also gave us a laugh or two, especially when us “youngins” upset the elders by becoming “Ring-Ins”. As this happens at every Bingo I have ever been to, it’s easy to just shrug it off. We mean no harm & by all means no offence to those who attend on a regular basis. We are purely there to enjoy each others company & have a game or two of Bingo.

I have been placed on the roster this coming week to work Tuesday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday. I will look forward to relaxing around the home tomorrow. Might play a game or two on the Wii or PS2 with Duff!

So it is that another day has gone by this brand new year. I worked a full day again today back at My Baby Warehouse. As we are having a Sale currently, it was very busy all day & time managed to go by fairly quickly. I enjoyed being back & kept myself occupied advising customers about different products etc & ways to actually minimise costs even though I was making a sale. This was by still spending money with us however ensuring that they get the full benefits of extending warranty periods etc (these cannot be purchased however with some strategic payment methods can maximise the time before warranties run out) so in the long run it does not cost them as much.  This is not standard practice in the store nor do I expect it is in any retail environment, however I appreciate that when I become a customer that someone out there may look after me as well.

I returned home tonight to be told that another of our Gladioli Bulbs has broken ground & sprouted. I am happy to hear this news as I was starting to become somewhat concerned at the slow growth. We have also noted that our Country Garden mixed flowers are also breaking out other colours other than the plain old simple white. I have not had a chance tonight to “walk through” the gardens & check all pots etc. Hopefully when I do get around to doing it, it will offer me a nice surprise. Speaking of gardenings, I have ordered some new seedlings from Garden Express http://www.gardenexpress.com.au/ which is the home of Channel Nine’s Gardening Gurus. Duff has ordered with my seedlings 2 flowering seedlings which should become quite pretty. I have also bought ShadowKnight a nice little surprise & can’t wait until these arrive. From Mr Fothergills http://www.mrfothergills.com.au/ I have purchased some seed packets which include both flowers & vegetables. Again I can’t wait until these arrive & we decide where we will put them once germinating.