What can I say….. I’m still an unemployed bum. Before you start worrying bout receiving benefits etc etc, I am NOT on unemployment benefits nor am I registered with Centrelink. So therefore all our hard earned tax dollars are not finding their way to my purse. No doubt there is someone out there “mooching” on the system, but most of those who are collecting benefits are struggling to do so. I disagree with how the system is held these days & if our circumstances get more undesirable than they are now, I may have to rely upon that very system. As for now, I will keep plodding along in my own time looking for employment and hoping that those I have recently applied for may show a little luck my way & allow me the opportunity to get back on my feet.

Sadly I must say, with unemployment comes a lot of negative feelings. I am feeling unworthy with each email of rejection in response to letters & applications in looking for a job. Knowing that SK is footing each & every expense in the home makes me feel irresponsible. As each day goes by, another debt comes along. I am now at the stage where I cannot make my standard monthly expenses & before long it will all come back at me. I can merely keep my fingers crossed & hope that something comes my way very very soon.

Currently I am again on the hunt to find a new job.

I have contacted the majority of Baby Retail stores in the local area & have found that there really isn’t a great deal of stores out there. Most of them are chain stores like Babies Galore & Babyco. I have however found 1 local independent store at Kogarah. The lady seemed very nice to speak to on the phone, but unfortunately had no work to offer. She said she runs the store on her own & I noticed it is open Tuesday through Sunday. I feel for her. Knowing what the industry can be like, I think she has no choice but to run it herself. She did however say that if popularity grows & times get busier, then she would look at hiring then. I am thinking of posting a copy of my resume to her to keep on hand anyway.

I am in the midst of lining up a job interview for the end of this week with another store. So fingers crossed it may pay off!

I have a few ideas running in the back of my mind at the moment that I have already discussed with SK. Hopefully things will get off the ground soon & we will have a website for parents & families running within the next several weeks.

So please keep an eye on this space!

I am excited about the mission we have set ourselves as the care for babies, children & their families has always been & will always stay a very strong & important part of my life.

By the way, don’t be afraid to leave a blog message for me! It enlightens my day & I miss the contact with all my friends that I use to have.

I am currently looking for another job, due to the store at Menai closing. During the past month we had closed doors for BBB & opened BM for a short period. We were offering discounted products to customers of which were from 1 supplier only. Sadly even though customers are demanding discounts on an everyday basis, the products were simply not as popular as expected & therefore saw very small amounts of sales going through the store. On top of customers not coming to the location, the store could just not stay open anymore. BBB has relocated into the Moorebank location & we look after all our customers there as much as possible with the ever popular free home deliveries etc. I have been offered a position at the store there with a maximum of 20 hours. Unfortunately it is not enough for us to financially survive & I have had to cut the loyalty ties & begin looking elsewhere for work. I am considering going back to child care as there seems to be very little available in baby stores around Sydney.

I have learnt a wealth of knowledge in the past several months that I have been in the industry & wish dearly to put it to good use elsewhere. I have found working closely with families & as special to me as the care for their children.

All I can do is keep an ear to the ground & do as much as I can to locate another job.

I have been asked to stay with BBB for the next few weeks & promised to do so. It will be sad to leave my last day there, but I will look at it as positively as I can.

It’s not the end of the world for me or anyone else that has had to be let go. But I’m sure we all will miss working with each other & will try to keep in touch as much as possible. I have made new friends since working in BBB. Friends I hope will stay just that for the rest of time.

I have made it through another 12 months to the day where even though Best Wishes are sent your way, its just a reminder of how much less time you have to spend the rest of your life & with the ones you love most.

Don’t get me wrong! I enjoy Birthdays & any celebration that comes along. It has always been tradition or more of a ritual in our family, like most to spend time with the Birthday person whether in person or by voice. Celebrate the event with a feast fit for a king, whether it be a lovingly cooked favourite meal or a special night out at a restaurant. End the night with a roudy rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung over flaming candles on a cake. Your never too old for this kind of magic!

My day started with waking in the arms of my beloved. Then a phone call from my eldest brother at 8am. Followed by a call from my two very much loved nieces at 8.30.

Off to work I went. Quiet dead cold day. 1 sale. $29.95. Work ended with a call from a work colleague with her warm wishes.

Came home & as placing my feet inside the hallway, my mobile rings. Coyote, loved friend from QLD wishing me a wonderful day.

After realising that indeed we are not doing anything special, I get into my warm pjs & settle in for the evening. Finding 1 lonely present on the table which was dropped in by an Uncle who lives nearby. Quite surprised at the lovely thought as we havn’t shared gifts with them for some time. Not since i was a child. It was indeed a sweet gesture.

Phone call from Batemans Bay. Mum, Bro & Sister in Law all wish me their best. It’s great to have a family who sticks together.

Then it hits me. I AM doing nothing for my birthday. No special dinner, not even TAKE AWAY! No family get together of a special cooked meal. No Birthday cake & No celebration. Damn the financial burdens. As Dean prepares pies with wedges for dinner, I get a deep feeling of the total opposite of being hungry. I don’t want pie.

I do know what I want, but it isn’t food. And for anyone thinking of anything else… no I am not speaking of an act between 2 consenting adults. I know what I want but I have no choice but to wait.

I have been asked what I want for my birthday. I honestly cannot answer with anything that my family can give me. It isn’t possible that the only thing I yearn for can be given by anyone else but 1.

Thus, I am quite saddened. Because yet again I won’t realy be getting what I want for my wish.

From the time I turned 19 & for several years after, all I ever wished for was for my Father. I know that is out of reach & totally impossible. Over the past 2 years I have wished for the same as I wish today. But this I am told I simply just have to wait for. Simply.

I am 29.

I am getting much further past the point than I ever wanted to be for my wish. I do not want to inflict in the future what I have had to suffer in the past. Yet somehow between Mother Nature & other factors, this has been forced upon me. I don’t expect others to understand or to care. Nor do I want them to. I just wish I could understand & accept it a little bit better. Perhaps before I sleep on my 29th Birthday, some miracle may occur. I may actually come to terms with what is deemed “My Life” & instead of whinge about what I want & what I don’t have, I can realise exactly what I do have.

Love.

What an interesting start to a new Season of V8 motorsport!

The introduction this year of Reverse Grid will be a curios one to follow. I’d like to hear all the views of the drivers on this one!

A sticky start for the season for many drivers during this past weekend at the Adelaide Clipsal 500. It saw severe heat exhaustion, many bumps grinds & crashes, & a hell of a lot of money going into preparing for the next round of racing for almost every team involved. Those who were lucky enough to escape the carnage over the whole weekend, in my opinion have a great headstart into the next race/round.

Good luck to all drivers, especially the HOLDEN teams!! Go u mighty HOLDENS!

On the same topic of V8s, we have just booked our campground sites for this years ultimate pilgrimage to the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 of 2006. This year we will have 2 sites ajoining so we have plenty of room to move about. It will be a big family trip in a sense as my bro D & my 2 nieces H & L plus SK’s sister Duff (L) will be coming with us! We are very much looking forward to it. If anyone has any camping items they are looking to sell/swap/give away, pls do not hesitate to contact us. We are happy to consider anything.

The VS Commodore is back on the road. A little issue has developed where the rear of the vehicle got slightly damaged whilst out of our care, but that is being chased up & hopefully things will be back to normal.

I must say the boys who worked on the car have done quite a proffessional job & the front of the vehicle does indeed look brand spanking new. The only thing spoiling that is the dull paint on the rest of the vehicle & a mighty big scratch with lime green paint in the mix on a rear door. A few $$’s & some elbow grease (won’t be mine) will fix that!

Well sadly the past w/e has resulted in a bad ending.

We had planned to end it on a wonderful note with the family enjoying a get together at a local Sizzler restaurant.

On the way travelling there, a young man in a white Camry decided to run a red arrow & make a right hand turn into a small street from a major road as we happen to be going through our green light at the intersection. Even though we braked, it wasn’t enough to stop us from colliding with him & we T-Boned him fair & square between both front & rear door on his left hand side. Luckily for him, he had no passengers in the vehicle. Unluckily for us, we had a full carload. Mum managed to slide under her seat belt & ended up crying out to us laying on her back on the bottom of the seat as she was very scared & had no idea what had happened. I guess for her, it would feel like the end of the world as like a child, she hasn’t the reflexes to brace herself nor can she see over the seat in front to watch oncoming traffic. My niece H was also slightly injured & grazed a leg, which wasn’t evident until she was climbing into her mum’s vehicle to go home who had come to pick her up. In tears she returned to us to pay the Ambulance a visit in which “Little Nanna” was being attended to. Both were taken to St George Hospital for observations. H left after a couple of hours as she was extremely tired & well & truly hungry. Promising that she was finally ok & Mum decided to take her to a local GP the following day if need be. My bro D & I stayed with mum from 6pm till midnight when after seeing the Dr, then having ribs x-rayed, then seeing the Dr again we were able to go home. Basically looks like mum may have suffered a little cartilage damage under her ribs, which nothing can be done about but let heal on it’s own. Hey, I had no idea we had cartilage there!

So after a long night, we climbed into bed after 1am (SK, Mum & I all slept in lounge room to keep an eye & listen out for each other)

So.. basically we are now awaiting news from the insurance company as to what will happen with our car. The tow truck driver basically told us its a write off. But until it actually gets inspected & assessed, we won’t know.

So through all of this, even though we pretty much all came home unscathed I am feeling somewhat P’d off to put it mildly & have the worst feeling of violation. Not only did the guy manage to take a risk & fall short, he put ALL of our lives in danger, totalled my own vehicle, sent 2 ppl to hospital & left us stranded without transport for work & every day needs. Not to mention costs for the little things that are involved like hiring of a car etc. Hopefully karma will make its call upon this young fellow & teach him that there are truly other people on this earth, not just himself to consider.

I will end the blog for now & update it as soon as we have organised what’s going on.

Tonight we have made a change in our household. We have moved the computers into our main living area as the room we so aptly named “the computer room” gets full sun throughout the day & mainly in the arvo. It is like sitting in a sauna whilst trying to check emails or look up something in the shortest space of time. So now that we have the pc’s so handy, we should be online a little more than we have been in the past several months.

Several months… wow! Time has just gone so fast!

I realised last week that as of today (Sunday 12th Feb)SK & I have actually been engaged for a whole year already! We still havn’t gotten much further with wedding plans, but it has been discussed a few times lately & soon we should have a date set. So Happy Engagement Anniversary for u my schnooki! xxxx

P.s we have mum staying with us for a couple of weeks. She seems happy to be here & we have enjoyed her company. Hopefully it has given my bro & his wife a well earned respite.

My gosh… i know we tend to say it to each other each & every year, but… my how time flies!!!!

I can’t believe it is almost the end of JANUARY already! I have been so tied up since my last blog & didn’t even get a chance to leave everyone a happy new year message. So here it is…

hApPy NeW yEaR!!!!

A little poor i know, please forgive me!

I do wish everyone a wonderful 2006 ahead & hope everyone’s Christmas was what they wished for. I was very lucky to spend it with Shadowknight & my own family. It’s just a shame we couldn’t share it with our W.A family as well.

We love u mum, dad & sis & we are looking forward to spending special time with u all soon.

To keep this short, work is going well. SK’s work is also keeping him busy. Family is doing well & apologies to all who think we have fallen off of the face of the earth. Of course we havnt & hope to get in contact with all of u at some point in the very near future.

No plans have been set as yet for the wedding nor a date. But now that things have settled down we shall get back on track.

In March we have planned a brief trip to the Gold Coast. We shall be staying for 4 nights & hope to take that time to reflect upon each other whilst relaxing our cares away (and enjoying a well deserved sleep in)! It shall be quite a treat for us & besides, I am looking forward to the romance in the air!

This week we all should be enjoying a nice day off. So i wish everyone a Merry Australia Day & whatever ur plans are, enjoy them & don’t regret anything!!!! hehe.

We are spending the day in the city @ Darling Harbour mainly & i hope SK will enjoy his 1st Australia Day here in Sydney.

Ooroo!

Well it’s been quite a while since I left a blog on my site, so I thought considering I’m having a day off work (which I’ll chat about below) I’d write a little about what’s been happening as of late.

Update on Bathurst 2005.

WHAT AN AWESOME WEEKEND!

Apart from sum cold weather (snowed in Oberon Saturday night whilst we slept in our tent) & a fair bit of the wet stuff, the camping experience totally rocked! It was well worth the effort we put into planning it & now we have stayed our first year on site, we know what to take to improve our stay for next year.
Also, watching the race on Sunday snuggled up like a Bug-in-a-Rug with my HRT jacket & Holden blankie around my legs, it was a pleasure to watch Skaifey cross the finish line 1st & be a spectator of a race where our much loved Murph took out our major competition. SNAPS to u Greg!

It was great catching up with our friend Nat from Berridale & can’t wait till next October!

Buy Buy Baby

This is my place of employment. I actually feel it is a second home for me. Since starting at the store in August I have met many wonderful people, including those I have worked & am working with.

Recently one of our beloved staff members, who was the store manager left. In my first 2 months of learning the job, she was basically my whole book of knowledge as I worked with her 3 out of 4 days per week.

Thankfully we may see her on occasions & I have contact with her during personal times as well.

I wish her all the best & thank her from the depths of my heart for all she has taught me )

Now…. Just to reassure everyone. I am working VERY busy atm, considering we are also another staff member down due to her being on a wonderful holiday to the States. I have easily slid into a “managerial” position in the job. I feel I am handling it ok but still am unsure on a few decision making processes. Keep in mind the fact I have never really worked in the retail sector before, I am quite proud of what I have accomplished without pushing my way. It has basically been handed to me on a platter & I am happy to accept what’s been dealt to me as long as I continue feeling comfortable in the position I’m in. Currently, I’m quite cozy indeed!

This weekend we have planned an outing for my niece’s birthday to Luna Park. We gave her a list of ideas & she decided herself she’d love to go to Luna Park for her 9th Birthday, insisting that it’s the Sydney one we go to & not Melbourne! How Cute!

So fingers crossed it won’t be raining & spoil our day for her. We will only get to spend the Saturday night & Sunday with her & her sister, so it shall be quite a busy & hectic weekend ahead.

I will end the blog for now so it doesn’t start drying ur eyes from reading so much & will add more in a few weeks closer to Christmas. As of writing this, there is merely 32 sleeps left till the jolly man in red pays us his annual visit!

Happy shopping everyone!