The Wheels Fell Off

That could be the story of my life.

The wheels fell off.

I'm not depressed- just being realistic about some aspects of my life.

Mr Sunshine and Romeo have been working very hard. They average 15 hour days some days and 7 days a week most weeks. This is all mostly thanks to the global financial meltdown. More on that later.

Today I thought I would do my bit. Mr Sunshine is rarely home until after dark so that makes mowing the yard a bit difficult. I used to do all of the gardening and mowing.  Eventually Mr Sunshine took over most of the mowing when I got old and weak, too lazy, the grass became really thick and difficult to mow.

Today I did get all of the front yard and most of the footpath mowed before disaster struck.  Somewhere in the long grass on the footpath is a little bit of metal like a tiny metal hub cap.  Without it I can go no further.

Actually only one wheel fell off this time, but it is not the first time that this has happened to this mower.

Now to some other metaphorical wheels that have fallen off.  Last weekend our whole family went to the beautiful tropical paradise known as Magnetic Island for the wedding of Mr Sunshine's niece.  We had a wonderful time.  The grandchildren had a great time.

Here we are - a very rare pic that has the children, their spouses and the grandchildren all in one photo.  We are a handsome lot and I'm not being biased ;)  I love the way we are mostly colour coordinated - entirely by accident.

Then we came home. . . to the sound of running water and the gently swoosh of waves. . .  under my bedroom floor boards where no waves were ever meant to be.  The floor boards are bamboo and they are supposed to be a lovely light creamy colour.  They are not supposed to have grey and brown discolouration.

The sound of running water seemed to be coming from everywhere. On Monday the plumber took a bit of a punt an educated guess and cut a hole in the wall of our shower recess.  It was a good guess because he was within a hand span of where the pipe was busted and spraying out water (as it had been all weekend while we were away).  He was relieved because it usually took longer and more holes in walls and floors to find a leak.   On Tuesday morning the insurance assessor arrived and checked out the damage and sent his report away.  Now we wait.  We have been through this before. Two years ago it was the drainage pipe that leaked and wrecked the floor boards.  The insurance company replaced them. The floor was only installed three and a half years ago.  We are starting to wonder if the house is cursed. 

We have lived here for 17 years and had up to 7 leaks in the roof which wrecked part of the ceiling.  During one severe downpour we had 9 or 10 buckets and pans throughout the house catching the water as it came through the ceiling. It was a nightmare. We replaced the roof.  We have had water rushing in our back door and through our laundry and rumpus room in heavy rain.  I had to call the SES for sand bags, but they couldn't get here because the roads were too flooded.  We have had to replace wall panels and timber beams in walls that were affected by wood rot and termites.  When the wall panels were removed we found the skeletons of about 24 rats (they probably ate the termites before dying of starvation or rat bait) in the walls.  Apparently they jump down from the palm fronds which overhang the house and get in under the edges of the roof. We have had a swarm of bees temporarily set up home inside our back wall.  We still have paint peeling from our ceiling throughout most of the house although it was completely repainted only three years ago.  The new paint is not peeling.  It is the original paint coming off under the newer paint and leaving the bare ceiling panels exposed. I have miles of sticky tape holding the ceiling paint together.  Really!  We have had bikes stolen from the yard on about 4 occasions and an attempted break-in that shattered a front window.  On another occasion someone broke in while we were all asleep and went through all of the desk and file drawers in Mr Sunshine's study and damaged a laptop which they left lying on the living room floor.  They only stole one can of coke.  Probably kids.  That is the major things that I can remember.  Along the way there have been numerous minor irritations.

Then there was the GFC.  With our usual great sense of timing we had just gone heavily into debt to buy a business that caters to the top end of the market. We do glass splashbacks and two-pack spray painting for cabinetmakers, builders and private customers.  These are luxury items and luxury items got crossed off most folks' lists when the economy wobbled.  Two major builders went bankrupt owing us thousands.  Thousands of locals lost heavily when Storm Financial went under and spending came to a standstill.  Two of our tradesmen left us and set up a competing business and poached our customers.  Then we had to deal with equipment breakdowns that never happen one at a time, but arrive en mass.

The wheels always fall off.  Not always.  We are still fighting to stay in business and, God-willing, we will survive. We have great kids and the most lovable grandchildren.  We have wonderful friends who have helped us and prayed for us.  We live in a beautiful, free country.  For at least 90% of the world's people, life is much harder than ours. 

We count our blessings and our greatest blessings are in the group photo above.

Whose birthday?

This Wednesday will be someone's birthday and she will be 29.  Isn't that exciting??  If you go to this blog you might be able to guess whose birthday it is. 

When I look at photos of my kids when they were little, I often wish I could turn back the clock.  It all seemed to pass so quickly.  Too quickly.  And yet 29 years have passed since I was in that labour ward having the surprise of my life - a painless labour.  Well, until the last few minutes that is.  But I wouldn't complain about that.  [No I wasn't on any drugs either.] 

I could tell you so much more, but I might not be very popular in certain quarters if I start airing too many family secrets on the world wide web.  Of course I could just make some up ;)

Do you think those three little boys over at Samster-dot-com have picked up some of their mother's looks?  I hope so.

Happy Birthday for Wednesday Mummy McT.

Flower power

The truth is . . .   I was looking for a plug-in for photoshop so that I could straighten some crooked images.  I didn't find what I wanted.  I found some other cool stuff instead.  Like this kaleidoscope plug-in and it was free. 

My garden is looking very neglected and sad at the moment and I love flowers.  So, I simply made more flowers using photoshop.  Easy.  Some very mediocre photos came alive with this plug-in.

I took these photos back when the garden was blooming just before Romeo's wedding to Juliet.  It's been all down hill since then - for my garden, not for the happy couple.

The top photo is a rose. (Variety - Duet. It also has a beautiful scent.)

The next photo is an aster.

The bottom photo is a weeping bottle brush (Callistemon viminalis).

I wish my garden looked this colourful. 
BIG SIGH.

New Skills

Bap. Bap. Bap.

That's Monkey's new word. We thought it meant Clap. Clap. Clap. But it is an all-purpose word. It can also mean Bye. Bye. Bye. And is accompanied by a smile and a wave.

Monkey's other new skill is clapping. He is very pleased with his new skill.
Can't you tell?