What a week!

I realise that it is only Wednesday, but I want this week to be over already!  Nothing like trying to speed up time to speed up the aging process, hey?  LOL

Monday, Mickey and Will started at their new daycare.  A much better centre that is better equipped and better service (their old daycare was a little run down, dirty looking and their program for the kids was almost non-existent, because they didnt have enough kids in each age group to make activities for them - but it is what I could get them into at the time, so I shut my mouth and put up with it).  They went into their respective rooms with only a little bit of separation anxiety and settled in well.

Yesterday was Australia Day.  We did nothing special to celebrate the day - because Pete had to work :(  We went to the zoo in the afternoon, though (Rockhampton City Council have a small zoo as a part of their botanical gardens - small, not much in it, but the kids love it, all the same.....especially the two chimps they have there).  It was good to be out of the house and walking around in the fresh air.......albeit being bitten by mozzies at every turn (darn rain!).  I took my trusty walking stick along and managed to get up and down the hill without too many hassles and not needing a break.

My main cause for exhaustion was this morning.  The kids went back to school this morning after their Christmas break and they were a bundle of energy, I tell ya!  Weez was eager and ready to go to year 2, Moo was ready early for year 8 and Bubba Pete was excited as anything to go to Prep!  I took photos and they progressively got sillier and sillier as time went on.  Here is one of the last photos I took of Weez and Bubba together:

Mickey and Will came with Pete and I to drop off Bubba and, as a result, they were unsettled when they got to daycare.  I got a 'courtesy call' from Will's group leader to tell me that he was a little unsettled, but after telling her that he had his 'blankie' in his bag, I received no more calls, so I gather that he settled down after that.

I just picked up Bubba (first week, they finish 1/2 hour early) and my first impressions are - hungry!  I asked him if he wanted something to eat and he proceeded to take his lunch box off his bag and he had over 1/2 his lunch still in there uneaten!  Obviously, he needs to learn to eat some things before he goes out and plays.  We will see how he goes tomorrow and Friday.....if he comes home the same, then I will have to have a talk with his teacher.

So what did I do today without kids (Lenny starts tomorrow, because he is grade 10, and went off to work with Pete today) and an empty house?  Nothing constructive, I am afraid!  I caught up on e-mails that had filled up my inbox last week, caught up on facebook with some friends and became closer to my new friend "Artemis Fowl".  So, all in all......I took it pretty easy, really!  Tomorrow will be a different matter, though!  I am expecting company in the morning....a few friends from uni.  I have baking to do - cookies and such for lunches and I have a wardrobe to go through and start planning to update - my own!

So til then, my lovely cyber friends.......
CIAO!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Reflections continued...

Happy New Year to whoever may be reading this!  I hope that 2010 brings you plenty of love, joy, hope and enjoyment.

I started off the day on a good foot - the kids cooked me brekky!  I have been finding it really hard to sleep past 5am most mornings of late, because of my back/leg aching.  This morning I was blessed with waking at 6am!  Better than a 4am start, which is what I lived with yesterday!

So, here I am at 10:30am, completing my story that I started last night before I headed off to bed.

July and August saw me very very busy!  They went past in a whirl of activity - study, attending lectures at the uni, getting kids off to daycare, more study, 'work' at the hospital, celebrating mine and Mickey's birthdays, making sure the older kids had done their homework, study (again), keeping house (the older kids have their daily chores, but, lets face it.....they just dont do as good a job as me!), study (yep - more!), spending quality time on weekends with Pete and the kids (I kept Sunday as a 'sanity' day - where I would not pick up a book or go online for anything), etc, etc, etc.  Lots of late nights and early mornings, but all worth it in the end!

September was pretty much the same thing......just as busy!  I found myself slotting into a routine, though.  The kids were well and truly into their routine and things went smoothly!  They were aware of when I had to be at the uni and when I had to be at the hospital with the help of a timetable on the fridge.  Heaps of organisation has been happening here!  I spose you have to when you are busy, busy, busy!

October saw the end of my 2nd term of uni and the start of 2 weeks of exams (actually 4 exams over 4 days, but it was 2 weeks in the making).  The good thing was that I had the hardest one first and the easiest one last.  I am pleased to say that I passed all of my courses.  Not with flying colours, like I would like (I could have done a little better with Human Physiology if I had've studied a little better), but I passed all the same!  As a bonus, because they have changed the whole Bachelor of Nursing, I do not have to do anything over this term (uni is essentially 3 terms throughout the year - March to June, July to October and November to February - not much is offered in the 3rd term, because it is over Christmas and people tend to lose focus a little...wonder why?  hehe). 

My last day of prac turned out to be just 4 1/2 hours long (a total of 176 hours were to be completed).  I worked it so that I could have a little extra time to study for my exams.  This day proved to be a little busier than usual (for a Thursday) and I found that I did not leave as early as I intended!  It also proved, again, that I should listen to my instincts and talk up when I feel that something is going to go wrong!  In short, I had a patient faint on me.  Our notes told us that she was to be assisted by two people at all times when mobile, but the enrolled nurse that I was working with thought that she would be ok.  My instincts thought better, but I thought that, because the nurse I was working with had a little more experience than I, she would know better.  I ended up behind her, breaking her fall with my right leg under her bottom and preventing her from falling back onto the toilet, onto the toilet roll holder or wherever else she may have hurt herself in that tiny, tiny bathroom.  No time to run outside the bathroom and hit the 'Nurse Assist' button just outside the door and not much room to move to put her gently on the floor so that I could.  I was trapped and no one heard my calls or me hitting the walls.  It seemed like it took ages for someone to come back in!  By that time, the patient had woken, again, and we got her to the shower chair.  I felt fine after, but it wasnt until that night that I started to feel the affects that it had on my back!  I found myself going to the emergency room, once again, and being referred to the physiotherapy department for treatment.

So this is where November finds me - totally UNbusy, with the end of uni for the year, and having the boys at home an extra 2 days a week (I had to put them into care for 4 days while I was doing my courses) and attending physiotherapy.  I had the pleasure of being treated by a student who had almost completed his training.  I apparently gave him a new challenge!  He soon worked out that I am also having problems with my sacroiliac joint!  This also affects the sciatic nerve, causing the pain (and this time numbness in my outer 3 toes).  After a couple of sessions and doing the exercises that he gave me, I felt a little better - better enough to reclaim my elliptical cross trainer from my friend and get onto it every day for at least 20 mins at a time (once in the morning to get me moving - slow - and once at night to get my fitness up).  November is also when I found my crochet mojo again and I began whipping up Christmas presents by the dozen!  I planned on finding a job as well, but with my back/leg being the way that it is, I reneged until I feel better - just focus on getting my fitness up and then look at doing something like that.

December saw the completion of many projects that I started.  Things continued on as usual (unbusy usual).  Pete went away a few times for work, the kids completed their years at school (all quite well, I am proud to say) and Bubba Pete got excited about starting at Prep next year!  It saw us buying a new Christmas tree, decorations and presents.  December was great for the festive spirit and made us feel alive, again.  We spent Christmas day with my family at Boyne Island.  We drank, ate, drank some more and really relaxed!  A good time was had by all, but it was over WAY too quickly!

December made the last year, with all it's ups and downs, seem all worthwhile.  I am really proud of what we achieved together and individually this year!  I know that 2010 is going to be just as challenging and eventful!  Things are going to get a lot busier around here, but I just KNOW that we are going to get through things.  We will lose faith at times and things will seem too hard to do, but we will be together and we CAN work through the good times and hard times together and come out trumps in the end!

I hope that 2010 will be as exciting for you as I know it will be for us!

Time to reflect.....

It is that time of year again. When we say good-bye to the things that we have done in the past year and say hello to the things we hope to do in the year coming. Therefore, it is time for me to reflect on what has happened to our little-big family in 2009. A lot has certainly happened, when I think about it! Here is a month-by-month reflection for my own good, as well as yours!

In January, we were still living in Gladstone, a little town in Central Queensland. We happened to be living at my Nana's house (she, sadly, passed away 2 years ago now) and having a ball, even though we didnt have much space inside the house. Fortunately, the yard is MASSIVE and the kids found solace in knowing that they had that to play in each day instead of spending their time inside. The summer was hot and sometimes unforgiving, but we got through it without a front door and the breeze that it would have provided, IF we were able to open it! Nana's stuff was in the front room, ultimately blocking the front door...bad mistake that one! I spent some time outside under the trees up the back crocheting a jumper for Weez - my first big crochet project, besides a blanket! *Once my old computer is fixed, I am going to HAVE to find you the photo of it! It is just gorgeous and Weez LOVES it!!*

January was also the month that I was accepted into university! Yep - I am finally on my way to my dream job - a nurse! I have hit a few bumps along the way (which will become apparent in just a little while), but I finished my first year with no failures and I am quite proud of myself and my family!

The beginning of February saw us packing up, once again, and heading off to greener pastures here in Rockhampton, Central Queensland. We lived with Pete's Mum for a little while in her little house while we looked for a house to buy up here. After a couple weeks of looking at run down pieces of crap that needed a heck of a lot of work, we stumbled across this house, which had just come on the market the week before and wasnt even advertised yet! I fell in love straight away (mainly because the boy's room was so big) and it took Pete a little to see it's potential, too. But we are here and we have many, many plans for this place!





But that is not all! Our move meant that the kids had to start a new school! One of the things I love about this place is that it is just across the road from a primary AND high school, so it was easy to just slot them in there. With us living this close to the school and the university, Pete also suggested that I should take on full time study! That meant 4 subjects per term! I wasnt sure how the kids would cope with the extra responsibility of picking up where I left off most mornings, themselves, but I thought it was worth a try, at the very least!

March saw Bubba Pete turn the big 4 and Will turn 1 (my babies are growing up!!). All the kids settled in well to their new schools and daycare and I settled into uni life as best I could (for a 'mature' student).

In April, I was half way through my first term at university (VERY excited!) when I suffered, for the first time this year, an 'incident' with my back. You see, in October last year I was struck with a problem, where I could not move very much at all. I thought that it was my sciatica playing up again and didnt think much of it, until I had to borrow my friends computer (I was doing the STEPS course through CQUniversity) and headed over to her house with 6 kids in tow and ended up perched on her couch while lying down...unable to move another inch because of the pain. The doctor that I saw in the emergency ward referred me to get a CAT scan done on my back, which revealed a bulging disc between L5 and S1 (down the bottom of my spine, between the freely moving bones and the 5 fused bones that eventually lead to the tailbone). This pushes on my sciatic nerve, causing the pain that runs down the back of my leg and up under my foot. Ultimately, this episode was caused from sitting on my butt and studying at the computer!

In May, my 'baby' girl turned 12 and I finished my first term at uni. The break between terms did not feel that long, however, since I had a couple of exams the 2 weeks following end of term! I did, however, pass all my exams (thank goodness) and I now look at my family in a different light - I no longer feel the need to exclude myself from 'life' anymore because of my kids - yes, I DO have a couple more than most, but they WILL get in together when needed and do things TOGETHER!!

June saw my other 'baby' girl turn 6 and, with renewed energy and faith in my family, I enrolled, once again, in full time study at university. This term, I started 'Prac', where I had to go to the hospital and 'work' a certain amount of hours in order to pass a subject. I was placed at the Mater Hospital on the other side of town and did not have the option of working morning or afternoon shift, like so many other students. Morning shift it was, so I headed off at 6:15am on my scooter (our new addition to the family) to make it in time for my 6:50am start. It was interesting, to say the least! I soon learnt the politics of a hospital is no different from anywhere else! My original placement was up in womens/maternity (why oh WHY do they make women who are in labour go UPSTAIRS to get to the labour ward???). I was told that I was basically useless there, because I could do nothing for or with them (we arent meant to do anything more than what we have been taught at the uni). A couple of times I was rostered on with a 3rd year student and, of course, she is able to do much more than I, but there was also a lot of women going in for 'women's' proceedures that I could have been helpful with! So I found myself taking blood pressures, emptying linen skips, etc, etc, etc......basically until I thought that I would die of boredom! All because they could not get out of their little box and give me a darn chance! Well....that is my thoughts, and that's that!

After speaking with my supervisor, I was transferred to the surgical ward, where they had HEAPS for me to do! I found myself busy making beds, taking blood pressures regularly and generally learning a heck of a lot more off those nurses than I would have up in womens/maternity! A couple of the nurses that I spoke to about my problems upstairs just looked at me and gave me a quizzical look. It wasnt until one spoke up and said, 'Well, they are a breed all their own up there.....they think they are special, because they bring life into the world and we dont' that I understood. Sort of makes me think twice about becoming a midwife.



Well....it is late and I am rambling and making HEAPS of mistakes with my typing! I had better head off to bed and finish this tomorrow. Until then....Goodnight! And Happy New Year!!