My Journal - week ending 27th September

Tuesday 
worked for 3 hours at the beachside holiday house and although it felt like a real work out it was good too.  I worked alone with the radio turned up :)  My boss texted me later to say thanks and that she was impressed - so nice to be appreciated 

Wednesday
despite the weather knew I had to get out there and drop my catalogues spent the morning getting them ready and the afternoon dropping them 

Thursday
Its a dangerous thing saying to me as my daughter did - you only have to vacuum your house if you feel like it - it doesn't get done for 2 weeks 
this afternoon I got stuck in and I must say it looks way better 

Friday
Picked up my catalogues again and WOW what a beautiful day today was.  As a friend said a Spring Summer day :)  



Its felt like a short week with us not getting home until Monday afternoon 
I am pleased to say its lifted my spirits
I have been feeling tired a lot recently and a few days away did wonders 

A photo my sis took last weekend :)  

 

Our Long Weekend

Friday Afternoon 4 pm

Decided all of a sudden and after a talk to Billy to go to my sisters for the weekend.  It was the end of the 8th week of the school term so we were able to take Danielwith us.  My sis had said on FB that she wanted all her friends to go to a birthday party at church on Sunday afternoon as all her family were in other parts of the country.  I wanted to surprise her but then rang her as I wasnt sure how shed cope if the 3 of us just appeared on her door step.

I packed our stuff up and got an early night I was SO excited :)

Saturday

After picking Daniel up from his dads.  Hios dad always has him on a Friday night.

We headed up north some 4 hours with a lunch break along the way.  When we finally got to my sisters she was busy in last minute birthday prep.  

My sister is so talented she made decorations.  This is the birthday boy who was 5 :)  Hes my youngest nephew :)  

My sis lives on a farm-let and they are breeding rabbits 

one of my other nephews and Daniel 

another one of nephews sorting out a wet puddle 

 Sunday 
After church we had the party.  Upon reflection I think my sis needed me and I was very happy to help where I could - including washing dish after dish after the party luncheon :)

we dont usually play with guns however when your cousin shares them from a gift fun is to be hard especially when your brother is a great actor :)  

Billy and some of his older cousins 

lasso the horse 

hands up this is one of my nephews 

the birthday cake :)  

my beautiful sis

apple boobing :)  

Monday 
On Monday we headed home :)  After some more family time :)

my sisters dog Niski

my country boy helping on the farm let

on the way home we went over a dam

and a thermal power plant

and a house on a truck which worried me worried until we were allowed to pass
the reason for m,y worry is that I knew we were pushing time
an hour and a half after getting home Daniel and I had to be at the end of scouts evening for the term - laser force 

My Journal - week ending 20th September

I have been thinking about blogging this journal once a week for some time and when a bloggy friend told me she was feeling lonely in her blogging journey on the weekend it gave me the push I needed.  I dont know how often I will be blogging but Id like to see this as a regular post I do every Friday afternoon :)

Monday
Got my car sorted (warranted) much cheaper than I thought it was going to be which was a pleasant surprise
This afternoon I finally went to the doctors I have been under the weather for a month to 6 weeks I have a sinus infection I also saw one of the nurses and am back on vitamin d she says this should raise my mood a bit which is good as I have been feeling a bit down and wasn't sure if it was because I was under the weather or what
Im pleased I saw the doctor today because i had a most awful dizzy spell at school when waiting for Daniel which would really freaked me out hadnt i just seen them - I did wonder if I was going to be out on the floor as it was

Tuesday
Today I dropped Billy off at his reader/writers house and went over to get rid of my recycles.  I have chosen to drop it here for years instead of using the kerbside pick up option.  As in my humble opinion I do a better job at sorting out what is what.  When I got there I found this though

si I guess they dont agree with me.  I will have to find out when the kerbside pick up is and just let them get on with it.

After this I went to my  new (very casual at the moment part time job) helping a lady clean her beachside holiday house which she rents out to holidaymakers.  This is the 2nd time I have worked for her this month and I quite enjoy it :)  

Wednesday
was woken at 6am by my 21 year old :)  Wanting to be sung happy birthday too - cute.  I sang and then a sleepy Daniel did too :)

Took Billy to his reader/writers house to do their home schooling work then walked to and from the womans bible study.
I missed my walk yesterday so it was good to get this walk in today :)

This afternoon we went to the last regular meeting we will have with Billys private tutor whom he has been seeing for years.  It was an excellent session which saw us working on an English assignment we have been having a bit of trouble with

We briefly went up to school.  Daniel ended up having a playdate with a friend so  came home again to do a science  experiment  only to find the thermometer was at Billys reader/writers house :(  Rushed around getting a bit of housework done and dinner prepared.

Keas tonight - busy!!! .   We made these :)  My keas were encouraged to use their imaginations when making theirs :)

 After I had Daniel in bed we did a little more home schooling and then chatted to the birthday girl for a while :)

Thursday
Ended up having a mental health day  today.  Life has been getting on top of me a bit, Ive not been feeling 100% well for about 6 weeks and then last night a friend was in a dreadful car accident.  Hes ok, Praise be to God, however it rocked my boat.  Hes not much older than Billy and things could have been so different.  After having a good old cry and a coffee with a dear friend had a relaxing day - not doing much

Friday
Feeling better today.  Think I needed yesterday
Busy busy day work wise.  Then I decided at 4 pm what I was going to do this weekend.  All shall be revealed in my next post :)  

Camp Scout training

Yesterday I joined with 10 other leaders in the kea, cubs and scouting divisions of scouting here in the Hawkes Bay.  It was a camping component to the on going training us leaders have.  Although there are rules about how much camping Keas can do I still found it interesting.  Keas the age group I lead, the 5 to 8 year olds cant actually camp in tents.  They can have sleep overs of 1 night and so I still found some of the content of this course interesting.  

I got there at 9am.  There were a lot of cars there already.  It hadnt quite started yet phew!! It was meant to be held at a real camp however the numbers seemed a bit low and so they held it at a local scout hall.  They did have to condense the course a bit.  

We learnt how to put up tents correctly (including a long drop tent complete with loo and hole).  I found this beneficially as I felt strange being a scout (the over all encompassing name for us all no matter what division we are in).  I remember last Christmas going to a family camp with some of the members of our group and not knowing how to put the tent I   was to sleep in up LOL.  The other kea leader put it up for me and I supervised the children in the river while she and some helpers did.  All well and good yet here I was many months later and still not very wised up as to how to go about it.  Could I do it now - maybe?  with help from others I could :)  I probably need more practise before I could confidently say yes.   I helped put up 3 tents in all yesterday.  One of them I was blindfolded for.  We were in a team of 4 with one of the team members unblindfolded, he had to tell the rest of us what to do.  I didnt actually get called on to do much with this tent - he forgot me maybe LOL

We learnt how to plan camps - brainstorming the things wed have to think about.  Location, booking the site, the things the scouts would need to bring.  Where we would sleep and what food we would need.

We got into groups and planned camp menus for our particular scouts.  My group imagined a hall equipped with kitchen facilities.  Not all the other groups would be as lucky.  After we planned the menu we priced it out.  Thus thinking about how much we would charge our scouts to go on the camp with thought of camping ground charges and any activities as well.

While the other scout leaders were taught some activities that didnt pertain to keas, the other 2 kea leaders and I had s'mores   The keas cant do much with fires however this is an activity they can take part in - we cooked them over  tea light candles.   I recalled that on the last Kea sleep over we did toast marshmallows with the keas - it was under strict supervision through and they only did that - they didnt light the fires or anything like that.  We also discussed some useful kea resources available to us.

Lunch was pizza - yum and a good chance to get to know the other leaders better :)

We went over documents you have to use when going out on trips, camps etc.  Although this was a refresher for me as I had gone over them on a previous training session it was still good.

We paired up with a partner and did some  compass and orienteering work in the park that the hall where we had our training at.  Again the Keas dont do a lot of this.  Keas is a taste to scouting and as the children move up the ranks - cubs, scouts, venturers and rovers they get exposed to more and more scouting experiences.   It was fun and interesting as my partner wasnt familiar with the park as I was this is how I helped him the most - knowing where the main land marks were.

We again partnered up (with a  new partner - making sure the kea leaders went with an experienced  scout leader) and cooked our dinner over a camp stove.  We had potatoes, sweet corn, mixed veges and sausages.  I helped a bit however my partner did most of it.  Then I made us pudding - baked bananas with chocolate chips and marshmallows cooked in the camp fires.

Lastly we discussed camp ceremonies.  Each camp is ended with a reflective time.

It was a full on day finishing at about 830 pm.  I always find the training days interesting.