The Weekend

Friday afternoon found me in the kitchen preparing food for the weekends outings - potato salad, gluten free muffins, caramel slice, quiche, buckwheat bread, and salmon rice bake. Saturday morning, Jon and I were up before 6am to watch the Olympics Opening Ceremony. I made a quick trip to the fruit shop and Jon did the dishes while the countries came into the stadium, and then we finished off our picnic preparations and got the kids ready to head to Caloundra. Once the Olympic torch was lit, we headed north.

We spent the rest of Saturday with Grandma Randall, whom we took on a picnic to the Maroochy Bushland Botanic Gardens. The GPS sent us off on a wild goose chase, so rather than a 20 minute drive, we took about an hour to get there. But after that frustrating start, we had a lovely time. The Gardens were lovely. We found a sunny spot to lunch in, then went for a stroll on the Lagoon Walk and through the Sculpture Garden. We will certainly be going back and exploring some of the other paths in the Gardens in the future.

Afterwards, we went back to Grandma's for afternoon tea before eventually heading back to Brisbane. We made a stop to pick up roof racks on our trip home - we had to work out how to attach them in the dark and cold (the parcels wouldn't fit in the car). After finding the fitting kit provided for the roof basket was the wrong one, Jon tied the basket on with rope. We finally made it home around 7pm. Dinner, bath and bed for the girls. I had planned to do the same, but got distracted in a book, The Vow (the story behind the movie which I'd like to see one day)!

Sunday morning found us getting the house back into order and doing some errands for our upcoming camping trip. We got home in time to quickly get together another picnic before heading to Kangaroo Point to meet up with the Sheehy side of the family. We had a lovely afternoon catching up with the family; Abigail and Sarah particularly enjoying the range of people to entertain them! Good food and good company; a very pleasant afternoon. We left sometime after 4pm; Sarah fell asleep as soon as we drove off (she normally has her nap at 12:30pm)! The evening was spent watching NZ play Australia in the women's hockey - well done to NZ on their first Olympic win against Australia - and then the usual dishes routine (Jon washes, while I cross-stitch and we listen to an audio book).

It was a weekend full of family - busy but enjoyable! And the next few weeks are also lined up to be full of various family adventures - more stories to come!

The week so far...

It has been a full week so far! Last Saturday we decided to start our day with a little bushwalking - 3 hours later we emerged! :) We explored a part of Karawatha Forest we hadn't yet done (the south-west corner) and found 4 geocaches along the way. Both girls walked a substantial part of the way with some turn-taking in the pram and a brief sleep on my back in the sling for Sarah. We're both glad that the girls love 'going bush'.

Sunday was taken up by church, some shopping, and a visit from Uncle Jono. The men went out in the afternoon for a round of Pitch and Putt golf while us girls rested. Abigail (or was it Uncle Jono?) provided us with some mirth at dinner time when Uncle Jono decided to try our extra hot chilli sauce on his sausage roll. It was much hotter than he anticipated (a little of that stuff goes a LONG way); Abigail's comment: "That wasn't very clever."

Monday found us doing lots of washing (from the weekend, plus sheets and sheepskins), the shopping (supermarket, butcher, fruit and veg, and misc!) and putting all the shopping away, the usual cleaning and tidying (dishes, vacuuming, etc), folding and putting all the clean laundry away, and cooking two dinners (I'm on a vindaloo run at present - far too spicy for the girls so I made a separate curry for them)! "It's been a busy morning" commented Abigail at lunchtime (an insightful little girl!). It was a busy day.

(Abigail is becoming a very good helper - she now clears the dishrack of all cutlery, cups and plates by herself (Sarah has started to climb up and help too - so far, nothing broken!). There are always dishes to be done in our house, what with all the cooking and baking I do (I make most of our food from scratch, particularly my gluten free stuff), so this is a big help to me. She also helps with various other housework too. I have been mindful of including both girls in my work more and more - good life training for them. As the verse says, "train up a child in the way he should go"!)

Tuesday wasn't so productive. I've been struggling with bouts of depression this winter - be it the weather (we've had a lot of cold grey days, and our house is cold!), the pregnancy, the sickness in our home (I'm well again - yay! - but the girls continue to endure colds), or simply the busy-ness and therefore tiredness from the day before, I don't know, but I was a a bit blue and most unmotivated that morning. Jonathan suggested sitting out in the sun, so we went out and I gardened and things looked up again. That morning I read Psalm 20. Verses 1&2 "May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion". At the time reading that made me feel hopeless - the help and support, where was it? Further in the chapter, vv7-8 say, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm." I know God is teaching me to rely on Him, especially in those difficult times - that He alone can meet all our needs. But I am struggling with feeling the reality of that truth in those times, especially when I am wishing for family or support. I want to know the reality of His help and support in those times of struggle. I would appreciate your prayers for this.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was busy getting more things done around the house (I even cleared our desk and servery!), plus a good amount of playing with the girls. And this morning was spent at Jonathan's work helping with a big mail-out. The girls and I stuck address stickers on envelopes and packed magazines for 3 1/2 hours. I was very proud of how helpful Abigail and Sarah were (for the first couple of hours, anyway!) - they gathered the rubbish (peel and seal envelopes were used, so the 'peel' part), helped me seal envelopes, and fetched more magazines from the piles for me (then they climbed the stacks of chairs, had a couple of tumbles, built block towers and looked at books). Both are now having a well-earned sleep (we'd only planned to be there 1-2 hours). I thoroughly enjoyed helping - the repetitive nature appeals, the company of the other volunteers, and being of use to an important ministry!

So that is some of our week so far. In the evenings, while Jonathan washes the dishes, I am working on my (huge) cross-stitch. I started it a year ago, finally finished the border last month, and am now filling it in. The plan is to have it finished by our anniversary at the end of the year, and with my current rate of progress, it just might happen!

This weekend is lined up to be full - stay tuned!

I apologise for this picture-less post. For some reason I can't get photos to upload at the moment.


We continue to have sickness in our home. Just when I thought the girls were over their colds, they've come down with them again. Sarah has been a grizzle grump for the most part of this week (this morning was abominable, so she was put to bed and is still asleep there); Abigail is her usual self, just with a constantly running nose! We are trying to stay home as much as possible again - this time not so much as to not spread germs as to not catch more of them! :)


I continue to battle with this sinus infection. The pain hasn't returned, and I seem to be slowly getting better, but the infection is still hanging in there. So I've pulled out all guns now and am taking at least 2 raw cloves of garlic with each meal, Vitamin C tablets throughout the day, nasal rinses (saline or garlic), apple cider vinegar, sauerkraut, raw onion - the lot! My poor husband is being greeted with some very bad breath, poor man, so hopefully I won't have to keep this up much longer (I have offered to sleep in the spare bedroom). I will look at going to the doctor if it doesn't clear by the end of the week (I want it cleared up before my trip to NZ next month).


We had our morphology ultrasound earlier in the week - baby appears to be growing well and healthy, for which we are grateful. Prior to the scan, I've been thinking it's a boy; Jon, a girl - I can assure everyone that one of us is right!


Jon and I have been working on sorting through the past few months photos this week and should have June's up tonight. I apologise for the big backlog suddenly coming through but I hope you are enjoying seeing what we've been up to and watching the girls grow.


And hopefully I shall have pictures in my blogs again soon!

We have had colds in our home the past couple of weeks - it wasn't clearing as I thought; instead, us girls all came down heavy with congestion. We sure have been going through the tissues!

Massaging Abigail's sinuses - Jon had just done it to me and she wanted a turn

I have had incredible pain from the sinuitis this week - my cheeks, teeth and head ached terribly. The first few days I had to rely on painkillers to get me through as it was unbearable (I wasn't even able to sleep). Not wanting to continue on the drugs (particularly with being pregnant), and not wanting to go to the doctor (who I was sure would just give me antibiotics) I have hit the natural remedies hard - lots of raw garlic, saline irrigation, apple cider vinegar inhalations, garlic tea, apple cider vinegar in my water, even snorting cayenne pepper! I've been smearing my feet with crushed garlic and coconut oil each night too (covered with a couple of pairs of socks; our bed smells garlicky!).

A sick little girl who took herself to bed at 9am one morning!

It has been a bit of a dark time for me emotionally - I had taken so many precautions with diet and was doing all the 'right' things, yet we'd all gotten worse, and the pain was incredible (I've never had sinuitis before)! Psalm 116:6 struck me early in the week, "I was brought low, and he helped me"; initially I read it hopelessly - God didn't seem to be helping! A couple of days later I came back to that verse and really cried out to God. I needed His help; my efforts hadn't achieved health. I read through the whole of Psalm 116, praying it aloud. The next day (Friday) the pain was lessened a little and my nasal passages were clearing - I made it through the day and night without pain-killers. Today, I have almost no pain; and the mucus is thinning and pouring out! The infection is clearing!

Maybe the remedies just needed time to kick in, but I really believe God was using this time to get me to trust in Him more; to throw myself on Him rather than relying on myself to get through/fix it. Which is, of course, part of a much bigger story and working in me!

Thank you God for your healing, and for your working in my life! May it continue!

I posted a video on my Facebook this week of a bit of the girls interactions with a cat that has been showing up at our back door at dinner time. As you can tell from Sarah's expression in the above photo, they love it! The poor cat gets harrassed (lovingly) throughout it's meal, but it keeps coming back. And last night when I went to check on the girls through the night, the cat was at their window (on the second storey!) mewing to come in. It will be interesting to see how long the cat sticks around; and how long the girls excitement about it lasts!