Kia Ora

Isn't it funny how the time to organise yourself and your business in order to go away, far outweighs the actual time you spend away?? Mark and I are off to New Zealand tomorrow morning. We are only going for a week, but by the amount of food shopping, lists, baby sitting rosters, work rosters, organisation of farm staff etc.. you would think we were leaving for a month or more!

We are travelling as a part of a tour group for Fonterra (our milk supply company), looking at farms in New Zealand and talking to management of the parent company. We also will get the opportunity to visit some places (like Cadburys) that use our product.

We have told Tom that we are going to be away for a long time (a week is a long time in the life of a 3.5yo), but I don't think he gets it. By Wednesday, I think he'll start to wonder if we haven't run away and left him and Bridie!

Because we fly out tomorrow at 9am, and therefore have to be at the airport at 7am, we are going to Melbourne tonight.

Ahhhh, a week without cooking, kids, domestic duties.....New Zealand here we come!

Scrappers donate

Just a quickie....

I am a participant on an online scrapbooking shop and forum (Little Scrapbook Shop or LSBS) and this weekend during a cybercrop, they ran a silent auction to raise money for the bushfire appeal.

And this is the result!!

I managed to secure one of the auction items myself, so I am rather pleased with myself. I think that this is a magnificent result all round.

Bushfire Appeal

Since I last blogged, there have been terrible fires raging around many parts of Victoria. Tragically, many people (181 and counting) have lost their lives and more than 1800 homes have been destroyed. Mark has just returned home from his 2nd tour over to the east. He has been strike team leader and has been positioned at the Drouin and Yea fires.

The loss is just so overwhelming....and I am not even directly impacted by it all. I cannot even start to imagine what the survivors must now come to grips with in order to move on with their lives. People have lost so much - homes, belongings, family members, friends.......

Donations have been pouring in, mainly to the Red Cross and our business (Craiglands Partnership) is going to donate a proportion of our last milk cheque to the Red Cross in order to help in some measure. We encourage everyone that is able to do so, to also consider donating.

Wondering why it's taken so long????

I can't believe that Tom has not sustained a serious injury before now. He runs around like a lunatic, rarely slows down to do anything and truelly only has 2 speeds; stop and FLAT OUT.

Well today it all came a bit unstuck for him.

He has taken to running through the swings, launching himself on them on his belly and swinging backwards and forwards whilst teasing the dog. However, tonight, his judgement was a bit off and he ended up crashing head first into one of the uprights of the swing set.

Yeah, it must have hurt, but he was more upset that the dog 'caught' him and had him by the wrist. I didn't think anything of it at first, but when I glanced up and saw the HUMUNGUS lump on the side of his head after only about 15 seconds, I got a bit pannicky inside. And then I felt a bit sick.

Of course, this all happened right on dinner time and I had snags on the BBQ, chips in the oven, a 1yo screaming out, Tom crying because I wouldn't let him back outside to play with the dog, and Mark was at a meeting. So a quick call to mum-in-law to provide some stabilising force in the house and try to get Tom to keep the ice pack on his eye until we could assess whether a A&E visit was warranted (it wasn't).

He is is going to be sporting one HUGE bruise and a decent lump for the next couple of days. He made me laugh though, when only a couple of minutes after it happened, I find him in the bathroom, standing on the potty on tippy toes looking at himself in the mirror, surveying the damage.

I think he was rather impressed with himself!