Archives for February 2009

New journey – a bump in the road

February 13, 2009 by Jen

About a week ago I wrote about having my own business. I haven’t written anything since because there’s not been much to write about.

I downloaded and read the Teaching Sells report and decided it wasn’t for me. It involves deciding on a niche and setting up a website and forum etc to sell something that you can teach people and make them pay for. I’ve never wanted to be a teacher in a really explicit way like that so while it was interesting reading, it’s not for me. Plus it was going to cost nearly $1000 which for something I’m not sure about made it definitely not for me.

Other research has hit a stumbling block too. I tried to get the book I mentioned in my earlier post called ‘What’s next’ but none of my libraries (yes I have more than one) had it. I have to go to the library this weekend to return some books so I’ll look in the career/small business section.

As for websites that talk about starting up your own business I haven’t really found any, nor really been looking that hard to be honest.

So it’s going really well isn’t it?

However, I did meet with my friend to talk about creating her website and she left with a list of tasks, ie getting content to me. So that’s on hold until she writes the content.

I’ve also been busy reviewing a fantastic product, the first post I’ll add over the weekend. It’s been loads of fun to do, and has involved some great quality time with my son which for me comes first anyway.

But I continue to write about this hypothetical business of mine in the hope that something might come of it.

Biking

February 11, 2009 by Jen

ridingbike1

I was riding towards the fence and powerless to change the direction I was going in. There was only one way this was going to end and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

This is one of my first memories of riding my first two-wheeler bike. The reason I couldn’t steer the jolly thing was because of the trainer wheels at the back not allowing steering to be very easy at all. Luckily I wasn’t going too fast, but I did come off the bike. Boy, I hated those trainer wheels but I was really reluctant to let go of them.

Growing up on a farm and having a bike go hand-in-hand. You can ride around to your heart’s content and there’s a lot of area that can be covered on most farms, including the one I grew up on. It also made getting from A to B a lot faster. We had a bit of scrub-land that had tracks through it which were perfect for riding bikes through. This meant we could ride right through the property to the next road and it afforded a lot of freedom that my son growing up in the city just doesn’t have.

After rains we could ride through puddles, in fact a puddle wouldn’t be missed. The splash of mud and water was quite exhilarating and I’m sure that mum just loved washing our mud-soaked clothes. Actually I don’t remember too many complaints from her, probably because we were out of her hair and I only say that because time away from your kids is just as precious as time with them.

Even when we visited friends who lived in a large town one hour away we’d spend ages riding around the town, again something that my son might never get to do. Although when I visited my sister who lives in a smallish country town I let my son go around the block on his scooter with his cousin. They were under strict instructions not to cross any roads etc etc and when they hadn’t come back in the time I expected them to I went searching for them. Of course they were fine.

These days I live in a city and am too scared to ride my bike amongst all the traffic. My son, however, has learned how to ride a bike with as many mishaps as I did. I bought a cheap bike a couple of years ago to go riding with him but the bike sits there collecting dust and cobwebs outside because of my scardeycatness. The one day I did go out for a ride I nearly got collected by a car in a local street – a back street.

It wasn’t too long after the bike in the fence incident that I let dad take the trainer wheels off and had a go at riding without them. Of course he had to run along behind me, therefore I’d replaced the trainer wheels with my dad. Only one day I was riding away and when I stopped and turned around dad was standing back where I’d started. I finally realised that I didn’t need my trainer wheels or my dad to ride the bike. And you know what they say, once you’ve learned how to ride a bike you never forget.

Oh, and the image at the top was probably my first bike. I just don’t really remember it.

As well as for the memories, this post is for Scribbit’s Write-Away contest.

In memorium

February 10, 2009 by Jen

Poppers

A year and a half ago I wrote about Poppers (in the picture above) because he looks a lot like our dog Monty. His owner Hazel emailed me last week to tell me that they’d had to put Poppers down.

I can only imagine how she felt when this had to happen because I’m dreading the day I may have to do the same with Monty and I know I’ll be devastated.

His mum Hazel said:

“Poppers was “probably 11″ when we got him from the local rescue centre near Northampton in April 2006 but no-one seemed to know for sure. He’d been kicked at least once (probably more often) and had been waiting in the centre for four years before we adopted him.

I think, to be honest, he just gave up. He didn’t seem to be in much pain but he didn’t like the cold weather. He slipped on the ice a couple of times which made him very wary about going out through his flap into the garden. And the ignomy of ending up doing the business in the house was even worse.

My husband and I were both with him at the end – he just went quietly to sleep and that was it.

Yes, of course I’m sad but he had a wonderful time with us and we were lucky to have him even if for a shorter time than we would have liked.”

Poppers – here’s to you and I’m so glad you spent the last few years of your life with a loving family.

While I’m on the subject of animals I can’t not mention all the displaced animals from the Victorian bushfires, and all the dead ones. The human toll is talked about constantly – now up in the high 100s – and the animal one is around 10,000 according to wildlife experts. And the animals that are left have nothing much to eat. It’s pretty hard to even contemplate. I’m at a loss for words really. Apparently about $57 million has been raised and there are many people doing other things like donating blood and clothes etc to help out. People always come through in really tough situations like this. It’s good to see.

Update: Money can also be donated to Wildlife Victoria to help out the animals. Also have a look at koala Sam the survivor.

Last but not least, as this as an in memorium post, it’s one year ago today that my cousin was killed in a car accident. Not much more to say really.

Storms

February 8, 2009 by Jen

I drove over to my parents yesterday in the 41 degree heat and strong winds. My car has air conditioning so the heat wasn’t really a problem. The winds were quite strong and the dust they blew up was full-on. At one stage it was like driving through thick fog as I could hardly see a few metres in front of me. When I took these photos the visibility was quite good in comparison.

It was a bit like being on a different planet because the visibility was so poor and seeing dust like this is so uncommon.

Thankfully we made it in one piece and didn’t break down or anything.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for far too many people in Victoria, Australia. They’re are suffering devastating bushfires that will be remembered for a long long time.

On Twitter the trending topic at the moment is #bushfires. I watched one of the many special news broadcasts this afternoon where they showed the mayhem the fires have wrought and the word holocaust has been mentioned more than once as that’s how bad they are.

When I watched a news report at 4.30 today about 30 were confirmed dead. Now that number is up to 76 with at least 700 homes burned down

Now if we could just move some of that flood water from Queensland to Victoria it would make everyone happy.

If you’re looking to donate there is a Victoria Bush Fire relief fund already setup through the National Australia Bank. Bank account details: BSB: 082-001, Account: 860 046 797.

You can also donate online to the Red Cross. Full details of how to donate are on the SBS news site.

Action

February 6, 2009 by Jen

The other morning when I took the photo of the morning sun reflected off the gum tree I also took some other photos to try and capture a word – Action. This is for my go at the Shutter Sisters One Word Project.

The subject of this photo – my son – is nearly always active. Even if he stands still his mouth is still very active. I’ve learned to switch off sometimes otherwise my head will explode.

I drag him out on my morning walks and he starts off with great reluctance but it’s the only time that I can walk my dog, or that I will walk my dog. And in this hot weather it’s the best time of day to do so.

I chose the word action, not to take photos of my son in action, but to remind myself that I need to take action with my life too.

I did this in part today when a friend came over to discuss me doing her website. She left with a list of tasks and now the ball’s really in her court. The action I’ll have to take will happen once she gets her content together but we gave her a deadline. We looked at similar websites (where we could find them) of her field and they were mostly shite and/or had hardly any information on them. She’s a health practitioner and obviously these people rely more heavily on other forms of advertising themself. So it will be interesting once her site is up and running to make sure her search engine optimisation is up to scratch and to see how many new clients she gets from her website. That will be a good tick for me anyway.

I know when I’m looking for a service, the first place I go to is the web. What about you?

Sunrise

February 5, 2009 by Jen

The last few mornings as I’ve arrived at the oval for our morning walk I’ve noticed this tree with the rising sun shining on it. The last few mornings I’ve wished I had my camera with me to take a photo. Last night I put my camera in a spot where I couldn’t miss it this morning and took it on my walk.

It’s a huge gum tree with lots of little nuts that fall off the tree onto the corrugated iron roof of the house underneath it. It must drive them nuts (ha ha). It also occasionally has lots of parrots sitting in it making an absolute din.

But, for me, who doesn’t live in the house underneath, it’s a lovely tree to look at in the mornings.

A loaf of bread a day

February 4, 2009 by Jen

photo credit: mars!

Over the recent Australia Day long weekend an old school friend, her husband and their four children came to visit me and stay overnight for one night.

I’m lucky that I’ve got a three bedroom house and I was able to fit them all in. They would have stayed elsewhere if I couldn’t accommodate them but I wanted to so we could all kick back and not have to worry about anyone driving after a few drinks.

Having a family of six people here, with kids ranging in ages from 16 down to 10 who all have healthy appetites made me realise just how much this many people can eat.

We cooked a barbeque – they’d won a meat tray which helped out there – and as we were about to sit down and eat my friend asked if I had any bread. I’d completely forgotten to bring it out. The loaf of bread was demolished in that one meal. A loaf of bread normally lasts us one week and they told me they go through at least one a day. I guess their grocery budget is about five times ours, although JJ has a very healthy appetite and once he hits his teenage years and doesn’t go to after school care anymore, one loaf of bread a week just won’t be enough here either.

But I’m in awe of families with more than two children. Shopping once a week wouldn’t be enough unless you had a huge amount of fridge and freezer space. And seeing three teenage boys spread out on my lounge just made my lounge room seem a lot smaller than it actually is.

So how do people with large families do it? A couple of bloggers below show us.

Nicole at Planning with Kids has just had her fifth baby and she’s apologising for only doing three to four blog posts per week over the next few months until she adjusts to the new addition. No wonder she writes a blog about planning with kids. You have to be organised as a parent anyway, let alone a parent with five children. She has plenty of menu planning tips and I know through my experience that planning what food you buy on a weekly basis helps save money rather than buying food on an ad-hoc basis.

The Happy Housewife has a husband and six children, nearly seven, and they live on one income which is what she writes about on her blog. And she homeschools! Just like I’m in awe of people with lots of kids, I’m in awe of people who homeschool. Not that I want either of those things mind you.

So, how many loaves of bread do you buy each week?

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