Out From Under the Rock

It's been quite a while ..... Months in fact since I've sat in front of my computer looking at my blog or

reading /visiting anyone else ......... And it has nothing to do with COVID!  It has to do with me having had such a struggle with the move, the new position with work, changing to full time work whilst doing the move and in between having major events taking place!   There are still boxes needing to be unpacked, things to go up on walls and lots of stuff that still needs to find a home to live ........ I've been lacking organisation ........ apparently that's what I thrive on and when its not happening at home or at work or in any part of my life I've discovered I just don't do so well!!!  Anyhow that's something for me to get working on so I can get back to enjoying life instead of dragging myself through each day!!!  But for now I probs should do a very brisk catch up ........  

December - We moved into the house here on the 2nd Dec and it was chaos!!  Too much stuff into a smaller house and yard (which didn't help with feeling organised!) No shed for Petes many items so lots of stuff was just anywhere where there was vacant space!!  Dad came up for a week over Christmas New Year and my new job started the week before we moved.  

Mid January saw us fly down to Melbourne for daughters Engagement Party!  It was a whirlwind weekend but it went off fabulously.  A great celebration in one of the parks along the Foreshore.

Early February saw  Stace & John move up from Melbourne to Brisbane to live.  They left during the fires down south  bypassing smoke and flames at Canberra, and then ran into storms and flooding after staying overnight just out of Sydney and had to bypass floods all the rest of the way to Brisbane.  It was great to have them move closer and we were able to drop off quite a number of boxes and items we've been "looking after" for the past few years!  (and it helped here with our space situation).  Later in Feb it was our 35th wedding anniversary and it was so nice to have Stace and John come up for the weekend to see our new house and celebrate with us!

We didn't get away in Feb for our anniversary so instead I took a week of leave in early March and we headed out to Cania Gorge & Dam for a couple of days.  Unfortunately it decided to rain for most of that time, but it was lovely to get away and we had fun with the wildlife, fishing and talking to the cattle that think the road is for their private use lol 

There was also a Bridal Expo to attend in Brisbane with daughter and one of her bridesmaids (Cassie has been a close friend since the 2 of them me at pre school! 

In between there have been housing projects with some repairs, installations of solar, carports, re roofing of the outdoor area, re doing storm water, pool pump repairs, and lots of other bits and pieces as we gradually work out where things will go and what needs doing!  I'm hoping I've crawled out from under the rock and can find my "joy" once again (unfortunately I also came out from under the rock with an extra few kgs on board ........).  Gradually I will make my way back around some of the other blogs I used to visit and hopefully get back to my blogging again.  I'll finish here and hope that I'm able to add some photos (the phone and laptop don't seem to be communicating very well when it comes to downloading photos!!!) I'm not sure why technology has to be so painfully hard at times!!

From the Engagement Party/BBQ

For now that's the quick catch up

Hugs Sharm .........  It seems I'm still having trouble with photos downloading to my new laptop & onto Blogger so I'll see if I can find another program to download photos from my phone to use here

Water Show at Hervey Bay

As the Year Comes to a Close

For Whatever REASON - apparently this did not post, or I just didn't get back to it before I slid into a big hole ....... rather than delete it, I will post it so you can read what was, if you are interested.

DECEMBER 2019

With only 2 days before the end of this year and the end of yet another decade it's time to catch up with everyone again!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and managed some down time somewhere along the line.  I've been lucky enough to have the time between Christmas Eve and today off work due to Public Holidays and Rostered Day Off and able to get 1 day of annual leave giving me uninterrupted time at home.  We had decided a while back it would be nice if we could convince Dad to come up for Christmas Day given he will be 91 in February.  We went down to pick him up the day prior to Christmas Eve to avoid as much traffic as possible (9 hours round trip) and then Pete took him back down on Friday (a great trip down just under 3.5hrs, but his trip back hit the traffic and came to a standstill a couple of times so although he left Brisbane at 8.30 it was around 1pm when he managed to finally drive in the driveway).  I was so lucky to have him do the trip and leave me at home as I wanted to work on getting more boxes unpacked and trying to get things sorted out a bit better!  Dad was more than understanding of all the boxes around and really had a wonderful time with us.  He loves our new home and its surroundings and I don't think the smile left his face the entire time he was up with us.  He went over the road each day to feed the ducks and swamp hens and watch the Pelicans and tortoises; had fun playing with Cliffy and loved sitting up on the deck around the pool ........ He told us he has no need to go to Bali as he felt like he was already there! (What a great compliment to our home!).  Once I get things a little more cleared inside I'll take you for a bit of a tour.  
Yesterday I decided it was time to get some of the potted plants out into their new garden surrounds - not the best time to be putting in plants, but I don't really want to keep them in the pots much longer either since it's rather congested around the side area and many of them were not really planted up into the pots in a way that was meant to last more than a couple of weeks!
We actually have quite a large area in which I'll be able to get all the plants out into gardens - some in

the front yard and some into the back  and side areas.  A few will remain in pots and I do hope to set up some of the hanging baskets in due time.
Look at this amazing large caterpillar I found while out working in the garden yesterday!  After popping it up on facebook, I discovered its a Privot Hawk Moth which apparently gets quite large!
As you might guess, nothing much is happening on the crafting front at this time ........ It will likely be another couple of weeks before I get what will be my craft room up and running.  It will be a "shared" office/study/craft room.   We have a lot of decluttering to do here and I expect that will take a few months before we are totally on top of it.  We have managed to get the new carport up ...... a single one is yet to go up on the other side for the boat.  The solar has also been installed which I'm thankful for with it being Summer right now!  I''ve managed a couple of walks down along the beachfront, but more about that next time perhaps, but didn't manage to get any Christmas Cards or letters written  In the meantime, enjoy the last couple of days of 2019!
Hugs
Sharm  xo