Sooo Much in Such a Short Time

Looks like I have some catch up to do ...... March though to November in fact and Soooo Much has

happened ....... I'll try to be brief and just go to end of August for this post ......

APRIL ... We sold the house in Hervey Bay at long last!  I managed to do a bit of sewing and Pete made a wonderful holder for my Cottage Garden Threads from part of the Mango Tree we had cut down and slabbed - I just love the way it came up!!

  I also had to do something with all the blood grapefruit we had on the tree ...... so I had a go at making some cordial which was yummy and I continued to make more over the following months!  I miss not having any of it here now. And one of Petes orchids we bought up in Townsville a few years ago finally flowered (unfortunately nothing like it was meant to be but still quite pretty).

Right at the end of April we finally got a fishing weekend at Lake Boondoooma with a few friends from the Hervey Bay fishing club.  It was a great weekend and I even caught a fish!!! (obviously not a keeper lol)

MAY: My birthday month which we celebrated with Stace & John down in Brisbane

 (and received an impromptu happy birthday song from the crew working). 

 I purchased a Garmin Watch at long last with the hope it would help me work on my health and fitness (what it ended up indicating was it confirmed the GP in that my stress levels were exceptionally high on a continual basis - but more so at work with the extreme stress the management were putting our team under together with a bully from the team who enjoyed making things much worse).  This is about the time we seriously started talking about moving back down south.  Pete wasn't happy in Maryborough and was finding it tough as well.  Our plan was for me to take Long Service Leave in July so we could take a trip down south at the worst time of year to see if that's what we really wanted to do ...... or if we would stay ..... This is one of the crew who sang Happy Birthday!

JUNE:  A weekend fishing trip to Tin Can Bay finally using our camper at long last! My little Kia pulled the camper while Petes Ute pulled the big boat!  Little did I know at the time that my little Kia would be pulling this camper all the way down to Corowa a few months later!!  How things change

And I had my first go at making granola ...... 

But mostly June was arriving home from work stressed to the max and sitting in the back yard with the fire going and having a drink with hubby to numb down the ordeals of the day!! 

 We took a day trip up near Toowoomba to pick up a fire cooking  camp thingy which we ordered from a fella we meant at Lake Boondooma back in April.  He had some interesting things in his shed ......

JULY:  Car trip down to NE Victoria and the border region! Naturally that got me in the mood for organizing some knitting and crochet to do while travelling and away.  It took some organizing as we had to get permits Green Zone to Green Zone and ensure we stayed right on the Qld border overnight before heading off the following day to drive right through NSW enabling us to enter Victoria without any issues!  We had initially thought we would be gone for 3-4 wks so Cliffy  came with us.  He had a ball travelling in the ute with us and I'm so glad we took him with us ..... as it turned out it was his last holiday.   

We had a bit of flooding across the road on the way down ... and stayed with our friends on their farm - enjoying helping with some sheep work.......... Cliffy enjoyed walking around the farm yard checking things out lol ..........

 and we spent time looking around for land or a house to buy ......... and yep, we found a house in Corowa just on the NSW side

We found out our offer was accepted and 15mins later I found out I was successful in getting a job in the area as well ...........  only a couple of hours later whilst Pete was catching up with mates, we discovered that Vic was going into lock down that night and Qld would be shutting the borders ........ luckily friends from over the Murray River in NSW phoned us to go and stay with them so we would be able to leave Vic and get back into Qld before the borders were firmly closed the next night!!!  As it turns out - without having been able to do that we would not have been able to get to our daughters wedding in September!!!

So we headed back home to Maryborough in a massive rush and a whirlwind to spend the rest of my holidays sorting out the house for a massive interstate move .......  we took opportunity to enjoy sitting out the back of it enjoying all the work we had done with the deck, steps, gardens and carports!!  It's a shame it didn't work out so well.

So below is the front of the old house and the front of the new house

AUGUST: We were packing, sorting, spending afternoons in front of the fire pit .... Cliffy enjoyed our afternoons and liked to be included ...... he seemed to really feel the cold this winter and enjoyed being as close to the fire as possible ..... I even found him using Petes shirt to snuggle up in one day and hide from some of the other birds he didn't like.  He was becoming more tired and spent more time sleeping in his little bed ........ He passed away on 28th August at the ripe old age of 21 years!!!  He was a real Character and known by many of our friends and followers on both this blog, and FB.  RIP Cliffy xo

Stacey and I received that news on the morning of her Bridal Shower (aka - Hens Party) ...... still, her bridesmaid in Qld (who was a best friend in Primary School) put on a fabulous Party for her!  Her other 2 bridesmaids were in lockdown in Victoria - one in Melbourne and the other in Wangaratta - they spent the whole time on virtual with us! (As it turned out, they were still in lock down at the time of the wedding which was a real downer). Anyhow I'm going to finish with photos from the Bridal Shower and Leave Sep-Nov for the next post or 2........

Stacey's best friend from Brisbane hosted it for her - Cassie and her mum Kaye have been in our lives since the girls met at preschool and we are blessed to have such awesome friends!  Unfortunately the other 2 bridesmaids and besties were in lock down in Victoria so spent the entire afternoon on a zoom meeting with all of us!!! Photos with them were done with laptop 

March Already!

I can't say I'm liking the way Blogger is set up now to try and create a post - I've got no options for colour script and when I'm typing it looks more like an encription .... and I certainly only get an encription if I look on my dashboard at previous posts!!! It's certainly taken the joy away from writing the posts and after spending the past few weeks trying to find a way to fix it - it seems this may be the new normal (YUK!!) Sooooo February saw us finally getting away for a few days to celebrate our 37th Wedding Anniversary!

First stop was Lake Callide near Biloela where together we managed to finally get this huge Barramundi into the boat! 23kgs, 119cm long and 52cm across his girth! What job and comedy it was - he broke through the landing net sending Pete flying over backwards in the boat hitting things on his way down - at the time adreniline spurred him on till we got him in and a photo .....

2 days later he could barely walk or move! After Biloela we headed to Longreach - after arriving and being shown our cabin and then seeing the Rain coming down (which appeared could cut off our return trip), and Pete in mega pain .....

See the number of rain storms coming down in the photo ready to join up.............. We turned around and headed back stopping the night in Barcaldine which was our actual anniversary (not quite what was planned, but we had a lovely meal and nice time). Barcaldine has the tree of Knowledge (Where the workers Union in Australia commenced so it seems)..... an amazing bit of history!

Next was a short stopover in Emerald (for a chiropractor) and an attempt out on Fairburn Dam which had extremely low water levels. Then it was back home so Pete could get back to his chiropractor and our own bed ...... Watch out for big fish! All in all we had a great time away just enjoying each others company and getting away from everything - even if it was just a few days! So refreshing!!

Getting back into my handiwork I was in bad need of new dishcloths and kitchen towels so out came the cotton and crochet hook. Daughter also put in an order for a few new kitchen towels as well.

Meantime I've been able to pull out my embroidery threads and started work on some new blocks "Simple Days" by Jenny from Elefantz which will work up over the year into a lovely little quilt! I'm enjoying the simplicity of it

I've also pulled out this WIP embroidery project that has alot more detail and for which I'm using quite a few "country threads" style of floss which has changing colours in it! ....... well now its just taken a good hour to add these photos which I'm unable to see whilst typing due to encription mode which is crazy and also means I can't add comments any longer to the photos! Not sure I'm loving blogger so much anymore ..... I may have to look at moving to another blog base to be able to enjoy it once again! I'm def going to cry if these photos don't show as it's taken having to email them from the phone to the computer to get them to add to here. Crossing my fingers as I close this post! Hugs to you all Sharm

Maryborough - Here we are again

 Home Sweet Home ...... back in our old queeenslander in Maryborough again after spending last year in the house we bought in Hervey Bay.  It was a nice house, we did (or at least Pete did) alot of work that hadn't been planned, and yet it just didn't seem to work for us....... its now on the Market and hopefully it sells soon as it will be good to be back to one morgage (no morgage would be even better!)

Of course while the house was rented out, the tenants managed to have the dog wreck the vinyl flooring in the dining room, so Pete has redone the dining and kitchen floors (since they basically ran into each other with the same vinyl) in floating timber boards which look great! First was the pulling up of the vinyl which had been ripped and torn up by the tenants dog (which was no pets hmmmm) - all the old vinyl tiles underneath were stuck down - what a mess to have to rip up!!

But the results are quite nice and thankfully hubbie was able to have a go at laying them down to save us some money and I'm really happy with the results!

 Then it was time for the big Mango tree to come down.  We had contemplated trimming it but it had been trimmed numerous times before and grown very quickly so biting the bullet, and down it came - we are in the process of gettting it all slabbed up. 

Before - Quite large and needed profession trimming every year
They used ropes initially to get many of the branches down but then in came the cherry picker for the final taller bits! You can see just how big it was - sad in some ways to see it go, but gosh what a blessing not having the flying bats getting into it and all the resulting mess! Plus the people from the flats next door will no longer be at us about keeping it trimmed and cleaning up leaves!!  Couldn't resist Pete taking a photo of me next to the trunk to show just how big and wide it was!!
And then finally what it looks like all gone - it sure opened up the yard by a whole third!! 

Next was having to grind out the stump - Pete was allowed to play with the machine and had a great time with it lol ............ after which he got to play with the little mini excavator to get the sections of large limbs and trunk out the way (they have been sent off to get cut into slabs),  level out the area for the 2 carports and move the excess dirt beside where they will sit so I can use it for a garden area.

In its place Pete was able to put up 2 carports to house the boats - its amazing how much room that one tree took up in the yard ..... and I've been able to put in a garden off the side of one of the carports.  Of course the tenants had killed the gardens pretty much with only the lucky surviving and lots of weeds and dead lawn to boot!  The past couple of months we have been working on getting the gardens going again putting in many of the plants I've had in pots and seeing a few things suddenly spring up once the water hit the ground! I'll share some photos next time of how its progressing!

They are set back from one another to allow access through to the yard and under the house

Unpacking of boxes has been on the agenda as you might imagine and things are gradually finding their homes again .... and my joy and peace are finally beginning to emerge again as well. Pete has finished his cancer treatment (radiotherapy and hormone treatment - the latter still working its way through his body wreaking its own havoc on the male system.  He has a repeat and final scan at the end of the month so hopefully it will be clear and he can get back to feeling "normal" again over the nest few months.And I've finally picked up the crochet hook again ..... finishing the long awaited engagement bedspread for Stacey and John who will be getting married in September this year (after having had to put off the date due to COVID 19 restrictions). 

 And today I've been working on some new dishcloths which I'm badly in need of around here!  Now hopefully I can get the photos to download since this has been a bone of contention for me for the past year!    Well a week later and I finally have photos on board!!! Till next time ......

A Round Up of Our Year

 We moved to the house here in Hervey Bay in December last year with the idea of  moving into a

smaller house with a very small yard area (something I was somewhat nervous about at the start), but at the time we felt if we re did carports and put in an extra one for the other boat and Pete was at the time happy to sell off most of his tools and many of our collectables............. until the time came when we began looking at just what we really wanted to get rid of, and how sad we were that many of our antique items just didn't fit into this house like they have done in our last couple of houses!  Were we ready to downsize to a point where we just sit around??  And then COVID 19 arrived on the scene and changed things for many of us......... but particularly for those who live on smaller blocks of land.  My work was certainly not what I had signed up for (which happens for many of us),........... at any rate we have decided that home is our Maryborough house (luckily we rented it out and the tenants move out at the end of October).  So the house here is on the market!  We have done a number of things to the house here that needed doing - having the entire back section that was covered with that clear plastic covering was full of small holes and makes the verandahs very hot in summer  - we had it re covered with colorbond roofing, re did the plumbing from the storm water runoffs, had to replace the chlorinator in the pool, pulled down the single brick carport and installed a double carport and then a single carport over the other side, put on solar...... no doubt other stuff I can't think of right now!  

Pete with the tomato bush 

So here we are now!  I'm in the midst of packing, running down the freezer and food cupboards and !doing little in the way of crafting!  I did do a bit of knitting over winter - a top for myself and a scarf for a friend - if I can get the photos to upload I'll put it on (seems the internet at this place is not great and therefore too slow for things to upload quite frequently!  Our tenants in our house in Maryborough move out  towards the end of October, so a month from now we should be starting to move our stuff back in.  I can't wait to get back "home" again!  I know that the garden has been badly neglected and much has died but I will be just pleased to be back there.  It's nice being here with the beach close, but its kinda like being on holiday - you know that feeling when you've had enough and are ready to head back home again?  And the reality is that its only a half hour drive to come down when we feel the urge to walk along the beach (that is Pete never lol, and me when the tourists are not packing the place out and its not blowing a gale lol).   

My weight has increased the past months and my fitness totally decreased - I need to work on getting both of those things sorted out to improve my health and well being!  Anyhow, I will finish here and try to get a couple of photos up and also try not to leave it so long before I post here again.

Bye for now

Sharm

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 

And Then We Moved!

Leaving Maryborough

Yep! You read that right .......... believe it or not, we have spent since our arrival back from Melbourne, going and looking at numerous houses and finally deciding on one ...... a month full of all sorts of various dramas trying to get it sorted out and a settlement date of 25th November as one of the sellers had moved to Fiji making things a little more tricky!   I have to say this has by far been the most difficult move I can remember us going through!  So where are we you ask?? Just a local move ...... from Maryborough and our very big, high set (meaning it has about 14 steps up to the house with lots of storage/ dumping/ man cave area), Old Queenslander home ........ down to Hervey Bay to a smaller home on a smaller block and low set with no under house storage and a small garden shed!  Bonus, pretty close to the beach and it has a lovely pool with lots of outside sheltered area and the bedrooms are a lovely generous size (unlike the bedrooms we had in Bundalong which were quite small!!).  

Our Neighbors not so happy to see us leave 

The main lot of stuff arrived at the new house on Monday of last week and the remainder of the week up until yesterday has been spent with either both of us or Pete (during the days I was working) going back to the house in Maryborough to continue getting loads of all the stuff the removalists were unable to fit on!  As some of you may remember it took 2 semi truck loads to get us from Victoria to Maryborough ....... and while I had hoped to work my way through things, I hadn't planned on working as much as it ended up being!  That's part of the reason (part) for us moving ...... I now have permanent work, but its full time and based at the Hervey Bay Hospital so rather than having to go back to driving 40 mins each way, Pete suggested we move!  There are a few other reasons for the move, but I may share that another time.  Naturally not all of our stuff fits!!! I have stuff everywhere, inside and out ......... we are gradually working on that ....... we also have a storage shed we have hired and it has quite a bit of Petes tools, shed stuff, camping stuff and the camper trailer. It's been sad having to say goodbye to good neighbors and the dogs, but we plan to continue to have catch ups at each others houses!

Pete has pulled down the single brick carport that was here and we are waiting on the double carport to go up ...... it had been booked to go up the end of November, but we are still waiting - apparently he didn't order the stuff when he said he would!!!  The solar was also mucked up and we now have another company booked to hopefully get it up prior to Christmas!    I'm still hopeful to get the christmas tree up, but we shall see .......  Foxtel turned up today and got the TV working, so that's a start - maybe I can get the lounge/ living area sorted a bit!
It's been sooooo terribly hot up here ....... the pool is being used by Pete and I constantly and I have to say its rather magic being able to drop into the pool after a long day at work!  I've yet to start walking ....... I've been using my "spare" time to try and get some boxes unpacked and clear areas so I can cook and wash clothes!  I'm behind on everything!!! 

 The same week we moved house, I also had to move from Maryborough Hospital to the Hervey Bay hospital and try setting up the office we will be working out of ........ its been a week of moving, and time spent trying to get my head around a new job, new position ....... new everything pretty much and little time to do it all in!!!  S T R E S S and then some!!!!  Dad has been having some cardiac events and Pete is in the midst of getting MRI's and further tests re his prostate cancer and both of us have had some pretty ordinary back pain ........ packing and lifting heavy stuff and moving things of course does not help but since we have no other options ???  And there will be more moving of stuff as work out what fits where and what has to be sold and if we need to put up a slightly larger shed to put all Petes "necessities" in ect ect ....... 




And there is the garden ..... naturally I brought LOTS of plants with us ......all potted up and some will stay in pots while some will be planted in various areas out the front, or side or around the pool.  We dug up the lovely Dancing Lady orchids we had in Maryborough and have planted them in the garden at the pool.  Speaking of plants, my blood lily that I bought when we were in Townsville this time last year,  flowered  two days after we brought it to the new house! It brought lovely memories to mind! 







On a positive note ......... I'm loving our new home!  It has the cutest mail box with a sheep on it!! A few of the houses along this section of our street have various ornamental mail boxes, but somehow I think the sheep really does fit with us ...... a reflection of our time in Victoria, our time having some sheep of our own down in Boorhaman, and not to mention all the wool/ yarn I use for knitting and crochet ....... and my love for having the chickens, sheep and cows as part of my usual decorating style!  










The pool area is just wonderful and soooooooo relaxing!!
We got quite a surprise when we saw the lights out in the pool area at night! 








 Feels a little like a tropical resort holiday if I don't look at the boxes lol!

 It will be a beautiful next chapter for us and a low maintenance one once we get sorted out! 


 Talk to you all again soon
Hugs 
Sharm