Day 119 in a Year of my Life

I am absolutely exhausted.

It's been a great weekend.

I am alive, well, happy and exhausted.

So much happened today, and I hope I can remember everything tomorrow so that I can tell you all about it, but I am way too exhausted tonight.

So I am just checking in for now.

Have taken lots of photos, so hopefully they are good enough to share in the coming days.

Today, I am grateful for a weekend well spent with good food, good wine, good friends and creating great memories.

For now ...

Nite all.

Day 118 in a Year of my Life

Fitting sooooo much into every day!

Met the girls for a huge breakfast at the Marriott this morning followed by a pedicure at 'Shine' in the Myer Centre, then 3 hours of shopping, a movie (Safe Haven) and more shopping.  Rushed home at almost 5pm, had a shower and got dressed for dinner, taxi picked us up at 6pm and took us to Jo-Jo's Restaurant and Bar.

We were home by 8.30pm, then we all met in the other apartment for a glasse of wine or two and a really good giggle while a couple of the girls, in their drunken stupor, told us some hilarious stories.

Returned to our own apartment at about 10 pm, but sat up talking until 11.30pm and finally I am sitting in bed updating this blog.

Absolutely exhausted!

Tomorrow we start with another big breakfast and then plan on catching a ferry to Southbank City Markets for some more shopping.

There will be lots of walking around the city, this time with camera in hand, to get what I hope will be some interesting city/urban shots.

Tomorrow night is dinner at the Jazz Club and there will be fireworks for the postponed Australia Day Celebrations.

Fireworks are on my photography 'to-do' list, but I didn't know that they were happening and I didn't bring my tripod with me for the event.  I'm seriously thinking about buying a cheap tripod so that I can try for some good shots.  I'll see how the day pans out.

Today I am grateful for some really good belly laughs with friends - still not excited about the shopping, but markets are always good value, so tomorrow is looking good!  I felt the body release a few endorphins this evening :D

Nite all.  

Day 117 in a Year of my Life

The two hour trip from the Sunny Coast into Brisbane this morning seemed to go on forever!

We were soooooo happy to finally arrive in Brisbane for our weekend!

We ran into the other girls at Roma Street Station and all piled into two taxis to search for our resort.  The taxis dropped us off at exactly the spot we asked for, but unfortunately, our building was nowhere to be seen.

After much searching and twice asking for help, we finally found our building on a completely different street, but luckily, not too far away.

The apartments are clean and nicely furnished, but the rooms are quite small.  

Our group are now separated on completely different floors, which, with the security key system, makes it difficult to visit each other.

Many things have already annoyed me, but I think I am still very on edge and stressed about 'tornado stuff', so I need to chill out and let my hair down and just enjoy myself.  After all, that's what this weekend is all about!

We spent the afternoon shopping - not as successfully as I'd hoped, but there are still three days left, so no doubt I will have some success somewhere along the way.  I think I'm just out of practise!

We had a nice dinner at a restaurant across the road and then came back to the apartment for a few drinks and a few laughs.

All in bed by 9.30pm.  Need to get some sleep ready to start a brand new day of shopping, a pedicure, a movie and then a big night out for dinner.

Today, I am grateful that my bedroom in the apartment has it's own air conditioning system, so that I can turn it to the temperature of my liking.  My bed is comfortable and I even have a room mate who snores just like Adoring Husband!  I feel right at home :)

Nite all.

Day 116 in a Year of my Life

I left home this morning at 7am and even though it was difficult leaving Adoring Husband behind when he is feeling so stressed, it was also a relief to get out of town so that I don't have to look at everything that's broken for a few days.

We arrived at the Sunny Coast to be greeted by beautiful sunshiny weather.  No wind :D

I got to spend about 4 hours with little Chicklet and a bit less time with Vegan Chickie and the Bare-chested Chef.  Chicklet was such a little joy, so happy and smiley ... well she almost always is like that anyway - a little ray of sunshine.

Then the Nikonian picked me up after she finished work and we got to spend the afternoon together.  She showed me some photoshop magic and we had some good laughs.  She makes me feel so relaxed and provides such warm and friendly hospitality.

So now I'm turning out the light and getting an early night in preparation for some heavy duty shopping tomorrow with the girls.

I have to be at the train station at 7.30am.

Today I am grateful for my friend The Nikonian, who goes out of her way for me on many occasion, always has a smile and a shoulder for me, provides the warmest, friendliest hospitality and always knows how to make me laugh.  Such a good egg with a heart of gold.  Hugs to you lovely lady.

Nite all.

Day 115 in a Year of my Life

Post Traumatic Stress UGH!

This afternoon, we could see it coming - it was the biggest blackest ugliest sky and it took it's time getting here, but the wind hit really suddenly and we could see the tarps on other houses billowing like sails on a yacht and we could hear tin rattling like a roof or a fence or another shed was about to blow.

Honestly, my heart was in my mouth and I held my breath and I tried to keep busy (I was in the middle of packing at the time and was choosing my jewellery), but when I walked out to the lounge room and Adoring Husband was sitting frozen on the couch staring out the window with this glazed look in his eyes and his whole body was trembling (the symptoms of Parkinsons are exacerbated by stress), I knew I had to do something.

So I closed the blinds on the windows so that we couldn't see outside and the TV volume was already loud enough to drown out the sound of the wind and rain, so that we could barely hear what was happening outside.

All three psychotic dogs were inside with us.  One was on Adoring Husband's lap and the other two were with me.

We sat on the couch together and I swear every one of my senses was peaking.  It took every ounce of my strength and will to NOT cry.  A couple of times, my eyes welled up, but I forced the tears back down and we sat in silence praying for it to end without incident.

We were especially fearful because the Structural Engineer found a weak spot in our garage yesterday and he said that a strong wind could lift that whole corner of the house.  We had arranged for the 'make safe' guy to come out and make it safe, but he hadn't been able to get to us before this storm.

We sat there pleading with all of the Gods and Powers to let the house survive this storm.

It was the longest twenty minutes of my life.

I thought of everybody else in town and wondered how many of them were also cowering in their lounge rooms praying for the wind to stop.

The feeling of relief when the wind finally died was overwhelming.  Even though the wind had stopped, the rain was still quite heavy for a while afterwards, but I didn't care about the rain ... the wind is the killer for me.

When it was over, we got the phone call from the 'make safe' guy and he was out within the hour.

That corner of the house is now as safe as it can be, in it's current state of disrepair.  Thank goodness.

Soon the rain stopped, the cloud dispersed and there was blue sky and sunshine for the first time in days.  We could still hear thunder in the distance and there was very black cloud out to the West, but it was moving away from us, not coming toward us.

I'm thinking that this is going to be a long, slow healing process and I can't see there being much fun or enjoyment in it.

So today, I am grateful to have survived our first post-tornado storm.  A little shaken up, but still in one piece.  All I ask is that these storms are few and far between.

Nite all.

Day 114 in a Year of my Life

I'm looking forward to a girly weekend in Brisvegas.

I'm a bit concerned about the weather though.  There is nasty weather heading in that direction right now and I hope that it has passed by the time we get there.

This trip has been planned for about 4 months and we are all looking forward to it.

I'm taking my camera and a couple of us are going to wear comfortable shoes and really look around at what the city has to offer, by foot.  I'm a bit excited about that.

There are twelve of us and I think that we all have a different idea of how we want to spend the time.

It should be a little therapeutic for us all - to get away and debrief a bit over our mutual trauma.

Anyway, lots more rain today and threats of gale force winds which haven't eventuated as yet.  Fingers crossed that the winds steer clear of us.

I played with a couple of old photos ...

Not brilliant but a bit of fun.

Today I'm grateful for the opportunity to get away for a few days,  do some girly stuff and forget about the problems in my world for just a little while.

Big day tomorrow, so I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

Day 113 in a Year of my Life

So it has now been three weeks since the big event.

Still, no work has begun on our damaged home.

Still, the builders, engineers blah blah blah come to make up their quotes for the insurance companies.

From comments that I hear, it seems that everybody is ripping everybody else off.

The insurance companies charge us a veritable fortune for our cover, they make billions of dollars worth of profit each year, then the tradesmen charge the insurance companies a veritable fortune for their work, so that next year, the cost of our cover increases again and the insurance companies make an even bigger profit.

It's nice to know that somebody out there is making good money out of our misfortune, and taking their time over it as well.

The Queensland weather forecast is not looking good for the coming week.

The tropical low heading south from Rockhampton/Gladstone could cause heavy, slow moving rain with damaging winds and it's unknown where it will cross over the coast.  At this point they have mentioned Brisbane and NSW and even as far south as Newcastle, however, these things are difficult to predict, so who knows what will happen?

I'm contemplating heading towards Ayers Rock.  Far far away from here.

It's been raining all day, so I've been playing with some photos that I took yesterday.

It's possible my girlie weekend in Brisbane, scheduled for this weekend, could be cancelled or postponed, due to cyclonic conditions.

Better to be safe than sorry, I say, but we will wait and see what happens in the next couple of days.

Today, I am grateful for the cooler weather.  Our power still consists of a couple of extension cords leading from our power box, and the air conditioning system was damaged in the tornado, so we rely on a free standing fan to keep cool.   It's much easier to keep cool in this milder weather.

Who'da thunk I would say anything positive about our weather!?  lol

Nite all.