There but for the grace of God go I

There was a discussion tonight, between friends, about the homeless .. especially during the festive season.

A friend's grandson spent Christmas day feeding the homeless. Another friend has discussed doing the same thing next year with her husband. I didn't get the chance to tell them about Number One Son who spent a few hours on Christmas day helping out in the Salvation Army kitchens to feed the homeless in Adelaide.

The homeless numbers in Australia are rising every year.

The only numbers currently available are from the ABS census from 2011, which showed that there were over 105,000 homeless people in Australia. That includes people who are living on friend's and family's couches because they can't afford to pay rent or buy their own homes.

NSW 28,190 (40.8 people per 10,000) +20.4% since 2006
VIC 22,789 (42.6 people per 10,000) +20.7 since 2006
QLD 19,838 (48.5 people per 10,000) -5.1% since 2006
SA 5,985 (37.5 people per 10,000) +1.4% since 2006
WA 9,592 (42.8 people per 10,000) +1.1% since 2006

TAS 1,579 (31.9 people per 10,000) +32.9% since 2006
NT 15,479 (730.7 people per 10,000) -7.8% since 2006
ACT 1,785 (50 people per 10,000) +70.6% since 2006

WHERE ARE PEOPLE STAYING?

Improvised dwellings, tents or sleeping out 6%
Supported accommodation for the homeless 20%
Staying temporarily with other households 17%
Boarding houses 17%
Other temporary lodging 1%
“Severely” overcrowded dwellings 39%

HOW OLD ARE THEY?

Under 12 17% (17,845)
12-18 10% (10,913)
19-24 15% (15,325)
25-34 18% (19,312)
35-44 14% (14,484)
45-54 12% (12,507)
55-64 8% (8,649)
65-74 4% (4,174)
75 and over 2% (2,028)

WHY ARE THEY HOMELESS? (Just in Queensland)

Financial difficulties, housing stress, unemployment 25%

Accommodation issues, housing crisis, inadequate or inappropriate dwellings 34%

Domestic violence and relationship issues, time out from family, family breakdown, violence and assault 24%

Health reasons, mental health issues, substance abuse issues 3%

Other - transition from care/custody, lack of support, discrimination 13%

Having worked with CES and Centrelink for 16 years, I dealt with people who found themselves homeless. Women whose husbands physically and/or sexually abused them. Women whose husbands kicked them out of the home because they found somebody else. Women whose husbands had some kind of addiction, be it alcohol, gambling or drugs who lost all of their money and hadn't paid rent, or other bills. Women whose husbands passed away and their pensions weren't enough to pay the rent on their own. Teenagers who were sexually abused by their step father or other family member and left to escape the abuse. People with mental illness who were incapable of managing their finances or whose life skills were so limiting that they couldn't look after themselves and who had no family to intervene.

Not all of us are lucky enough to have family to fall back on. 

The list of reasons for homelessness is almost endless and there was a time during my life as a single parent that I came very close to being homeless with my 3 children, so I am very sensitive to situations that put people in the homeless category.

Unless you've been there, as with most of life's 'situations', you simply cannot understand how it feels to be there. 

We all make bad life decisions sometimes. We marry, or live with men who treat us badly or mistreat our children or who develop mental illness or who desert us or pass away and leave us with nothing. 

We may have been abused by parents, step parents or other family members that leave us with such low self esteem that we feel incapable of caring for ourselves, incapable of working or we feel undeserving of a home or a happy lifestyle.

Life is not always kind to us all. 

As my oldest daughter has told me often ... there have been many occasions, especially in her youth, where she had found herself in dangerous or risky situations and any split second decision could have changed her future in so many different ways. Not all of them good. Some of them, very very bad. She explains that sometimes, it was pure luck that sent her in the right direction. So she is very aware of how quickly and inexplicably life can take you down a very bad path from which it's difficult to return.

So I, and many of my friends have lived a very blessed and charmed life where we haven't had to worry about such things as homelessness. We should be grateful for that and we should never judge anybody in whose shoes we have not walked. 

Nite all.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Before you start reading, you need to know that I am a bit of a Snoopy fan, so this post has both a Christmas AND a Snoopy theme.

There have been a lot of people complaining about the term 'Happy Holidays' lately and then getting cranky with me for defending the people who use it.

I just want to say "to each his own".

Who cares what anybody says? They are just words. It's the festive season and we should be feeling the love and wishing everybody happiness, not arguing over words.

So personally, I don't mind whether you say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays .. as long as you are showing love and kindness to your fellow humans, that's all that matters.

I hope you've all had a lovely and loving Christmas day ... love from me.

Nite all.

My 2014 Overview

I thought I would provide a brief overview of my 2014.

After the tornado in January 2013, Adoring Husband became involved with the local SES group and this year in January took it a step further by becoming Deputy Group Leader. This has taken up quite a bit of his time, but he has thrived on bringing changes and improvements to the group, almost tripling member numbers with his recruitment drives. He volunteered his skills on a number of emergencies like land searches for missing people, assisting with traffic control for controlled burn offs in the local area and then heading down to Brisbane after the devastating storm that caused so much damage in November assisting with tarping roofs and chainsawing fallen trees etc.

While he was absorbed with all things SES, I had another fabulous road trip (Our Most Excellent Adventure) with my bestie, BGWLBH. We travelled the roads 'less' travelled and found lots of little 'out of the way' towns, antique and gift stores, markets, cafes, parks and bush tracks. We carried Wizard Mickey with us and he was in all of our photos that diarised our trip.

In February, my beautiful little Chicklet turned 3 years of age and also, I decided to learn more about health and nutrition by studying an Advanced Diploma in Nutritional Medicine with The Australian Institute of Applied Science. Procrastination has been my biggest hurdle and having passed my first semester with an average of 96%, I am now struggling with Chemistry, Anatomy and Physiology and more procrastination. I obviously do my best work under pressure.

March brought us three new chickens, but the eggs didn't come til May. A cyclone or two in March and April with lots of rain and wind, but nothing as bad as what contributed to the tornado in 2013. We held a dinner party where I cooked a three course meal for 6 friends and I also celebrated my 54th birthday.

May took me to a Playschool concert with Chicklet. The first eggs appeared from our chooks. A wonderful Mother's Day dinner with Vegan Chickie. A new grandson for Adoring Husband, named Seth.

June was the trip to Bunya Mountains with the flickr group. I was colder than I've felt for years! So windy and icy and wet!! The fabulous company made up for it though!

July and NSW won the State of Origin series for the first time in nine years. The family from down south stayed with us for the third year while participating in a Touch Football tournament in The Bay (something that we always look forward to).

August was the horrible month that Adoring Husband had a low grade malignant tumour removed from his bladder and then we spent three months working really hard on his health and fitness to make sure that it didn't come back before his 3 monthly checkup and to help his body heal properly from the invasive surgery that he endured to fix it. It was a long process, but our hard work was rewarded with excellent results.

We also had a long visit from Bubbles and Knight in Shining Armour in August, which was lovely and a welcome distraction from the health issues.

Finally, I completed my first semester of studies with great results.

September, the Chicklet family moved into their new house on the Sunny Coast and I went for a visit soon after. I sat my final exam for the first semester, found the first Tawny Frogmouth nests of the season and had my trip to Magnetic Island with the girls, where I met up with a cousin who I hadn't seen for 37 years.

October was footy grand final when Souths won the Championship. One of the psychotic dogs, Jack, gave us a fright when he became ill with pancreatitis. We had the 'blood moon' which was a bit disappointing. The first Tawny Frogmouth chicks were born. Adoring Husband turned 57.

November, Adoring Husband got the all clear at his 3 monthly check up. I created my vision board. Chicklet fell asleep in my bed for the first time, while I was visiting and there was a massive storm that caused millions of dollars worth of damage in Brisbane.

December has been uneventful, but we are the most organised that we have EVER been for Christmas.

We both took refined sugar and processed food out of our diets this year, so I spent many, many hours in the kitchen making breads, cheeses, yoghurt, tarts and pies, casseroles, sauces, cakes and desserts using all fresh and mostly organic ingredients and cooking from scratch, which I have really enjoyed. I got so carried away that we had to buy a new freezer to store all the soups, stocks, savoury minces, curries and casseroles that I made.

Number One Son moved to Adelaide for a new job that he is enjoying very much. Sadly, Bubbles lost her job when her employer went bust. The Chicklet family had some family issues that were a little tough going for a while, but seem to be recovering well.

So, looking back, aside from Adoring Husband's health scare (which was pretty stressful there for a while and certainly tested our resolve), our year has been pretty good. Definitely fewer dramas than previous years.

Let's hope that 2015 is full of love, health and happiness for us and all of our friends and family. I will start the year with a positive attitude and look forward to all the joys that it will bring us.

Tomorrow, I will share some of my favourite photos from the year.

Nite all.

Surprisingly Organised

I believe that this is the first year, in my entire life, that I am completely organised for Christmas!

I'm feeling no stress, panic or dread.

The decorations are up.

All gifts are bought, wrapped and either under the tree, or sent in the mail.

The seafood is booked and organised for Christmas dinner.

Christmas is feeling pretty breezy this year!

Here is my Christmas card to anybody who cares. My friends. My family. My regular readers.

I'm a little early with my Christmas wishes .. but as I've already stated .. TOTALLY ORGANISED!!

Today, I received in the mail, the new bedding that I ordered weeks ago, so I washed and dried my bamboo sheets (I can't tell you how much I love my soft bamboo sheets, in fact, I ordered some more online today. They were on sale, down from $235 to $49!!) and have made my bed with the bamboo sheets and the new doona cover.

We all know how divine it is to slide into crisp clean bedding *sigh*

That's where I am heading right now .. to my fresh and new looking beautiful bed.

Nite all.

Drinkies!

The festive season is, socially, quite exhausting isn't it!? That is if you accept every invitation offered for Christmas drinks.

Drinks with various friends. Drinks with neighbours. Drinks with acquaintances. Drinks with workmates. Drinks with fellow hobbyists. Drinks with community groups. Drinks with sporting pals. Drinks with family. The list goes on.

I can't imagine how tricky it is for people who are too afraid to say 'no' when invitations are presented.

Today, we had drinks with our neighbours across the road and they invited the neighbours either side of them too, which meant I got to meet those people officially. We wave to each other and call out 'hello', but except for one of them, I had not been introduced. So it was a nice afternoon and considering what little we knew of each other, we were all very comfortable together and had some good belly laughs.

It has been a very social weekend and tomorrow, Adoring Husband is off to Fraser Island to catch up with family and two of his little grandbabies, while I hold the fort at home. I hope to really cram some study in while I have a silent house.

The festive season has worn me out, so I'm off to bed.

Nite all.

  

Tis the Season

to be jolly.

This morning I ran into 'The Designer'. She went on holidays at the beginning of last month and was supposed to be away for 3 weeks, but one thing led to another and almost 8 weeks later, she is home and working on an impulse garage sale.

She told me that she had some dvds for me, so after I had my coffee, I dropped by her house to collect them and discovered her attempting to transport her disposable goods and chattels to the front lawn to set them up for sale, so I gave her a hand and helped bring them from one end of the property to the front.

I was then invited inside to the air conditioning where we sat for a chat.

It was meant to be a quick visit, but as we do, we got all involved in some D & M conversations and all of a sudden, two hours had passed and I was rushing off like Cinderella leaving the ball at the stroke of midnight!

When I checked my phone, there were 5 missed calls from Adoring Husband! As I pedalled out of her driveway, there was AH driving up the street towards me!

I am usually home by ten or eleven am, so when I didn't come home and didn't answer my phone, he was worried, especially because there was a show on TV that I had been looking forward to all week, which started at midday and I wasn't there for it!

Luckily, the show, The Paleo Way with Pete Evans, was being recorded, so we watched it when I arrived home. Here is the link if you want to watch it ... The Paleo Way

We then watched Australia win the cricket and began to get ready to attend a Christmas party which was being held at an old friend's house up the road.

It was a good night.

We caught up with some friends who we don't see very often these days, and Adoring Husband did some flirting with some new young ladies in the group ... always good for the ego! We were there for almost 5 hours, which is unusual because in our old age, we usually last about 2 hours.

It's been an enjoyable day and it's almost midnight, so I shall sign out before I turn into a pumpkin.

Nite all.