Laurie has been busy today doing the shopping for the week. He is in charge of the kitchen!
He prepares a menu on Saturday for all the food for the week, and then shops for it, and will cook it for all of us. This works really well as I have a demanding job and after 20 years of doing all the house and kitchen management myself I'm happy to let someone else have some responsibility. The girls are encouraged to help when they are free, and willing!
His job entails a bit of travel to China and the US so I still have to jump in and do it all sometimes.













I stayed home with the girls full-time until Angela was 20 and then returned to full-time work so I've been lucky to have good support now I'm not at home with all the chores.

Laurie travels a long way to work each day and his car is wearing out. I've been given the opportunity to salary sacrifice and include a car. So today we went for a test drive in an i20 and were very impressed. I think we will "do the math" a see if its worthwhile to have. It will also be the car Geraldine will have access too when she gets her licence, in a couple of months.

Laurie is usually the photographer !

Laurie and Bernadette
We travelled to Adelaide when Bernadette had her University Orientation

Geraldine and Laurie.
Riding bikes around Dubbo Zoo on our Holiday in June this year.
We also visited Parkes, Laurie's place of birth and the Parkes radio telescope,
Laurie showed us where he lived till he was 12.
We also had a quick stop in Orange in NSW

A proud Dad when Angela Graduated from her Graphic Design Course several years ago

Life is all about Balance !
Bernadette on her recent holiday to New York

I was telling you about Geraldine recently and how she doesn't really know what she wants to do when she leaves school.
Bernadette, my third daughter had that dilemma 3 years ago. As she had an ability to write well she began to think about being a journalist. So she started University doing a communications degree. For a part time job she was coming to work with me at the hospital to help with the administrative duties of the unit. Shortly after starting, Bernadette found herself doing all the administrative duties on her own, due to our receptionist going on sick leave.
Being in the unit and seeing the work we do opened her eyes to what nursing is all about. Then last year she decided she wanted to become a nurse. Being the diligent student she is, she also wanted to finish her communication degree and start a nursing degree at the same time. So this year has seen her working very hard at both degrees as well as working 3 days a week with me at the hospital, sometimes as a nursing assistant and other doing administrative duties. She has become a valued member of the unit.

A tourist in New York

Bernadette and her best friend Kate at their 21st Birthday party in June
The theme of the party was Super Heroes !

Bernadette and Geraldine 

After work today I felt like doing something creative. So I baked a carrot cake...mmmmmmm.......

Enjoy

All quiet on the Frances front. I spoke to her on Sunday when she was in Seattle. Unfortunately she had left her phone charger, camera charger and power adaptor behind in Portland! So I guess all has gone flat now! Luckily she plans to go back to Portland shortly on her way to Chicago so will be able to go back to hostel to check if they are still there.

                                         

I'm missing My Frances...and the funny things she does! These photos of Frances and Bernadette were taken by 
Geraldine on a holiday we had a couple of years ago in Falls Creek when we were learning to fly fish and they got a little bored!

Geraldine got her year 12 timetable yesterday. I can't believe this is my(!) last year at school! 
We also received her year 11 report. She has done incredible well, and it brought tears to Laurie's eyes when reading some of the comments! Geraldine has been our quite achiever. She enjoys learning and has a strong desire to please, so gradually has been improving. She is still unsure what to do with her life, all we keep saying is just do you best to give you the most options. It very hard for a young person to know what they want to do with their lives.

Working hard at her school work which is 90% on the computer




 .

Today, when I was at work a visitor commented to me how nice the paint colour was in the unit.
I guess I had got so use to the colour scheme that I no longer noticed it. But then I began to think about how the colour scheme had come about.
The place where I work is a day surgery unit, where people come to have eye operations. It was painted in pretty bland, typical hospital colours of nondescript blue or maybe grey. Then about two years ago we were told that the unit would be painted over Christmas. So we started to gather ideas on what colour. But nothing look right and we couldn't agree on anything.
So I consulted my eldest daughter, Angela and see was able to develop the best and most exciting colour scheme. I have got a photo of it but I have one of Angela.

Angela

Angela has the most amazing creative talent. She works as a graphic designer in a big printing company. She just has the knack of knowing what goes well together. She has also studied really hard, going to a top graphic design college, obtaining a graphic design diploma as well as doing a four year apprenticeship in prepress printing. She now is studying for a degree in Marketing at Open University, as well as working really long hours. We are all very proud of her achievements. Any problems in deciding what goes with what, and Angela is consulted.

Sharing her birthday cake with Maggie and Honey

Being out in the garden is one of my favorite things to do.
So today I spent most of the day outside. It was a beautiful spring day with the temperature just right. With sun screen on, hat, sunnies, shorts n t shirt and boots I was set.
A couple of years ago we put in birdies raised garden bed and started to grow some vegetables. I set up a watering drip line on a tap timer and mulched the bed with straw. It was so rewarding! So then I decided to get another garden bed last spring extended the watering system and grew more varieties and had a bumper season. So early this spring I planted a good variety of veggies all from seeds including cherry tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, beetroot, carrots, cucumber, beans on a climbing frame and somes herbs of parsley, corriander and basil. I also got some strawberries in a pot with a watering chamber at the bottom, as strawberries, I was reading don't like to be watered from the top.
The beds are all full and I'm starting to think I'd like another! .... But that will involve a good deal of planning. The lettuce grew really fast and we enjoyed it, but then suddenly it had gone to seed. So a visit to the nursey was number one priority today. I got some lettuce seeds as well as some seedlings, and then I saw some snow peas so I got them also, and planned to set up a climbing frame for them. I
 also got some more strawberries and a blueberry plant and then .......I saw a grape vine so I decided that would be good out on the back verandah. Then I saw .....some flowers .......snapdragons cause 
they alway remind me of my mum and some other flowers but I can't remember their name!

Little tomatoes 

That meant quite a lot of planting and moving around some other plants. I'm a little bit tired now but looking forward to another bumper season from the veggie patch!

Let me tell you a funny story.
As I've mentioned before Frances is travelling in the USA. She wanted to off load some the things she had in her backpack to lighten the load. It included her walking boots, warm clothes and some Alpaca jumpers she bought in Peru. To post all this to Australia would have cost quite a lot. Laurie's boss is from the USA, and his company has an office in LA. So Laurie thought Frances could post it to their office in LA and when he was next in the US he could pick it up and bring in home. Frances found a post office, but it was about to close, so she rushed in and found there was only one box left, a great big oversized box. So she plonked everything in it, bought a roll of tape on a dispenser and proceed to close off the box. She had problems with the tape and ended up wrapping and wrapping the tape around the box in a random haphazard way with the clock ticking and the postal workers announcing the shop was closing. She had trouble finding a place to write the address and so it all looked very messy and childish. But she did post it, last thing on Friday. On Monday it arrived at the LA offices of Laurie's work. He had meant to send them an email to let them know it was coming but he forgot! 
As the box was so big and everything was rattling around inside, and as it was so bizarrely address they thought it was a BOMB ! So it caused a big stir, but common sense prevailed and they opened the box. They had no idea why it had been sent there until Laurie remembered to send an email and the mystery was solved. As Laurie's boss had to travel to the US he agreed to bring all the stuff home.

 

Honey has a tough life. During the day she "entertains" herself.

It will be a late night tonight for Laurie and Geraldine. Laurie being the good dad he is, has agreed to pick Geraldine up from her Mumford and Son Concert in at the Entertainment Centre. Knowing how late these things can be it will be well after midnight before they are in bed.
It's funny what you do for your youngest!
Angela our oldest will often lament how "spoilt" Geraldine is compared to her upbringing.
But I don't see it that way. She had the advantage of having lots of sisters to play with and the company of many. There's eight and half years difference between her and Geraldine, and she has enjoyed being the big sister to Frances two years younger, Bernadette four years younger and Geraldine.
Having them all live at home with us still, has given me the joy of watching each of them grow into strong independent women!
They all think they are very different to each other, each has their own style in clothes, movies & TV they like, music they like. But then the lines cross over and you'll find someone who loves what you love. Take tonights concert for example. Frances had bought the concert tickets months and months ago, and when she booked her plane tickets for overseas she wondered what she would do with the concert tickets. But then Geraldine heard they were free, and jumped at the chance to go as she also loves that band!
Also Angela was going to New York alone, and then Bernadette heard and decided she would love to go also, so they organised the trip together. They got back a month ago reporting what a ball they had together. All their photos show two really happy girls hanging out together.

Angela loves shopping !

Sharing fun times together

Bernadette enjoying New York Shopping

Maggie looking her best

Sometimes it's my turn to get my haircut but other times it's the dogs!

Honey had trouble sitting still so I only got this one photo of her!

Following up on yesterdays blog on Frances travels, I can report she arrived safely in Portland. She wandered into a University and was able to watch the debate with Barak Obarma! She is not normally very interested in politics but hey, she's in the US and that's what's going on at the moment.
She was able to get access to her money but still needs to get her pin sorted!
Today I picked up a CPAP machine. I've had a long period of feeling very sleepy when driving to and from work. Many visits to the doctor and lots of blood test and visit to specialist, and I discover I suffer from sleep apnea. So I'm hiring a machine for a month to see if  it can help. I hope so as I really want to feel fresh and well from when I wake in the morning to the end of the day.

Frances called today!
It was great to hear from her.
She was in San Francesco about to get on a train for Portland so was making the most of wifi. She's had troubles with her travelex card with most of her money on it. She called last Saturday to tell us about it. Apparently she had left her card in a ATM machine when she was jet lagged in Peru! So she contacted the help phone line, and in the confusion they cancelled her spare card which she had in her bag. That left her with no access to her money! She had some cash and a little money on a Visa card so she didn't worry about it. She was traveling everyday and dealing with it wasn't top priority. But the money was running out. Then she called Saturday a little sad and despondent, unsure how to get access to her money. So using Google I found a travelex shop located in a bank nearby (as in a short bus ride) to where her hostel is. She went there to discover they no longer deal in cards! So phone call after phone call and she got the card reactivated! But now she can't remember the pin number so after another series of phone calls she got close to a solution when the phone dropped out! So she'll have to try again when in Portland.
Frances is the second of my four daughters. She is traveling in South America and USA for 10 weeks. After a trekking the Inca trail in Peru with a group, she is now on her own and developing her itinerary as she goes with a few highlights planned.

Today was a good day at work.

Maybe I should tell you a little bit about what I do...
I'm a nurse! An ophthalmic nurse, that is I work with eyes. I work in an operating suite as a scrub nurse, which means I organise everything you need for an operation and then assist the surgeon in passing instruments and equipment.
It's a pretty special place to be orchestrating a mornings worth of work or in the case of today an afternoon list as well. We get to know all our surgeons pretty well and as we work we chat about what's been going on in our lives and what's the gossip in unit! This morning I had two really lovely surgeons, brothers, who have been operating together for years, and then in the afternoon I had one of their sons, so it was a "family day".
Mostly we do cataract surgery and the list length depends on the surgeon and how many patients they have booked. Today I started at 7am and finished at 6.30 pm, so by now I'm pretty tired. I'm lucky I have a really great support base at home. So when I roll in the door at 7.20 my wonderful husband Laurie has dinner all ready for me and my girls. Tomorrow's another long day and then I'll work a short day, that generally how it goes, depends on lists as to shift lengths.

  

Laurie and I at Floriade in Canberra on a recent holiday.Our youngest daughter used this photo in a Facebook post with the title  "Arn't they Exquisite"

A day spent with Geraldine and Laurie enjoying the delights of a beautiful sunny Sydney Sunday!
Had lunch at Opera house before enjoying a concert with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
The music was so entertaining especially the beautiful interpretation of a piece by Biber called Battalia. The cellos and double bass used their instruments in a whimsical manner to create a wonderful piece of music. We also heard some Mozart and Handel. Its amazing how the music can unravel all the threads in your head and help you see clearly solutions to your problems. As the music drifted out I found myself unwinding and began to think about a summer holiday at a beach somewhere. Must gather more ideas and start planning. Laurie found himself thinking of luxury beer and food in delightful surrounds! Geraldine said she just drifted in and out of thoughts while listening. Throughly enjoyable day.
Geraldine is our musician at home. She has been learning piano since aged 5 and still gets great pleasure in playing and listening to classical music. Listening to her practicing on the piano is a great sound in our household.

Laurie and Geraldine Opera House Promenade 

Geraldine and I before the concert at Opera House

On way home drove past Entertainment Centre so Geraldine could familiarise herself to the area as she is off to a Mumford and Sons Concert on Thursday evening and will need to get herself there by train. Once home we needed to find time to walk the dogs.
I feel ready for another busy week at work following a lovely day out.