I handle day to day stresses quite well.. even if I do say so myself. But.. I nearly lost it at 1 this morning.... let me give you the run down...
Monday - I had a meeting at school (on healthy eating for kids.. great info..) and come home at 10pm, find the house empty.. front door open, tea dishes still on the table - no Jack or kids.. Ummmm.. think worse cases. broken bones etc.. ring Jack's Mobile and can hear in ringing in the ute.. Pick up the phone and ring the neighbour (at 10pm at night!!!) and get no answer. It occurs to me to check the call log on the home phone.. My Dad rang and left a message, then a number I don't know... I ring it (Again at 10pm at night!!!) and get the owner of the land that one flock of our sheep are. Relief... as he wants to know how Jack went pulling lambs from the dam! So - I knew where they were!
We fenced off the dam months ago to avoid this. Those not aware, no Dams where filled this year due to the drought and the are all almost empty. As you can imagine, quite muddy and boggy and sheep get stuck if they aren't fenced off. We have been pumping the dregs of the water into a tanker with a trough so the sheep can get water. Jack pumped water on Sunday, BUT the water has gone off and was making the sheep sick. It didn't smell brackish or anything, but we lost two sheep and the ones that got suck in the dam where looking for fresher water... fuck the drought.. So Jack jumped in and pulled out the lambs that where stuck and moved the sheep back to our neighbours for fresh water. Jack apparently had thick mud up to his chest.. fully clothed. I took his car into town so he only had my car. In his wisdom, he jumped in clothed, so the mud would stick to the clothes and not him. He peeled them off and got home without mud on the inside of my car (good thinking Jacko)... anyway.. the kids where at the neighbours and didn't get to bed until nearly 11pm!! Jack trucked the sheep to the market on Tuesday .. Gone to be roast christmas lunch!!
So.. that was just the start of it.
Tuesday, I was collecting Emilie from Take-a-break (occasional care) and I have a canopy on the back of my ute. It has a HUGE blind spot. I know it is there, I have to check each time I reverse out of a park.. well this time I didn't and run into another car. A eldely lady who has recently lost her husband. How bad do you think I felt! She was quite shaken. The damage to my car was quite minimal but I got all four panels down one side of her car.. bugger..
Yesterday morning, I go to hop into the shower.. turn on the tap and not fucking water. Some of you might recall a couple of months ago we run out of water and had to get water tankered in. Well... a pipe fitting popped over night and emptied our tank... I was still quite calm at this stage (still am really.. ) Jack had a little bit of water in another tank, so pipe fittings replaced and hooked up to the other tank and we had water again..
BUT!!! Last night at 1am little Laura come into our room and jack just lifted her into bed but she was spewing.. everywhere.. so I go to run the shower to clean the vomit out of her hair etc.. NO WATER!!!!!!! This was nearly getting beyond a joke. My daughter was covered in vomit along with two beds and no water to clean it.... So I was cuddling her while Jack was hooking in the last tank in his jocks at 1.30 in the morning.. finally get her in the shower. Laura is all cleaned up and I went to deal with the sheets. Into the laundry I find Jack's clothes still soaking in wash trough from his previous mud swimming, sheep saving exercise two nights prior.. I had to deal with an inch of mud in the bottom of the trough before I could deal with spew sheets.. arhh..
Laura is better this morning. Jack stayed up with her until past 3am, Emilie not long ago spewed and I have her on the couch with a bucket and a tanker load of water will be arriving shortly...
.. no tim tams.. no chocolate.. just lots of cuddles for sick kids..
The Good news... Lambs and ewes made good money at the market
I had my hair cut and coloured at a new hair dressers in Horsham yestesday and it is the best colour I have had a years (Since my friend retired from hairdressing in fact)
Christmas shopping is finished, wrapped and packed...
I lost 500 grams at weigh in
and with all of this happening.. I can still smile and tell people I am having a great day:) Hope you all are as well....
9 comments:
Blah Blah....
Can I just say Big hugs to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whats this Blah Blah comment? They can go F themselves.
What a strong person you must be my dear.
Gosh that all sounds so stressful!! You are amazing with that attitude.. I would have lost it for sure.
Hard for me to imagine a drought.. it rains most days here, and it has all my life (lately after reading your blog, I've been extra thankful for the rain!!).
Hope the week gets better!
jaysus, sounds like a hell of a day!!! hope things are better !
Whoa! What a crazy time you're going through!
I grew up in a semi-rural area and we were always on tank water, so i can kinda understand a little bit where you're coming from, but i just couldnt imagine what you're going through in regards to having tanks run completely dry. Makes me feel really lucky that us city folk dont have that kind of problem. Having said that though, I'm always really concious of not wasting water around the home, but i think thats just from growing up with my parents always on my back about not wasting water and being careful with it.
And for the record, blogger beta sucks ass for me too! That's why I have a vox blog as well. I'm also trialing typepad & wordpress blogs as well, but have still yet to find a good one. Soooo annoying! I wish they just left blogger well enough alone!
I can absolutely relate to your water troubles. I have memories of having to truck water in as a kid, even though we lived in South West WA, where it rained a lot... apparently not that summer.
You're doing fantastically well, maintaining such a positive, level headed attitude with so much bad stuff going on. Glad the lambs and ewes fetched a good price.
So much going on and still the positive outlook as always. Did u decide on a birthday theme?? I've got a big big birthday in Feb coming up but not sure if I'll be having a theme yet.
If i could I would send you some of my water :( I'm sorry you are having such a tough time out there. I hope and prey that it will rain very soon!
I'g glad to see that all this hasn't got you down.
I hope your kids are okay and the sheets are clean :)
In my class (Catholic school) we prayed that you would get some of our rain and we would get some of your sun!LOL - we got some the other day and one of my cuties said- oh remember how we prayed, maybe its raining in Australia!!
Obviously it hasnt - but I really hope you get some soon.
What a very stressful day! You are an amazing person to continue to smile through it all!
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