Quiet time at home

Just a quiet day at home.  Terence is off to the CCF Dad's day out where they'll be doing all things that boys like to do.  Terence finished our first garden box this morning and I was going to go and buy the lining so we can start putting soil inside, but Bianca is not feeling well at all.  So much so that right now she's asleep on the couch.  And that is totally unlike her.  Sigh!  I hate the cold and flu season.  So we won't be doing much today.  I will start planting some little seeds into little containers and put them in my greenhouse and then hopefully by next weekend Terence can make some more boxes.  And that is pretty much it.  Hope your weekend is going great!  And well done to a blogging buddy for finishing a 10km race!  How amazing!

Exciting times around here!

Photos to come!

Today Terence started building our very first timber garden box.  It will be 1.2m x 1.2m and 30cm high.  That is going to be shared by the girls.  So we'll had a line of shells perhaps or something to split it up.  And then they'll get planting.  I will have some garden boxes too and can't wait to start planting.  Today Terence also bought me a little green house.  So tomorrow I'll start planting some little seeds in little cups and put it in there until such time as they are ready to be planted out. 

I am keen to plant tomatoes, spring onion, capsicum, strawberries, carrots, peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, some salad leaves and so on.  Oh and herbs. 

Last year I had a few planter bags, but this year I want something that is a bit bigger and more organised. Cannot wait!

Hmmmm...

I tend not to dwell on what ifs.  Throughout Bianca's leukemia journey I always pushed the what if questions out of my mind the moment they popped up.  Even when we finished treatment in 2009 and we suddenly lost the "safety" of the treatment and it became a waiting game, I stopped myself freaking out about bruises and things.  Today however I was reminded of that day in 2007.  Today just for an instant I couldn't help wondering.

We went to the shops this afternoon to buy things for supper and a few more things for the special meals I'm trying to stick to.  As we pulled into the shopping centre parking area Bianca suddenly said "Mum, I have a lump!".  So I parked and asked her where the lump was and there it was, exactly where it was on the 31st of May 2007.  Behind her head underneath her hair.  Granted it is not as big as it was then.  But it is there.  And so now we are going to keep an eye on it.  In all likelihood this is simply just because Bianca might have a mild cold.  Overall she is fine.  She is energetic, she is not pale, there are no weird bruises, she has no fever.  She is no different than she has been.

I hate reminders like these.  With things like this you simply can't help some of the what ifs that pop into your mind.

You know spring is just around the corner when...

Little lambs come out to play

Hawks go soaring through the sky

The Rosellas delight us with their vibrant colours

Girls have picnics on the grass

 The Silvereyes / Wax Eyes visit us for some bread crumbs

Learning to throw a frisbee on a bright sunny day

Playing at the park

The beautiful sounds of the Tui (click here to hear)

And beautiful sunsets (when it starts getting dark later than before)

Spring is right around the corner :-)

What a great day!

The past 2 weeks have been crazy busy.  And freezing cold.  But today is a nice sunny day.  Right now the girls are playing outside (Caitlyn dressed as a pink fairy and Bianca as a witch but a "friendly witch").  Today was Bianca's last netball match of the season and wow, her team did so great!  They won 8 - 2.  Absolutely amazing.  They have come such a long way, but then they had an amazing coach.

So after the game everybody came to our house and we had a shared morning tea and a little ceremony.  The past 2 weeks I prepared some photos (of the more than 600 I took during the season) for each girl which I put in an envelope for each girl.  Basically photos showing the girls in action.  And I took the team photo and put it in a little folder with the names so they could have a keepsake.  Vanessa handed out the certificates of participation that the netball association prepared for them and then it was time for our big surprise.

The parents all wanted to give Vanessa something to say thank you for volunteering to coach and so we've all collected some money and got Vanessa a shopping mall gift card.  I then made her a "coach of the season" certificate and put this in a frame alongside the team photo and then I made a bit of a scrapbook as a summary of the netball season.  And it showed some photos of their practices, getting ready for that very first match, some action photos and I made a page showing photos of each girl in action i.e. a Bianca page.  And then I also copied around 600 photos to disk for Vanessa.

I then got each girl to read a line to Vanessa i.e. Vanessa, we had a lot of fun playing netball... etc.  And so 6 girls each said something and 4 of them gave gifts (there were 10 in the team).  And of course Vanessa became all emotional and the one little girl said "those are tears of joy!". 

It was such a fun day!

Unfortunately it does mean I fell off the wagon with my new journey to become healthy and fit.  But I'll just have to try harder from next week again!