165

Life is keeping me rather busy still - that is why I've not been on here with any updates...

My Mum is still waiting to go into a permanent aged care facility... the hold-up now being that she has now had to be re-accessed & is no longer 'low care' but 'high care'... not too good on her pins now so needs someone with her whenever she moves around & of course that's not much now. She is very sad & still quite crabby all the time but to cheer her up we keep taking some of her long-lost possessions that we are finding at her house so she can tell us the stories.

When we meet on Thursdays to do more on her house we can all share the stories she has told us so we are bonding again as grown-up children now collecting our valuable family history. Many are the things we are finding & ohhh so interesting... They[my parents] have had a wonderful life even if hard at times I think that makes for a more appreciative life.

Here is a drawing I had done of our old farm house some years back...

I have allotted myself to be the photo collector so have all the photos I can find so I can scan them & put them on USB sticks or discs to share with the family with names etc so it makes sense to the younger ones coming up the family ranks. You can't believe how many photos I have here to scan - I think every box of letters [some dating back to 1940] contained some photos - it will take me a month of Sundays for sure but I'll get there as they are too precious to lose. I guess this is the bane of photographers in the family....

In the meantime our eldest daughter got put into hospital with pneumonia so we had a quick dash to their home to help the family & spent a week there... Y. still wasn't the best when we left but there was just too much happening at home to be away longer...

Also been keeping my fingers busy with some crochet but need to concentrate on some items now as with-in 10days my sister & I are off to Japan to visit with her son & his family & I have presents I wish to complete to take with us. Sadly we have not had anytime to get organised or excited about this trip as Mum is filling all our thoughts, worrying about her welfare...

Thankfully we have now finished sorting the house... now it's time to get everyone to take what they want so we can see what is left... sad to see your old home in such a state of dishevelment as I lived there for a few years before going out & getting married myself, but my older sister & brother have never lived at this house so it doesn't have the same memories for them... A bit like our home here as we moved here since all our kids have made homes of their own so this home doesn't hold those special memories.

I did do something this week that I've had planned for sometime now & that was to fly to Sydney with my girlfriend Lucy to visit the Sydney PowerHouse Museum to see the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. We only went for the day but it was so well worth it... I think between us we took something like 300 - 400 photos & we still didn't get everything. The lighting was very dramatic so it made it somewhat hard to focus on the coral & strangely we found the red coral very hard to photograph. I would say we loved it as we spent nearly 5 hours there & I did get to meet three other artists plus Michaela who was one of the organisers... The girls did a fabulous job of putting the display together & it was very exciting to see my name in lights on the wall along with the other 343 participants.

I have culled the photos down to about 200 so there are way too many photos to show here, I'm loading them into my flicker account so do pop on over & have a looksee. Please also check out the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef set too... Please, let your friends know too... Here is the blog site as well...

This is me with my first piece that I found... it sure was a thrill to find one of my pieces up there, front & centre, on one of the displays & I recognised some other folks work as well - if only we could of all been there together to meet one another... can you imagine the hum-ding we would of made... lol This was a very BIG bright spot in my week... thanks Lucy for sharing it with me & always encouraging me to do my 'thing'...

164

I thought I would pop in & let you know I'm still around but, life has been moving far too quickly for me of late & this has gotta be the first time I've been free for more than an hour in the last month or so... yes truly it has been this busy one way or another. [that busy, since writing this up I've been out to see the doctor...lol]
Last post I told you my Mum was in hospital... she now has to go into care so we are awaiting an aged care facility to have a placement for her... she is very sad she can't go home & it really breaks your heart to see her like this especially when she had looked after herself so well, for so long & she still ends up having to go into care... but I do think in time she will be happy with this new arrangement but this waiting time is very trying for her & us alike. We are now busy sorting her home & finding many many treasures... my sister found where I cost Mum & Dad the grand total of 10 pounds 11 shillings & 9 pence to be born at our local little hospital, wayyyyy back then... me t'inks this packing up her house will be taking an extra long time when we look at everything but we must...

To add to our worries my hubby's Mum past a week or so ago... she was very fraile & she was too tired to go on anymore. We had her Celebration of Life last week where I read the eulogy & we had a photo presentation of old & new photos of Mum with the family which gave everyone a good laugh remembering so many happy memories... & that is how I know, she would want us all to remember her... the fun & special times...

With such sadness, some happiness comes & this was in the form of all our kids coming home & having a big sleep-over [Nanna's favourite fun thing to do with the kids] after the funeral. They had all come from far, very far & nearer... flying, driving & just up the road. We have just bid the last one to leave, GoodBye, this morning so I guess life will go back to some sort of normality now... but what is 'normal'...

During all of this busyness in our lives, I have kept my hands busy to help stress free my mind, even though some days I did not get to crochet which was a shame.

During this time, we also have had a wonderful visit from our friends from over the ditch but, I will tell you about that another time. One of our friend's young daughter's fell in love with our Gilly [our toy poodle] so when Mum & Dad went shopping they found a grey/silver toy poodle soft toy which was not that much smaller than our Gilly to give their girl, as it's not too practical for them to have a house dog at this time. Everyone loves [&/or laughs] at our Gilly's crocheted vest so I made Hallie one for her toy dog too, as well as a collar... I found it a bit hard to make when you don't have the toy here to in front of you. I think it looks rather cute so would love to see her dog in it - if it fits???
Angel Messages… Fate is not what governs you. Fate is what you choose & create for yourself.