gemisht

10 years ago today I was about 34 weeks pregnant with Daisy, Tiger was just 2 years old and we set off on a whole new path, a journey that we had know idea of the direction we would take.

It was the first day of trading for our business.

I remember the feelings on that day as though they were yesterday. Excitement, nerves, uncertainty, trepidation and wondering what on earth we were doing but so excited about it that it somehow cancelled out the nerves, well some of them anyway.

That first day was strange. We had sub-leased some warehouse space and a reception desk from another company. We had bought ourselves a computer and on the way in on that first day I bought 2 second hand office chairs for $30 each. What made it strange was that every other job I had ever started I had been taking over from someone who had resigned or an existing job had been split up because it had become too much for one person.

This time was different though, there was no-one to take over from, no pre-defined jobs that needed doing, just phones to answer and that was about it.

As the days went on, the phones started to ring more, people wanted quotes done and then placed orders. We started to invoice people for jobs and then get paid. Then we had to pay our suppliers. And I learnt to use MYOB, one step at a time. Until then, I had never used anything like it and I had no idea about anything at all accounts related. We started with nothing other than a small amount of money. We bought our first forklift after 1 year of trading and moved into our own premises.

So, now 10 years down the track, Hubby and I are still working together, the business continues to go from strength to strength,  we now have 4 staff plus Hubby and I. We have a freestanding building so we don’t need to share the driveway, especially on the few occasions that we have to load semi-trailers. We have a forklift that isn’t the same age as me

It has been an amazing journey so far and one that I hope will continue for a long time to come. Part of me can’t believe that we have come this far, but I know that we wouldn’t have set out to do this if we knew that there was no chance of us making it this far.

For me its a huge achievement, I guess because of the other things going on at the same time as so much uncertainty about the future - little things like having your second child. For us, its a huge achievement too. Hubby and I have been working together for 10 years and we are still together and still happy.

To my husband - thank you for taking the leap of faith, thank you for taking me with you while you took that leap and congratulations for everything that you have achieved over the last 10 years. You are amazing and I love you.

For me, this milestone comes hot on the heels of starting to realise another dream - to study accounting. A dream that 10 years ago I didn’t know I had.

For anyone wondering whether to take a leap of faith and live your dreams, I say go for it. But go for it with your eyes open and you will succeed if you really want to.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Anonymum has started another rolling post. This is the third - Splendid and Too Splendid were the first 2.  Its always great to see where everyone takes the story and how each of us puts our own stamp on it.

After Anonymum, I am the next one to add to the story. The story so far from Anonymum, followed by my contribution, in purple:

He stepped from the plane into the crowded airport, the face of who he was seeking, fixed firmly in his mind.
He had seen it numerous times, but knew, even if it had been revealed only once, it was a face he would never forget.
How could he ever forget the face of the person responsible for the single most painful experience of his life?
The devastation it had created was an event he would not allow himself to forget.
He was driven to not only find her, but make her suffer the way he had. Ensure she experienced the total overwhelming feeling that had been his constant companion for more than 10 years.
The hopelessness, anguish and feeling of loss, all of which kept him awake, or haunted his dreams, turning every night into a tortuous time to be dreaded, in every waking moment…….

Constance sat in the study looking out over the garden. She loved to be in this room. It was just how she had imagined she would have her own room just for her writing, all those years ago. The garden was showing the first signs of spring approaching. There were new buds on all the plants and the winter chill had gone from the air today, so she had happily let Alison play outside.

She was distracted from her writing while watching Alison play in the garden. The child had a wonderful imagination and Constance loved to watch her play. As the sun glistened on Alison’s hair and she poured tea for the teddy bears, Constance wondered how their lives would have turned out if she had made a different decision on that fateful day. For the first time in many years, she let her mind wonder to Alison’s father. Constance had not let herself think about him since that day. As she was thinking about him, she felt a shiver go up her spine and felt a sense of dread that she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

The next person on the list is Cris. Go for it Cris, can’t wait to see where you take the story. And everyone else too.  If you would like to see the order that we will be contributing, Anonymum has a list here. And its not too late to add your name to the list, just leave a comment and Anonymum will be happy to add you.

ETA: The order has changed so the next person on the list is Widdle Shamrock, so pop on over to her place to check her addition to the story.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Note to self: When you decide to put your blog in maintenance mode so that you can change the theme and have it back up and running in a day or so, you should make sure first that you can do what you want to the theme and that you aren’t likely to be distracted and end up with the blog in maintenance mode for waaaaayyyy too long.

Sorry I have been gone so long, it wasn’t intentional. So much has happened, I’m not sure where to start, but here goes hopefully in some kind of “coherent” order:

We had to move the business. Emphasis on “had to”, it wasn’t something that we had planned to do. Hubby and I had been looking at new premises since January and there wasn’t a lot around the size that we needed so that was hard work. We finally found an awesome place which is a brand new, freestanding building, which means that we have the whole place to ourselves and don’t have to worry about blocking the driveway when we have trucks there. Fantastic.

The worst part of the move - organising new phone numbers, internet access and getting the phone system moved over as seamlessly as possible. The telephone and email are critical when it comes to running the business so a lot of work on my part went in to making sure it all worked. In theory it should have. The reality was very different. We had the old numbers diverted to the new numbers and I put vacation messages on everyone’s emails so that people would get some response rather than just nothing at all. Then it all went pear-shaped. There was a problem with the phone line at the exchange so the phone numbers weren’t working - people were ringing the old number and instead of being diverted seamlessly there were being told that the number had been disconnected. UGH. Then the line hunt (where the calls automatically “hunt” for a free line for incoming calls) wasn’t working either so if someone in the office was already on the phone then new calls seemed to the person ringing us, to be ringing out when it wasn’t even ringing at our end. BIG UGH.

Then the new modem developed gremlins and decided every now and then to not work. with no rhyme or reason as to why it wasn’t working.

After several phone calls to both the phone and ADSL providers, we seem to have everything working now, a month down the track. But to say it was stressful for me was an understatement.

With Tiger in his first year of high school, term 1 was really busy - extra workload, extra homework, more after school things going on. Add to this me working extra hours in the build up to the move and after, which meant we were all distracted, busy and stressed out.

I think that almost all of term 1 this year should be written off and we can start again now at the beginning of term 2.

There have been a couple of other things going on, but they are posts in themselves so you will have to wait for me to reveal all.

And that theme that I was working on, I have been doing bits and pieces on it and its almost ready. I hope to get it activated here soon.  Although I have exams for Uni next month and a fair bit of catching up to do (not much Uni work was done due to stress/distraction of the move) so don’t hold your breath cause I don’t want to be responsible for anyone going blue.

I’ll be back soon with another post, I promise. Be gone with you maintenance mode, be gone !!!!!!!!!

Popularity: 51% [?]

Finally it seems everything (well, almost everything) is back up and running here the way that it should be.

I have had a few problems after changing my hosting - note to self - when changing hosts and doing a backup of your blog and necessary files, don’t leave them on the desktop of your computer and make sure that the backups etc have worked before you pull the pin on the old one. Bloody blondes, can’t be trusted.

After many hours days weeks of anguish and stress, it seems I have finally got it all to work. No mean feat let me tell you. A few times I thought that I had it right but then it all went pear shaped. I needed to slow down and go through the processes very methodically so that nothing got missed.

With several tabs open (about 15!!!!) in Firefox and at least one Filezilla window open, along with emails etc, I was chopping and changing between cpanel and FTP, as well as retrieving emailed files. It was scary for a while but I made it. And I have learnt so much, even in the last couple of days. I almost think that it was worth doing for what I have learnt, let alone the satisfaction of knowing that it all finally worked.

The only thing that I am not sure about is my feeds. So if you have come here via one of the feed readers, please let me know in the comments. I don’t know if its something that will fix itself in time (hopefully not too long) or if there is a major error somewhere that I need to fix.

Oh and because I wasn’t breathing whilst being so stressed about breaking my  blog, I completely missed my blogging anniversary - it was February 10.  12 months - where has that gone????

Its been a great year and I have really enjoyed blogging and getting to know so many other wonderful people. Here’s to another year or more of blogging and getting to know more bloggers and read their blogs.

Popularity: 62% [?]

Up until 5 years ago I had never been a great fan of cats - I was definitely a dog person. All that changed when we knocked our house down and rebuilt in 2004. We had to rent while the demolition and building took place. People 2 houses up from us had a cat that used to hang around our house a lot. Eventually he pretty much “adopted” us and I’m sure he spent more time at our place than he did at his own home. I used to come home and he would be waiting for me at the front door. And waiting at the back door every morning for us to get up. When the time came to move back into our own house, I realised how attached I had become to this cat and it was really hard to leave him behind. A few months later I was walking past the local pet shop and found myself drawn to one of the kittens in the shop. I still really missed the cat from the rental house so decided that it was time to get our own cat and to buy the one at the pet shop. Meet Ruski

He certainly wasn’t a lap cat, he was fiercely independent but loved being close to us. Quite often he would curl up on the lounge next to us when we were watching TV, or if I was home during the day he would just sleep somewhere in the house, appearing occasionally for some food. He had a load of personality and was great fun to have around. He was a mixed breed, but more than likely mostly Russian Blue with one parent probably a tabby as he had as I called them “tiger stripes” where some of the fur was darker than the rest.

Every now and then he would go out after he had dinner and not come home. A couple of times he was locked in a store room under the neighbour’s house and we could hear him meowing from our back yard. We just had to wait for the neighbours to appear to unlock the room so he could get out. Other times he would be at the door in the morning waiting for us so he could have breakfast. Wednesday night he didn’t come home - nothing too unusual about that and I wasn’t about to stay up all night waiting for him to come home. Thursday morning he wasn’t at the door waiting to come in when I got up. That was highly unusual. I went out the back to listen for him meowing from the neighbour’s store room. No sound

I went through the house to make sure he hadn’t been locked in a room by mistake. No sign of him.

I was worried by this stage but really had no idea where he could be. I had to be at the dentist at 9am so the kids and I rushed out of the house at about 8.45 and still no sign of the cat. While we were at the dentist I left my phone with Tiger in the waiting room as I was expecting a call about a delivery that we were getting yesterday.

Unfortunately our neighbour rang while I was with the dentist. She thought that it was me on the phone and not Tiger. She told him that she had found Ruski and that he was in their front yard and that he was dead. Poor Tiger was in the waiting room by himself and he told me later that he was very upset but he didn’t think that he could come in and see me. We left the dentist in a rush as we had to be home for the delivery. Tiger told me he had to tell me something and I put him off while I paid the bill. We then ran over to the shops to get essentials like bread and milk and while I was paying for the things we had bought, Tiger told me about the phone call from the neighbour. The three of us in a huddle and crying in the middle of a small, local shopping centre.

Ruski looked very peaceful lying on the grass in the neighbour’s front yard and he didn’t look at all like he had suffered so I am grateful for that. We had no idea what happened to him, but after talking to the vet today she said that its more than likely that he had been hit by a car and probably had internal damage. She also said that from the way that he was lying that he would have died quickly and fairly peacefully too. There is some comfort in knowing what probably happened, especially because he was so young and hadn’t been sick.

We have laid him to rest in our back garden and we will get a plant to put there to remember him. The kids are finding it hard, as I am too, and DH. But we will be OK, once we get past the shock of it happening and the initial grief.

If I had just one wish it would be that I could spend just one more minute with him, a chance for me to say goodbye to him properly. The hardest part is that it was so unexpected and it’s this that I am struggling with at the moment.

So, rest peacefully Ruski and know you will be missed. A lot. Thanks for the smiles, the laughs and just being you over the last 4 years. We all love you.

Popularity: 69% [?]

On New Years Eve they showed the typical shows rounding up the highlights, and I guess the lowlights, of the year that was. The kids and hubby couldn’t understand why I was upset after they showed photos of Jane McGrath and Kerryn McCann, both of whom lost their battle with breast cancer during 2008. They both leave behind husbands and young kids, and the thought of their kids growing up without their Mums just strikes at my heart.

Then I spoke to a friend on the phone and she mentioned 2 of her co-workers were battling breast cancer.

Apparently I went to bed with this all still going through my mind. I had the most realistic dream I have had for years, if not ever.

In the dream I went for a biopsy to check masses that had shown up during previous testing. The pain in my right breast from the biopsy during the dream was so real I can still almost feel it. I remember knowing I was dreaming but still being curled up in bed in the foetal position and in pain.

I then had to go to the Doctor to get the results of the biopsy and work out what the plan was, if any. She told me to go straight down to physio and organise a pair of crutches because I was going to be so sick from it all that I would need them (I fail to see the logic there, but I was dreaming so who am I to argue……)

What has me freaked out is how real it seemed, despite the fact that at the time I knew I was dreaming, and the pain that I felt from the “biopsy”.

Needless to say, I will be off to the Doctors early next week for referrals or whatever I need to get this checked out, if nothing else to put my mind at rest.

I hope that it all turns out to be a dream and nothing more. With no family history of breast cancer and my age being on the low side of the risk factors, everything should be ok, I just need to know for sure. I will let you all know once I have been to get everything checked out.

Bloody good way to freak yourself out for the beginning of a New Year huh????

Popularity: 71% [?]

As I write this for those of us in Sydney its already 2009, so Happy New to all of you.

All I can say is thank goodness 2008 is over. Its been one hell of a year - the highs have been really high and the lows really low and the in-between just felt like coasting between the two.

It all started on such a high (literally) when Hubby, the kids and I climbed Mt Kosciuszko on New Years Day 2008. All 2208 metres of it, and a 12km round trip of walking. Mostly it was hot too, so much for the altitude reducing the temperature!!!!

Then some of it stayed on a high and the rest just, well, collapsed. I did read in the paper a couple of weeks ago that its been a bad year all round because of the alignment of the planets and that next year is set to be better.

So to briefly tell you about the lows, the biggest one has been the journey with Daisy. Most, if not all of you, know that something has been going on, but maybe not what. I have been trying to find out if she is on the Autism spectrum, more specifically if she fits the description of someone with Asperger’s Syndrome. After 3 psychologist visits, 3 paediatrician appointments and 1 appointment with the Developmental Psychologist and 2 observations of her at school, I am really none the wiser. We have also had speech therapy every Saturday too. The whole process has felt like a rollercoaster ride and I still feel not much wiser in some ways, and in other ways a lot wiser. The latest from the Paediatrician is that he agrees with Aspergers but hasn’t diagnosed it formally, rather she is just “quirky”, but that she definitely has ADHD-Innattentive (ADHD-I) and ODD (Oppositional Defiance Disorder).  Apparently medication doesn’t work so well for ADHD-I so we need to try some other strategies to manage the every day things that we need to do at home. Also, because of the ODD, apparently normal discipline techniques don’t work (Yeah tell me about it when I have to get her out the door every morning) so we need to try some alternatives. I have spoken to her school about it and they will implement some more specific things for her next year, including access to the learning support teacher and the school counsellor.

This has been I guess not so much of a low but really an up and down emotional roller coaster ride. We at least have some direction for next year and the Paed wants to see us to review how things are going around March.

Then there was the marriage-stopping moment that we hit in August. Only through lots of talking, and a trip away, did we get through that one.

So, in an effort to not dwell on the negative, here are my positives for 2008:

1: The four of us climbed Mt Kosciuszko on New Years Day (no mean feat considering none of us were extremely fit)

2: Tiger recieved a Distinction and a Credit for his 1st and 2nd Grade Trumpet exams respectively, in only his 2 year of playing trumpet.

3: I started my blog, something that I had wanted to do for a long time. I can’t believe it has been almost a year already. I got to meet some wonderful people online through my blog, and even met some in the flesh. Amazing!!!!!!!

4: I was accepted into Uni and survived 2 semesters and 5 subjects with a very good result for all my subjects, and I am loving it

5: The rest of the family survived me studying

6: Daisy received an award at her end of year presentation day for “Most Outstanding Improvement”. This is big enough let alone everything that we have been through this year. Needless to say, I shed some tears when I found out she was getting an award, I think it was pure relief.

7: We had the best Christmas Day I can remember for a long time - we had my family and Hubby’s family here on Christmas Day. There was much food and alcohol consumed and everyone had a great time. That’s how it should be isn’t it?………

8: Hubby realised a long held dream and we got this as our family Christmas present:

Ours is a little different to the picture but it gives you an idea of what it is. For those that want the details, it is 18ft long, with a 2ft swim platform at the stern (back) and it has a V6 Mercruiser inboard (sterndrive) which just purrrrrrrrsssssss. And it goes FAST!!!!!  Hubby and I have worked on a happy medium of division of jobs and his job is to do the car and trailer bits and mine is to get the boat on and off the trailer and dock it so I can pick him up. With the exception of docking, the on and off the trailer bit really appeals to the revhead in me, cause I have to almost floor it to get it on and off *insert Tim the Toolman grunts*. All jokes aside, we are having great fun with it so far and it means that we have spent time as a family with little or no distraction. So far, we have put the boat in in the upper reaches of the Harbour and travelled down to the Harbour Bridge and also the Hawkesbury River, where the kids had their first go at water-skiing.

So I wish you all the best for 2009. I hope that you manage to see some dreams realised and that you and yours are healthy and happy. I know that for a lot of people 2008 has not been kind, including me, so I hope that 2009 is kinder to everyone, despite the forecasts for economic doom and gloom.

At the beginning of a New Year when we all face so much uncertainty, I hope that everyone finds some certainty in their lives.

Here’s to a virtual toast - Happy 2009 to all of you

Popularity: 72% [?]

The Big Day is here, for some it’s almost over. We have had a house full of family here today, with much laughter, fun, food and of course just a little bit of alcohol. Oh, and lots of presents too. Mainly for the kids Another great Christmas spending time with family, most of whom we don’t get to see enough of during the year.As another year draws to an end, its a time of reflection on the year just gone and lots of predictions and hope for the year ahead. I’ll post more on the year that has been closer to New Year’s, but Christmas seems to be a time of general reflection, almost as much as the New Year.

So my wish for you all for this Christmas, regardless of whether you celebrate it or not, and if so how, is that it is filled with much love, laughter and happiness and spending time with those that you care about, be they family or friends.

For those that need it, I also wish for forgiveness and peace. Not necessarily world peace, but inner peace.

I know, I’m a bit of a dreamer sometimes, but without dreams you have nothing to strive for. And no-one ever said that dreams have to be attainable, they just have to be dreams. Or goals, I guess it depends on how you look at it.

To my husband, thank you for another wonderful Christmas, at the end of another great year. I love you. And to my kids, thank you for the magic that kids put into Christmas, it truly is wonderful. I love you both.

All my very best wishes to all of you for Christmas. I hope that the holiday season is good to you and stay safe and well all of you.

Popularity: 74% [?]

Anja posted this meme and I put my hand up for a letter. First of all, the rules for the meme are as follows:

You leave a comment on this post and I’ll assign you a letter. You write about ten things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on.

You DO NOT have to do the meme if you only want to comment. Tell me if you want to do it. Otherwise you will not be tagged.

My nominated letter is “L” - here goes:

1. Love -because it makes the world go round. There are so many types of love and so many feelings associated with love, from unconditional love to romantic love and loving ourselves. I don’t mean vanity, I mean thinking enough of ourselves, knowing that we are all worthwhile and worthy of love and respect.

2. Letters - who doesn’t love to get old fashioned snail mail. Remember the good old days (OK so maybe some of you aren’t old enough) when snail mail was the only option? And letters declaring someone’s undying love - that’s the stuff old fashioned romance is made of

3. Lamb - When its roasted, its one of the ultimate comfort foods - with gravy and roast vegies of course.

4. Laughter - It really is the best medicine. How good is it when you laugh so hard your belly aches? Yeah it aches, but its worth it. And some days, if you don’t laugh you’ll cry, so better to laugh I say

5. Lawn - the smell of it freshly mowed and walking barefoot in it.

6. Learning - none of us should ever stop learning, whether its a conscious effort or just learning from our own mistakes. Only an arrogant person says that they have nothing else to learn

7. Lemon - the best accompaniment to my favourite food - seafood. Especially oysters, apparently they are an aphrodisiac………

8. Language - This is so much more than just words and without it we would all be lost in a world of no communication. How boring and quiet would life be. We humans are social beings and it is impossible to be social in any way without language.

9. Luggage - great if its yours, even better if its mine, cause then it means I am going somewhere.

10. Lunar - I find the moon fascinating and very soothing. There is just something about it. And it has an impact on all of us in ways we can’t begin to imagine as well as things like the tides. What an amazing thing our moon is.

So, there’s my 10 things. If you want to do the meme, then let me know in the comments and I will send you a letter

Popularity: 78% [?]

I’m not sure to be honest, it was probably the pain making me crazy. Or at least turning molehills into mountains. How could giving up blogging be a good thing??? Ummm, it wouldn’t be, for lots of reasons. But my reasoning was a little distorted, to say the least.

Early in November I was in a little bit of pain from an abscessed tooth. But there was a problem - my Uni exams were about a week later and I couldn’t miss them, right???? So, I did what any needle-phobic student with exams looming would do, went into denial and just took painkillers. I thought it was a great idea, just keep popping Nurofen Plus (ibuprofen and codeine in one marvellous tablet) and everything will be OK. I got the first exam done and then the next day (Friday) I admitted defeat and went to the Dentist. She gave me a script for antibiotics and an appointment was made for the Monday (straight after my second exam) to have the tooth out.

Remember that bit about me being needle-phobic??? That means for me to go to the Dentist and have a needle I have to have someone with me to calm my nerves a bit and squeeze the life out of their hand while the needle goes in. Right, Hubby lined up to take some time off work and come with me. We waited almost an hour in the waiting room and still no sign that I would be seeing the Dentist any time soon. By this time I was a sobbing mess at the anticipation of having to have a needle. I was close to being physically sick so we walked out. After talking to the Dentist about my needle phobia, another appointment was made for the Wednesday night and I was going to have to go by myself *gulp*.

After an hour and a half in the chair, I left with one tooth less than I walked in with, a stitch in my mouth where the tooth was and a script for some super pain killers. Oh, and a tendency to dribble after having a local anaesthetic . So the plan was now that the tooth was gone and the antibiotics finished all would improve. WRONG!!!!!!! It got worse……. I had Dry Socket (that link is to Wikipedia and gives an easy to understand explanation if you have never heard of it). The pain was worse than the abscess had been. I struggled to get through every day for another week and a half. I was so miserable because I wasn’t expecting to get worse, I was in pain and I couldn’t eat anything that required chewing at all. I guess the upside is I did lose a bit of weight.

This was about the time that I posted that I wasn’t going to blog anymore. I really wasn’t keeping my head above water and I was getting behind at work and at home. I really felt at the time that the best option was to remove any online distractions, including my blog. The other online things are gone, except for Aussie Bloggers Forum and I have decided to keep my blog going, for a few reasons.

Early this year I decided that this was going to be a year for me to do things just for me and the two big things are Uni and blogging. To give up now with the blogging would mean giving up something that I love doing. Not just the blogging, but the friendships formed through blogging and the people that I have met, both online and in real life. That means too much to me to give it up.

So, if anyone still has me in the readers, or their blogroll, then I am officially back

Things are looking up a lot - I have had 3 or 4 days with no painkillers and my Uni results are in and even with the tooth dramas I still managed to pass both units. So now I have time with family and friends over Christmas and two weeks off work for relaxing to look forward to. Bring it on.

Popularity: 86% [?]