Down The Bumpy Road Together on Thankful Thursday

This week was a little bumpy in every sense of the word for our little family. The weather hit hard, I came down hard at Netball, my daughter learned some hard lessons about friendship, poor hubby was pulled in every direction, and my son and our fur babies have been pushing boundaries. Even though, I feel there is much to be thankful for this week. 

• I have been injured and getting back on my feet this week, and although it is a slow process, I know I am making progress.
• The weekend brought some chilly weather, and a batch of snow which always brings delight to our household.
  

•   My daughter had a sleepover with her bestie. This was something they had been planning for a long time, but quite a bit has happened between them in the meantime. Miss 10 has learned quite a bit about friendship, the games that can be played, and about staying true to yourself in the process. They remain friends and she had a good time at the sleepover, but I think it has been quite a big growth period for her.
• Not only did hubby attend to his poor, injured wife in her time of need and ongoing disability, he also has been rounding up the children, attending to the family animals, keeping our home tidy and our bellies fed, AND responding in less than ideal conditions to calls of distress from the community in regard to the heavy rainfall, winds and flooding in the area. On top of this, he has understandably has come down with a cold of his own!
• Not to be outdone, Mr 6 is the usual ball of energy. He seems torn at the moment, after his recent Parent/Teacher/Student meeting and School Report, between wanting to move forward with his reading and writing, and not wanting to knuckle down to do the work required. Ho hum ..... how many more years of school left?
• Our dogs which you can meet here and here, have been having a ball in the backyard together, shredding the grass, getting muddy and generally enjoying life by making a mess in the rain as only dogs can. The guinea pigs seem quite oblivious to the rain, given there raised homes, but they have been consistent to letting anyone in earshot know, no matter which side of the fence they be on, that they love their food and are always happy for more. 

 Always eventful, but always full of lesson and laughter!

Have You Got The Time Or Skills to Be A Volunteer?

Do you find yourself thinking "I have a skill or knowledge that is going to waste", or "My week is boring and I'd like to do something different", or "I'm sick of my own company", or "I want to do something occasionally to help others"? Do you find yourself not doing anything about it because you don't know who to ask, or in which direction to go, or simply because it would put you out of your comfort zone?

Volunteering is a two-way benefit. Whilst you are volunteering your time, skill and energy, I am yet to see a volunteer who is not receiving something beneficial in return. 

There are so many opportunities out there.

In fact, there are so many businesses and organisations that rely on volunteers. Without the work of these volunteers, many services would not be offered or would cost so much more.

In Australia, there is a great Volunteer website that looks at your interests, where you are, how much time you have and your skills and gives you a list of where and how you could be useful. (See below for some international websites.)

I have been volunteering with the State Emergency Service in Tasmania for 15 years, on a minimal level, and also try to do Clean Up Australia each year, so I am familiar with the concept of volunteering ..... but I was shocked at the huge array of opportunities available in you are looking for something to do.

My husband is also a long-term volunteer.

Through volunteering we have both had the opportunity to meet new people, learn new skills and gain experience in valuable areas. Mostly, we feel we are contributing and making a difference.

There is no time like the present to look into becoming a volunteer in your area.

Volunteer in Australia         http://volunteer.com.au/

Volunteer in UK                 http://www.volunteering.org.uk/

Volunteer in Canada           http://volunteer.ca/ 

Volunteer in America          http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov/

Volunteer in New Zealand   http://www.volunteeringnz.org.nz/

If your country is not listed, the websites are usually easy to find by searching on the Internet.

Just keep knocking

Children are in bed. Just hubby and I. Good old horror flick coming on soon. Snuggled on the lounge. Just get past the intro ..... hubby's pager goes off. Are you kidding me?

Nope, not kidding. This is the usual scenario.
As I sit on my lonesome and the movie starts to heat up, I wonder... Did hubby set his own pager off to get out of watching the movie? No, surely not. We have seen it before. Pretty scary - very real. He laughed as it began this time that the movie wasn't really that scary. I reminded him that it had just started.

I am totally into the depths of the movie. The weather outside is horrible with wind and rain. Poor hubby is out in it. The scenes of the movie are the sort that you don't want to see but you can't look away. The hour is getting late. I jump half a foot in the air ..... the phone rang.

It is hubby. He is ringing to let me know the accident rescue job will take quite a bit longer with a truck involved and blocking the road. He's not sure how much longer.

He then informs me

"I don't think I grabbed my house keys, just leave the door unlocked."

A huge pause from me as I stare ahead blankly. I remind him what movie I am watching and tell him the odds of this happening is nil.

He will just have to stand out in the cold and knock!

Am I dreaming or is this life?

It was just like an action movie and I was in the thick of it.
We were down near the river and noticed the beginning of a small tornado. It whirled around, pulling the water up into the air. Of course! I thought, that's why we can't find him. He has obviously been scooped up by a tornado and has been dropped outside the search zone.


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 A flashy blue Ute pulls up in front of me on the banks of the river. On the back, it has a huge jet hose and the water is shooting out and aiming into the centre of the tornado. Is this guy crazy? But then I realise his intention is to get pulled INTO the tornado through the connection of the hose and water. This way he will be dumped elsewhere too. It's a shame his nice Ute has to go too. Suddenly, as if the water and tornado are not enough, I notice sparks coming off the tornado which catch the bushes on the river's edge. Small fires are now burning and the smoke is clouding the sky.

Hmmmm .... so what was that all about?
It is no secret that some medication can cause some pretty weird dreams. The previous anxiety tablets caused me very vivid dreams every night where I would wake, sometimes several times a night covered in sweat.
My current tablets have been good as far as side effects go. Wacky dreams happen every so often.

Can I really blame the medication though?

The last week has been a little out of the ordinary at our house. Hubby has been searching for a local teenager who jumped from the bridge into the river at 2am Friday morning. As a volunteer for the State Emergency Service, we expect this occasionally. Mostly, his call outs are "quick fix" situations. A car accident, a roof blown off, sand-bagging flooded waters, searching for a lost hiker. These are usually resolved within the same day, if not in a couple of hours.
Tomorrow, it will be one week since the teenager jumped.
Hubby has been on the river, or searching the river bank every day for the past week, alongside the other volunteers, police and search helicopter. So hubby has been a little preoccupied to say the least, and absent for much of the week.


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Master 3 has also decided that our bed is OUR bed. One in - all in.

Neither hubby or I have any energy left to fight it. So I am usually the jam in the bed sandwich. Very snug, very cosy, very BLOODY UNCOMFORTABLE AND CLAUSTROPHOBIC!

Add to this, my usual 4 day working week and the requests and demands as I currently work solo due to my workmate being on annual leave.

I remember thinking, in the midst of my dream, the tornado is just how I am feeling - spinning around and out of control. Being swept along. It's quite funny that I was analysing my dream as it was occurring.

So really, I don't think it was all that strange to be having this dream since our week has been dominated by the search, the reorganising of the family, rushing here and there to drop off to school and then to work, mixed with appointments.

Hubby was so grateful this morning when I told him about my dream and the reason why they haven't found the missing teenager. "A tornado! Of course, why didn't we think of that?"

Grateful for .... the safety of others

This week the weather has been what some might call "undesirable" with gusty winds, rain, snow, and icy roads. Personally our family look forward to a play in the snow.

What our family DOES NOT look forward to the sound of hubby's pager for so many reasons. Although my husband is a committed, long term volunteer of our local State Emergency Service, for us it means...

1. Someone, or more than one person is in a position of needing help. Whether they have had a car accident, having trouble with flood waters or storm conditions, or need to be searched for.
2. Often the person in need may have sustained injury. The injuries vary, especially in a car accident so not only are they needing help to get out of their situation, but often need urgent medical care.
3. The person in need is the worry of someone else. Whether the person/s is someones' son, nephew, best friend, husband, father, neighbour (I'm sure you get the idea of what I'm trying to say) the fact that they are in need is causing worry for someone.
4. The situation does not always have a happy ending with everyone going home. It is particularly these moments when the our volunteers and the community feels the full force of the situation. 
5. Being from a rural community, the volunteers are bound to know some of the people they go out to help. This isn't always easy and on several occassions, the person in need of help has been a relative.
6. The volunteers have to leave what they are doing at that moment, whether it is sleeping, grocery shopping or on a family outing.
7. The volunteers have to be out in that foul weather for who knows how long until the job is done.

So we are ever so grateful that this week, with the road and weather conditions, that the people in our community have not been in a situation to need help. We are grateful for not having to hear the pager.
Very grateful that we have not had to worry about what sort of situation our volunteers are walking into.