Chickafinty ~ A Life in the Laundry

Shattered

Mister Bear works in Aged Care and has a lot to do with one of the facilities called Newmarch.  M. works at Newmarch and has a little dog called Cocoa.  Cocoa comes to work with her every day and visits with the residents.  He's very popular with everyone.  It is his first birthday today and they are having a birthday party at the nursing home to celebrate.

Except that Cocoa got out onto the road this morning and was killed.

On his birthday.

Mister Bear is pretty shattered, but is training today at Gordon, so he has to put his brave face on and train anyway.  I am pretty shattered.  I only met Cocoa once, but I have heard all about his antics and carryings on from Mister Bear.  Mr Bear had to deliver a birthday card for Cocoa today from one of the girls in the Volunteers Office.  I don't know if he will now.  I hope so because if nothing else it will demonstrate to M. how much Cocoa was loved.

M. will be absolutely devastated and my heart breaks for her.  It also breaks for the residents who considered Cocoa to be *their* doggy, and were looking forward to his birthday party this afternoon.

It is indeed a very sad day.

ETA Mister Bear delivered the card on Saturday so M. will already have it.  My day has been completely thrown out of whack...this is just so very sad.

It was the rainbow unicorns

The world hadn't gone to pot this morning, so the day started off better than i had anticipated.

The Other Half's project is being rolled out this week, which in IT terms means we have basically not seen him during the week since the roll out began.  The days have been very very long without him and the poor man is utterly exhausted when he does get home.

The good things are that this is the end of Phase One and that two of the facilities involved in Phase One are about 10 minutes from home.  In the day time there is nothing happening in the early afternoon in the project so he has been able to come home for lunch.  He's been working 12-13 hour days so that little respite in the middle of the day has been lovely for him, and for us.

The bad thing is that this is the end of Phase One, and Phase Two and Three are yet to run.  None of the Phase II and Phase III facilities are near home, and when they roll out he'll be working 14-16 hour days with no middle of the day respite.  The roll-out goes over two weeks.  We're not looking forward to that at all.

Please, please, please pray that he doesn't get sick again.  When he gets overtired, he gets sick and we simply cannot afford for him to get sick again this year.  There's some stuff going on to do with that, and basically it's not good, so please, if you'd care to, pray that he doesn't get sick.

The other stuff that was going on in the background came to fruition this week and was resolved very nicely in the negative.  Usually that's a bad thing, but in this case it wasn't.  There was a possible move on the cards.  It fell through and we're both relieved.  The Other Half had a bad vibe about it from the get go and the longer it went on, the worse the vibe got.  I was nervy, but as usual it was hard to tell whether the thing itself was wrong, or whether it was just me and my pathological hatred of change.

 

Tomorrow

It's possible, possible that we could wake up tomorrow and find that the world has gone to pot.

Or we could wake up tomorrow and discover that rainbow-pooping unicorns have been cavorting on the lawn.

My money would be on the pot-bit, but then I am a glass half-empty kind of girl.

"Just because it's written down doesn't make it true"

This piece of advice was handed to me by my new doctor.  Of all the things he has said this is the one piece of advice/counsel that has stuck most firmly, and the bit to which I cling when piddling about on the internet.

Unfortunately the bit about being able to walk away and not be upset by something was very short-lived - about a month to be precise - and I'm back to being on tenterhooks on the internet.  This morning I read something that made me very angry indeed.  It was written by a person whose opinions always rub me up the wrong way.  (In fairness I suspect that my opinions make her feel likewise.)  As usual she was spouting off on a topic that has nothing to do with her, and is never likely to affect her.  I had to breathe deep and walk away.  It's her opinion.  I don't share her opinions - on anything - so today's pontifications were hardly a surprise.  It would be pointless to disagree.  So the best option is to simply walk away.  Again.

"I'll pray for you"

I'm working my way through "Teach Me to Pray" by Andrew Murray.  It's hard going and slow going because there's lots to think about and time to be alone and contemplative is thin on the ground.

He talks extensively about intercessory prayer, and how important it is in the life of a believer.  This is an element of prayer that I have kind of taken for granted as that's what Christians do; they pray for others.  They pray during times of sickness and sadness.  They pray in praise.  They pray for guidance.  They pray for their families, their churches, their leaders, their politicians, their friends, their pets.  It's what Christians do.  They pray.  It's not a badge of honour, nor a sign that God cares more for the Christian, or that the Christian is in God's good books, it is simply what we do.  A lot of the time it is the only thing we can do.

Point form

• Dad had a heart attack on Saturday morning while visiting at our place
• He had an emergency angiogram late Saturday night and had three stents put in
• My sister arrived from England on Tuesday morning, but her bags didn't.  Last heard of they are in Abu Dhabi
• Dad is home from the hospital
• Mum stayed with us while Dad was in the hospital and I looked after her
• To look at them you would think that Mum is the one who has had the heart attack.  She is very very tired.  So is Dad
• My sister is caring for them this week and I will take over again when she returns to England on Saturday
• Dad had to go back to the hospital last night with chest pain.  He's ok.  They kept him overnight and all his bloodwork came back fine so he's been/being released
• I got home from the hospital a bit after midnight (it's been six very long days)
• Dad's gone from 3 tablets a day to I-can't-remember-how-many-tablets a day
• I'm going backwards and forwards between their place and the hospital while still homeschooling the kids (or trying to, maybe, would be more accurate)
• There's other stuff going on in the background that I can't talk about yet
• I think that's all

Stocktake

A number of events in the past couple of weeks or so have forced me/us to do a stocktake.  If you like, a specifically spiritual stocktake - a taking-the-temperature of our lives and seeing what is good, what is not good and what is downright bad.

My people have just come home and I need to be with them, so this will have to wait...

In a bit of a state of shock

For a few weeks our church have been asking for prayer for M. a mother of two and a grandmother of a new grandbaby who has been sick.  I know her only slightly, but have chatted with her at least once as when her girls were little they homeschooled them for a while.

I thought "sick" meant flu, or bad back or something similar.  But "sick" in this instance means seriously ill.  Seriously ill.

I can't believe it.  She's so young, her daughters are younger than me (by a long way) and her grandbaby's life can be measured in weeks or months...not sure how mnay but she was born this year.

Apparently it has taken several months to find out what is wrong and now they are doing all they can, but it's not much.  Her condition was described in church this morning as deteriorating.

Please, if you are the praying kind, bring M. her daughters, son in law, and her parents before the Throne.  Her parents belong to the church as well and they are struggling with their daughter's most serious illness.  They would covet your prayers, I know.

A word on housing "affordability"

Ross Greenwood was on the Today show this morning, spruiking the possibility of a new housing boom based on the "increased afforability of homes".

What the??

Affordability (apparently) increases when demand is high and interest rates low i.e. the current situation.  Huh??

I thought affordability was the ability to "afford" the mortgage repayments.

Let's look at a smaller example for a minute.

Demand for enormous flat screen tvs is high.  Interest rates are low.  According to the current economic model the affordability for flat screen tvs must be huge.

But it isn't.  A quick look at our bottom line indicates that we cannot afford a huge flat screen tv.  The interest rate is irrelevant if the repayments cannot be made in the first place.  The number of flat screen tvs is irrelevant if we cannot afford to buy one.

The average house price in Sydney is $544000.  By what measure is this affordable?  Over half a million dollars for the average home, when the average income is $60000.  On that basis you need TWO average wages to "afford" ONE house.  Huh?!?!?!?

The economists have gone mad, but that wouldn't matter, except that the government is relying on them to run the asylum.

Simply explained

Step 1: read this (link opens in new window)

Step 2: substitute $8000 tax credit for First Home Buyer's Grant,

and there you have the situation of thousands of Australians.

Some of them will be all right.  Most of them won't.

When will this debt madness end.