Destruction....

I feel so helpless at the moment,with so much destruction around the state and with in my local community, it feels wrong for me to be going about my normal every day life. I found out today that a friend of mine lost their house in the fires on the weekend and i cannot describe the anger that i feel towards to person/people who decided to purposely light a fire on what was already know to be one of the most dangerous days weather wise this year. There will not be a punishment suitable for the magnitude of damage they have caused, the loss of life and property, the time and efforts of everyone involved with fighting the fires and dealing with the aftermath of it all.

Luckily, no one i know has be killed by the events, most people i know have managed to save their properties, or may have only lost a shed or two. There is only one person i know of personally to have lost their home.

There is nothing i can do to help except donate money or goods, but that just doesn't seem like enough, it seems so wrong for me to be doing my normal stuff when people around me have had their lives ripped apart.

well, my piece has been said, i will keep looking for ways i can help, but in the mean time i have to continue on with my own life and do the normal everyday things and be truly thankful that i still have my life and property.

My heart and thoughts go out to anyone who has been affected by this disaster.

Wendy

Extreme heat and Bush fires

As many of you are aware, We are having a huge heatwave here in Vic, last week we had 4 days over 40C, the average being about 43 degrees each day. On top of that a bushfire has ravage through some of the local towns (luckily not mine), we were given a short break of hot weather and it has returned today with Melbourne having hit 48degress so i am told! we are on about 42 at the moment and it is 7pm! Bush fires have flared up again and are quite local this time, one of them is very close to our old house in Jeeralang. From our back door we can see the flames as it travels across the valley. At 4pm this afternoon,(when the "red" photo was taken!) the place was very eery, it was orange and quiet. No one was about, and there was hardly a sound on the air. It is pitch dark, in fact you would think it was about 10pm. The wind is still quite strong and it has started to rain. We thought the rain was quite welcome and stood outside in it only to come in and find we were covered in soot. The house is black, the car is black, the dog is black (yep Ash the dog is covered in ash!) There is going to be alot of cleaning up to do tomorrow, but at least i am very thankful that all i will be doing is washing and not sifting through ash and rubble.

We are pretty much have fires on all sides of us at the moment, the highway to Melbourne is closed from Trafalgar due to the fire around that area having jumped containment lines, the fires at boolara and Churchill have blocked that side of us, there is another one just started at Walhalla (back of Tyers - another of our old houses!) which is impacting on Erica and Rawson, so the only way for us to travel (should we want to ) would be towards Sale! Thankfully we are pretty safe here in town here in Morwell, one of the times i am thank full that i do not live out of town!.

Anyway, i have a 7year old sleepover going on at the moment, so i guess i should go and check on the movie!!

Isn't it funny how i only seem to blog when life is bright and happy!! It seems that as soon as i post about how well things are going, life turns its tail on me!!

December was a very busy and stressful month for me (as it is for most of us!) i had to work full time (yep, i know, poor old me....I am not used to it, haven't worked full time for about 9years!!) so that compounded with PMT and christmas didn't exactly make me the brightest, hgappiest person around.

That being said, it led me to some great places! I discovered a local naturopath who has worked some wonders on the hormonal side of life, lets just say, my family can now live with me all month and they don't have to move out for 2 weeks!! I reintroduced some carbs back into my food to help with energy levels and i have been learning lots of new and useful info from the Lean Eating course i am doing (seriously, i have made some great little changes to my whole lifestyle, the course is great, it is not a "diet plan" but really looks at life as a whole, rest, relaxation, support, exersice, food etc you name it, they have probably got a lesson on it!)

We have moved the TV out of the lounge which has been a great move, the lounge is now a "chill out zone" I always have "lounge music" playing in the background, it is tidy and there are no kids things cluttering up the floor and it makes such a huge difference when you walk into the house as the lounge is one of the first rooms you see. Austar has been taken out aswell, much to the kids disgust, but they have adjusted!! they are finding new ways to entertain themselves and are not so reliant on the TV!!!

We headed off to NZ for christmas with Mike's Rellies and had a great time. Everyone was nice and relaxed and we came home really feeling refreshed and renewed!

We have just about finished the summer school hols, only one more week until they are back at school and then all those after school activites will start again. We have all enjoyed the hols, Mike has had 2 days off per week, as have I and it has worked well, no one is stressing!! We just need to keep these feelings when everything gets back to normal! What is normal? Te past few weeks have been awesome, so is there any reason why the feelings cannot be carried over once the "old routine" starts again. Maye that should be my new years resolution..not stress so much, relax and let things just happen!

Hope the new year is being good to everyone out there in blog land and i promise to blog more often!!!

Have a good one

Wendy