For about 4 years now I've been hammered by bad luck.  Don't get me wrong - there's been the odd 'good' thing happen in that time (meeting and marrying my husband for example), but it really does seem like someone has been directing some bad luck voodoo in my direction.  The amount of bad luck, the number of hits, one after the other, got me thinking a few weeks ago.  I've said before: it seems that I must have broken a very large mirror to account for the prolonged run of extremely bad luck I've been experiencing.  It seemed that the bad luck was seeping out to the people I love too as they suffered mishaps you'd only see in soap operas!  read more »

Erk, I'm ill today but I'm mustering some energy to post some exciting news we've received.

My hubby Ben finally received his Australian residency!  Yay! We've had this hanging over our heads for more than two years now so it is a surreal feeling to think that we can rest assured immigration isn't going to kick him out.  So now Ben has to get busy finding himself a job (he had a work permit but was finding that employers were after people with residency), a driver's licence, and another car.  This is a temporary residency - in September we will get another form to fill out for permanent residency.  I think that's really just a formality and we'll get through that easily.  For the past few years Ben's felt like a 'non-person' here so it'll make a huge difference for him :)

Woo hoo!  I am now gadgetly fulfilled!  I bought a GPS navigation thingy from ebay.  It's a cheap knockoff but it works wonderfully.  I pathetically use it to tell me how to get to the local shops, despite having done the trip thousands of times over the 15 years I've lived in this neighbourhood.

I can choose which accent I would like to have the voice directions in.  The english language choices for the I-GO map system are an American bloke, a posh British bloke, or a British woman.  The posh British bloke sounds like I have Prince Charles,  in my car, fallen on hard times and doing his day job.  He rolls his 'r's' when he says 'rrrrroute rrrrecalculation!' The British woman just sounds bored and I wouldn't be surprised if she fell asleep on the job and I'd end up at Ayers Rock because she never told me to 'turn left at the next junction'.  read more »

My apologies for not keeping the waffling up.  I have been waffling elsewhere however.  Lots of things going on.  I've stepped up the pace on the girls' homeschooling.  Towards the end of  'last term' (is it sacrilege to talk of 'terms' when homeschooling?!) we got pretty slack. Maddy has come ahead in leaps and bounds and I have no trouble providing work for her as I'm a primary school teacher by trade, but Brenna's high school work is another story.   read more »