Random

Will do posts of gingerbread house outreach soon. God smiled on it.

I need to go to bed. Got answers to some of my health problems this week, I'm anaemic and have gastritis.

Today we went to a rural fire brigade demonstration. Who said there's nothing to do in Bell?

Peter is out every night bar one, next week.

We are doing a combination Jesse/Chocolate/Advent Calendar, made by Lucy and I. Will post photos.

Hamish is gradually getting better, but he's been fruit/gluten and dairy free for more than 6 weeks now. I'm more than over it.

I realised I might have settled in now when I go to community events and know more than half of the people there. In fact I don't think I've been to the library or the shop in recent weeks and NOT known someone. Scary.

Kid's food

I'm sick of eating the food our kids eat. I'm sick of Spag Bol, Rissoles, Sausages, Corned Beef, Burritos - if you are a parent you know the list - Baked and Mashed Potatoes. I want grownup food. I want to eat food with herbs and spices in it! I want Indian, Olives, Thai.

Just saying.

Outreach

I got a phone call last night from a lady whose invitees to the Gingerbread House outreach had called her, having heard that it had been cancelled!

Got to love the local rumour mill. Not.

10 things I can do now that I live in the bush

1. Bake sponge cakes, in their various forms.
2. Do groceries once a month (not including fruit and veg).
3. Recognize some breeds of cattle.
4. Not be daunted when faced with endless quiche, egg sandwiches and cups of tea when at communal meals.
5. Recognize most farming equipment.
6. Recognize most crops.
7. Sew simple patchwork.
8. Organise 'a kill' with the butcher - haven't done lamb yet though!
9. Not be freaked out when some person previously unknown to me calls me to ask me to email her the moon gardening section from the Better Homes and Gardens I've got out from the library because the librarian gave her my name!
10. Have conversations about the rain (or lack of it) without cringing. I actually know what points (rain) are now!

Better go. Need to fold 4 baskets of washing. We had visitors on the weekend.

End of the year in the bush

On Thursday night Peter and I went along to the annual Belle and Beau Ball for the local school. We were invited to judge the Belle and the Beau. The local school only has 90 children from prep to year 10, and I think nearly all of them were there.

It was a little like going back in time. The kids have dance cards and do old fashioned bush dances like the Gypsy Tap and the Pride of Erin. Our criteria included escorting the partner back to their seat, smiling and conversing while dancing, as well as appearance.

We were waaay overdressed but we sort of thought we would be.

More living in the bush

The power continually goes out here. We get frequent notices from Energex about a panned half day power outage - roughly once every two months. However, it's the unplanned ones that get you - about once a week in summer. It takes hours and hours for it to come back on. Not much we could do about it today - we just all went to sleep. Poor DH, though, can't work...

This is funny

A reminder of our church...

My diary

Is totally blank for next week.

Such is life in the bush.

It's wheat, at least

Have had HB on failsafe, wheat, egg and dairy (obviously) free diet for 10 days now. His symptoms cleared up after 5 days. So, this morning I gave him a wheat challenge - VitaBrits for breakfast. 3 hours later, symptoms return.

:(. Hope there aren't more intolerances...

I did it

I bought the material for a quilt, already cut. I'm going to make this out of it (front page, "Fran's Fab Jelly Roll Quilt".

Apparently it is very easy. All I need is to get some child-free time, honey?

Tired, lonely and bored

Pretty much describes me at the moment. I need an attitude adjustment.

What would make it easier in the bush

Some friends for Peter and I who are a married couple who we could have a casual 'come over for dinner/bbq/dessert/whatever' and just hang out with. This is the first time we haven't had close friends around in our whole lives! Yes, God is teaching us lots without them, and I really appreciate the loneliness of missionaries now and am so thankful I'm not out here single!

The rumour mill

According to local lore, we are buying Cowbelle's coffee shop and I am going to work there!

Diets

Still don't have any results from the doctor. I know that DH's test for haemochromatosis took weeks to come back because it was a genetic one so I wonder how long it will take. I have a little boy whose tummy is so bloated by the end of the day and who is so miserable and will hardly eat anything that I have decided to put him (and all of us, except LJ) on a dairy free, gluten free, FAILSAFE diet. A failsafe diet is low in natural and artificial chemicals. This significantly reduces what we can eat down to rice, pears, cashews, some vegetables and most meats except preserved meats like bacon and ham. Sugar is also ok. Haven't decided on egg yet (LJ has only recently grown out of her egg allergy and I grew out of it at about the same age), but if I add it in at least I can bake some biscuits, muffins and cakes.

Off to do a recipe search on the net....

Music Blog

DH has begun a music blog in order to share among more isolated pastors, examples of Christian songs that work well when sung in a congregation.

You can find it here.

Yuck

HB has had low grade diahorrea for 8 weeks now. They've tested him and there appears to be no reason, so today he had a blood test for coeliacs. I hope it isn't positive in one way, but in another it would be nice to have some answers.

Not a consultant

Got a letter in the mail today to say that I'm now an 'inactive' Creative Memories consultant. I'm sad. I'd have loved to keep going but there's no business in the bush!

How embarrassment

Last year I wrote about how everyone talked about the rain. And after we had a storm this morning during church, and some rain early this morning, my first thought was to check the rain gauge.

2.5ml, for those who are interested. First rain in many, many months. We'll have a green lawn soon.

An email from a friend

Got this in our inbox this week -

The Ten Commandments for Living in a Country Town

1. You must pursue prosperity and comfort above all other things
2. You must never show weakness or imperfection
3. If you come from a Church family, you must go to church, if you don’t, you must not
4. You must leave town on two out of three long weekends, except during the footy season
5. You must honour your father & mother in principle and you must not reprimand another person’s kids
6. You must never fail
7. You must never say no to anyone
8. If your business is failing, it is better to go broke or go to gaol than to ask someone for help
9. You must never confront and thereby upset anyone, rather, you should complain bitterly about your neighbour & criticise him behind his back
10. You must not possess pre-owned things: second hand cars, hand-me-downs or op-shop clothes. You must always wear brand name clothes. You must drive a well known make of car & update it regularly, and your house must be nicer than the house of your neighbour.

Your value as a human being is closely associated with your net worth, and nothing is wrong unless someone else finds out, therefore I say unto you, whatever your flesh desires, pursue with all your heart and soul and strength, and never let anyone get the better of you. All of the law is contained in these two commandments.

Our Son

HB is going to set a record for the longest amount of time spent crawling EVER. He commando crawled in January and properly crawled in Feb. It's now October.

I'm not sure

but I think I just paid 45 dollars for Lucy to have 3 swimming lessons a week, for 30 minute duration, in a group of about 3 kids.

This occurs at the local school pool. The parents all bring large platters of food and share with each other and each others' kids. The Mums sit and chat. I'm glad she can go even if she's not school age.

FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS? Really, isn't the term about 10 weeks long?

Anniversary

It's one year since we moved to the bush.

I have been 'bleaming' some reflections but will write when I've had more sleep.

Am I the only one?

Does anybody else make spag bol from scratch?

New in bell Part 2

We are getting a new footpath! This is big news. Bell has previously only had one.

Another lovely thing about living in the bush

Happened while I had to call the school yesterday where DH was working as I'd almost fainted. Then that night the school admin lady called to see how I was feeling.

Coffee in the bush

This is a picture of takeaway coffee from our coffee shop. Prizes for whomever can guess what the cup carrier actually is.

The Ambulance at the bottom of the cliff

We seem to take this approach to holidays ALL the time, waiting till we are exhausted before arranging, by which time we are totally past it when we get there. Anyone got a strategy to help us avoid this?

It would have to be this family

Hamish is allergic to dairy milk protein. Peter is the same. Lucy has a peanut allergy. Occasionally I get hayfever (it's really nothing). And the cat - well it appears she's allergic to seafood, according to our very helpful vet. Have you ever tried to buy cat food with no seafood in it? I can tell you it is FAR from easy! It would have to be us...

The Twelve Month Rule

A friend mentioned to me that she finds it takes 12 months after moving to work out where she wants all her furniture. On reflection, of the 3 houses I've lived in since we were married, I've done a major reshuffle 12 months after. Am about to do another. Anyone else have the same experience?

Entering the 'day off from motherhood' debate

I've been reading the debate on Jean's blog, Simone's blog, and even Andrew's blog, on the trend for Christian mothers to take a 'day off' and put their children into childcare. After skimming most (there are a LOT of comments) of the comments on Jean's blog, I really want to summarise (I LOVE summarising). I think most of the discussion comes down to the following:

1. Motivation for putting kids into childcare
These range from financial necessity to wanting a day off to do things by yourself to having postnatal depression.

In general I think there is a general feeling among Christians for the need to remove ourselves from anything that might be difficult, and I think that this could be the motivation behind this movement.

2. Where and how often, the childcare occurs.
Where - Family, close friend, family day care, childcare centre.
Obviously if care other than by a parent must be provided, it would be ideal if a sister in Christ or family member were providing the care. I was blessed that DH normally looked after LJ and when he didn't a Christian sister who had a very similar mothering style to me could watch her. I am aware that I was very blessed.

Will an hour a week do?
Is there any other way I can get some time to myself?

3. Age of children
Varies from 6 weeks to 5 years. Research shows that children under 3 are not at an optimal age to be in a group childcare setting, mainly due to communication development, which is why Kindy is different from sending kids to childcare.

I should state that in general, childcare needs to be seen as a final, last resort rather than the first resort. I also don't believe that churches and communities generally don't work as they should.

I should also say that I am not without sympathy on this issue of finding motherhood difficult. I've worked a few hours a week to put my husband through college because it meant we had more time together as a family. I've also been totally exhausted and at the end of my tether because (as readers will know) our baby didn't sleep more than an hour and a half in a row at night until he was 8 months old. We live far from support. I've also suffered from depression.

We often look for a way out of our problems instead of looking to the Lord to help us in our difficulties...

Jean's recent blog post on asking ourselves what is most loving for our children is particularly relevant, I think that's the question to ask ourselves.

Having a day off in Ministry

We'v always struggled to consistently have day off together. This has been much worse since we've been out here. We've discovered recently that we need to leave town in order to have a day off or we have to hide inside the house. This feels awful, so it's easier to just leave. Thankfully we can leave the new kitten for the day. The new kitten seems not to have learnt from her wet experience and continues to walk along the edge while the kids are in the bath.

Cats and Water

The kitten, Belle, finally jumped in the bath with the kids tonight, to much hilarity. She wasn't overly happy, obviously.

Some cat crazy assistant at the pet store told me she has trained her cats to shower with her. WHY?

Writing a talk

I'm FINALLY writing my Bible talk, which hopefully I'll use at the women's evangelism event we have here in December. In fact, I'm taking it to a course on Saturday in Brisbane (DH minding the kids by himself for the second Saturday in a row - WHAT a man). What I'm surprised about is that it appears my brain actually does have the capacity for such intellectual functioning while still breastfeeding. It's got me itching to do more, actually - the kids ministry I do isn't enough for me any more. Pity I haven't got much time!

One Marriage

This article amazed me. How this woman managed to do what she did without the strength of the Lord to call upon I do not know. Thanks Simone.

What do People Do All Day?

is the title of my favourite childhood Richard Scarry book. A real gem, and thankfully I now own our even-then-secondhand copy, as they are hard to find now.

I logged on to read the latest newsletter at Kid's Craft Weekly, to read a link to this article, which reminded me of the debate at Nathan and Simone's blogs about why mothers feel the need to share the intimate details of their children's lives on facebook/their blogs/whatever.

This article is yet another reminder to me that motherhood is servanthood in the true washing-people's-feet way that Jesus did. We're not made for it, Nathan, it's difficult, so yes, we need encouragement to stay Godly while we run our unglamourous race.

Last night God, in his infinite wisdom, decided a dear little girl was better off in His arms than her parents'.

It was one of those times when you go and hug your kids - even when they're asleep.

Goodbye, little A. You will be missed, more than you will ever know.

"And I will dance with Cinderella, while she is here in my arms
Cause one day soon, the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone."

Jimbour House Opera

I took the kids and a friend to the Opera at Jimbour House today. Jimbour is a TINY settlement half an hour west of here that boasts Jimbour House, stopover of Ludwig Leichhardt and one of the original settlements on the Darling Downs. It's lovely to visit, most of our guests get a tour, and sells some very nice wine.

Once every two years it hosts an Opera in its ampitheatre behind the house itself. This year the Noonan Family performed a fantastic mix of traditional opera and popular stuff. There were THOUSANDS. We stood on top of the hill and it took 3 photos to capture the people!

Thankfulness

I am thankful for a dear friend who watches my children for an hour a week so I can spend some serious time in God's word and prayer. She has many struggles, and is single, but the idea of putting herself out so I can spend time with God doesn't phase her.

Praise God.

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect" (Rom 12:2)

Great website

Thanks Cath - www.storynory.com.

Hours of enchanted listening for fairy tale obsessed children.

Animalia

Mice, mice and more mice - I have a half written post on that. More later.

We are about to take receipt of a small grey fluffy kitten whom I hope will have an insatiable appetitie for the things.

We ran over our first Wallaby last night. A huge population of them lives on the hill at the end of our street. Thankfully the trailer hit it and not us or the motorcyclist behind us. LJ took it surprisingly without comment.

Random animals seen on trips to Toowoomba -
turtles
1000s of mice
wallabies (dead and alive)
foxes (as above)
pigs (thankfully just dead)

The turtles surprised me. Who knew?

Surviving a mouse plague

They are everywhere at the moment, even living in cars. YUCK. Two dozen have met their end because they were living in our compost heap and Peter drowned them, or because they ate a bait. So far we've discovered we need to leave the door closed to avoid them entering the house and we are pretty much ok. But they are so small they can get through anywhere. We don't know where else they are getting in, we've been plugging up any space we can find with steel wool (apparently they hate chewing through it to get inside). We've disovered this mouse trap which means you don't have to touch the disgusting creatures when you put them in the bin. Not that I'm willing to even get as close as picking up the mouse trap.

We haven't seen many for the last couple of weeks - it rained and then got cold, which apparently freezes them.

Oh, and apparently mice can't climb slippery walls, although rats can. So they are largely floor dwellers - food on benchtops is safe.

It's been quiet in the bush

I've been conspicuously absent this last month. Ministry wiped us out and we went to the beach for a week. Then we got back and straight back into another mess. Still reeling. The kids have been sick and not sleeping. But I'm ba-ack...

I wonder

I wonder, when your almost four year old has memorized most episodes of Playschool, whether it is time to go to school? Pity, as her birthday is the first of July, that she still has 20 months...and no kindy in this here town.

A funny thing happened

on the way home from one of the country churches today. DH is fond of back roads and we saw a sign that said 'Melons Ahead'. We came around a bend and found that a group of motorcyclists from the Sunshine coast had stopped too. Here's what they had done:

Cool hey?

Meanwhile LJ was freaked out and wouldn't let me get out of the car!

New in Bell?

We had a family of visitors on the Easter weekend. Comment from father of the family when we were headed out on a walk to see Bell's two tourist attractions (the historic railway and "Popey's Shed", filled with ancient farm machinery):
"Is there anything NEW in Bell?"
Answer - not really!

Children's books

A friend of mine, on attempting to buy a new book for her 3 year old niece, observed that the children's book section in the bookstore holds the same contents as they did 10 years ago (apart from a new book by Pamela Allen and Mem Fox) when she was buying books for her now 13 year old daughter.

What do you think? Is there anything new under the sun?

Living in the Bush Essentials #2

In Winter, the field mice come in from the fields - it's warmer and there's more food (!). This means mice in your ceiling, trying to get in your screen doors, going to bed with the sound of them in your roof and - egad! - breeding in the compost bin!

Needless to say Ratsak was purchased in vast quantities when we went to 'town' this morning (around here, you don't go to the name of the local large town, you go to 'town'). You can even buy it in chew-through bags (yuck) so that you can just throw it into hard to reach places.

Hooray for pest control.

Lovely things about living in the bush #1

At the end of our street (there are 8 streets in Bell) is the Bunya Highway, and on this Highway are all of the shops in our small village - a butcher, the tourist information centre which does Devonshire Tea, the Pub, the shop (post office, bank, takeaway, groceries, DVD hire, newsagent) and my own personal lifeline, Cowbelles Patchwork. I have often retreated to Kath's lovely shop when I was in need of adult conversation, getting out of the house, etc.

Kath invited LJto 'help' her in the shop one morning (which Kath assured me was a treat for Kath herself!). This morning, LJ announced that she was Kath and proceeded to give me a cup of coffee and a chocolate (decadent Pink Lady chocolates always accompany Kath's very good coffee - who knew we wouldn't need our coffee machine when we came to Bell?). Kath is a living gem. So is LJ, for that matter.

Living in the bush essentials #1

Expect to be asked and be able to answer questions about recent rainfall.

Lasoo.com.au

We have no junk mail out here apart from a monthly BIG W catalogue. It simplifies our lives somewhat, but one does save money when one knows that certain essentials are on sale. Thanks to Tash, I have subscribed to lasoo.com.au, which emails you when all the catalogues come out - priceless and good for the environment.

The times, they are a-changin'

LJ, our three year old, is next door at the after school kid's club run here at the church. I am struggling. Last time she went over I kept going over to check if she was ok (she's well and truly the youngest there). This time I am staying in the house with HB. They grow up sooo fast...meanwhile it seems that the playgroup I was going to start has already been started by another lady in town. I'm happy that there is going to be one, (LJ DESPERATELY needs time with other kids, there are none at church, only a few in town and no kindy etc) just will have to find something else to do with my newly re-acquired brain space (I found when Lucy turned about 9 months I started feeling less befuddled too). So, I have decided to write a few bible talks. I haven't done this since I was at Uni so hopefully it will be a good exercise.

I am looking for a movie to go to

It's been over 2 years since we've been, so I don't want to stuff it up. Anyone seen slumdog millionaire?

Raising Boys

HB is my eight month old son. I am from a family of two girls, though in my work I mainly encountered young boys, so I have read a fair bit of parenting and teaching stuff about boys. I pray that we are raising a boy who loves God and his wife. Specifically, I have been wondering lately how to raise him to be thoughtful and kind to others in a culture where this is not something that men are taught to do. Here's what I have come up with -
1. Pray
2. Set an example
3 Teach him how
(not in order of priority, necessarily)
What I wonder though, is - Is there anything else? Does anyone have any Godly wisdom or have they read anything of value?

Electricity

Tomorrow morning we are losing power for 3 hours while Energex does line maintenance. This will, obviously, be a mild inconvenience. However, I refuse to be part of the mass exodus to Dalby that seems to be going to happen because we will lose electricity for 3 hours. Must we be that dependent on a commodity?

Playschool and subjects

Has anyone else noticed how the Playschool presenters don't use subjects in their sentences. Here are some examples
"(I'm) Putting on a hat now"
"(We're) Going to the beach today"
"(Here are) Some trees in a park"

This particularly annoys me, because omission of subjects is something I treat a LOT as a Speech Pathologist. A friend who has watched playschool for about 8 years says that it has only been going on for a couple of years. I don't know their motives, nor do I think that this is CAUSING the epidemic that I'm noticing, but it would be nice if an educational show like Playschool took some responsibility for the oral language they model to children.

Cross Cultural Experiences

People from church invited us to their farm so we (well, mainly the kids and I) could experience harvest time. They are harvesting sorghum in these photos. A week before harvest, they spray the grain with roundup (!!) to kill it. The top photo is of the 'header'. The bottom photo is of the auger from the truck up to the silo. The second bottom photo is of the dog who rode in the front of the header (harvester) with the driver and Peter and Lucy. Basically they run from dawn to dusk 7 days a week until it's all harvested. These machines are worth a fortune and farmers hire them. The other photo is of the koalas who live on the farm.

Blogging guilt

Being a newcomer to this world I am surprised at the level of guilt I feel on the days I DONT blog. This doesn't mean I don't WANT to - I just am having a shocker of a week and can't get to the computer to do anything but quickly read emails. None of us are sick or anything horrible like that - it's just runs to Toowoomba and Dalby, for appointments, mother's group, and food shopping (living in the bush means food shopping round trips never take less than 3 1/2 hours return and doctors appointments, a whole day).

I have actually considered throwing in the blogging towel and disabling my account, but I live in hope that I will blog many of the things in my head..soon.

Off to conquer the ironing mountain, and other mundane things.

Out of Interest

We have no water restrictions out here.

Our Darling Boy

Hamish has been giving us grief since we moved out here. He was 10 weeks old at that point, and I was starting to expect he would sleep a bit longer than a couple of hours at a time. I prayed about it and never felt right about the controlled crying thing, not wanting to be left with the guilt that it left me with Lucy (only in retrospect!).

Anyway, under the guidance of a Paediatric Chiropractor in Toowoomba, who I went to first for Hamish's plagiocephaly (or 'crooked head'), I have removed all dairy products from both my diet and Hamish's. It's been two weeks today and we finally have a baby who can sleep for more than one 45 minute cycle during the day, and 3-4 hours at night, without help!

Thankfully, Lindt makes a 75% cocoa chocolate which is dairy free...happy(er) days.

Why it can be tough out here

This morning I opened the front door to see the street full of cars. This never happens (we do, due to the slow nature of our lives, engage in a spot of grey nomad watching as they pull up across the street to use the facilities in the park). Peter and I remembered eventually that it was the day for the funeral next door at the Catholic Church for a local farmer who committed sucicide late last week. It was the third local (Bell/Dalby district) suicide last week.

Those of you who I know well will know that my black dog has chased me on and off since I was a child, leading to a diagnosis just after I left uni. Since I have been in Bell it has nipped closest at my heels as it ever has while I have been medicated. The reasons I think have something to do with having a baby who rarely sleeps more than an hour at a half at a time, and moving into a new 'position' so soon after having a baby. Lots of those stressful life events all at once. Mum tells me I live in a state of perpetual exhaustion, and that's true. I feel vaguely nauseous most of the time, I don't think well, I have headaches, I have to watch myself when I drive to Toowoomba that I don't fall asleep at the wheel.

But one of the big factors is the barely perceptible difference in the way country people react when you tell them you are struggling with something. There's no sympathy, there's a general statement about life being difficult but you just have to get on with it. And I'm only struggling with exhaustion. No one here knows about my depression. I'm not game. Imagine being an older male, struggling with depression - in the generation that doesn't talk about mental health - if you did muster up the courage to talk about it, the knockbacks that you'd get wouldn't encourage you to mention it again.

Please pray for rural Australia - they need it.

Once upon a time, I said I'd never do this (blog). I thought I'd a) not have anything worthwhile to say, b) not have time and c) wasn't 'that sort of person' (I'm not a creative, ideas person, I leave that to my ideas man husband). However, being 'stuck' out in the bush in my own personal nappyland means that I badly lack for conversation, so I thought I'd tell cyberspace and hope that someone listened! Forgive me if all I write about is my life, this blog won't be intellectual but hopefully it will save some of my sanity.