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?