A week away

Eglantine, a pretty David Austin rose.

Magpie who shared the crusts off my toast some mornings.

Last week was spent in the city with eldest teen as it was her orientation week for uni. I ended up having to go with her for the week as on the Monday when she started she wasn't yet 18. The uni rule is they are not allowed to stay in the accommodation until they have turned eighteen. After trying to find somewhere to stay and not finding anything that fit the budget, I was really starting to worry about what we would do. Mum and Dad very kindly came to our rescue and offered their caravan. I had fun staying in the caravan but not sure eldest teen enjoyed it quite as much!
It brought back many memories from my early twenties when I lived in a caravan up north with my then husband for his work.

It mostly was a relaxing break for me, I would drop eldest teen off at uni in the morning and then go and pick her up later, I had her car for driving myself around.

One of the places I visited was the beach. This is my childhood beach, we spent lots of fun times down here when we were children. I remember having a picnic tea down on the grassy foreshore of the beach many a time on really hot summer nights.

I spent quite awhile watching all the dogs and their owners having fun on the dog beach. I got a little teary at one stage when two beautiful golden retrievers arrived for a swim. I have been missing my beautiful boy BJ so much and seeing them having so much fun was good but sad too, just made me miss my boy even more.

A pretty flower I saw in the sand dunes.

Saw lots of different kinds of birds.

We arrived back home on the Friday evening and it just seems to have been go go go since then. Eldest teen turned 18 on Sunday and is now halfway through her second week at uni.

I have been playing around with our new computer trying to work out what I am doing, going to take a bit of getting used to I think! I am struggling with a very sore hand this week as I had a skin cancer removed on Monday. It was right where your wrist and hand join and right on top of a vein. I have had skin cancers removed before and only experienced mild discomfort the first day or so but this is very different, thinking I may need to go back and get it looked at.

Think I had better get off here as there is thunder rumbling around out there and the sky is getting very dark. Time to go feed the chooks and fingers crossed we get some rain out of this we desperately need it.

Time management

A collection of random photos taken over the last couple of weeks.

Just Joey looking a little worse for wear from the heat, but nonetheless still beautiful.

Stripes, such a hard life for some!

This mornings harvest from the vege garden.

Close up of the Trombocinno zucchini.

Jess always wanting to know where I am at all times.

Lots of tomatoes in the garden, unfortunately quite a few of them have been cooked on the vine

from all the hot weather we have been experiencing.

Smoke, there was lots of it last week from two huge bush fires burning in our Southwest and Great Southern. Eldest teen was in one of those towns threatened by the fires for work. I was so happy and

relieved to see her home again, it was an anxious week.

Went to visit my sister two weekends ago and witnessed the most stunning sunset. I got a little carried away and took about a hundred plus photos.

Billy, the youngest cat in the family. He always wants his two sisters to play, but they are getting a bit too old for his antics.

Just some pretty gum blossom in Mum and Dad's garden.

Well so much for being here at least twice a week. I think I must have a serious problem with time management. There just never seems to be enough hours in the day! I work (if you could call it that) seven days a week. It's not seven full days though, just an hour here, fifteen minutes there, half an hour on another day and then forty five minutes on another day. Some days it takes me longer to get dressed in my uniform than it does to go and do the actual job.

It is so frustrating. Don't get me wrong I am thankful that I have work at all, but it really is a complete pain being spread out like that over seven days. If I want to go somewhere, just say for instance I have an appointment with the osteopath, it's a five hundred kilometre round trip. So it's all day, which means I have to take a day off, but taking a day off might mean I'm only missing out on a half hour or at the most an hour job. But because I only work so few hours I need those hours, so it just keeps me tied here. The photos above of the sunset were taken a couple of weekends ago. I worked on the Friday morning, travelled to the osteopath late afternoon and after leaving there continued on another 50 kilometres down the road to stay at my sister's place as she has just bought a new house and I was really looking forward to seeing both my sister and the new house. It meant I didn't work the weekend, which is half an hour each day, financially the best two days to work, but also the hardest two days to get someone else to cover them.

What I am trying to get at is even though I work so few hours I just don't seem to be able to get half the things done that need to be done, let alone anything I might want to do such as a blog post. I feel guilty if I come on here when I know the floors need to be cleaned, or the dishes done or the bathroom cleaned. I have a large garden I can't keep up with. I wake up every morning feeling like I am behind the eightball, I just don't seem to be able to catch up. So far it has taken me three hours just trying to do this blogpost in between visitors, phone calls and text messages. Tea of a night time seems to be getting later and later. Something needs to change.

I know I am one person and that I can't do everything, but unfortunately everything needs to be done.

Part-time work, clean the house, gardening, cooking nutritious meals, looking and applying for other work, huge yard to look after and now part-time studies as well. I need a creative outlet too and blogging is what I want to do but it comes after everything else and suffers. 

I would love nothing more than to be able to stay home everyday and have a clean house, yummy and healthy meals on the table, time to spend in the garden and time for creativity, but it's not possible. Next best thing is if I could find work for three or even four days every week, set hours and days, that would be heaven. I have no idea why, but I seem to think I would be able to manage my time better.

Who knows, I think I would still probably be hopeless at time management!