Keeping busy

Whatever they grow up to be, they are still our children, and the one most important of all the things we can give to them is unconditional love. Not a love that depends on anything at all except that they are our children. Rosaleen Dickson

Mission completed - all of my Christmas shopping is done and the presents are all wrapped, what a beautiful feeling. I so enjoy selecting special things for my family at Christmas. Hubby and I don't buy each other anything, we usually just purchase whatever it is that we want as a gift to ourselves.

I have been enjoying my holidays, getting the things done that I need to - shopping and cleaning the house, but at least I can do it at a leisurely pace and not my usual frantic pace prior to Christmas.

I've been writing a lot in the last week and have also got the framework around my newsletter website established. Still some work to be done yet and then I will share the details with you.

Attended a 2 year old birthday party on Sunday for a friends' little girl. Who would expect that 6 days out from Christmas we would be sitting around a heater and all dressed in jeans and jumpers - absolutely ludicrous weather patterns at the moment. Christmas Day is looking a little bit more promising with temperatures expected to reach 31C.

I'm hoping like anything that it is warm and sunny next week when we head up to Renmark. I'm looking forward to catching up with brother and sister-in-law and also seeing mum and dad's new house. It'll be just the boys (and eldest son's girlfriend) and I going up, as hubby has to work. A week of family, relaxation and sunshine is something I'm joyfully anticipating.

At least this year there will be none of the garbage that I had to contend with over the last Christmas break with my former job. Hubby, the kids and I headed up to Renmark last year and I had phone call after phone call from employees saying they hadn't been paid. Not my fault, I might point out, but I was the only contact number that anyone had.

The mistake was made by the Corporate office and I ended up cutting short our trip to come back to Adelaide to fix it. I hadn't taken my work computer access codes to Renmark, after all it was Christmas and I didn't think for a second I would need them. The end result was that I had to contact the Payroll Manager from the Corporate office and interrupt her Christmas break to get the problem fixed. I was appalled that some of our employees had not been paid prior to Christmas when I had ensured everything my end was finalised. In short, thankfully this Christmas it is not my concern - new job and all.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow - I'm catching up with the crew from my old place of employment for Chrissy drinks which should be enjoyable. The people and the camaraderie are in fact the things I miss the most, well in truth they're the only things I miss.

Well that's all my news for now, Fi