Tuesday:
I hadn't really expected to hear from my workplace until the start of school term (it's a library at a TAFE, adult learners, so they only have a few permanent staff during the quiet holiday period), but I was getting a bit worried regardless that I wouldn't get much work (I'm a casual) and I'd have to start applying for jobs again -- further away from home, new systems, less congenial. But they contacted me to offer a couple of weeks, then today updated that to 8 weeks of this 10 week term... so I can relax knowing I will still be getting plenty of work, they still like me, I still seem to be top of their list.
Jasmine returns to school tomorrow (Year 11!) and Aiden the day after (Year 8). Jasmine turns 16 on Thursday!! I can't believe I have a nearly-adult daughter. I'm too young to be this old. She claims to be taller than me too, but I always deny it. She could learn to drive now! She's not that keen though. I think she'll wait until a convenient holiday break and we'll get her professional lessons. Tim would love to teach her but I think she'd be more nervous with daddy watching.
We didn't do much these holidays. We have at least got a bit more use out of the pool with a few hot days when the air wasn't full of bushfire smoke. Today is warm enough, but the sky is a nasty brownish orange.
Showing posts with label bushfire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bushfire. Show all posts
Monday, January 27, 2020
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
No-junk January
New Year’s Day:
Happy 2020 everyone. 2020? Seriously? I can remember when 2000 was still years away - from the other direction!
I had a mostly nice Christmas, we hosted dinner as usual plus BBQ and leftovers on Boxing Day. Unfortunately I was not at peak health, just a cold but that was enough to make cleaning and cooking for 18 even more exhausting than usual. I stayed home the day after, when everyone else went to Star Wars, and that helped my recovery. I’m fine now. We hosted a NYE party last night (I say party... we played board games. Wild!) Sadly, I didn’t get to see Poppa and my side of the family a few days before Christmas, I was at my sickest then and didn’t want to infect a 101-year-old. I’ll have to organise another trip over there.
I ate in a very unrestrained way over the past month or so, and haven’t exercised for months, and my weight reflects that. 76kg on the first day of 2020. So I’m making this ‘no junk January’ (chocolate isn’t junk!). I turn 50 this year! I know keeping control of my weight is going to be an ongoing job, but a very important one. I still have another 50 years to live in this body!
The bushfires continue all over my state, the sky is orangy-brown more often than blue. Several people have died and many homes destroyed. I’m lucky to have had only the relatively minor inconveniences of staying inside on the worst air pollution days, being unable to put washing outside, and being unsure if we’ll be able to get to our beach holiday as the roads have been closed a couple of times and it might be safer to just stay home.
Both children will be learning Spanish at school next year, so Jasmine and I have started practicing on DuoLingo. And I’ve started playing World of Warcraft again. Aside from that, some intensive resting.
Happy 2020 everyone. 2020? Seriously? I can remember when 2000 was still years away - from the other direction!
I had a mostly nice Christmas, we hosted dinner as usual plus BBQ and leftovers on Boxing Day. Unfortunately I was not at peak health, just a cold but that was enough to make cleaning and cooking for 18 even more exhausting than usual. I stayed home the day after, when everyone else went to Star Wars, and that helped my recovery. I’m fine now. We hosted a NYE party last night (I say party... we played board games. Wild!) Sadly, I didn’t get to see Poppa and my side of the family a few days before Christmas, I was at my sickest then and didn’t want to infect a 101-year-old. I’ll have to organise another trip over there.
I ate in a very unrestrained way over the past month or so, and haven’t exercised for months, and my weight reflects that. 76kg on the first day of 2020. So I’m making this ‘no junk January’ (chocolate isn’t junk!). I turn 50 this year! I know keeping control of my weight is going to be an ongoing job, but a very important one. I still have another 50 years to live in this body!
The bushfires continue all over my state, the sky is orangy-brown more often than blue. Several people have died and many homes destroyed. I’m lucky to have had only the relatively minor inconveniences of staying inside on the worst air pollution days, being unable to put washing outside, and being unsure if we’ll be able to get to our beach holiday as the roads have been closed a couple of times and it might be safer to just stay home.
Monday, November 11, 2019
Catastrophic fire danger
Tuesday:
The kids' school and my workplace are closed today due to the risk of bushfires - I don't know if that has ever happened before. The library I work in is right next to a National Park. My colleagues are working at a different location but I stayed home to be with the children. We are on the highest risk rating, "catastrophic". The forecast is for 37C, which is not unusual for Australia, but also very windy and we've been in drought for a long time so everything is very dry. There are dozens of bushfires further up the coast and several people have died and many homes destroyed. I'm not really sure what makes today different and such a high risk for the Sydney area, when there are actually no fires nearby, but I assume the RFS know what they are talking about. Stay safe everyone.
A few days ago my boss came over to my desk and said she had bad news for me. I assumed it would be to say she couldn't accept my daughter for work experience in the library after all. But no, it was that they have received a new directive that they can't hire casuals (to replace permanent staff on leave) during the TAFE holidays. They only need one or two people in the library over the break so they have to use permanent staff. As I am casual - almost constantly employed full time so far - it means about 8 weeks with no work over December/January. I said that was fine, no problem. Inside I was jumping up and down in delight! I never wanted to work during the school holidays anyway, it's such a hassle to organise things for the kids, but I was agreeing to be obliging. I'm still making myself indispensable. I want to always be the first person they choose to hire! For example I'm doing most of the little kids' storytimes now even though I still find it scary, the usual person has been on leave or busy and no one else wants to do it. Anyway, so the "bad news" was really good news for me.
Update 7:30 pm: still no fires on this side of the river, but there is currently one in the National Park right next to my work. Possibly only couple of hundred meters away. Small but not yet under control. It’s around 10-15 mins drive away from home. Something to keep our eye on.
The kids' school and my workplace are closed today due to the risk of bushfires - I don't know if that has ever happened before. The library I work in is right next to a National Park. My colleagues are working at a different location but I stayed home to be with the children. We are on the highest risk rating, "catastrophic". The forecast is for 37C, which is not unusual for Australia, but also very windy and we've been in drought for a long time so everything is very dry. There are dozens of bushfires further up the coast and several people have died and many homes destroyed. I'm not really sure what makes today different and such a high risk for the Sydney area, when there are actually no fires nearby, but I assume the RFS know what they are talking about. Stay safe everyone.
A few days ago my boss came over to my desk and said she had bad news for me. I assumed it would be to say she couldn't accept my daughter for work experience in the library after all. But no, it was that they have received a new directive that they can't hire casuals (to replace permanent staff on leave) during the TAFE holidays. They only need one or two people in the library over the break so they have to use permanent staff. As I am casual - almost constantly employed full time so far - it means about 8 weeks with no work over December/January. I said that was fine, no problem. Inside I was jumping up and down in delight! I never wanted to work during the school holidays anyway, it's such a hassle to organise things for the kids, but I was agreeing to be obliging. I'm still making myself indispensable. I want to always be the first person they choose to hire! For example I'm doing most of the little kids' storytimes now even though I still find it scary, the usual person has been on leave or busy and no one else wants to do it. Anyway, so the "bad news" was really good news for me.
Update 7:30 pm: still no fires on this side of the river, but there is currently one in the National Park right next to my work. Possibly only couple of hundred meters away. Small but not yet under control. It’s around 10-15 mins drive away from home. Something to keep our eye on.
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Still no rain
Monday:
Well the bushfire is still there, under control but we haven't had any rain. We keep getting a forecast for rain that gets moved back and back and back so it's always days away. However, the weather is now much cooler and not windy so it's not as dangerous. I check the map a couple of times a day and spot fires pop up here and there (Jasmine's High School has been threatened twice) but are brought under control quickly. I'm no longer worried about it all but I feel sorry for the firefighters and people whose houses are right along the edge of the fire front.
I didn't weigh myself last Monday as we were away from home, but the following day I weighed 71.1 kg which was a gain of 0.7 kg, and this week I have maintained that gain. Still 71.1 kg. I have been eating chocolate every day since Easter (Lindt milk, mostly) and letting other bad foods like chips at the movies creep back in. School holidays! But I finished my last little chocolate bunny yesterday, and although there is still another week of school holidays I plan to get strict with myself. Way too much sugar.
We went to a family BBQ lunch yesterday including some relatives we don't see often, I hadn't been to Tim's uncle's house before but I knew they'd been living there at least a couple of years so I was surprised that it looked like a construction zone. No access to the front door - you had to climb up a pile of bricks in the garage to get into the kitchen, roof space open, gaps between the house and the deck etc, (although the inside was nice). The uncle was building it himself, while working fulltime until recently. And then I learned they had been there 15 years! Fifteen years in an unfinished house. If I was Aunty Jan I'd be insisting on hiring someone to get it done! I was also told that their previous house was the same for 20 years, they only rushed to finish it so they could sell it and move... so that's 35 years living on a building site. Oh well, perhaps it doesn't bother them.
Aunty Cheryl was unintentionally hilarious, after dominating the conversation all lunchtime in an endless stream (I don't know when she had her mouth free to eat) she mentioned she wasn't fond of her son's girlfriend because she talked too much. No one could get a word in edgewise to comment. And when someone asked an innocent question about another relative, she acted as if we'd all twisted her arm and "reluctantly" spilled a whole lot of gossip she wasn't supposed to. Funny. It's not so bad having a couple of "talkers" in the family (Tim's dad is the same), there are certainly no awkward silences at family gatherings!
Well the bushfire is still there, under control but we haven't had any rain. We keep getting a forecast for rain that gets moved back and back and back so it's always days away. However, the weather is now much cooler and not windy so it's not as dangerous. I check the map a couple of times a day and spot fires pop up here and there (Jasmine's High School has been threatened twice) but are brought under control quickly. I'm no longer worried about it all but I feel sorry for the firefighters and people whose houses are right along the edge of the fire front.
I didn't weigh myself last Monday as we were away from home, but the following day I weighed 71.1 kg which was a gain of 0.7 kg, and this week I have maintained that gain. Still 71.1 kg. I have been eating chocolate every day since Easter (Lindt milk, mostly) and letting other bad foods like chips at the movies creep back in. School holidays! But I finished my last little chocolate bunny yesterday, and although there is still another week of school holidays I plan to get strict with myself. Way too much sugar.
We went to a family BBQ lunch yesterday including some relatives we don't see often, I hadn't been to Tim's uncle's house before but I knew they'd been living there at least a couple of years so I was surprised that it looked like a construction zone. No access to the front door - you had to climb up a pile of bricks in the garage to get into the kitchen, roof space open, gaps between the house and the deck etc, (although the inside was nice). The uncle was building it himself, while working fulltime until recently. And then I learned they had been there 15 years! Fifteen years in an unfinished house. If I was Aunty Jan I'd be insisting on hiring someone to get it done! I was also told that their previous house was the same for 20 years, they only rushed to finish it so they could sell it and move... so that's 35 years living on a building site. Oh well, perhaps it doesn't bother them.
Aunty Cheryl was unintentionally hilarious, after dominating the conversation all lunchtime in an endless stream (I don't know when she had her mouth free to eat) she mentioned she wasn't fond of her son's girlfriend because she talked too much. No one could get a word in edgewise to comment. And when someone asked an innocent question about another relative, she acted as if we'd all twisted her arm and "reluctantly" spilled a whole lot of gossip she wasn't supposed to. Funny. It's not so bad having a couple of "talkers" in the family (Tim's dad is the same), there are certainly no awkward silences at family gatherings!
Monday, April 16, 2018
We still have a house
Tuesday:
Well we still have a house, and are all safe.
We stayed up most of the night on Saturday monitoring the bushfire situation, early Sunday morning they downgraded the danger rating so we relaxed a bit. But by lunchtime the wind picked up again and the danger rating was put back up to emergency. The air was full of smoke and floating ash. The fire front reached the point that I had decided would be when we abandon ship (ie house) so we grabbed out bags and went. Several houses of family members living nearby evacuated at the same time - in fact we used our second car to help get them all to safety.
We went to a big shopping centre a few suburbs away, watched a movie (Ready Player One, which we enjoyed) then shared dinner and a hotel with brother-in-law's family (kind of had to stay together, with Ping's parents staying with them they didn't all fit in one car). All the local hotels were full, we had to go further towards the city to get rooms. I was very tired after the previous sleepless night and slept like the proverbial log.
In the morning the fire danger rating had been downgraded again, although the fire kept growing. Every time we checked the website the coloured-in area on the map was a bit bigger. The firefighters were still keeping it away from houses, but it was creeping south through more bushland. At breakfast I rang the dentist to check they were closed as the kids had appointments and was stunned to find they had reopened (after being closed on the weekend) - they are a couple of blocks closer to the firefront than our house - and we were quite a long way away so it was a mad rush and we were very late but they saw us anyway. The sky was amazingly clear, our house was still there, everything looked great.
By Monday afternoon (none of our people went to work) it was smoky again, fire still growing, but we were not in any immediate danger. Slept ok last night. There are burned leaves in the backyard, floated here from the fire, so we still need to be vigilant. Tim has gone to work today, we are hoping for rain. Still have bags packed and waiting by the door.
Well we still have a house, and are all safe.
We stayed up most of the night on Saturday monitoring the bushfire situation, early Sunday morning they downgraded the danger rating so we relaxed a bit. But by lunchtime the wind picked up again and the danger rating was put back up to emergency. The air was full of smoke and floating ash. The fire front reached the point that I had decided would be when we abandon ship (ie house) so we grabbed out bags and went. Several houses of family members living nearby evacuated at the same time - in fact we used our second car to help get them all to safety.
We went to a big shopping centre a few suburbs away, watched a movie (Ready Player One, which we enjoyed) then shared dinner and a hotel with brother-in-law's family (kind of had to stay together, with Ping's parents staying with them they didn't all fit in one car). All the local hotels were full, we had to go further towards the city to get rooms. I was very tired after the previous sleepless night and slept like the proverbial log.
In the morning the fire danger rating had been downgraded again, although the fire kept growing. Every time we checked the website the coloured-in area on the map was a bit bigger. The firefighters were still keeping it away from houses, but it was creeping south through more bushland. At breakfast I rang the dentist to check they were closed as the kids had appointments and was stunned to find they had reopened (after being closed on the weekend) - they are a couple of blocks closer to the firefront than our house - and we were quite a long way away so it was a mad rush and we were very late but they saw us anyway. The sky was amazingly clear, our house was still there, everything looked great.
By Monday afternoon (none of our people went to work) it was smoky again, fire still growing, but we were not in any immediate danger. Slept ok last night. There are burned leaves in the backyard, floated here from the fire, so we still need to be vigilant. Tim has gone to work today, we are hoping for rain. Still have bags packed and waiting by the door.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Bushfire!
Saturday:
We’re all packed and ready in case we have to evacuate. There is a bushfire nearby and blowing this way. We can see a red glow in the sky (it’s 9:30 at night) and the air is full of smoke.
We went out to have a swim this afternoon - probably our last swim for the season as the weather is set to cool a bit next week - and we could see a huge plume of smoke turning the sun blood red. It was a hot day and very windy - the wind so strong it ripped the safety instruction poster off our fence. The edge of the fire was 9 km away from us at that stage. A friend of Jasmine's living in that direction didn’t evacuate when advised to and was then told it was too late to leave, the roads were closed. The fire is now 1 km away, but on the other side of the suburb, it would have to burn through a lot of houses and the shopping centre to get to us. We’ve been told to wait and watch, for the moment. I suppose they don’t evacuate people unless they have to, the roads would get very clogged. I think we’ll be safe here. Not sure when I’ll go to bed though.
We’re all packed and ready in case we have to evacuate. There is a bushfire nearby and blowing this way. We can see a red glow in the sky (it’s 9:30 at night) and the air is full of smoke.
We went out to have a swim this afternoon - probably our last swim for the season as the weather is set to cool a bit next week - and we could see a huge plume of smoke turning the sun blood red. It was a hot day and very windy - the wind so strong it ripped the safety instruction poster off our fence. The edge of the fire was 9 km away from us at that stage. A friend of Jasmine's living in that direction didn’t evacuate when advised to and was then told it was too late to leave, the roads were closed. The fire is now 1 km away, but on the other side of the suburb, it would have to burn through a lot of houses and the shopping centre to get to us. We’ve been told to wait and watch, for the moment. I suppose they don’t evacuate people unless they have to, the roads would get very clogged. I think we’ll be safe here. Not sure when I’ll go to bed though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)