November 2018

It's the last day of 2018 so I'd better get November and December posts up, right?

November started with a wedding!  My lovely hairdresser married her partner on a gorgeous property several hours away.  Which for us meant having to go away for the weekend and hang out together.  It was so good for us!  The four/four and a half hour drive was great for catching up and planning, and we got the chance to look around a town we'd considered moving to with the Big Fella's work (if required).  Although it's nice, we decided it's not for us.

The Little Big Fella had been talking about waffles for a few weeks, but hadn't actually tried them.  So when we went out for breakfast and waffles were an option, he got them and decided he LOVES them!  So sad we can't buy them locally ;-)

Can you tell I forced these guys to have a family photo taken????  End result is we're all eating healthier and moving our bodies more in 2019!

I think the magpies were a little late breeding this year, because suddenly in November the Little Big Fella couldn't get to the first corner in either direction from our house on his bike ride to school without being swooped.  We tried the zippy ties on the helmet and carrying a big stick, but he completely freaked out, so for the rest of the term he went to school on the bus.  He LOVES the bus because he gets to hang out with his mate, but he begs the bus driver to let him stay on the bus longer so they can have more time together!

The NBN finally came to our side of the railway tracks in November, which of course means everything went to poop!  For our business, it takes at least three visits by Telstra, the first of which killed our VOIP phone system.  So for about a week and a half all business calls were diverted to my mobile phone.  Yay!  Thankfully most of our calls are from people within our company, so a group email got everyone to call mobiles rather than the office number, but my days off were interrupted a bit.

As of now, the new phone system has been installed, but with the most recent Telstra visit (a week before Christmas) our server won't let us log on to our computers because it can't verify that we're safe users.  There's a communication thing between our server and our head office that's apparently down, and that possibly means we won't have everything up and running properly until the 7th when head office reopens.

Sigh.

The Little Big Fella had a few mates over for a Friday night sleepover early in the month.  They loved it, but I was exhausted when they didn't go to sleep until after 10pm and then woke up at 5am!

The Big Fella finished the last part of his home micro brewery this month.  Wanna see?

The whole brewery

The brewing set-up

The fancy, glycol-chilled fermentors

The keezer

The Big Fella has put a lot of time into all of this, planning it out, saving up for each part, and putting it all together.  He brews from grain (none of that poxy can brew stuff) and apparently makes great beer!  I'm not a beer drinker so I don't really know, but everyone who tries them says they're as good as or better than commercial beers.

One of the boys from work got a new puppy who kept getting out while he was at work.  So he brought her in to work a few days while he was sorting it out.  On the second day, she came into the office and decided she didn't want to leave, so I ended up with a sleepy puppy on my feet for half a day.

Each year the local Rotary Club runs Christmas twilight markets in the park near us.  It's usually a big deal, with plenty of different stalls, raffles, and (of course) Santa.  The school usually runs a stand and I was there to help out with glow products this year.

The weather was gorgeous!

Since our work incident in March, and with other minor things since then, I've wanted to update my First Aid certificate.  I had the opportunity in November so went and did it.  I have to say, it was a bit confronting.  It was the first time since March that I'd actually "re-lived" the day in my head, looking at my memories of what happened and feeling the distress of the day.  I think my coping mechanisms of remembering without "seeing" the scene were necessary to keep going with daily life, but having some of the specifics in my face during the day was difficult.

Having said all that, I came away feeling like I knew enough and could respond well enough to keep things safe and calm until the ambulance arrives.  Even during the scenarios, I didn't know everything and my brain was going haywire trying to remember what to look for and what to do next, but on the outside I apparently looked like I knew what I was doing and kept the "patient" safe and calm.  I definitely want to renew it more often than once every 10 years though!

Last year our local CWA started a new tradition of a Christmas Tree Festival.  They hold it at the start of December and local businesses, schools and families "donate" a tree to them for a few days.  The trees are decorated and people come and check them out for a gold coin donation.  There's also a tree to donate food and gifts to those who need them during the holiday season.

This year there was a basket with each tree and people could "vote" for their favourite by putting money in that tree's basket.  The money was then donated to the Smith Family charity.

My workplace donated a tree last year, and this year both work and the Art Society did a tree each.

When I was "researching" (on Pinterest) for ideas, I saw this cute tree covered in little bicycles.  I thought that our work tree should reflect our workplace, so talked with the others about having baubles with our company logo on them, or decorating it with mechanical-type stuff.  Then one of the guys suggested having our boilermakers build a tree from scrap parts.  Everyone voted on that idea, and then the boys got to it.  They did SO well!

It weighed around 80kgs, so the guys lifted it with poles...

Placed it on a pallet...

And forklifted it onto the back of a ute.  Then we drove the ute and forklift around to the CWA hall (about a block away), and they reversed the process.

Add a few lights and company colour baubles and we have an awesome tree!

For the Art Society, we decided that some mini palettes, paint and paint brushes would suit us for a theme.

The three of us cut out and painted about 30 little palettes from mat board.  After about five my hand was cramping!  It was really tough!

But the end result was so good!

Crazily enough, our work tree won first place (line honours and a basket of goodies for our Christmas party), and the Art Society won second!

I'm really loving this new tradition because it's a less self-focused start to the Christmas season.  I'd like to work a bit more in 2019 on being other-focused, and helping my son learn what that can look like as well.