Let’s talk about my hobbies, I don’t have a lot but I do love to read, in fact I like to listen to audio books in the car while I am driving and when I am waiting for the boys to get out of school I will read another book and while we wait at airports or train stations I have a book with me to read.

When I was a child I spent a lot of time in my room reading, I would stay with my grandparents while mum was in hospital she spent a bit of time in hospital when I was a child with having babies and kidney problems and then having a stroke when she was 38.

Anyway back to me and my hobbies when I was with nan & pop I would come home from school go to my room and read, back in those days there would only be one tv in the house generally although my grandparents had an old back and white set in the dining room which at times I would watch but usually I preferred to read. Nan once said to mum that they were worried about me as I spent so much time alone reading but I was happy.

Also I get interested in blogging way back when I started my first blog way back in 2005, I love blogging I love to visit different peoples blogs and read about their lives, for me there are many blog friends. When I explain having blog friends I say they are like pen pals but it is all done on line.

Speaking of pen pals that is another hobby I have a lot of pen pals, I have been writing to pen pals on and off since I was 13-14 some pals I have been writing to for over 25 years one Tracey I have been writing to for more like 30 years she was one of the first pals I got when I took it up again when Kathy was a baby.

My mum understands pen pals as she had pen pals when she was a child/teenager but then she got married and had children and found she often didn’t have time to write and just stopped writing. Also pen paling is a two way thing you need to get letters to reply to and I get a lot, often of a week wend I will have between 6 and 12 letters to answer. I have pals from around Australia and around the world usually in Germany, the UK and Canada. It is a bit expensive to have pen pals here in Australia the cost of stand postage stamp went up to $1 in January and to send and overseas letter it is $2.75 although I usually send Aerogrammes which cost $2.30 so saves me a bit of money.

Welcome to the first ever six happy things Monday, this is going to be an ongoing thing for Monday’s as I think it will be an easy to do post on Monday’s. So here are six things that I am happy for and about today.

A nice clean house

The love of my family

Warm Autumn days

Seeing my grandchildren

Having help with the ironing

Being able to lay the seat back in the car and have a nap while waiting for Blain to get out of school

Do you know the difference between a saucepan and a frypan, I asked because yesterday I asked my daughter to get the large saucepan out of the cupboard and was asked what does a saucepan look like I had a frypan in my hand and said it doesn’t look like this.

Yesterday morning I went and took the jeans Natasha bought me for Mother’s Day back and I was unable to get jeans that fit me so instead I got a nice pair of black pants with a nice light-weight long sleeve top. I am pleased with what I managed to get.

I was hoping when I got home Natasha would have had lunch cooking but no, I ended up having to cook lunch.

After lunch I went out to Jessica’s place to clean her house for her, I was there over 3 hours and still didn’t get it all done, I did most of what she wanted including sorting out al the clothes on her bedroom floor a mixture of clean and dirty clothes she said all the clean stuff was in the clothes baskets but that wasn’t the case I found both clean and dirty clothes on the bedroom floor.

I was exhausted by the time I got home, so I didn’t bother pegging out the load of washing in my machine that Tim had put on to wash, I hung it out this morning I also had to put the dishwasher on to wash when I got home yesterday afternoon.

Tasha is annoyed with her dad as she has been asking him to replace the fly screen on her window since Leo pulled it off three weeks ago and he still hasn’t done it, and yesterday he decided he want to replace the zippers in his saddle bags on his motor bike so he did that and still hasn’t done the window.

Natasha and I just had a tiff because I put Blain’s blue towel in with Natasha’s sheets which are white, she said if we put the white sheets in with the blue towel in the dryer her sheets will go black which is a load of rubbish. So she is in a right mood at the moment throwing things around and slamming doors and such but I don’t care I am right and that is that she things so often that her stuff is more important then mine and that she is always right and her way is the only way.

Isn’t it funny how the same temperature can feel different at different times of the year, like yesterday it was 26°c and it was quiet warm, in the summer months that would be a hot temperature and today it is suppose to be 26°c as well but today is much cooler then yesterday. So not just different seasons but different days can have the same temperature and feel different.

In other news, Leo had a up and down week last week at school, one day he came home and said he had a great day then on Thursday he lost it with another student who he felt was picking on him and he crapped a pair of school scissors you know the type they are rounded and only good enough to cut paper and even then at times they still suck and he jabbed at the kid with them and that got him sent home from school and we where worried he would be suspended again but no he came home on Friday afternoon saying he had a great day at school.

You know what annoys me seeing Facebook posts about how bad nursing homes are and how a old person would be better off in prison or cruising the oceans what a load of shit.

As you all know I visit my Aunty Pat who is in a nursing home once every month or so and my grandmother who is in a nursing home every week and years ago before she passed away I would visit my great-aunt who was in yet a different nursing home each week.

So I can tell you that both the nursing homes Aunty Pat and Nanna are in are nice, both have their own bathroom and their own tv, Aunty Pat shares a room with two other ladies because sharing a room is cheaper but she likes her room and isn’t interested in changing. She gets alone with one of the women in the room, the other one is more like Nanna unable to communicate.

Nanna shares her room with another lady who is usually out in the wards community room the room they often have breakfast in that room and it is the room used for games and there is a large tv in that room as well.

Nanna has her own bathroom and her own tv as well, although as most would know Nanna is bedridden and unable to feed herself or move at all really. She becomes distressed if she is hungry or has soiled herself otherwise she spends most of the day sleeping.

When she is distressed there is one man who works there that is very good with her, he sings to her as Nanna loves singing and he finds if he sings to her while he is changing her and cleaning her up she becomes less distressed. Also at times she will become distressed and want Ron, my pop who passed away in 2010, so this same man will hold her hand and say I’m here Flo and this will calm her down.

We find the staff on a whole nice, caring people and the nursing homes to be clean and don’t smell and the food for the general residents is quiet nice according to my Uncle who usual has Christmas lunch over there with Nanna.

Now the nursing home my great-aunt Joyce was in did smell sometimes the smell was overpowering and this meant that mum and I would only stay a short time, Aunt shared a room with three other women and didn’t have her own bathroom that I can remember but she liked the food and said the staff were nice and friendly and Aunt always looked well cared for.

So yes I know some nursing homes may not be that great but if your loved one is in a nursing home you don’t like move them you can do that if you want my Nan first went into a nursing home 45 minutes away that place mum and I only visited once and mum cried the whole time as they had cut Nan’s hair into a bowl cut that looked awful and it was grey and up until then Nan had never had grey hair. The woman we visited wasn’t Nanna she was someone else in Nanna’s body in face when we first arrive at the nursing home we couldn’t find her she looked so different. Well we thought she looked different her hair wasn’t blonde and it wasn’t styled and she had only been there a week.

Well last Sunday was Mother’s Day, so how was my Mother’s Day, all in all it was a good day. I received some nice presents Jessica replaced the tray the boys broke and she also got me some pj’s bottoms nice fleecy ones and a bath bomb which I will use on Friday night when I have a relaxing bath after a long day.

I also had the girls over for breakfast and Michael came as well, Kathy & Michael gave me this lovely necklace holder which Michael made himself for me and have to say I love it. Natasha gave me a new pair of jeans and a lovely top, however, the jeans don’t fit and I will return them on the weekend and either get a larger size or some other pants.

Then after breakfast Tim and I went over to my parents place for lunch, we had Henny Penny which is chicken for those who have no idea, kinda like KFC but nicer just saying. I also bought a bottle of wine to have with lunch and indeed had two glasses of wine, and on the way home I asked Tim if we could stop and get another bottle of wine which we did so in the end I had about a full bottle of wine with what I had with lunch and what I had at home after lunch.

Tim didn’t give me anything for Mother’s Day, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything I wanted, so I asked him to give me some spending money when we go on the cruise and also said the bottle of wine would be a nice present for me.

Yes we are going on another cruise at the end of the month, we are going with my parents and we are so excited about it as is my mum not sure about dad though he wonders what he is going to do all day on a ship but I have told mum there are lots of things to do, including many live shows to see.

I did have a bit of a cry on Sunday because my arm was so stiff and sore as it is again today and yesterday I am just so over this arm the shaking the aching the stiffness the needing to message and rub the arm to ease the stiffness and aching feeling. I have times when I worry about becoming a burden to my family and yes they all told me I am not going to become a burden and I shouldn’t be getting upset but at times I can’t help it I just feel that way.

If it isn’t my arm giving my pain and such it is my back which has been really bad recently I am due to go and have an epidural injection in my back tomorrow at L4-5 so we will see if that helps at all.

This week has seen me out in the front yard trying to fix my garden.  When we moved into our home 3 years ago I had every intention of maintaining a garden; I even went so far as to plant come carr…

Source: Gardening with cockroaches

Have you ever over heard a conversation and thought what the hell………………

Recently I have had that thought a few times after over hearing spinets of conversation, such as the other day while shopping I heard a couple of women talking about blogging since I am a blogger this caught my attention, what the woman who blogs said made me think what the hell………what did she say you wonder. Well she was talking about having some blog friends and was explaining how they are kind just online friends, then she said that she had discovered that this one blog friend was black. She then said she doesn’t sound black in her blog, which made me think what the hell does that mean how does one sound black I don’t get that, the way she said it was as if she was shocked that the woman was black, I thought who bloody cares what colour her skin is what matters if she is a nice sounding woman and if you like what she blogs about and such.

Then on Friday afternoon while I was waiting for Leo to get out of school I could hear a couple of people talking about Mother’s Day and how some women are missing out not having children, that they couldn’t get why some people would choose not to have children. Now these people are allowed their opinion but it was the way they said it.

I feel sad for those who want children and are unable to have them, but not everyone wants children and they may not feel like they are missing out on anything.

Also just because a woman of couple do not have children doesn’t mean they have chosen not to have them unless you know for a fact why they don’t have children you should shut the hell up and keep your opinions to yourself. That said if you know they have chosen not to have children then you need to respect that they are not you they can chose not to have children if they want to do so.

I will talk about my Mother’s Day tomorrow since I started this post on Saturday and with one thing or another I am only getting around to finishing it and posting it today, Monday.

Welcome to Wednesday’s news what is happening in Jo-Anne’s world at the moment, well at this moment I am waiting for Centrelink to pick up Natasha has to report her earnings and this she usually does online but this morning she was unable to so she asked me if I would try and if necessary ring Centrelink. Well I tried to do it online but it came up as failed so I am now waiting to speak to someone who knows how long that will take.

Also this morning I was getting dressed and went to get one of the two black polo shirts I have that I like to wear with the pants I have on and I cannot find either of them, now when I did the washing on Monday I remember when I was getting the clothes off the line that there was two places that looked like something had been removed but since I was in and out I couldn’t remember if I had removed the shirts already anyway thought nothing of it but today those two black shirts are missing. Who would enter my back yard and take two black polo shirts the are not new shirts or that nice they are just black cheap polo shirts, I had much nicer shirts on the line with them.

This morning I had to ask Tim if he would drive Leo to school while I went with mum to visit nanna at the nursing home and of course I had to go to Coles to get some more cold meat for Tim’s lunch.

In other news Blain came home yesterday afternoon from the trip to Queensland for my niece Kirsty’s wedding, and he has been unable to walk very well since as he was sitting on his foot during the trip home, thus the reason his foot is not sitting flat on the ground and because it hurts he will not put it flat on the ground because of the pain.

Then yesterday afternoon, Leo and Blain were getting along pretty good so good in fact that Leo asked if he could stay the night I asked Blain if he wanted Leo to stay and he said yes so ended up letting Leo spend the night here. I hope Leo doesn’t ask to spend the night again this afternoon as I will be saying no and this time if he cries like he did yesterday when I tried to say no he cried and sobbed which is why I gave in.

Being May you would think the weather would be cooler but not so much I am wearing long pants but have to say I am somewhat warm in them and they are light weight pants but still over all the days a pretty warm, mum mum was wearing track pants this morning I don’t know how she can wear such warm pants I often get hot in track pants unless it is really cold and then still might end up feeling warm.

I just went in to get Blain to go get Leo and he wanted to know why we had to leave so early so I said I would wait a bit longer to go but not too much longer as I don’t want to have no where to park.

I don’t have much to share today so that will end today’s ramblings