Nineteen on Hume: We Are Still Here!

So I have been incredibly slack writing on this blog, life has been hectic the last few months and well, to be honest we haven't had that much to write about!

Back in March I was unlucky enough to get struck down with Ross River Fever while outside at work. I had over 80 mosquito bites on my legs alone and 5 days after the bites I woke up unable to walk, with the most excruciating pain in my right ankle-it was like I had broken it. I knew instantly in the back of my mind it was Ross River, but my doctor wouldn't believe me and told me to see how it goes. After 3 weeks of intense pain in my ankle and the hugest limp when walking I went back and she got an xray to check for a tear, and I insisted on blood test because by now I was badly fatigued and could barely use any of my fingers, I knew it had gotten into my finger joints. The afternoon of my tests she rang and told me to come in and she confirmed I have the pesky Ross River and ordered me to 3 months of strict bed rest as there is no medication to get rid of it. I'm not sure about anyone else but being a Mum of 2 children, running a business and having a husband who works 12 hours a day, this 'bed rest' she spoke of wasn't something I could do haha! The hardest part was stopping all exercise because when I did attempt a slow walk, I would feel even worse for the next few days. It was a really tough few months, things you do everyday like doing up the kids pyjama buttons, opening a bottle of milk or driving the car, were almost impossible. A 30 minute drive into Toowoomba by myself and I would need to pull over on the way home for a quick sleep, the fatigue was crazy. Thank goodness it now seems to be going really well for now, I think it often comes back at certain times for the rest of your life but at the moment I'm feeling really good. Some days I get a little pain in my fingers or they will lock up, but 90% better then what they were. I joined the gym and am being really active again, which I think is what helped get me back to good health, not stopping, making sure even when I was probably meant to be resting I would try to keep moving, apparantely the blood flow to the joints helps them a lot so I do think avoiding the strict bed rest helped a lot. Reminder: wear a mosquito repellent, you don't want to catch this!

While sick, we didn't get much done around the house, little bits here and there but nothing huge.

We were lucky enough to have Scott's sister Sharon come and help paint our Walk in Wardrobe (she is an awesome painter!), which is a small 4th bedroom which joined our bedroom that we have converted into a storage room. The floor in there was the worst of the house so instead of polishing it we just painted it and will put a rug down. Getting this room done was the biggest difference for us, being that we could move our clothing and cupboards out of our dining room and into that room. We've worked out that there's so many steps that need to be done in a specific order to then move onto the next job in our house! We decided to paint our walls in Solver brands Beaver colour which is a nice neutral brown. We were doing white walls, then grey then we settled on this colour to give our home a cozy, comfortable feel. After painting Jacks room white it really put us off the idea of white walls everywhere, just too hospital like for me in this old house.

Scott's Nana bought us an orange tree so we planted that and built a little frame around it and then we started digging up a corner of the backyard to eventually make a nice big vegetable garden. The entire area there is full of huge rocks, glass and ceramic plus the odd bit of interesting parts off things like windmills etc, so we are sifting each shovel full of dirt to get decent soil for the garden and this is so time consuming and a pretty tough job with the shovels, hoe and sifter!

We also discovered that a 70+ year old house that has no skirting and no carpet is bone chillingly COLD! Oh my goodness it is cold. Scott's Dad was kind enough to spend a Sunday with us helping to insulate under the kids 2 bedrooms and our hallway. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, having Scott under the house measuring, then Philip and I cutting MDF board and covering each piece in Sarking Foil then having Scott drill it under the floor boards. It was a full days work but has stopped the breeze under those rooms and makes such a huge difference to the warmth in those rooms! One day we will get to the rest of the house, but for now it is another job on that ever growing list!

Because it obviously wasn't cold enough here we decided to pack up one night a couple of weeks ago and drive a few hours south to New South Wales to see the snow on top of Mt Mackenzie at Tenterfield. The kids and I hadn't seen snow before so we arrived at midnight, slept in our ute and the snow started falling around 2am. Jack and Summer had no complaints being woken up to go outside to have a snow ball fight! It was so much fun, then we watched the sun rise and left as hundreds of other people discovered how nice it was up there and we headed off to Stanthorpe to some wineries, breweries and a Cheese cafe then headed home! It really was absolutely beautiful and I'm so glad we made the last minute decision to go down to have a look.

The following weekend (last weekend) we headed up to Childers for our friend Ambers birthday party for her 2 sons and for me to do a photo shoot with them afterwards all dressed up in their baseball themed gear, which was awesome. The party was at a 100 year old theater, watching The Sandlot movie and eating some pretty delicious food that Amber made up. She did an amazing job and worked really hard, it paid off and everyone had heaps of fun! Sunday was breakfast across from Woodgate Beach and a quick run for us, scooter for the kids then we left and went up to Bundaberg to visit Scott's sister Belinda and her family for a few hours. The kids loved playing as they always do and we sat on their gorgeous front verandah and talked and talked and talked! We arrived home finally at 8pm completely exhausted and decided we are hibernating for a little while and that's all the random little trips until it warms up!

There's been so much more happening but I think that's enough for now, so here are some photos of what we've been up to :)