[Sarvi]

I was wondering about the farm work aspect of it — here’s hoping he’s able to make a full recovery.

[Masha Richart]

Tamara, I’m so sorry to hear about Murray. I’ll be keeping him in my prayers.

[Nicole]

I hope Murray is recovering @justsewit.

The school year has finished for us. We had our Presentation Night, Thursday night and it was a huge success.

Matilda was deliciously bouncy, dancing in her classes Beach Boy medley. Her neon Class Picnic set was just the job.

Lidia’s class danced to a Christine Anu song and honoured the artists cultural heritage by dressing in the colours of the Aboriginal flag.
I made her a sunny yellow Roller-skate dress.

Elsa and Zara co-wrote a comedy skit in which lines from pop songs were interjected into the conversation. Zara played a coffee shop waiter, Elsa a tradie, complete with facial stubble. Very very clever and funny.

Hugo has finished his schooling now and went out with a bang, performing Tim Minchin’s environmental ballad ‘Canvas Bags’. He brought the house down!

Our school is very small but I am still very proud of my beautiful children. Hugo won several awards, including Student of the Year for a second time. Zara was mentioned for her compassion and kindness in volunteering her free lessons to work with SN students. Elsa and Lidia both won their class academia awards.

It was a great night with everyone heading to the pub afterwards to farewell the leaving teachers and welcome the new arrivals.

A really positive end to the year.

[cybele727]

Oh @justsewit I am so sorry to hear all this. Farm work is so important and dangerous. Would that I knew a way to help from across the world.

[Tamara]

I’m so sorry, I have hardly had the opportunity to sit and tap out an update. The week has been a very busy one.

Murray is recovering but it will be slow going. He had surgery on Thursday and the surgeons were happy with the way everything went. He had to have a nerve block in his neck😱 Which along with the other very strong medication made him groggy. There was mention of lots of metal and screws which was to be expected and both ends of the humerous and elbow were fixed in the one operation.

They announced that he could go home yesterday and we all just about flipped over that. We requested he stay in for the weekend because of the distance we have to travel. So he will come out either tomorrow or Monday (I would prefer Monday) and then we can go home to the farm after that.

They have him up and walking around. I had to help him shower this morning but this is going to be a new task on the morning schedule for a good while.

No working for at least three months and of course no driving. Lots of exercises and I had to go purchase a heap of pillows to support that really heavy cast.

We have to be back on the 23rd for the removal of stitches and a new cast which will be on for 6 weeks and then only after that will we be able to know just how much movement he will have in his elbow. He won’t be able to straighten that arm out fully but then he couldn’t before. We just have to adapt – just like Murray’s cousin Donald did after an accident with an auger (long elevated pipe thing that sucks grain out to fill trucks and silos etc) took some vital fingers. He’s a piper so now has to play the bagpipes left handed.

This is the most serious thing that has ever happened since fil lost his fingers in the old wool press!

From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you all for your support. As far as I am concerned you are my community. No one in my town has bothered to phone and see how we are going. But having said that I have to give them the benefit of the doubt as they may have called the home phone. I have had a little bit of help but also alot of hinderance (delightful family members who love to pick an argument when it is the absolute perfect time to do so).

Just the verbal support that these lovely messages have given has made my heart fill with gratitude. People do care! I just wish we could catch up in person so that I could say thankyou personally.

We won’t able to make it to our presentation night. We have missed all the rehearsals and I am not really bothered to tell the honest truth. When I read such lovely comments as yours about your town and school @Nicole, it makes me want to up sticks and move😀 We have made it a goal to look around elsewhere for property because of the current environment being rather less than savoury. It’s just unfortunate that it can’t be right now! Oh for the lotto life!

But I am glad you all had a great time and finished the academic year with a high.

[Lightning McStitch]

Hope all goes well Tamara, your comment about his limited range of movement pre and post surgery reminded me of an old Spike Milligan joke:
To paraphrase: “Doc, when the cast comes off, will I be able to play the violin?… Yes?…. Wonderful, I never could before”
The last time I was reminded of that joke was when I had a 9 week old baby about to have an inguinal hernia surgery. The couple next to us, whose baby was having the same op, were grilling the anaesthetist about the effects of the epidural.
The anaesthetist then turned to us and asked if we had any questions….. I managed to restrain myself. Just.
Sending best wishes to all and congrats to the Fab five and family!

[Nicole]

Thank you @justsewit and @lightningmcstitch, I thought it was the piano?

I love school hols. No packed lunches but the food! Three loaves of bread yesterday and one child wasn’t home!

[Tamara]

@lightningmcstitch thankyou for the positive Spike milligan pick me up – my dad is a huge fan and I had forgotten😜.

Murray wants to come out of hospital today. He asked me to be there by 8am. It isn’t going to happen as it is only 7am now and we are still talking peak hour city traffic to get through. I will get there when I’m ready which will be soon, but defintiely not by 8am.

We will go home to the farm tomorrow and then the fun will begin – so not looking forward to this!

Part of this whole experience has been a great way to connect with others. He is in a shared ward with three other guys with various accidents. We find out their story and share ours and then we let them know that we want them to have a successful recovery etc. essentially we wish them well.

I took the children to church yesterday – to the beautiful congregation where I was married. They had the children’s Christmas service with a twist. You could tell it was written by our very good friend who is a complete talent because it was actually Star Wars style, complete with R2D2! My kids were thrilled! They don’t get children’s church or anything like this at home because they are the only children. So they really enjoyed the message or a very non traditional nativity play. Even the baby was laughing!

It was so good to be amongst company who were concerned for us in the current situation. I had such a good time catching up that I didn’t realise the time and when I got to the car, I had been served with a $66 parking fine! Needles to say that brought me back to earth with a huge thud! And I rang my sister to clarify just why we would have to pay for parking when it was the church area? She happened to be served one also which was a first.

Anyway, if anyone could have more bad luck I would like to know who they are because it is time for a change! Please 2016 be a much better year for us😕

[Sarvi]

All the schools in our local area were shut down today due to a bomb threat (which I fervently hope is only a hoax). My kid was in tears at not getting to perform in her school’s holiday show. I told her there was a facilities issue at the school. She told me that since there wouldn’t be a holiday show, she could sing the surprise song, the one none of the kids had told their parents about:

My heart is so heavy.

[Nicole]

Oh Sarvi, I am so sorry.

You did just the right thing, no need to scare such a young child. A ‘facility’ issue is the perfect reason.

Huge hugs.

[Sarvi]

Thank you, Nicole. After recent events nearby it’s really chilling. The contrast between the sweetness of the sentiment in the song, sung in a small child’s voice, and the sometimes-darkness of the adult world is hard to bear right now.

[juliamom2009]

@sarvi that song makes me cry even on a good day. I saw that the LAUSD head was getting criticized for the closures – I’m glad he did it. Our kids live in a jacked up world. I get tired of trying to tell my kid why people are sleeping in the street, and why we just bought a bunch of gifts for a 3 year old who was homeless but now has a home and no money for gifts. Tough, tough times. To say nothing of terrorism….

[Tamara]

@sarvi I saw this on the news as I woke up this morning and thought of you! I don’t know many people in that area of the world.

I too sincerely hope it is a hoax but in this day and age we have nothing left but to be alert all. the. time and it is quite exhausting. No one wants to be scared all the time (it is hard enough when you suffer from anxiety anyway).

We were watching an episode of the new Supergirl series (new to us anyway) and my daughter made the comment “wouldn’t it be awesome to have a bunch of superheroes come in and fix the world’s problems like terrorism. Because it seems that we are in need of some help here.” I quite agreed.

What ever the case, closing the schools is far better than having life being lost – again and again. It’s paramount that we keep our loved ones safe whilst trying to lead “normal” lives.

It’s a beautiful song but it says so much…

[Sarvi]

I typically try to focus on the positive, even if the best I can muster is, ‘however hard I have it somebody else for sure has it much worse.’ I remember losing sleep and having awful anxiety about nuclear war as a kid. Just want to preserve my child’s innocence for as long as I can, heaven knows it won’t last forever. Sorry to bring the thread down! What I can say is that we’ve had two Christmas miracles recently — a friend was in a car accident at night, on the freeway, in the rain — car totalled with three generations in the car — and they all walked away without a scratch. And a minor but wonderfully cheering miracle — the family dog of a classmate of my kid’s was returned after two years missing! The miracle of microchipping pets!

[Tamara]

No you are not bronging the thread down, total honesty is what I read in your message. It can be very difficult to stay focussed on the positive when things get very tough and I do like your motto, a very good one to abide by I think.

We practise affirmations and visualisations at home and it has helped us enormously. Yet we are all human and we can and do “fall from the log” at times.

Watching the news can make one spiral downwards but I love to hear the good news stories such as the ones you have just shared.

There is always something to be thankful for in every event – this past week has proved this for my family time and again.

And I absolutely agree with preserving a child’s innocence – just as precious as the child themselves.

Peace is important.