Well, I am once again sitting at a softball field – seems like the only time I get to sit down and catch up on some news. Kaitlin is playing in the State Softball Championships U19 tournament. They started on Thursday – Alan managed to get down for a couple of her games – I wasn’t able to as I was beuy finalising the financial statements from the auditors. Mom and Dad also managed to get down and see some of her games. We both had Friday off and so have been here since then. The weather hasn’t been a little miserable – raining on and off most days. Today is the last day of the tournament and the sun is out and shining brightly !!! no doubt everyone will go home looks like lobsters. The tournament was held on the Gold Coast last year so at least we did not have the expense of having to travel and just the long hike from home to Pizzey Park each day. Kaitlin’s team finished the pool games in 5th spot – I think last year they finished 6th – so they are in the playoffs between 5th and 6th this morning.
About 3 weeks ago my Mom stood on a needle in their sewing room and it broke off in her foot. Dad found half the needle but couldn’t find the second half. They didn’t know if it was still in her foot or if it had just got lost in the carpet. Anyway, she continued with her 2.5km walk to meet Dad when he comes home from work and so thought that it was out. On Easter Friday they came over for dinner and Mom was limping a little – I asked her what the matter was and she said that her foot was sore. I had a look and it was little ball on the ball of her foot. Anyway, the next day she tried to see the dr – not there – so went to Gold Coast hospital – the long and the short of the story is that they had to get an orthopaedic surgeon to operate (at about 4pm on Sunday afternoon) and she came home late on Monday afternoon. It is all still bandaged up and she has to go back to the hospital on 4th April for them to take the stitches out. Mom told the dr that she walks around bare foot in the sewing room so that she can find the big headed pins !!!!!!!! He told her to walk around in the sewing room with shoes on in future !! She seems to be managing OK and of course she has Dad to look after her to it is all good.
Kaitlin seems to be settling into life at QAHS. It has certainly been a huge adjustment for both her and us. There seems to be a lot more running around that we have to do but that may just be because we have to travel in the opposite direction to drop her at the academy before travelling up to school and work for Al and I. This year she has to do 100 hrs of volunteer work between community, artistic and sport activities. She has been teaching refugees on a Monday afternoon in Southport so normally catches the bus there after school, then on Tuesday she catches a bus down to Emmanuel College to go to softball training, then on Wednesday and Thursday she is doing a year 12 subject after school from 2.20 – 4.30 and on a Friday she goes to extra maths tuts at school. Then on Saturday she works at Bakers Delight the whole day and Sunday afternoon she has softball training again – so as you can see she has a rather busy schedule at the moment. Thank goodness school softball will finish today and then it is the start of club softball up at Redlands Bay (about 1hr 15mins north of where we live) – they have training on a Tuesday night and games on Sunday morning sometime. Everyone mentioned that year 11 was a big jump from year 10 and I think with the changing schools and being taught in a completely different way, it has certainly been a challenge but one that she has risen to and made us proud. I think it will be good grounding for when she goes to uni as it is based very much on how they teach at uni compared to how they teach at school – they are expected to use their initiative heaps more than what is expected of them at school – plus they have to be motivated to get on and do what needs to be done. They have about 3-4 hrs homework each day on top of assignments / studying for test / volunteer work so it really is a full on programme.
Work for Al and I is the same old same old. I am looking to move now that Kaitlin is no longer at Saint Stephen’s – it isn’t the same working there without having her pop in during the day. The only problem is that the hours are good – 8-4 – I love finishing at 4pm and don’t know if I could handle the 5pm finished. There are times whenI do work late 0 finished at about 7pm on Thursday so that I could have Friday off but on the whole, 4 – 4.30 finishes are what I have. At least if I have to leave at 4pm I can without it being an issue for anyone. Oh well, will wait and see what happens. When I win Lotto (which may be very soon) – I won’t have to worry about working at all and can do all the other things I want to do !!!!!!!!!!!
My studies are going well – I passed my first prac exam with flying colours and got 100% for the first theory exam I wrote. It was good confidence booster as it is many years since I wrote exams. Next week we start anatomy and physiology which is something I am looking forward to but not looking forward to the exam bit !!!!
We had a quiet Easter – Al was fiddling around in the garden and I spent some time visiting my Mom in hospital. Then on Easter Monday we went down to Pacific Fair as Kaitlin wanted to go clothes shopping so we had a full day down there in and out of most of the shops – she managed to find a couple of things to buy so was very happy at the end of the day – I was glad she found something to buy so that we didn’t spend the whole day in out of shops and not buy anything !!!!!
Well that is all the news from the family over here – would love to hear any news from you out there.
