Wordless Wednesday 29 February

My post today is my part to create just a little awareness of International Rare Disease Day. 

Wednesday 29 February is a once in 1461 days occurrence. The extra day in a leap-year. And it is NZ Rare Disease Day.

Most rare diseases occur much less frequently than leap-days. One in 2000 to one in hundreds of thousands is the pattern for more than 7000 rare diseases. Individually they are rare but together they are common, affecting an estimated 8% of the entire population. If spread evenly that would be one in twelve households affected by a rare disease.  If you want to find out some more try here

As some of you are aware one of my children fits this category.  He  has Cystinosis a rare metabolic condition which effects many of the bodies organs.  At the moment the disease is evident in his kidneys and eyes.  Along with this he has some secondary conditions...cognative delay being the most significant of them.   He has many doctors who help look after his health and he has regular stays in hospital.

Legally my son is disabled.

So these photos are a celebration of him and all the medical professionals who are part of the team looking after him.

(Hayden just after school showing me the stamp he got for being a good boy at the school he attends)

(Another photo of Hayden enjoying boxes, tape and scissors)

(Of course it would not be Hayden if we did not have a photo of him in hospital.  This visit was in November with a gastro bug.  Three days and four nights in hospital.  Here he is ED while blood tests are done so the right hydration and electrolyte plan can be implimented before being put upstairs into a ward.)

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Did I tell you...

Did I tell you that there is a budding flautist in our house.  My tone deaf daughter has to learn an instrument for the next 4 years at school.  I suggest she might be best to learn a untuned percussion instrument.  School picked the flute for her to learn.


At least after two weeks she looks the part but no notes to be heard.  Plenty of wind though.

Monday Menu 27 February

The end of February is here already.  Here is my menu

Monday  Sweet and sour chicken with noodles ( used the noodles not the rice)

Tuesday  Beef Crockpot

Wednesday  Cold meat and salad

Thursday  marinated lamb on rice with tomato salad

Friday  Fish patties in a burger bun with salad

Saturday  Sausage casserole

Sunday  Leftovers

I am  linking this post up to Im an Organizing Junkie

Soliloquy

So my Little Word, Breathe, is making steps forward.  As part of my art journaling journey I needed to write something pertaining to a soliloquy.  I chose to write a letter.  Actually it turned out to be something very deep from inside me. 

I am sure learning to stop and look at my life just a little more carefully this year.

(The credits for this page a long with a closer look at the journaling can be found here at Nuts4Digi)

Look there Grandad

Hayden makes us smile frequently.  This was just one of those moments that he shows where is cognative level is at.

Hayden (talking into the phone)  

(Ok his hair looks bad.  He attempted to cut it by himself)

 Hello Grandad.....yes .....yes...... Hayden said the F word.   Yes he said the naughty word..........Grandad can you see the plane in the sky....there it is.  ...look it is a cesnar.

Wordless Wednesday 22 February

Here is another week of Wordless Wednesday.

Needless to say school athletics day can be a heap of fun.

Lets not forget the green hair colour and the green finger nails.

I am linking this post up to My Little Drummer Boys.

The Grassy Knoll

The yard at our house is a work in progress.  Now we have the paddock/ now lawn under control I am about to tackle the grassy knoll.  Really this part of our yard is the large pile of clay with a little top soil mixed in that is leftover from digging the hole for the water tank we installed. 

(Here the digger is creating the pile of clay)

It was too difficult to spread out over my uneven lawn places so I have decided that a grass knoll is the way to go.....the way to make the very unsightly space look more pleasing to the eye.

To be honest it was difficult to even imagine that anything would grow on clay I thought that I would start with a sample area as we were getting very close to summer and the idea that clay would induce plant growth at any time was tricky to imagine.

So I purchase a little wild seed pack and sprinkled, watered and then crossed my fingers and wondered what would happen.  By some miracle some grass grew. Of course the space was still unsightly but just imagine what it looked like with nothing except a clay layer.

A little disappointed that no wild flowers were there.  That was all before Christmas.  Now it is the end of February and I find the wild flowers still small, but slowly emerging from their clay bed.

If you look closely you can see a few specks of colour from the flowers. 

So what does that mean for my grass knoll.  I think that come autumn I am going to treat my clay with a little organic matter and mow the grass once the flowers have seeded.  I now a little more research is needed and come next spring I am going to give this another go.  I am sure in this part of my yard a little wild flower spot will look spectacular.  I guess though like with any good thing it is going to take some time to make it work just how I imagine.

Monday Menu 20 February

Gosh how quickly the weeks are going.  February is nearly over and it feels like summer has not really arrived here.

Monday  Left over cold meat and green salad

Tuesday  Beef barbacoa Crockpot

Wednesday  spaghetti bolignaise

Thursday   lamb cutlets with baked potato and salad greens

Friday  Homemade pizza

Saturday  tuna burgers homemade

Sunday  left overs

I am linking this post to I'm an Organising Junkie

I am so lucky

I am a very lucky person as  my DH gave me a smart phone for Christmas.  It is the android variety phone. 

I am still learning to drive the said item but I am really keen to work on using a digital calendar system so that I can get rid of the really large diary I lug around every day.  After all who wouldn't want a slim line easy to use diary when you lug this around....it is only the beginning of the year and it is feeling heavy.  This is my diary towards the end of last year.

Now I know that it will be difficult to get rid of the paper diary.  I keep a lot of paper work in there especially paper work I need for Hayden but other little things. 

When I sat to look at what I need the list looked like this

• record of days I have worked and will be working
• DH roster
• Hayden appointments
• list of things to do

Well it is not a large list but each part playing an important part of my week and importantly in my record keeping. 

I am really struggling to find the best application.  Perhaps there is not one for me but I am determind that there must be one that will look after a lot of the stuff I write down.

Hmmm what do you think?  Are there any applications that I should give a try?

Wordless Wednesday 15 February

I am trying to create a wild flower filled grassy knoll.  I bought some wild flower seeds to test the idea and this is just one of the surprises we got.  I will have to blog about this some more at a later stage.  I have no idea what this flower is but boy it is a great colour against my grass.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys