Happy Anniversay

Neil.
18 years today....WOW who would have thought it!!! I must admit I had my doubts a few times but we did make it.....amazing....
love you

MERRY CHRISTMAS

wow another Christmas almost over...it's late here....it's been a wonderful day...the kids were so happy with all their presents....I was happy with mine too :) , food was delicious and way to much of it(as always) and there is a great feeling of joy in the house(wish it lasted beyond Christmas...but hey one full day of it a year is wonderful...
MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone, and have a wonderful marvellous NEW YEAR

Getting...

my Christmas spirit back......finally...don't want to dwell on death but celebrate life....love and happiness.....
shopping is getting done...not sure I'll get it all finished but having fun...doing it with a smile on my face and loving every minute of it....I love this time of year.....would love it better I think if in the snow and looking at Christmas decorations in stores and lights in house windows a lot earlier than 10pm at night instead of in a heat wave but hey it's Christmas....enjoy

Did you ever wonder...

How many people would come to your own funeral?
Quite scary after Johanna's impressive turnout....depressing really to think how little influence I have had on anyone's lives...that enough people would even care about whether I died....I'd be lucky to have 10 extra people after my own family I think and that's scary.....and made me think I need to make some life changes.....

My eldest is....

fifteen today....
oh my GOD....15 already.....
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Samara
love you

A funeral....definitely an end of an era

so beautiful....at a vineyard...in a marquee overlooking the rose gardens which look out onto the sea....the most beautiful place to have it....she would have loved it...did love it....it was a favorite place for Johanna to go to lunch...we'd been there with her once...and will probably go again in honor of her...
the service was beautiful, over 300 people there and very very moving...she went out in style......
Johanna was truly loved....and will be sadly missed
my daughter's birthday today....not a great month for birthday's this month....let's hope next year is so much better for them....

A memorial service...

The kids at school held a memorial service today for Johanna....much like her retirement one last year with poems and songs....it was beautiful, and lots of tears were shed but a wonderful one to memorialise Johanna...she would have loved it. Her husband David, was there, the first time we've seen him at work this week(David Hinton is the school principal now...has been since she retired last year and does a wonderful job...but it's been a hell of a week for him...but he's so strong and you can tell he's shed a lot of tears but the strength in him has helped everyone get through this week so well.....
I cried a lot today...probably more than I will at the funeral tomorrow...because kids just say the things you've always wanted to say yourself and don't always know how to....and when my baby started crying through her song I wept a little harder.....
I keep telling myself that she wanted us to be all that we could be so that is what I am going to do...be a better me

Coping

it's been a tough couple of days....firstly doing a job I didn't want to do....and admiring the people that do it every day with so much compassion like doctors and police officers....the task of telling people that a loved one has died...as school council president I had to do the job of phoning other council members, parents club, friends who knew her but hadn't been told by anyone else....not a great job...and then telling my kids....wow that was hard....Johanna was like an honorary grandma to them...to all her kids at the school and my kids were devastated....the first real person in their lives that had died...someone who had known them for ten years of their lives(or in Jenna's case her whole life...she'd known her since before she was born) so that was really hard for them...the hugs and kisses that I've shared in the last few days with people I would never have thought of hugging in the past just because we are all so sad....that someone so special could have left the world so soon....it's tough but we're coping...the poor kids at school were devastated...the older ones especially who had known her so long

She went out in style....

Johanna Murray loved life and she loved to indulge in a little pampering and she would have been thrilled to have gone out in a wonderful way rather than in pain and anguish...disfigured and deformed....she was at a spa, celebrating her best friend Muffy's birthday and having a green mud wrap...thinking of the champagne and seafood that was waiting her and Muffy when they got home after the spa....now that's the way to go...relaxed and enjoying life, not stressed or worrying about what she should of been doing....
a great loss to everyone...but I'm sure she's got her wings on, a champagne glass in her hand and she's keeping everyone well entertained and happy wherever she is
To you Johanna...with love

My son is....

eleven today!!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Bryce
Love you

A death....

can be truly devastating especially when you didn't really realise how much that person affected you.
My son's birthday was going beautifully, had a sleepover with his best friends, went to karate, dropped my daughter off at another birthday party and then THE PHONECALL!!!!
The phonecall which I wish had never happened.
Dead at 56, from a brain anuereysm. Johanna Murray, wonderful woman, friend. She was so full of life, had semi-retired from her job as primary school principal but was still working as an ESL teacher, working with refugee women, and putting together a fantastic programme on teaching sex-ed in schools, (my eldest two were priviledged enough to have been taught that programme...so who is going to teach the youngest two???)
I am still in shock not sure how I am going to be this week, I guess she's the most significant person in my life who has died....my grandparents died when I was younger but I guess I felt a little removed from them...and being older you kind of expect it...but Johanna...no she was still so full of life....

Van Nguyen hanging....

it's caused a lot of controversy over here...should he have been hung or shouldn't he? Maybe it is a cruel and unusual punishment but that's the law of Singapore and we are all for following the laws of our own land but when it comes to one of our own flauting the laws of another we get up in arms.
The guy was a drug smuggler, smuggling drugs in a country which states on signs at the airport that if you're caught smuggling drugs you will recieve the most serious of sentences, that of death!!!!
So you still go ahead with it!!!! Well, I kind of figure if you're going to do the crime, you have to face whatever sentence you're going to get. It's not like he could pretend he didn't know how the drugs got in his suitcase, they were strapped to his body for goodness sake!!!!
I do feel for his family, and my sympathies go to them. But that's as far as it goes.

Shock, Horror

Yep I'm back.
Decided that I needed to get myself back to blogging and having a say about everything, heck I do that at home so I may as well do it here too!!!!
Life has been pretty good this year,children doing well(most of the time :) ) husband okay (most of the time :) ) a new car, my extension finished, a trip overseas, a couple in country,
Been doing lots of karate!! Which is still an obsession though not a bad one to have I don't think!!! Made it to my green belt.... 5 steps down, 7 more to go( and they get harder each time.) Had a trip to Sydney for the World Championships for my club, entered the tournament and had a lot of fun, made it to the middle of the pack so that was okay...no medal but at least I wasn't last :)
Had a fabulous trip to Tasmania with my friends on a great "Girls Weekend Away" trip....was a lot of fun and then a most exciting trip to the USA, visiting San Diego, San Francisco, Reno and Las Vegas, with Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon thrown in. Fantastic!!!! Great travels, great people I met along the way!!!