Exciting news!!!!!

Well as the title says I have some exciting news to share. I'll start at the beginning and then it will all make sense.

I have been getting some business cards made at the local camera shop. A lady phoned me on Saturday and introduced herself then told me she had noticed my card at the camera shop and asked the staff how to get in contact with me. Obviously they handed on my phone number (which I am fine with). Anyway, she went on to tell me that she is looking to employ a professional proofreader. Her name is Michelle, she asked what my rates were and if I would be available to meet (she asked to meet at my house) to discuss work. So we made a time for Monday 2pm (which is today). Much to say after trying to sound very calm and professional on the phone I hung up and jumped around my room and ran out and hugged the girls and turned in circles etc. The girls did think I was crazy but the excitement was catchy!
So all weekend I was going between being a nervous wreck to being as happy as a dog with a juicy bone! On Sunday I did a bit of tidying up and nail biting. Today I cleaned the whole morning and the house is probably the cleanest it's been for a long while! Terry was great, he helped me where he could and prayed with me before taking off to play golf, we figured that it would be better if he wasn't here. When she arrived we started chatting and exchanged files (my resume and her work examples), well not to drag it out but after some time asking questions and getting to know each other a bit better I asked her if she would like to go and think about sending work my way. She said..."no, I know I want you, I perceive you as a person of good faith and trustworthy."
So I have my first client!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't remember whether it will be 4 - 5 hours a fortnight or month. But it's a start and it is a foot in the door, because she works in the corporate area she has a lot of contacts.
I forgot to say that the company she works for sells the woollen rugs, and she sells them to corporations etc. So I will be proofreading the sales brochures and other information that needs to be distributed. They sell in both New Zealand and Australia and are going international soon.
I am sooooo excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well I better go, people to phone etc.
Catch you all later.

FIRE! FIRE!

Exciting stuff happens at the Smith house! This morning (Monday) Terry went to start the work van ready to take it to Kevin's to get something fixed, but what should have been a normal action soon turned into a disaster...

I hadn't got much sleep last night due to a cough so I was sitting on the couch vacantly staring at the TV (I think I was watching the Sky Sport channel but can't say I took much notice!) when Terry came running in and said "Shit! There's a fire in the van! Got a tea towel or something??" (no offence to those that oppose swearing). He sort of ran into the kitchen and grabbed a tea towel and ran off again. I wandered out to see what was going on and asked in a nonchantly way "It's probably just steam from the cold."
Then I saw the flames under the dash. I ran inside to grab the water jug, raced outside for Terry to throw it onto the fire. We thought it was out but a few seconds later more flames came out and we got more jugs of water - we did try the hose but it didn't reach - the flames wouldn't go out and in the meantime of me getting water he phoned the 111. A policeman turned up with an extinguisher (top priority now is for us to get two; one for the car and one for the house). He sort of got it out but the dash was still smoking, then the fire engine got there and hey hoh they got it out for us. But they also had to rip the dash out and disconnect all the wiring etc. We did manage to save the GPS thing; which Don was happy to hear. So I'm waiting for the panel-beater's to get here to tow the van away. Insurance is a very good thing! We're very pleased we don't have the responsibility to get it fixed. And to think we were going to buy the van for Terry to use for work! So here are the photo's.
As you can see the dash is pretty munted. There is a wire that seems to be too long and was just hanging there, so possibly it was rubbing against something and eventually sparked.

I couldn't resist putting this photo of Tank cuddling his toy while asleep. Terry tried taking it away when he had it under his paw but Tank woke up straight away and gave Terry a doggy frown.

Tank and his toy

These photo's are really cute so I couldn't resist blogging them. We bought a new soft toy lion, he loves his soft toys and still has the teddy he came to us with.

This is the first view and the "Oooh, this looks fun! Is it for me?"

This is the "Yes! Got it!"

This is the "This is all mine!!"

The girls won their netball game again on Friday, this time it was Sarah-Jane's turn to fall over! It was not as bad as Em's but still a nasty graze on the elbow. I wasn't at the game due to Aimee and I having the flu but Terry got to see the game, when SJ fell over it was a quick cuddle and kiss and a "You're alright" and a push back onto the court! If it had been me I probably (well definately) run onto the court to comfort her and make a fuss about it! Probably a good thing I didn't have the opportunity to do that, harden her up a bit for her future in the Tactix (Christchurch Netball Team)!!

Well ta-ra for now.

Aimee's Birthday

Here are some photo's of Aimee's birthday. We had a meal at Pineacres Restaurant, it was really nice there, it includes a play area for the kids which gave us adults some space to chat. We had more adults than children as we had Terry's mum, his sister Sue, Gail and Noel, Steve and Jo (with close to being a cousin Beky of course), Racheal and Deon (with Aimee's best mate Charlotte) and of course us. Fifteen people in all. The food was nice and reasonably priced. I paid for a cake as well - as you can see it's her favourite character Dora.Aimee opening Nana's gift:Everyone who was there, some of which you can't see much of:

Aimee and Charlotte seeing Dora. The staff made a good job of the icing:Cheeky Aimee eating the icing off the cake and leaving the rest of it!Steve couldn't resist sticking the knife into Dora, to be honest I can relate as we have heard and seen a lot of Dora over the years!

Her birthday was on the Friday and on the Saturday the weather turned cold and wintery. here are a couple of photo's of the snow, Kaiapoi doesn't get much snowfall as we are below sea level, we didn't get any last year.

The above photo shows our back yard and the photo below shows the front, I'm not sure if you can see the actual snowflakes falling but it is.

That was Saturday, on Sunday Emily and I went to the much waited for High School Musical Ice Tour. We were both quite excited! We had VIP seats, I figured if I'm going to go I'd rather pay a little extra to see it up close. We were in the second row from the ice rink and definately got to see it! Here follows some photo's. By the way; it was very, very expensive to buy the merchandise. We got a bucket of popcorn and got to keep the plastic bucket - $17, I let her buy a pen - $15, and a programme which was actually worth buying - $26. So there went the money all in one go! The main thing is that we had so much fun, I took great pleasure in seeing the expressions on Emily's face.

This is Sharpay in the pink who I think is Emily's favourite, which is funny since her character is a snooty rich girl who thinks everything (including Troy, one of the main characters) should be hers!

This is a car that they brought onto the ice as part of High School Musical 2. Pretty cool eh! It came up really close to us but I forgot to take a photo!This is the character 'in charge of the school production', she was right on the edge and shows how close we were.And this is a group shot of some of the actors/skaters, doesn't show everyone but you sort of get the idea. I have quite a few more photo's but figure at this stage you're pretty much photoed out! So will say farewell and get on with preparing tea. As Tigger would say 'TTFN' (Ta Ta For Now).

Exciting!!!

Just wanted to update on the proofreading job that Idid for the school principle (see previous update). I went to see him to ask how it went, this is his words...
"I'm most impressed, very happy with it, definitely will give you more work! I didn't know I could make so many mistakes!"
The other news is that a friend I haven't seen was at coffee group, she mentioned that she had assignments that needed proofing so I have offered to do them for her, I'm also going to give her an advertisement to put on the noticeboard for other students.
So I'm very happy! I am feeling a lot more confident in my ability to work in this field. Well that is all for now. I'll put some photo's of Aimee's birthday on soon. My baby is 6yrs old tomorrow!!

Oops

This post will probably be before the other one I just did but I forgot to put Em's photo on of her netball thing. So this is her...as you can see she is very focused on where the ball is going. Sue (the coach) has some more photo's that she's going to send to me that are more action ones. I'll upload them soon.

Better late than never!!

My gosh, it's already June!! Where has the time gone? I've been pretty flat out the last couple of months but it's no excuse to not doing a blog entry! And when I have found the time to rest it's usually in the evenings and I'm so tired I just veg.

Aimee turns 6yrs on Friday. Our baby growing up! That's kind of scarey as that means we're getting older! Em turning 10 back in March was a big mile-stone too. I was talking to a lady at Church on Sunday and her daughter who was 16yrs when we first met them is now 20yrs in a week! I think when it comes to others' children you don't think of them growing up as well!

Terry was in a golf tournament for the last couple of months (every fortnight was when they played) it was what they call matchplay (I think that's right) Terry was playing for Kaiapoi C, they won their games and made it to the semi-finals. Out of 4 teams they made it into the final, played against a Rangiora team and sadly lost by a very close margin. Bit disappointing but considering He only had 15 minutes till the tee of for the finals, it's still a really good outcome to come runners-up. They got a medal which is hanging proudly next to the soccer ones he's won. I even walked around the course with him as his caddy (although he did have to pull his trundler

for a lot of it :-)) for the semi's, I had a rest for his first 9 holes then walked the back 9 with him. It was wet and cold.

Emily and Sarah-Jane play netball now. They've played 3 games and won 2 of them. The first game Em was goal shoot and showed a natural talent and shot 6 goals, she only missed a couple. The other team got no goals, they played like they hadn't had much training. The girls had practises twice a week for the couple of weeks last term. It's only a basic level of grade but I have turned out to be one of those mothers that is rather loud on the sideline! But I'm not yelling at the ref's (especially since they're only young girls) and am not booing the other team. But I do strongly encourage our team. Two games ago Em fell over on court and badly grazed both knee's, elbow and hands, and her chin. Once she saw the blood she went into shock and cried louder (for very good reason), shaking, and wanted to go home which I couldn't do as we relied on a ride with one of the girls coaches. It's the first time one of the girls have fallen like that, I must admit that I wanted to cry too. Sarah-Jane shows promise as centre or on the wing but she was goal shoot for their last game, I'm afraid to say that she's not a natural in that position. Especially since she was day dreaming and watching a game on the next court! I'll put some photo's on the end of this post.

I have one tutorial to go and I've finished my study! I'm getting rather nervous about having to get out there and get work. This last week I went to the girls principle and offered to do some voluntary proofreading for him. He gave me a 47 page document that I had 3 days to complete. EEEEK!! Much to say I felt a bit anxious and suddenly lost confidence that I could accomplish this. But I got my head down and got into it and did nothing else except work. I think I did okay, had to ask my tutor a couple of things which she was fine about and helped me out. But I got it done and handed back again and now I have the waiting of hearing back from him. I'll phone him this week and see how it goes. At the present we are trying to work out how to get me an office. There's no where in the house that I can do it as it's so small here. We've had a suggestion of buying a small caravan and parking it by the garage for power etc. Which is a good idea. Have to work on that one.

Hmm, what else has been happening...oh, I've moved out of my comfort zone and joined the local gym. I've only been going for two weeks but I think I'm going to really enjoy it. And with having to pay for it, it's motivation to keep it up! There's actually normal looking people that go and all sorts of shapes and sizes and ages. I've even met up with a lady that we use to know about 12 yrs ago! I knew I knew her but had forgotten where from and how. I asked Brett (one of the gym instructors) her name but he couldn't remember either! We were both on the bikes and he very tactfully asked her a couple of questions and remembered her name and said it in a conversation and even asked her where she knew me from! Now I remember her and am very grateful for his help in that without letting on that I had forgotten!

Anyway enough words now and time for photo's. As you can see, SJ is a tad shorter than the other girl so it's sometimes hard to defend and shoot for her.

The girls are getting good at intercepting the ball, they had the ball practically the whole game.

I took the girls to a gypsy fair that was at the reserve just down the road. Sarah-Jane chose a dolphin and Aimee chose a heart. I was very impressed and it looked so pretty. SJ was going to a birthday sleepover that night and was very happy to show of her picture. Unfortunatly there was a lot of yucky stuff there and the usual tarot and palm reading and other stuff that seems to go with the 'gypsy' lifestyle.

I really like this photo. Em play's around with my camera sometimes and comes up with some really good ones. Although there are some that is not so good, such as photo's of her bed and her drawers!

Well I better sign off. Em has a friend over and I need to figure out something for lunch. Plus this is a longer blog entry than I intended!