Jobee's Journal

Yay, school has finished for the year. The staff at work had one staff development day (SDD) earlier in the year, so they got to finish today. For their SDD, they were each presenting a Quality Teaching project. Now although I trained as a teacher, I've never worked permanently so haven't had to do any presentations like this. My job today developed into assisting the teachers who were using the data projector for their presentation. Our library was the venue & unfortunately isn't the best for presenting via laptop - the connection is at the back of the room. So I got to hit space bar on several powerpoint presentations. One I'd been trying to help with because the videos wouldn't work. Multitasking big time at one stage while trying to keep up with my email on a different laptop. One of the teachers did her whole presentation in Xtranormal  - it was really cool. I didn't think to ask her permission to post it, but I will. I spent most of the morning, in...

It's hard not to write about flooding at the minute. The water dropped quite a bit today - enough that they opened the road past the Lagoon Bridge & Bohena Creek was opened again. Yes - probably means nothing to anyone who doesn't know the area, but it means there is a way in & out!! Not that we are rushing to do either (we don't have a 4WD & would prefer not to have to put our cars through water). There is another flood peak coming tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will drop as quickly as it did today. The bigger news for today was that E got an award at school. Presentation night was going to be on Tuesday night. Over half of the school can't get into town, so decisions had to quickly be made about what to do. As a part of the presentation night is each class doing a dance it was a difficult decision to make. In the end they decided to postpone the dance part of the evening & go ahead with the awards. E was home sick today & we don't find out who...

So we ended up getting the storm last night - and it then rained most of the night. Mum & Dad got out ok, though they had to drive through a bit of water to get to Narrabri. Don't think they'll be coming back on Monday like they planned! I spent the morning trying to find out relevent information about the floods for the kids & teachers at school, then spent the afternoon helping with pumping out one of the low lying streets in town. The morning was so frustrating, I was glad to be outside wading around in knee deep water. Once again there was no single source of finding out the relevent information. The 'Public Enquiry' Number I wrote in my blog the other day wasn't really worth ringing. The only road closures they had access to was the RTA road closures - which only showed that the Kamillaroi Highway is closed (it's been closed for a while!). I ended up suggesting http://www.narrabriweather.net/ as a good site for road closures. The only place the...

What is it about extreme weather events that makes you have to look at what's going on almost compulsively!! The internet is great for being able to see where storms & rain are coming from. Which is what I'm doing now as a severe thunderstorm warning has just been issued. Coonamble has had 93mm of rain in a very short period of time. While we might not get that much (Walgett got 2mm & Coonabaraban 31mm), watching the green on the radar is almost compulsory.  And then there's the river levels during a flood. We watch them come up & down on the BOM websites for each gauge along the river. It's certainly alot better to get that info than it used to be when we relied on word of mouth. As for the misinformation in the media about the flooding here - this morning one of the papers said that Pilliga was isolated -- much to the kids disappointment the school bus ran so it wasn't isolated. And I've just found out the following -- A friend has just said sh...

The river has peaked, it hasn't rained again so it's all calm again for the minute! We just went for a drive & while the water is way higher than it was yesterday at a similar time, it is also starting to drop. There are still 2 roads open (one to 4WD only). but by tomorrow it should drop quite a bit.  Rail Bridge on the road out to Burren Junction - this is after you go across the bridge.  Lagoon Bridge Other side of the Lagoon Bridge - this is where the water cuts off the road in that direction - once you get past this water the road is clear (well some of the floodways might have some water in them, but you can get to Narrabri). Vera's Leap (been closed for about a week) Mum took these photos during the day today. Her camera is way better than mine! A fact that became glaringly obvious when I looked at her photos & mine in the same folder on the computer. I've got a few more to upload but I'll leave them until tomorrow. We are still w...

We live on a flood plain. It is a known fact that it floods here. That's why they built a levee bank around the town in the 1970's. Before that when it flooded everyone just lifted their furniture, parked their cars out of town, lived in the water & dealt with the clean up as the water receded. I've been here 16 years & have lost count of the number of floods there have been in that time. There was a drought when I first came. The most memorable year for floods was 1998. That's when it flooded on & off for quite a few months. The river would come up, we'd be isolated for a week then it'd rain again just in time for the roads to open. It went on for months. So now we're back into the cycle of weather that means floods. Lots of rain last week, so a flood was inevitable. The height was dependant on the amount of rain around here + the amount of water coming down the river from upstream. There are 4 main roads in & out of our town. The main...

I got a new crown -- of the dental variety unfortunately. And I know it's not the first day of Christmas, but I thought it sounded catchy on my way home from getting the crown fitted. I have terrible teeth - every available tooth has a filling. My grandmother apparently had all her teeth removed at 14 & my mum at 21 so not good teeth genes. The tooth in question had root canal well before I moved up here & the dentist has been saying I needed a crown since, well ever since I started going to him. So it wasn't a suprise. As we have private health insurance the cost shouldn't have been a suprise - but there was a stuff up & initially it looked like the crown wasn't covered. Fortunately that got sorted out & although it doesn't cover half of the $1200 price tag it helps a bit. Just not a cost I want to have to deal with at this time of year!!

Today Is A New Day! Today is a beautiful day because it’s a gift. Many people around the world did not receive this gift. You did receive the gift of TODAY – what are you going to do with it? Today Is A New Day!! If you want to be a better father or mother – today’s the day! If you want to be a better son or daughter – today’s the day! If you want to forgive those who have wronged you – today’s the day! Yes, this gift is so precious that If you want to take steps to improve your health – today’s the day! If you want to help a charity – today’s the day! If you want to pray for a troubled friend – today’s the day! You see, what you do with the gift of TODAY is up to you. If you want to improve yourself or your life or anyone else’s life in any way Today’s the day!!! Welcome to today!! © Steve Maraboli http://www.abettertoday.com/today_is_a_new_day.html

I love traveling. I love finding new places, checking out the coffee, op shops, gift shops & the local sights. With 3 kids, a husband, a full time job and living in a regional area, going to different places is a rare occurance. Travel is a semi regular part of our lives though. Living in out here means that we travel when we need to do things that aren't available in our town. Having family in Sydney means trips at least 4 times a year to visit. The good thing is that there are a few different ways we can get to Sydney. Mostly we go the 'quick' (if 8 hours in a car can be considered quick) way, sometimes we go the longer way & stay overnight just for something different. I guess I'd always had the idea that traveling involved going to far flung, sometimes exotic places. The towns we drive through regularly have become part of the scenery, though mostly I don't see the scenery as my head is usually buried in a book! Then I came across the blog 52 suburbs...

I've got some blog posts ready to go, just need to organise some pictures to go with them!! Am changing what I write about slightly. Just feel that only talking about the books I make is a bit limiting - especially as most are pretty similar. I've gone through & removed names & places from past posts. If I'm going to talk about being cyber safe to the kids at school I should start practising in my own blog! I'm going to blog about places I go to though. Hopefully it works!

Ok so part of my job is helping teachers & students with using software on the laptops they are given. The laptops have an Adobe suite on them that includes Photoshop Elements. So to teach myself how to use it I've been trying to design some digital scrapbook pages - may as well learn on something that's useful. Yes I could go & get some of the ready made stuff, but that kinda defeats the purpose of learning how to do it myself! The last few times I've tried I've had little success, giving up before I get anything much achieved. I spent yesterday watching a whole heap of online videos about Photoshop Elements - it must have helped cause I finally got something done. The whole layers thing was confusing me. That and other things like having to accept the changes to a photo etc before being able to do anything else (including minimising the screen). But a whole lot of time today without interruptions (everyone else is on holidays) helped. I made the mistake yest...

E LOVES horse riding. She goes to RDA in the next town - RDA stands for Riding Develops Ability (used to be called Riding for the Disabled). In the next town they have it every 2nd Monday during Term 2 & Term 3 - it's generally too hot the rest of the year (for riders & volunteers) Riding started again last Tuesday. So riding on Saturday was the 2nd time she'd been back in the saddle since last October. You would have thought she'd been riding all that time. Straight up into the saddle - they have a special mounting ramp so it's easy for all the riders. She'd had to wait for a while - the adults went first. She collected her helmet & boots then sat patiently waiting until it was her turn to ride Nay. Nay is the horse she generally rides - Request is the other horse she rides sometimes. Nay is a grey horse - she tells us all grey horses are Nay! They have a course they follow - moving flags side to side, over a pretend bridge, posting a letter - all ...

Over the Easter weekend we go camping (most years anyway). We go out to P's cousins property & camp in the bush. This was the first time for SJ & we weren't sure she'd like it. See the smile on her face? It was there for most of the time we were there! She loved it. Early on she asked where the sink & bath were (the toilet had to be hurriedly put together when she needed to go!) She ran around most of the weekend with no shoes, playing in the dirt. We had to soak her feet on the last morning. It looked like she had a huge splinter in her foot - but it was just a cut that was full of dirt. The only bandaids we had wouldn't stick (I'd already proved that after I'd burnt my hand the day before), so she got her foot bandaged - she then ran around with 1 gumboot & 1 sneaker until I took her home. E & M love it too. The biggest attraction is the quadrunner. Fortunately they aren't big enough to ride them by themselves. SJ sits up front with who...

I'm playing with my iPod - found this app to write blog posts. I'm not that great at typing with one finger - but I suppose with practice I'll get used to it. Only drawback to having an iPod touch rather than an iPhone is that I can't take photos. Oh & I have to be where there is wireless to be able to post. Neither are biggies at the minute. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPod

Image'>http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=659">Image : Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net We have had a relatively quiet day. I've had a headache so haven't wanted to do much. We did go to our local Museum for the Australia Day ceremony. It wasn't much - a few speeches, a few awards presented & some Aussie poetry. The kids were really good - only getting fidgety right at the end. The Australia Day Ambassador was Noel Cleal - a football player from the 70's - 80's. I thought there would be more people than there was seeing as Rugby League is popular in town. And especially as Noel Cleal is involved with the Manly Sea Eagles where a famous player from our town plays. Maybe it was the heat or who knows? After the formal part the kids went & got their sample bags - SJ was very excited to get a flag - and then promptly broke it. We had sausage sizzle for lunch, then had a look through the museum. We've ...