Busy as...

Bees have nothing on me!
I've been so busy - we all have! Amidst the turmoil of a household that is turned upside down by renovations, Janene and I have been very busy planning for the Easter Awakening Festival, the Regional Rally, Sunday School, the Nursing home visit and other Easter activities.

I'm not complaining... just fishing for sympathy. Anyone?

Dubbo, AWAKEN!
The Easter Awakening was this Saturday - a combined churches event in the park where tons of activities and entertainment is put on by volunteers for the sake of the unchurched kids of Dubbo. The idea is brilliant and each year the event seems to grow a little. This year Janene was the leader of the craft and she exhausted herself to make sure everything worked out fine.

It paid off! She ran an excellent "tent" and they had over a hundred kids through, making all kids of craft items with strong Easter messages. They made pin-wheels, concentration cards with bible verses and pics, memory cards, wooden crosses, jewellery and lotsa other stuff.

A lot of churches were involved, and a lot of time and prayer went into the event. Now there needs to be a lot of prayer for the seeds that were sown.

RF & CC are away...
Finally we've produced another Rural Flyer and Country Catalogue and sent them off to the printer. So for the next week or so it'll be a little easier going. But there are plans to start selling and designing a "Business Flyer" in the same vein as the Rural Flyer, but aimed at the small business market.

I trust Bob's judgement that this is a potential gold product.

About Bob...
Speaking of Bob, just by spending half an hour with him at a Agrigrain, and a few weeks later with the management of Martel Accounting, I have developed a strong respect for his marketing talent. He really knows his stuff.

The Kids...
Eli is doing a little better at school, though he still manages to get sent to the door at least once a day. He really has ants in his pants! Well.. not REALLY really, but fairly really. You know?

Just about everything he does is a game or a drama. He acts things out wherever he is and whatever he's doing. He is so dramatic in his expression and dialogue that I'm sure he's going to have to be an actor or somebody famous... otherwise WHAT are we going through this for?

Clayton is just too cute. He has the ability to make anyone and everyone smile with his cuteness. Now he's saying a lot more words and getting into a lot more mischief. He copies his older brother too much, and even now is starting the acting game.

He can fake a good cry, and this morning I watched him enact a scene between his spoon and a piece of nutrigrain (breakfast cereal). So inanimate objects come to life in his world too now.

Music...
There is a lot happening with the music, but with the lifestyle we've had over the past couple of weeks, it's been impossible to find quality practice time. I'd practice 10 hours every day if I had no responsibilities. I just love playing music... I wish it was my career!

I've found a very cool Yahoo Group run by a fellow who has introduced himself to me and made every effort to help me with my band. He's been extremely generous and genuinely interested... something I really need right now, and something I've not had before.

The group: http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/bandmusic/

Any other salvationists involved in music should join that list... c'mon!

Sis is home!
Juanita, Andrew, Caleb and Mitchell arrived on a flight from Perth via Sydney today. They're home to stay and they've signed a lease for a home in Narromine. I'm hoping Andrew will have a desire to hang with his uncle (me) a bit and get involved in some things like Indoor Cricket and hopefully music.

Their dog Elly and cat Tippy were supposed to be on the same flight with them, but as often happens, they ended up as lost luggage in Sydney. After a few phonecalls the staff located them and they came on the next flight to Dubbo, which was about 3 hours later.

That's enough catching up for now, I'll try and keep this blog more up to date with interesting info!

Head achers and Acres

Eli's fairyland...
All my high expectations have amounted to naught so far. I thought my son is probably going to be too smart for Kindergarten and everybody will think he's amazing and wonder "Wow, who are the parents of this genius?".

Back to reality!

Eli has been causing trouble at school, true to the male Phillips tradition. It started with being sent to the door five times on day two of kindergarten, and has progressed from there until he's been sent to the office and been excluded from his first on-stage performance with the rest of the class at assembly.

Janene met with Miss Parker to discuss what measures are needed to steer Eli towards a mature outlook on his schooling. Looks like it's gonna be a hard road... but we love him anyway.

If Eli doesn't make us famous with his bizarre imagination and acting ability, then I'll be very disappointed. Somehow I think we have another Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Mr Bean or Adam Sandler in the making.

We can't talk straight to Eli without him pretending he's somebody else... "Now Eli I want to talk to you seriously now..."
"I'm not Eli, call me Sonic."

*sigh*

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Large chunk of Australia up for grabs...
I saw this ad in the local paper, and I've decided this is the chance of a lifetime. I've been frantically sorting out in my head whether we can possibly afford to consider buying this chunk of Aussie bush. One thing is for sure, if we buy this property, it's gonna take a lot more generous PayPal donations before we'll be living comfortably again. Heck, ONE donation would be encouraging! *hint hint*

I've rung the agent about this property and next Tuesday we're going to have a look to find out more. I've also been talking to our financial adviser, Peter Smith about how realistic it would be to get finance.

I need try and remain focused on renovations for now though. As much as it'd be nice living in isolation (50km from Dubbo), we have other matters to attend, and lots of other bills.

No change...

Life goes on...
Lots has happened, but as far as the state of the house goes, and life in general, it's still as hectic as ever.

We have discovered that the extent of termite damage to our house goes beyond the section of wall that we first thought. Now we risk a budget blowout fixing the entire eastern wall (and maybe more?). We won't know the true amount of damage until we rip off all the weatherboard and see the wooden studs underneath, but already the builder has had to replace one section of the plate (the timber that all the wall studs stand on) underneath the kitchen window.

NOO LAUNDRY...
At least we can be the proud owners of a new laundry. Well the walls aren't yet finished and painted, but we have all our walls, taps, powerpoints and a new laundry tub (with a funky ROUND bowl). Perhaps the highlight of the new room is the new doorway that leads out to the eastern side of the house. Now our little home as 3 entries! That gives our burglars more options and will perhaps confuse the dumb ones.

Music class...
There is great progress in our Leaner Band. We have a new member, Craig Radburn. He has been to class for 3 weeks now and is already showing some early progress on the cornet.

In last Friday's lesson we learnt how to play Oh When the Saints, and believe it or not it ROCKED! It almost sounds like a band that's been practicing together for a long while - NOT just a learner band.

Don is coming along really quickly. He has a natural ear for music, which I detected when he first started coming along. This is exactly the kind of thing I think is going to be beneficial to Don.

Linda and Ros are going good too, but both struggle with their own problems. Ros has trouble playing up high, and Linda is finding the lower notes hard to hit. But overall they're going great guns!

Bathurst and Back...
Today we took a half-day trip to Bathurst to get Eli's gromets checked. It was his one month checkup. All is fine and the checkup too about 1 minute, then we had to drive all the way back again (total of about 5 hours driving for that 1 minute checkup).

GET OUT OF TOWN!
There are any number of good reasons that we would pack up and get out of this place - at least temporarily! So we decided we would. We went out to Mum and Dad's farm yesterday and cleaned out their flat, ready for us to crash there for a couple of weeks. We'll feel like pioneer settlers for a few days, but I think the experience will be enlightening.

We had a horrible night on Saturday night with our IDIOT neighbour and his music playing from about 1:30am til 5am. Then we were less than excited when we saw one of his mates moving his furniture and boxes INTO the house. This was that proverbial straw on the camel's back...

Salvos kick Canals...
In our semi-final clash, we downed the same team that beat us just two weeks ago. It was a sweet victory, but I kinda knew we could do it. We'd defeated these guys in all our other encouters, but it just didn't happen two weeks ago.

So we knew we had to smarten up to win, but were sure it could be done... and we did!

It seemed a little shakey from time to time, but in the end we came home strong and have booked ourselves a Final clash with Sleep City. These guys have managed to beat us every time we've played or I think we've beat them maybe once in the past. In any case, we'll have to be pretty sharp on the night to roll these guys. Most of them play outdoor cricket in the higher grades (A and B), so they're pretty snazzy in the field. We CAN DO IT though...

The game is Tuesday 6:30, and I'll feature a summary report for the benefit of those who bother to read this.

Ik ga nu naar bed! Tot ziens dan...
Time for bed now, I'll catch up later on anything else of importance that I've neglected to mention. Goedenacht!