Sunday, January 5, 2020

Great additions to the list, Diane. Thank you for those. I'm going to incorporate these lists into a single one for friends who have need of it. And many will soon have need of it.

A.

I have joined WW.

I am BLUE. I get 35 daily points, 42 weekly extras, and a boat load of free food including eggs and poultry and fat free dairy. How does that work????? We shall see.

35 on blue?! Lucky ducky. I only got 24. No wonder I couldn't hack it!

Good Morning Lovelies x

We decided to leave the farm yesterday around lunchtime as the smoke was so thick it stung your eyes to be out in it. It was starting to effect my breathing. The fires still rage and Beechworth was like a virtual Ghost town - lots of people have left - heeding the warnings of the emergency services. Continue to watch the fires and every time my phone beeps I run to see the updates. We are very lucky that there are still no fires within 30 kms of our farm. The devastation is just so hard to process but as Aussies are known for their resilience and mateship - this again is true. Many of the Emergency centres are now asking people to stop donating goods as the centres are overflowing. Our fruit and vegetable store up near the farm, took a semi trailer load of donated produce up to Corryong yesterday - along with 54 semi loads of Hay from various people to start feeding the remaining stock. The loss is hard to process on all fronts.The scale of the devastation horrendous. We returned to our city house freezing with a 30 degree drop in temperature and RAIN. Some of it is falling on the effected areas but not enough. I pray that they can be brought under control soon and am thankful for all the countries sending their firefighters to help us. USA included. And so we battle on.........

Return to work today UGGG - my leave went so fast. Hopped on the scales this morning 169.84 after my Birthday and Christmas etc so not unhappy with that. I hope to be able to take a look at WW at some stage over the next few days once I have caught up on the 1500+ emails that await my attention.....

Liz - So proud of you as you continue to organise a wonderful celebration of Pauls life. Please also be kind to yourself and allow yourself to accept all offers of help when presented. Many hands ..... and they tend to drop off once things settle at the other end as people go back to the day to day stuff.

Love to you all - I had best go and start to tackle the catch up

Good to be back x

S

I wish we could direct more rain and resources your way. It's so hard to watch and I know 1000 times harder to live it.

I forgot to take a picture before I ate it, but my lunch was good! Taking inspiration from Ann's lunch, I toasted a Thomas's 100 calorie wheat muffin, topped with two scrambled eggs and 1 ounce of wild smoked salmon (which was a small enough quantity it counted as 0 pts). And I sliced up an apple, which I gave half of to a begging, drooling Fergus as I didn't have room for it all. Yummy and easy and 7 points on Green.

Keep sharing ideas!

Gee, Cecily ... that sounds fab. Never thought of that egg/salmon/muffin combo before. Thanks. :)

Greetings Again All

Back from the pool which was full of screaming kids so I stayed in the hot tub with the other old folks. Getting to wash my hair in a nice stall shower (as opposed to tub one which I hate) gets me going. I am rosy, clean and hungry. Bad thing about swimming is that it makes you hungry. Does anyone else find that?

Thanks for the peanut oil idea for popcorn. I got sunflower but always like peanut oil around.

Hey I was an estate and benefit lawyer for 25 years. So I can tell you all that the best thing a person can do for their family is to leave their papers in good order. I had cases where a person died suddenly and the spouse had little idea of assets and literally had to look in the mail each day for statements. DH's mother died suddenly and her papers were a fright. Old insurance policies that had expired but had to be investigated, personal mail mixed with bank statements, all in heaps including junk mail. Mess to sort. My mom's were also a mess and because of crazy Pat I was not permitted to organize them and Pat made a worse mess of it as she got weird. Anyway my 2 cents.

Shirley I so hope your farm stays safe and that firefighters stay safe as well. The losses are heartbreaking and its so sad to see injured koalas on the news. Glad you have a safe city home.

And liz, so glad you have DS to help you. Sending good energy (no tuna casserole like my grandma used to make with the crunched up potato chip topping).

Peace all. Diane S