Semester 1

Ian began the school year with five maths subjects (one of each grade 8–12) and a House Family group (you might know this as “Form” or “Home Room” or something like that). He found the beginning of the school year to be much less stressful than 2007. See Ian's blog post for more details.

Home again...with a sting in the tale

We are home in Mackay again.

God was gracious to us in getting us home safely and in allowing us to unload all of our belongings that we had in our very full car and trailer (fortunately the trailer wasn't as full as the car! but it did have a couch and a few other bits and pieces) well before it started raining.

We stopped on our way at the Woolworths in Sarina (a rather new establishment judging by the decor) to pick up some supplies as we knew that there wasn't much in our house.

As it turned out, there was even less in our house than we expected. No, we hadn't been robbed. An electric circuit had tripped while we were away - the circuit that our fridge was on. I should point out here that the only thing plugged into that circuit, and turned on, was the fridge!

So we didn't have any frozen peas. They, like everything but the chocolate, had to be thrown in the bin, while holding one's breath.

Ian says that I "gallantly cleaned the fridge out" while he went off to get more supplies. The reality was that I was less keen to fight the Saturday afternoon crowds at our local Woolies. Remember, I'm a homebody and, as stated before in a previous post, I'd rather clean than go out.

When Ian returned, he asked me to pass his school keys to him from the back deck so he could go to the school to put the cold things into the fridge there while we waited for our fridge to cool down after its clean-out. (You can read about the proximity of our accommodation to Ian's workplace in a previous post.)

As I did so, I felt a sting on my cheek and promptly flailed with my hands only to get stung on my finger. Ian told me to run inside. I had been stung by wasps that had been building their nest on the twigs of an old dead pot plant that came with the house. I must have brushed against against them when I leant over the rail.

The Stop Itch I applied calmed things down and I'm thankful I'm not allergic to these things or it would have been much worse for me considering I'd been stung on the cheek.

After he put the shopping away, Ian got the insect spray to kill the wasps, all the while apologizing to me for not dealing with them months ago when he first noticed them building. Me, I hadn't noticed them at all so I wasn't about to complain about Ian's supposed inattention to this task.

I actually felt a bit sorry for the wasps - it wasn't their fault for defending themselves against a lumbering destructive force, i.e. me. After all, that's what they're designed to do! Speaking of design, it was an incredible feat to hit a moving target like my finger so quickly after getting my face - I don't see that happening by chance.