Fire

It's been a horrendous, anxious, stressful, emotional and exhausting 24 hours. Fires have ripped across the beautiful state that I live in. At the time of writing this post, the fire has killed 65 people. This number is expected to rise.

The last couple of weeks have seen unprecedented high temperatures across the south east of Australia. This coupled with years of drought had left the ground dry as a bone, primed and waiting for tragedy. Yesterday the weather conditions brought the highest temperatures across Australia on record and extremely high winds.

When I left work at 1PM yesterday, it was 45 degrees celcius with strong winds blowing the dust into the sky. We started watching the CFA (Country Fire Authority) website for updates on the fires burning shortly after I got home. The sky was grey. It looked like it was overcast. The wind was so hot that it actually burnt my bare legs. Conditions were horrific.

When we moved here, we knew that we would have to be prepared for the possibility of fire. Although we live just on the outskirts of town, we are surrounded by bush on all sides. I love it here. It is peaceful and beautiful. This beautiful tree filled lifestyle, however, also brings with it risks. We knew of these risks, so prepared ourselves by buying a pump and hoses. We have two 33,000L tanks, a dam, and a pool for water. But still, we're vulnerable.

In the early eighties, we lost our home to fire. I was about 5 and although I don't remember everything there are parts of it that are etched in my memory forever.

We lived not far from where I live now. It was my parent's dream house. A beautiful period weatherboard home on 20 acres of land. We had only been living there a few months. We had gone down to Melbourne to visit my Granny. I remember we had not been there long when the phone rang. Then my Uncle, my mum and my dad rushed out. Granny called my brother and I to her and cuddled us. She told us our house had burnt down. I remember asking her where we were going to live.

Some time later mum and dad came back. I stood in the driveway watching the car pull in. I will never, ever in my whole life forget the look on my mum's face. She was a ghost sitting in the car, clutching one single precious possession, blackened by the fire. Tears stained her face. She was still.

I remember the first time I went back to the house. There was barely anything left but three chimneys. I went to what was my bedroom. Everything was gone. Everything was ash. I found one of my favourite soft toys, a dog called Ralph. He was vaguley recognisable. I remeber standing there crying, my older brother (who was only 8) holding me tight.

We lost everything. Everything.

Next came Ash Wednesday. We lived in Kyneton then, so so close to Woodend. Mum had us packed ready to go. She had been there before.

The Maryborough fires a few years later were also scary as we had moved to Newstead then, also close by. I packed a little basket with my favourite doll in it.

Now I have my own family and last night all I could think about was sifting through the ashes.

The main thing is that we were all safe way back when. We lost everything we had, but still had our lives. In the last 24 hours 65 people have been killed.

I can't comprehend it. Cars full of people, including children, trying to escape, caught in the firestorm. Killed.

It took all day, but I finally cried about an hour ago. Then I thought I had to write about it.

Friends of ours were in the Bendigo fire. We spoke to them earlier and they are all, thankfully okay. However, they were saying they had no fire plan. They lived in the suburbs of Bendigo, they never thought for a moment that fire would be something to worry about. Boy were they wrong. It doesn't matter where you are ... fire can get you.

It is believed that some of these fires were deliberately lit. I told my hubby earlier what I would do if I ever caught an arsonist. He saw a violent side of me, truth be told.

I had so many things I wanted to write here, but I feel like I am just rambling. I'm exhausted. I'm emotional. I am terribly, terribly sad. My heart is aching.

Again, it's been said before by other people, but WOW. Twitter last night was a wonderful wonderful resource. And the messages I received from fellow twitterers were just so great and so appreciated. I was so scared last night even though we were not in any direct threat. I lay awake for ages listening to the silence, praying that the wind didn't pick up.

I pray that I never have to pack up my family and flee. I pray for those that have lost everything. I know you are hurting, believe me, I do. I know what fire did to my mum ... I feel so much for everyone involved.

I have a houseload of furniture and household items including buckets of toys that were due for a Garage Sale. This will be donated. I urge you to do what you can, if you can, for those that have lost everything. As a kid who lost every precious thing I owned, every little hand me down I got afterwards was the best thing in the world.

I'm not sure I know what else to say. I know there was more in my head, but I'm a little numb.

Hell. It's been a weekend of hell.

A little more confidence, please?

I sometimes wish for more confidence. Today is one of those days. It's funny, because from one perspective this looks contradictory ... I post pictures of myself to flickr every day (particularly since I started this 365 days project I'm doing). That's easy stuff. Take a pic, post it. Done. No, the confidence I want is for words.

I wanted to ask someone their opinion the other day. Something very relevant to them and not very relevant to me, so their opinion would have been very useful. But I didn't get it. Not enough confidence to ask. Too scared to email them for help. And they were too busy to help me at the time I wanted the help.

So I thought I might throw the question out into FriendFeed or Twitter (it's a tech related problem so I thought that would be a good spot) but I couldn't. I type, I delete. Zero confidence.

The thing is, I know very little about technology and don't want to seem stupid. So, instead of asking things and possibly learning more, I clam up.

So, yeah, there you go, I'd like a little more confidence, please.

32 years ago today ....

... I entered this world, no doubt screaming my lungs out and causing my mother a great deal of pain.

Not much has changed.

Except now I probably don't cause my mother the same amount of pain and I don't scream too much although I do talk a lot (those who know me will agree wholeheartedly). The only pain I cause my mother now is when I get a new tattoo and she sighs :D

My birthday always makes me reflect on the things I have done, not just because I'm older but because my birthday falls at the end of the year, so I always think about what I have done and accomplished in the year gone by.

This past year has undoubtedly been the single most eventful year of my 32 years to date. I have: bought a house, had a baby, sold 2 businesses, moved interstate, travelled overseas for the first time AND did it on my own, bought a new business, went back to work full time after 4 1/2 years as a stay at home mum, renovated said house, moved into that house, had a massive family Christmas and I'm still alive. I think the only thing I didn't do was get a divorce and thankfully that looks unlikely! ;P

2009 looks set to be another big year, with a lot more firsts, but I am hoping it will be far less stressful than the year I have just endured. I'm not sure I could ever do what I have done in a 12 month period again. No thank you.

I'm not big on new year resolutions but I do set myself goals every year. I know I am going to achieve the goals I have set for myself for the coming year, because I will not let myself fail. My drive and my passion are strong and my optimistic streak pushes me to always do my best.

I am thankful for many things that have happened to me this past year. Things that have helped to continually shape the person that I am. To all of you that have had a part in that (and I'm sure you know who you are), thank you.

I have a great feeling about 2009. It's going to be a great year. Mark my words :D

Wait a second ... it ain't over yet!

I just wrote a blog post about my year and then just as I was about to post it I realised that there are still two major events to occur this year so you'll just have to wait a few more days!

One of those major events is my birthday, so I'm hoping for a particularly bloody marvellous one this year!

We will return to regular programming soon ... I promise :D

Dear blog readers ....

I will write again. I promise :)

I'm just crazy busy doing this whole retail at Christmas thingy (it's my 17th year doing retail at Christmas ... I am insane).

I promise a blog post full of wit (or something that rhymes with that) very very soon!

<3 Spi :)

Flat out like a lizard drinking!

It's been an extraordinary few months and so much is going on at the moment. Working 5 and a half days a week leaves little time for socialising or relaxation and with Christmas rapidly approaching ... lets just say I'm flat out like a lizard drinking!

I have invested a lot of money into my shop and it looks amazing. The difference since I took over is awesome and the feedback I have been getting is fantastic. Next week I have a web designer coming to see me. I was planning on waiting until after Christmas to work on my site, but as fate would have it one Saturday afternoon shortly before closing I h ad some customers in who were just totally in awe of my shop. The following Monday I received a phone call from this guy who loved the shop so much than when he got home he checked to see if I was online. When he hit my site and saw the coming soon page he called me up to ask me if I had anyone lined up. I told him I had nothing set in concrete so he offered to come to me to talk about it! I was stoked. With time being so short, having someone willing to come to me is a huge bonus. So this week I will be meeting with him to start designing my site. I'm quite excited by this :)

My plans for the direction of my shop have been somewhat dampened however by this whole stupid economy at the moment though. I am trying to deal with a few international suppliers but it's damn hard with the dollar the way it is currently. I'm still going to go ahead, but I'm crossing my fingers that it's not TOO long before there's a bounce back, otherwise I'll have to come up with a new objective. Luckily for me, I'm not the most stupid person around so I am working on a few other more profitable (for the time being) ideas. Looks like I might be making a little trip up to Sydney again soon for one of these reasons :D

There's a few big trade fairs coming up, a massive one in Sydney in February and another in New York in March that I am going to try my hardest to get to. Just gotta get through Christmas first ...

So, it's all good in my little world at the moment, and I hope it stays this way!

I wanna be a kid again!

Wasn't life sooooo much easier when you were young? I mean, you lived at home, no rent or mortgage repayments, no bills, your mum did your washing, cooked your dinner and drove you around. All I had to do was feed the kitties and keep my room clean. I had a weekend job and any money I made was mine, all mine!! I paid no tax (cos I earned no money basically lol) and had zero responsibility.

Sure, I had relationship problems. I had an on/off boyfriend how was basically a total jerk, but I 'loved' him sooooooo much that I kept forgiving him for all his shit. The little jerk was such a wanker but hell he was cute, so .... ;P

He broke my heart, but a week later I had a new love. He too broke my heart, then I broke a few hearts, then ... oh I think about then I turned 18 and started to think and try to act like an adult!!

At the time I thought my life was so full of complications and problems and hassles! If only I knew what was to come ....

Retrospect is a wonderful thing, but geez it pisses me off. All those things I could have avoided if only I'd known. But on the other hand, hell I've had some fun making mistakes!

These days I'm responsible for 3 little kids. I'm responsible for feeding them, clothing them and keeping them happy and safe. It's the single most biggest stress of my life. Because I want them to never want for anything. I want them to always be in good health. I want them always to smile. I never want them to experience hurt. Of course, I know these things are inevitable.

Now I am the major breadwinner for our family my stress levels have gone through the roof. I think I now know what my husband has been going through for the last how ever many years. I constantly worry that I'm going to fail ... yet at the same time I have such ambition to make sure that I don't. My moods yoyo from extreme optimism to self doubt. I feel like a totally hormonal bitch at times, which is so strange for me as I am not your 'typical' chick. I've never had hormonal swings before.

So, yeah ... take me back to being 17 again ... hell it was easy back then!!!

Although, you know, with all that I have had and all that I have experienced ... all my heart breaks and all my loves ... all the people who have been a part of my life and helped to shape who I am ... all the conversations I have shared with those who mean the most to me .... most of these have occurred in the years since I became an adult. So, on second thoughts, maybe I am happy where I am, with the knowledge that there is more really good stuff (and really shitty stuff) to come.