I have so much to write, but I don’t know where to start. So I may as well start from last Thursday when everything kind of went a bit stir crazy.
Jacob and I were so excited by our weekend away to Melbourne. Esther and Magdalene were excited about their two night sleepover at Grandma’s house. The house sitter had been organized and given keys to the house. Thursday morning I vacuumed, washed the floor, cleaned the bathrooms, and packed all our bags in anticipation of our Friday lunch time departure. The last thing I had to do on Thursday was take Esther to a late make-up swimming lesson at 5pm. I arranged my mum to come and look after Magdalene because she would want to get in the pool with Esther and I didn’t want temper tantrums late in the afternoon.
At around 4pm I looked out of our front window and could see the storm coming towards our house. It looked scary and had a peculiar green colour. I knew it was going to be a bad storm. As I was about to turn to get my mobile and ring mum to tell her not to come over, she rang me instead and told me that she was in her car, turning back home because the storm didn’t look good and taking Esther to her swimming lesson would be a bad idea. I agreed.
As soon as I hung up, the storm was above us. All four of us girls huddled on the couch as the hail pelted down our roof. I was too scared to lay Phoebe on her baby mat because of the lightning. It felt like the strikes hit all around us. I squeezed the girls closer as each lightning strike hit. We lost power almost instantly. I was praying our solar panels wouldn’t be smashed from the hail but it was only little pelts and I knew our panels could withstand 25mm stones. Thankfully we didn’t get the soft ball sized hail the inner city got.
Jacob messaged me to say he would catch the later bus home because the storm was still going where he was which is 10 minutes away from our house. If the storm was still going where he was, we were still in for more of the storm.
Thankfully the night before I had the foresight to buy two hot chickens from Red Rooster because they had this 2 for $20 deal. I had planned to organise a quick dinner for Thursday night so I could prepare my blogposts for this week because I usually get my blogposts done on a weekend. I have been trying since Problogger to get at least one week ahead, but the two times I’ve been able to do this, the poop has hit the fan and I’ve gone back to square one writing each week as it goes!
Well no one can blog with no power. So it was an early night for everyone, with cold baths and cold showers. I was crossing my fingers that the power would come back on in the morning. My hair was a sweaty mess from cleaning the house. I didn’t want to fly to Melbourne with a birds nest on my head!
The power didn’t come on Friday morning and I had a sponsored post that had to be published. So we packed up the car and headed to my mum’s who cooked us breakfast and let me use her computer to check in to our flight and put up my blog post. I washed my hair in cold water that morning and was able to straighten it at mum’s. You don’t realize how much you rely on power until you lose it!
I was astounded to hear the damage from the storm. So many cars written off. Roofs ripped from homes. Smashed windows. Fallen trees. The storm was pretty huge. At the same time we were also reeling from the news of Phillip Hughes passing.
Checking into the airport was seamless. I had booked business class flights for Jacob and I using our frequent flyers. It was only 20,000 more points so I thought why not? The extra room would be great with Phoebe on my lap.
And wasn’t she the best little traveler? She slept the whole two hour flight. There and back.
The moment we were up in the air, I forgot about the storm and that we didn’t have any power for our house sitter.
The power didn’t come on until Saturday which meant when we came home from Melbourne, we had to get rid of the food from the fridge and freezer. $300 later the fridge and freezer were restocked.
Our house sitter wasn’t able to stay at our house to look after our dog, but she made sure he had fresh water and was fed each time she visited. But Bentley didn’t take it too well because he went into every room of our house, took each pillow and cushion and made himself a pillow bed at the front door of our house. All the cushion covers smelled like dog so we had a mammoth cushion and pillow washing session upon our arrival home too.
By Monday morning, I was EXHAUSTED and could feel my glands were up. I was able to get the girls to nap at the same time so I could sleep myself and when I awoke I was shaking, breaking out in hot and cold sweats, had a throbbing migraine and every muscle in my body ached. I rang Jacob to ask if he could come home from work early. I lay on the couch not able to move. The girls decided to create havoc but I was too ill to notice. Phoebe was content to play in her washing basket.
The moment Jacob arrived home, I had a shower straight away and went to bed. I couldn’t keep anything down. I don’t know whether the big weekend plus the adrenaline I’ve been living off since having Phoebe to keep my blog/s going caught up with me. It was a big wake-up call because I was so sick. Thankfully I was able to keep food down yesterday and Jacob took a day off work so I could rest. My mum dropped over some soups and electrolyte drinks to help boost my energy because I’ve been light headed and dizzy since Monday night.
I know you would like to know what happened at the Kidspot Voices Awards. Most of you know already what I won, but what you don’t know is how incredibly surprised I was to receive what I did and how the prizes have answered my prayers in ways I didn’t expect.
Life can be stormy one moment, and full of surprise and elevation the next. I’ve learned to be positive in both seasons of life because they rarely last for long which means when wonderful things happen to you, you need to take the time to enjoy the moment.
It was a stormy start to our weekend away, but I will share the good stuff in my next blog post. I need to head to bed so I don’t find myself in the state I was in on Monday.
If you live in Brisbane, were you affected by the storm? Ever looked forward to something and have everything turn to crap before and after the anticipated event?
