I feel that my job is an absolute honour and privilege. I love my job and I enjoy working with every young person that enters our service. Sometimes it can be intense and frustrating, whilst other times it’s filled with joy and laughter.

I often feel saddened by how some young people have such an intense feeling of hopelessness. This hopelessness is ingrained in their being as they have systematically been failed by every corner of society. Failed by parents, families, schools, the justice system and the media. Society has labelled them as “no-hopers”, “losers”, and a tax burden.  I want to tear these lables off, I want to scream to the world that this is our future, I want every person to know that it is NOT their fault. Sure they’ve made some bad choices, but nobody has every taught them to make good choices, nobody has told them that they are worth it. I fully understand that not every person that leaves my workplace will be a well-adjusted pillar of society. BUT I hope that I am able to help young people make better choices and take responsibility for their future, at the very least I hope that I instill a belief that they have a right to be heard and that they deserve the best for themselves. It is so important to help the young people realise and understand that what they have done in the past, or suffered in the past, does not have to predict their future, and that they have the power to change their future by making informed choices.

Everyday I take home a better understanding of not only young people, but also myself. Each day I challenge my beliefs and justify my actions. Everyday I walk out of my job knowing that I have tried my best to make a difference, a difference not only to the young people at the service, but a difference in the world. I think that the more people that choose to stand up and be counted, the more society, as a whole will improve. If I try and I fail at least I will be happy knowing that I gave a damn.

It’s that time of the year when our school has parent/teacher interviews. It’s always something that I’m not sure whether I should dread it or love it, as I only know what happens at school from what the boys tell me. Not to mention I was no model student, I was the “if only she would apply herself” type student. So I do have a fear that my kids may take after me.

Honestly, Luke hates school. This is the first year he hasn’t cried everyday, and he is very well liked by kids, big and little, but he is also very happy in his own company. He would happily never go to school again. He gets upset when he realises that he has to go to school for another ten years. He is an intelligent wee fellow but I think he gets intensely frustrated by the assemblies, the lining up to go anywhere and the whole routine of school.

So last week I went off to Luke’s interview. It was all pretty good, he is academically on track, is well-behaved and well liked. His teachers did mention that he is slow to finish his work but is steadily increasing his work output. They also said that Luke goes to the toilet about every 20 mins. They asked if this should happen, knowing that he has a medical condition they haven’t wanted to stop him. I did say that he does need to drink lots, but that he shouldn’t need to wee that often. So when I got home I asked Luke why he was going to the toilet so often and he replied “Sssh that is my little secret”. Then he proceeded to tell me that if he goes to the toilet at certain times he gets out of certain class work!!! I had to laugh very loudly, on the inside, and thought to myself if only he could channel those “smarts” into something more positive the kid would hit the stars!! So his little secret is no longer, and funnily enough he no longer needs to wee during class time.

After spending yesterday morning in my busy morning run around achieving multiples things at once, I turned the car radio on and heard “Multiple deaths in major earthquake in New Zealand”. I instantly felt my stomach churn and my heart pound. This is my country, my family, my friends and a piece of my heart they are talking about. I was shocked at the devastation when I turned on the TV – the rubble, the mangled lives, the mangled buildings, the images of people wandering aimlessly through the streets with blood running from their shaken bodies. All I could do was stare at the TV with tears stream downing my face and seeing so many NZ icons shattered into pieces.

As a child and adult living in NZ I was terrified of earthquakes, that fear of dying took over me and I was a panicker. I felt many earthquakes some bigger some smaller, none causing more than minor damage, but every one made me more scared. My fear of heights came from being in an earthquake in a high-rise that my Mum worked in, I still never feel safe in tall buildings, I feel sick standing on balconies, I feel safe on terra firma, even though I live where earthquakes just don’t happen.

I am grateful that as far as I know my family and friends in Christchurch are safe, and I’m even more grateful that my immediate family are North Islanders. For the first time in a long time I want to go home, I want to hug my Kiwi family and friends and reassure them that it will be ok, maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but they will be okay.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote on my Facebook page about how my parenting skills were lacking that day and I need to switch my boys off for a couple of hours for a break or maybe they wanted to switch their own ears off so they didn’t hear me being cranky anymore. Then a friend replied about what a fabulous Mum I am and how I am sent the challenges that I have because I can handle them unlike most people. With the state of mind I was in that day it really made cry. And then I came to realise that I’m allowed to be exhausted and cranky as I do have a lot to deal with, some of it is out of my control and other stuff is my choice. And I realise people may think I have a blessed life, and I too think I have a blessed life as I know that there are lots of people who work harder and who’s lives are harder through no choice of their own. But my life is not always a bed of roses and sometimes it is, honestly, depressing, upsetting and exhausting. And today is one of those horrible days where I’m struggling.

I get so sick of juggling so much stuff. I’ve got one boy with ADHD who requires lots of extra attention especially teaching organisation skills and liaising with schools and coaches. My other child has a reoccuring illness that requires LOTS of medical appointments, lots of illness and days of school and three or more operations per year. Not to mention I work as a full-time youth worker working with homeless teens and help do all the accounts and taxs for my hubby’s business. I work shift work that allows me to able to spend lots of time with my kids and doesn’t involve my kids going into care very much, but any form of childcare comes with a guilt factor. I honestly am not stay at home mother material, I’ve done it and not enjoyed it.

Most of the time I’m happily living my life enjoying it and being grateful, but occassionally I get serious doubts over my life and especially my parenting skills. I want my kids to be happy well-adjusted kids, I want them to be well educated and I want them to have lots of real friendships and enjoy their lives to the fullest. But, damn it, I haven’t got a clue on how to help them achieve it. I feel all I can do is love and encourage them, teach them morales and that they are valuable beings, be involved in their schooling and sports and be the best rolemodel that I can be. And pray that I’ve done the right thing by them. I know I can’t control their choices (which is hard to admitt), I know I can’t control what happens in the world outside of our home and I know I can’t control peer pressure. But today is day where I’m feeling doubt even though I haven’t yelled or ordered, or even got slightly cranky. But in those quiet moment between tasks that self-doubt has crept in.  I just feel that parenthood just feels like such a gamble, a gamble that doesn’t show if your winning or losing until it’s too late.

At the end of September we headed off on our annual camping trip. We had an extra onboard this time as my nephew, Devon, was here from New Zealand. We wanted to show Devon just how varied and beautiful West Australia is from the inland dry areas to the turquoise blue sea. And I think we successfully managed it.

Our first night’s stop was the Murchison Settlement Roadhouse which is very isolated and on the way to, the even more isolated, Mt Augustus 

Murchison Settlement Roadhouse

From there we saw same interesting things that are very iconic to Australia. One is a stock watering well. These have been put in over 100 years ago and are used to water travelling stock in an arid and remote parts of Western Australia.  A lot of these are now un-useable as stock is general moved by road trains, however we were lucky enough to come across a working stock well.

Working Stock Well

From here we travelled along further until we crossed the 26th Parallel. This is officially classified as remote so if you work above this zone there are big tax breaks due to the extremely hard living conditions. There is little to no rain with extreme temperatures regularly reaching 50C (122F) and an over abundance of dangerous creatures including deadly snakes, spiders, scorpions, jellyfish, crocs, etc, etc. It can also be an expensive place to live as most water and all food is transported in. Fresh fruit and vegies are not a common occurrence especially since your nearest shop can be well over 500km away.

The three boys at the 26th Parallel

Once we got to Mt Augustus we realised it is the largest rock in the world but not as tall as Uluru (Eyres Rock). Mt Augustus looked spectacular both at sunrise and sunset. The morning we left we bush-walked around part of the rock and between the heat and the flies we all got hot and cranky so headed off to Karajini National Park.  The trip to Karajini was a long, hot and dusty trek over some unforgiving terrain and when we had a rock go through the side wall of Jason’s $400 tyre, he was far from impressed. The only other damage sustained throughout the trip was both, Mike and our campers got busted brake lines which would have resulted in rocks bouncing up off the tyres.

Mt Augustus at sunrise.

Karajini NP was almost hard to describe. When you drove into the camping area it looked dry, hot and tired. But within 300m walk you were standing at the top of picturesque gorges with cascading cool waterfalls.  Thankfully they were cool as it was starting to get darn hot!! Devon, managed amazingly well with the heat considering it was only 7 days previous that he had been at ski camp in NZ and it was -2C (28F) and it was about 42C (108F). All of us, 6 kids and 6 adults, had a great time in the rockpools and waterfalls, and we even went on an 8.6km bushwalk when it was 40+C and we did it without any kids complaining.

Fortescue Falls, Karajini NP

Luke sitting on Fortescue Falls.

Mitch looking hot during our bushwalk.

Strange rock formations discovered on bushwalk.

From Karajini NP we drove to Millstream Chichester NP and to get there we had to go to Tom Price (a very small mining town) to do a safety course so we could use the mining railway road. This is a private road that is owned by mining giant Rio Tinto. This road was far from exciting and the only thing that relieved the boredom for the kids was the iron ore trains. We saw about six of them in total and the kids tried counting the carriages. One train had 287 carriages and 3 engines pulling it.

Rio Tinto iron ore train.

And the three engines pulling it (taken out the car window as we drove).

Millstream Chichester NP was like a breath of fresh air, there was big shady areas, large grassed areas and a billabong only 20m from where we camped so we didn’t have to trek up and down gorges. The water was very deep and cool so it was lucky that we bought blow-up pool noodles to keep the kids afloat, and they also made awesome water seats for us lazy adults.

Billabong at Millstream Chichester NP

The 2 campers and 1 roof-topper all set up at Millstream.

 From there we headed back to the coastline to Point Samson. It was a lot cooler on the coast due to the sea-breeze but still sitting around the mid-30s. We stayed at a caravan park so we could stockup with food, wash the clothes and refill our water tanks.  The caravan park was probably the hardest part of the trip with the kids (for us adults) as all of a sudden we were back in civilisation. We had complaints about “We’re bored” and ”The playground is boring”. But ironically when we were in the middle of the dry hot nowhere we didn’t have one complaint and they all entertained themselves collecting rocks and sticks and running around in the fresh air. We went to Karratha which is a regional mining town to stock up with food and to check out Dampier Peninsula and NW Gas Shelf Plant which was very interesting. We also went to Hearson Cove between Dampier and Karratha. It was amazing to see how far out the tide goes (up to 6m) out and how quickly it came back in. When we first put our feet in the water we were nearly 1500m from the high tide shoreline and by the time we left the tide was almost the whole way back in. On our way out of Hearson Cove we noticed a Crocodile warning sign which we should’ve seen before we ran to the water!! So next time we’re up north we’ll be taking a closer look at the signs before running towards the water!!

NW Gas Shelf Project, Dampier Peninsula

Mitch being a croc at the Crocodile Warning sign!!

Our next, and last, destination was Ningaloo Station which sits between Exmouth and Coral Bay. This is absolute pristine coastline with barely a soul on it. Just walking along the beach we saw dolphins galore, huge rays, turtles as wide as my arm span and even a reef shark!! And the snorkelling was spectacular too!! We saw Nemo, Dory, Nor-West Snapper, Zebra fish, Angelfish and Bat fish and the most beautifully coloured coral. We even saw a monster clam which Devon and Jas were trying to get to shut!! We spent our last five days at Ningaloo. It was a time to relax and enjoy the simple pleasures that nature brings our way. We spent hours fishing, swimming, snorkelling and playing cricket. The kids made coral gardens on the beach from coral washed up on the shore. And we all sat in awe of the sunset each night.

The kids posing on the beach

Another perfect Ningaloo sunset

Mitch, Devon and Luke on the beach

Probably the worst part of the trip is going home. It’s not like a couple of hours down the road!! It was two days drive!! The first day we drove for over 10 hours and stopped at a 24hr rest bay. Then packed up and left by 530am, had a late breakkie at 8am in Geraldton then drove another 6 hours home. We did this long haul with barely a squeak or a complaint from the kids. When we did get home it made technology like flashing loos and continuous hot water an absolute pleasure.

Wow, I can’t believe how time has flown and how I haven’t written anything on here for soooooooooo long. So for a quick update – my self-chosen unemployment did not last long!! About six weeks after I left my job I started working as a Youth Worker for a Christian organisation. I work with homeless teens aged between 15 and 20 years old. Not only is this position permanent but it is full-time too. So for the first time since Mitch was born in 2001 I am working full-time.  Thankfully, this job is shift work so the boys only go into care for a couple of mornings a week and one or two afternoons a week so it is fun for them. It also means that I have days off during the week where I can still help at school and go to their sports carnivals.

I have found working full-time, helping organise Jason’s business, effectively raising two boys and maintaining a household exceptionally exhausting. So something had to give, and give I did!! I gave all the business paperwork to the account!! And I gave all the housework to Jason (since he doesn’t want to pay for a cleaner)!! I figured that when Jason discovered how monotonous and repetitive housework is he would soon agree to a cleaner at a cheap $50 a week.

So now life has calmed down, summer is on the way and I’ve had a three week camping holiday (organised with work at interview stage) I feel refreshed and energised and really living and loving life at its fullest.

There are a few families that we regularly camp with on long weekends and school holidays. We became friends through the 4WD Club of WA (which if you live in Perth and are thinking about joining a club be sure to check us out here). Well, we’ve got into a habit of always stopping at bakeries for meat pies and custard tarts on our travels. For non-Aussie readers, meat pies are a way of life here just like how hot dogs are to the US.  Australians eat a lot more meat and savoury pies than they do sweet tart-style pies. So one night whilst sitting around the campfire, with a couple of beers under our belts, the idea of “The Great Aussie Pie Hunt” was born. It started with working out a way to acquire free pies and custard tarts as we seem to easily spend $20 per family on baked treats. It was suggested that we needed a clipboard, a video camera and an official t-shirt in order to look like we really meant business. We even thought up sponsors – Awesome Industries (Mike and Tracy), Simpson Trailers (Matt and Brenda) and Steel Campers (us) because every time somebody does something brilliant to their 4WD or camper trailer we refer it back to our imaginary businesses. So this crazy ideas has sent our little heads into a spin and sent my fingers tapping away at the keyboard and you just never know we may actually make money out of this crazy idea one day. Now we have advanced from a crazy idea to a legitimate forum (and no we’re not even asking for free pies yet). So please feel free to check out our newly designed website and sign up as a member so you too can tell us about your great pie hunt.

On Friday my hubby, Jason, celebrated his 40th birthday. He is not a party person and dislikes being in the limelight so I had to find a way to celebrate this milestone in a way that he would enjoy it. So what else was there to do?? Camping!! The place where our family loves to be, living with nature and all that it has to throw at us. We ended up camping Friday and Saturday night with another family who are our great friends, we also had other people meet us to camp Saturday night and some that came just for dinner. We camped at Lane Poole Reserve at Dwellingup which is only about an hour away from home. It turned out to be a cold and occasionally raining, but we had a fantastical weekend 4wding, eating, drinking and celebrating. So to my gorgeous husband – Happy 40th Birthday and I hope to celebrate with you in 40 years time. XXX

I am officially unemployed. On Monday I threw my job in, it was all getting too hard so I did something for me and resigned. My heart hasn’t been in it for awhile now and when I was at work I was just going through the motions. The job I had needed more than motions, it needs heart and soul in order to make better lives for the less fortunate. Jas, my hubby, has suggested I take a couple of months off work and focus on the things that matter to me. But I’m not really sure I can do the full-time stay-at-home Mum gig. I love my kids dearly but I also love walking out the door and going to work. I’m lucky that I have a wonderful husband who is capable and willing to cook and clean and look after our babies, sometimes I think he does a much better job than me. So I don’t suffer too much with “working Mum guilt” syndrome as I don’t have to put my kids into care. But I’ve decided to try something a little different in my working life. I’m going to keep working in the community services sector as I thoroughly love it but I’m walking away from accommodation services and looking to put my talent somewhere else. Yes, it may mean I have to study a little more and, yes, I will probably have to start from the bottom. But these challenges are something I’ll face with an open-mind and determination. I feel as though a weight has lifted off my shoulders and that the world is at my feet. I feel I have a new opportunity to make some great decisions and make my world and those around me a better place.

Oh and I just really needed to tell everyone how very proud I am of my two boys. They got their mid-year school reports. Both are doing really well in educational attainment and effort. What more could a Mummy ask for? Well done boys and I am proud of you both. XXX

I think I’m suffering from a case of the winter blues. I normally enjoy winter as our summer seems like it goes forever and I look forward to rainy days and long winter nights. I love eating those winter foods and watching the flames flicker in the fire. BUT this winter is cold, cold, cold! Perth would normally sit around 18-20C (64-68F) through the winter months with plenty of winter storms and rainy days. But this winter is different!! We’ve had -2C (28F) nights which are the coldest in 27 years and days where it is as low as 12C, which is unheard of and almost unbearable. Yes, it’s been sunny but it does nothing to warm us up though. Our houses aren’t built for the cold, they’re built for the hot with ducted air-conditioning and lots of floor to ceiling windows with great ventilation. That great ventilation quickly turns into cold drafts when the cold weather strikes. We’re very lucky as we have a really good wood-burner that warms our house but just walking to school or watching the kids play footy is a bone-chilling experience. I must say I admire those people living in Europe and North America who endure months of snow and ice and I don’t know how you cope day after day, week after week, having to stay indoors.  I know this sounds like a big whinge but from a sun-loving cold blooded person I need my warm weather back, I need to feel my fingers and toes and, oh, how I dream of summer.