Five for Friday

1. Friday.

It’s Friday somewhere in the world, right?  I started this post yesterday but then Abby came home from camp earlier than I expected.  I put is aside to go listen to stories about how boys are SUCH sooks and the girls kicked ass on all the camp activities including the confidence course. Boys are so useless, Mum.

Paul helping unload the trailer load of bags he transported to and from camp.

2. Small things make people happy.

Well, it’s a big thing with lots of little things in it. Jacob washed windows, mowed lawns and has even been collecting aluminium cans to recycle to save up for a fish tank. 

And this is a story full of small blessings really – from start to finish.

Originally Jacob was saving and watching trademe, and he found a fishtank he wanted but it was too much money.  He asked me for a loan.  I refused, giving him the speech about his income not being adequate enough to cover said loan.  The poor boy was so disappointed but it was a good budgeting lesson, I’m thinking to myself whilst trying to get over the guilt of turning him down.

Which is about when he heard about a competition on the ZM radio station called “Fix my Life”  The effort shifted to winning the competition.  He set an alarm to wake early enough each day to ring through.  He used 2 phones to try, on checking the recent calls on my phone he was trying 60-70 times each time that competition aired.  And that was on just one of the phones.

He eventually got through.  He told his story and they told him to hold.  He did.  Until his battery went flat.  The devastation in this house was huge. 

Cool thing though, ZM rang him back – listened to his story and gave him the rest of the money he needed to buy his tank.  First blessing.

He placed a bid on the tank he wanted – there were several other people bidding so he was nervous.  On the day the auction ended, noone else bid.  Second blessing.

The owners of the tank took it apart and drove an hour south to us to deliver it.  They kept the water in buckets so the fish wouldn’t go into shock being put into new water, they bought everything needed, they spent 1.5 hours setting it up for Jacob and gave him all their spare stuff, including all their fish and lengthy typed out instructions on how to look after the heated, filtered tank.   It was totally above and beyond what we expected.

There are good people in this world.  And the smile says it all.

Jacob next to the tank, with cabinet, that he won on trademe after saving and winning a radio competition.  Hard work pays off.

3. When one door shuts, another opens.

My regular travel and weekend work has had to stop, due to things going on here at home.  I’ve had to turn down a lot of teaching opportunities.  It’s sad, but you have to do what is right for those at home. 

But as this door shuts, another opens.  I was contacted by large US manufacturer, Prima Marketing, to put on an event here in New Zealand.  It’s a huge event that already has lots of interest in it.  It’s perfect for me right now because I can do all the organising at home beforehand and the travel is minimal at the time.  Just what I needed.

Save the date – 20th – 22nd Sept, Wairakei, NZ.  Registration opens in just over a week.

Fancy Pants Design Team call is open now – go here to find out more.

5. I still got it.

Last but not least – I might be 40 and I might have little legs, but I can still run with the best of them.  In fact I busted apart my 2.4km time this week, keeping a pace that led the pack (all 2 of them) right through the entire course, up hills, down hills and sprinting to the finish. 

I could hear the footsteps behind me and that pushed me to go faster, what I didn’t realise was that they were trying to keep up – I guess all 3 of us were pushed to beat our times. 

Photo taken by Karl, great PT, not so flash on finding the focus…
Laters.

Liz, myself & Danielle after wiping a full minute off our 2.4km run.