Gosh haven't I been the slacker... Its been ages since I updated this blog. Once again I do apologise but I do have a reason for my absence - well a few reasons actually... Its been a horrible few weeks in my household. :(

Firstly my poor little dog Buddha got very very sick and ended up needing emergency surgery at 2 o'clock in the morning - it was looking very grim and she was given less than a 5% chance of survival but by some miracle, after 13 days in intensive care, my little girl made a full recovery and is back to her normal self *phew*... I am certain that her little hospital visit has taken years of my life and given me a few more wrinkles and greys but i'm just so thankful that she is better now!

Just 2 weeks later and the area of the Sunshine Coast which I live in took a hammering from a massive storm cell and left us wading around in knee deep water for several hours. I've lived in this area for many many years and have never seen it flood to this degree...

We have issues with local storm drains backing up anytime we get a decent downfall of rain and it tends to flood out the back streets but this particular night the rain just did not let up and it fell from every direction, and had a strong wind behind it. This particular night the main road filled up leaving cars stranded on the median strips filling up to the tops of their windows with water... A lady had stalled her car and was trying desperately to push it off the road with her children still buckled in the back seats... nobody would help her so we did and by the time we had her children out of the car the water was chest high. In all my time here I have NEVER seen this happen - it was pretty scary really.

We had to sandbag the house trying to keep the water from coming in the back and front doors. I think we did a pretty good job considering the depth of the water outside - we got approximately half a foot of water through the lounge, kitchen and dining areas. The worse part was the council drains backing up and sending sewerage up through the floor/shower drains which then spilled out into the hallway and onto the bedroom carpets leaving them completely destroyed (& they were only recently installed too) :(((

The roof started to leak bad and SES were called in to help tarp it up but it was too late. Before they'd finished tarping up the ceilings started to collapse in several places, the lightbulbs had water flowing from them and the walls had water streaming down them like a giant waterfall... it was the most bizarre thing i've ever seen. As a precaution we had cut the power early in the night when the roof began to leak so by torchlight we sat, all night, in wet clothes, feet in water, unable to get dry or warm. The dogs were up on the lounge and the bed trying to stay dry as best they could. It was quite literally a night from hell (and I ended up with a rotten flu from it - I NEVER get flus!!!)

Next morning as the sun shone brightly outside we got to observing the damage... carpets were soaked in sludge (and the stench was wretched), ceilings were sagging and saturated and the mold was already beginning to form. The kitchen cabinets were swollen and weak as were the sideboards in the bedrooms... Outside the gardens had lost their soil and the onions I had planted were completely gone... The line from the water levels was still marking the fences and the walls. The street had reverted back to normal (and had we not have been there to experience the flooding first hand we would never have believed it did, or even could have, flooded like it did)! The powers that be had declared it an official disaster zone (never thought i'd see that here) and the people who manage the sewerage and water in the area sent out a team to remove the carpets and sanitise the floors...

We had a roofing company out to fix the roof but have been told that its beyond repair and needs a new roof installed. The plasterers have said that the whole ceiling needs to be taken down and replaced and some of the wall needs to be fixed where the water has saturated it. The kitchen will need to be replaced eventually but that can wait a bit.  The insurance does not cover for flood - its never been needed - this is not a classic flood zone - and in all fairness I believe a major contributing factor to the flooding in this instance was due to council drains being insufficient, they are in dire need of an upgrade but our councils wont do anything about it, so i'm chasing those in charge of drains for carpet replacement - thats still in negotiation (typical).

Apart from losing a few projects I was working on (and its my own fault because I always work on the floor even though I have a perfectly good work bench *sigh*) and a few insignificant items that can be easily replaced, most of my craft things were saved, albeit a little damp (but have dried out nicely)... & with everything that's been happening I did still manage to finish some ATCs for the little scrap group I always speak of so i'll post a pic for you. - This months theme was flowers with bling so I decided to do a hybrid layout. I used a photo of the rose from my garden and a photo from my old dog radar and I layered it on several layers of cardstock - I added pink bling around all the edges... the photo below was the first part - the digital component - (before I layered it on cardstock) :)))

ATC for March Swap

Back of ATC for March Swap

I managed to get a few photos of the flooding as the water was starting to rise but once the flooding really set in I was too preoccupied to care about taking photos... once I locate the USB cable for the water camera (everything is literally everywhere at the moment) I will post some pics for you all to see :)

So anyway, that's my reasons for being a little neglectful this month *sigh*... see, for once I really DID have an excuse lol.

Hopefully by the next post i'll have a new roof and a new ceiling, new carpets and possibly a new kitchen, and things will be back to normal. In the meantime my crafting has been put on hold since I don't have any space to work nor can I access the stuff easily. But I do have an emergency supply handy so I still can have a little play around - I plan to participate in the next months ATC swap (the theme is Angels - in memory of the organisers unborn baby that was lost in April 2000) and I am also going to try and get a couple of mini albums made for some charities to auction off - they both need as much assistance as they can get - I'll post the links - please take the time to have a quick look at each of them and if you can help out it'd be awesome :)))
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gracees-Appeal/168686466580580
https://www.facebook.com/yasminahsgiftofhope

And thats it for me - hope your month has been better than mine and if not then I hope you are still finding some reason to smile. At the end of the day we are all still here to tell the tale and its just another story to add to my book of life, so I will continue to be thankful for small mercies, appreciate life and keep smiling.

Take care and have a great week :)))