Most of you know and some of you don’t but I’m participating in the World’s Greatest Shave on 12 March where I will be having my hair shaved off to raise awareness and funds for the Leukaemia Foundation. My shave will be taking place at the Courthouse Hotel in Southport on the cnr of Nerang St & Davenport St between 6pm and 9pm, come and watch me make a spectacle of myself!
I have reached my initial goal but there is still THREE days to go before my head becomes BALD in support of the brave people fighting these blood diseases and disorders.
I would dearly love to raise more as the Leukaemia Foundation gets no government funding and has a village in Brisbane where patients and their families can stay for free while they are getting treatment, every donation helps.
We have a competition now running, it’s a raffle, anybody may enter from anywhere in the world. I would really appreciate if you would forward this on to as many people as you possibly can on all the social networking sites as it’s such a worthwhile cause.
All you have to do is go to this link – My Profile – and using the secure page, donate AU$10.00 or higher and you will be in the running to win. You can only use a credit or debit card though.
What’s the prize?
One of my dearest friends Rantz has kindly offered the winner the choice of any one of his photos on his flickr account to be printed on canvas and shipped to the winner anywhere in the world. He’s got a wonderful eye for subject, and has a unique perspective and produces amazing photos as well as digital manipulation to create some of the most amazing images. Rantz lives in the “Top End”, in Darwin and comes across some of the most amazing scenery and wildlife that Australia has to offer.
Check out his photos - Rantz’s Flickr Photostream.
How the winner will be chosen:
I get to see who donates, I will write the names down as they come in and keep a numbered list. Rantz will randomly draw a number and then I can let him know who the lucky winner is and we will let them know how to claim their prize. The winner will be chosen on Saturday 13 March and notified by email.
This is a bona fide offer, no gimmicks, it’s just one wonderful person (Rantz), helping another wonderful person (my humble self) to help support the Leukaemia Foundation and the very brave people who fight to survive these wretched diseases such as Leukaemia, Lymphomas, Myeloma and other blood disorders.
Don’t forget to share this EVERYWHERE you possibly can, the more donations, the better. Just imagine how satisfying it is to help those in need and the bonus is you could win a prize!
*Disclaimer: only those who donate from the 4th of March are in the running – if you’ve already donated and want to participate in this ‘raffle’, you will need to donate again!
Tags: canvas photo, leukaemia foundation, rantz, win, world's greatest shave
Gattina @ Writer Cramps is the host of this week’s Fun Monday and here is her assignment for this week….
I want to know how do you do your grocery shopping, every day, once a week, once a months, in different shops or in one big supermarket. A picture of your favourite store and maybe of your trolley would be nice.
Well, I’m not currently the shopping person in the house due to health reasons, it’s too slow, it’s too much like hard work and in the summer months it’s been really hard to do BUT I occasionally pop out for my own things or things that were missed and these are the places I head to usually. You could say I have a “shopping crew”, my mum and husband do the shopping each fortnight!
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- The Health Shelf is where I go for all my health things, natural remedies and supplements. I have a lot of faith in this shop and Mandy who runs it, she really knows her stuff!
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- Pacific Fair is an indoor and outdoor shopping mall, it’s really quite a different style of mall, partially geared to the lifestyle here. If I need to buy things that aren’t food related I will usually go here as it’s closest to home and I like the place. It’s really quite a large shopping centre too so there is a huge range of shops.
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- This is the closest supermarket to where we live, there’s a Woolworths a few stores up as well but we tend to use Coles at Mermaid Waters.
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- Woolworths still exists in Australia, but it’s ONLY a supermarket and doesn’t come with all the added extras that it used to in the UK. I go to this one if I’m down in Robina going to the doctor and we need something.
Go visit Gattina’s to see who else is playing this week.
Next week’s host is Faye at Summit Musings, so pop across this week to see what her assignment will be!
Tags: fun monday, Shopping
This week’s assignment (a reminder) is
1. What memories do you have of your school years at any stage of your education?
2. Did you keep in touch with your friends who were there with you in your formative years, or perhaps you lost touch as I did and are finding them again? Tell us about some of your school friends.
You don’t have to go into detail, you can if you want to add as much detail as you’re comfortable with, photos are optional but you know most of us love photos
I’m a couple of days late posting, I’m sorry…I’m having issues with carpal tunnel syndrome so it’s making it hard typing, so what I’m doing is leaving a gap…I will add my stuff a little later after a rest of the hands/wrists and in the meantime you can follow the links of who is playing this week. Make sure you pop back to see this edited version a little later.
I enjoyed school, here we only have two levels of school before we consider either college or university – Primary school and then High School. I had some absolutely fantastic friends. but I will answer the two questions separately.
1. The memories of my school years are mixed, the friends were great but right throughout my schooling I was subjected to bullying! In High School in particular this had a profound effect on my education because to avoid getting bullied I’d skip classes and because of that I’d get behind in school work, so I’d skip more classes so I didn’t have to explain why homework was late etc… it was a vicious cycle. I didn’t finish high school, I left just before the end of my final year – amazingly the years I did complete I always passed! This really put a damper on my schooling though. I eventually did some college years later though which was a much better experience.
2. I’ve always been blessed in finding good friends, those who helped shape me during the school years were the best! In Primary school I had one best friend but had others that we both mingled with. I was never part of the “in crowd” as such in either school but usually got along with most of them anyway. High school was even better for friends though, those years when you really need close friends to grow with into adulthood. They’re the ones you’re constantly testing life with.
As I’d come from a primary school where not many of my peers had come from, I feel a bit isolated to begin with and didn’t seem to fit in anywhere until I was ‘adopted’ by these amazing girls who I came to think of as the core group. We were the mainstays of the group. We had more interests in common so spent a lot of time together during and after school. The others in the photos would come and go as they pleased as did others, we were friendly with just about everyone, especially others who didn’t fit in anywhere. The whole group were the type of people who never judged others due to style, intellect, religious beliefs etc. One of the things that I loved about this whole group is that it was a really multicultural one and I enjoyed learning so much about their languages at home and the home cooking from many different countries.
By the age of about 21 I’d lost touch with them all, so after the final one had gone, I never saw them again, not even around the area, it’s almost like they’d all vanished from the face of the earth. Over the years I’ve been using the internet I’d occasionally google them to see if I could find them and of course then I moved interstate. Recently both schools had set up Facebook pages and slowly but surely I started to find familiar faces. Some who I only knew through the School Band (yes, I was a band geek), others I knew but were more of acquaintances, and then finally one of the core group. We’ve been catching up in a huge way, so many years have passed and we immediately dropped back into best friend mode as if nothing had changed. We have reminisced about so much, and shared the triumphs and tragedies of recent years. Through her, I was able to find out a little more about the other two of the core group and hopefully will get in touch with them soon.
Then I found some of the others from the group, they’re on my FB friends now, and I will be able to start catching up with them too, I can’t wait! One of the band members too it seems lives fairly local to me and we will catch up for a coffee one of these days and talk about old times…you know “this one time, in band camp….” (If you haven’t seen American Pie you won’t get that!
I love and loathe my school memories, my friends and some of the classes were brilliant, some of the male teachers…ooh la la! But the bullying really destroyed what little self-esteem I had left. Never mind, live and learn!
Just as a side note, I found two teachers from Primary School on Facebook, well, the first one found me after seeing my school photos, he was my teacher when I was around 10 or 11 years old, we’re friends now which is great! He even gave me some homework to do recently for him. 
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- First photo I ever developed myself
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- Orienteering and posing for the local paper
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- Core group, Teddy Bear’s Picnic
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- One of the core group recently reconnected
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- The core group
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- School camp to Adelaide
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- 3 of the Core group at school camp
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- They changed my “diaper”
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- Larking about on the car named “George”
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- Me with another of our group – the hairdresser
Visit the others playing this week:
- count me in ty(Joangee)
- Gattina
- Sayre
- Church Lady
- Murfomurf
- faye
- Life According to Jan and Jer
- Life is Not Bubble Wrapped
Remember to visit Gattina at Writer’s Cramps who will be doing next week (March 8) so keep an eye out this week for her assignment for us all.
Tags: Friends, fun monday, memories, school
In the FM’s Random Acts of Kindness post below, a new visitor posted a link to a beautiful video….I wanted to share it with everyone as it’s got a wonderful message. By posting it, it will pass forward to my other social networks so many will see it!
I’m hosting the next Fun Monday and I have an assignment that may be fun or frightening for some – I will leave that decision up to you! I lost contact many years ago with all of my friends from both Primary and High School (in Australia we have just the two, then there is a choice of College or University). Recently through Facebook that tide is changing and I’m reconnecting with people from my past and it’s a really wonderful experience after so many years after losing contact.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it is as follows….
1. What memories do you have of your school years at any stage of your education?
2. Did you keep in touch with your friends who were there with you in your formative years, or perhaps you lost touch as I did and are finding them again? Tell us about some of your school friends.
You don’t have to go into detail, you can if you want to add as much detail as you’re comfortable with, photos are optional but you know most of us love photos
Gattina at Writer’s Cramps will be doing the following week (March 8) so keep an eye out next week for her assignment for us all.
Sign up with MckLinky below, if you can’t see it, add a comment and I’ll add you to the list.
Tags: Friends, fun monday
Jill at Life is Not Bubble Wrapped is the host of this week’s Fun Monday (and last week as she did a two week love themed one as February is considered the month of love). I missed the first one as I’ve been taking a break from FM but joined in this week. Our task is as follows…
The week of February 15th-21st is Random Acts of Kindness Week. You can visit the RAK Foundation here. For February 22nd, your assignment is to perform at least one RAK and report back on your Fun Monday post. Tell us anything you want, what you did, why you did it, if it was done in secret, how it made you feel, or anything else.
I signed up a little late but figured I might just be able to do something, since my time has been freed up a little with no doctor’s appointments, scans, tests and various health checks, it was still a busier than normal week. I had a friend visiting from interstate so when I wasn’t sleeping and feeling unwell, I spent some time with her. At first I thought that I’d missed out on doing a random act of kindness but then I remembered something.
On her first night here, Stu and I took them into Surfers Paradise to have a wander around, get some food and photos etc, it was an enjoyable night. At one point while we were in the mall (outdoor one), Stu and I heard a familiar sound that we’ve come to enjoy whenever we’re there. There are buskers and one in particular is a favourite of ours – Adrian Burragubba. Taken from his website “He is one of Australia’s most prominent cultural educators and traditional Aboriginal performers, performing publicly for many years nationally and internationally.”
He’s a fantastic street performer, we’ve been listening to him for a couple of years now and have a couple of his cd’s which we enjoy. Not only is he fantastic on the didgeridoo, using traditional sounds but giving his music a contemporary feel plus he’s one of the nicest people you’ll meet as well!
Since we always enjoy his performances, we will always drop money in his hat and though we didn’t have time to stop and listen, I still went and dropped in a decent donation as we always do. You can check out his website here – Burragubba.
And if anyone feels moved to do another random act of kindness, feel free to sponsor me – I’m raising funds and awareness for the Leukaemia Foundation and shaving my hair off for it! Online donations can be made via their secure website – click here for my profile!
If you scroll down a few posts, you can read more about the shave project!
Here’s a little video of the first time we saw him.
Tags: burragubba, didgeridoo, fun monday, WGS
I was lucky enough to be invited to the World’s Greatest Shave Gold Coast Launch at the Court House Hotel on the cnr of Nerang & Davenport Streets in Southport. As I’m shaving my hair off for the WGS to help raise awareness and funds for the Leukaemia Foundation and the brave people battling leukaemia, lymphomas, myeloma and other blood disorders, it was fun to get into the spirit of things at the launch.
Stu was going to go with me but since he was still feeling woozy from his sunstroke I thought it wouldn’t be too sensible an idea, so Dad came with me to enjoy the fun.
We were given t-shirts to wear so we all were colour coordinated and you knew who was involved. That orange didn’t look too bad on me actually! I couldn’t drink so dad was the token drinker at our table. It was fun catching up with people who were also going to join in the World’s Greatest Shave or have their hair coloured and this was also being covered by Channel 9 news through a live feed.
Joining in the fun was the intrepid Councillor Dawn Crichlow and what a fun dynamo she is too! She is sitting at the back between me and another getting our hair coloured. We had a great chat with her and discovered just how much she actually does for the area, it was great to see a councillor who is so passionate about doing what she can to help people and make the changes that are needed! It was a real treat to meet her and join in the fun with her. She is seated between myself and another lady getting our hair coloured while the guys were getting shaved.
And the finished product….
Dawn Crichlow and I pose for a photo of our newly coloured hair!
We couldn’t stay for the trivia night that followed as I had to be up the following morning early for my trip into Brisbane (see post below) but I loved the atmosphere in the Hotel and after grilling the hairdresser doing the guys’ hair about lengths and explaining to him that I wanted to go the full shave, he suggested that I go there and he’d do it using the clippers using a zero which would make it easier to shave at home.
Due to health reasons and liability they can only clipper the hair, anything further must be done later. Just as long as he remembers he promised to buy me a drink if I go there for the shave, I’ll be happy!!
So, now I will be getting my hair shaved on March 12th after 5pm at the Court House Hotel in Southport, I do hope plenty of locals turn up and make it a great night, it IS for a really worthwhile cause and you can still donate money and sponsor me for the shave by visiting my profile at the World’s Greatest Shave site. It’s a secure website, you can donate using your credit or debit card – Click here to sponsor me! Currently I am at 39% of my goal…please help me reach it! All the money goes immediately to the Leukaemia Foundation and is used to help those going through these wretched diseases.
I kept my fingernails painted from the Free Hugs – World’s Greatest Shave Challenge and I’m glad I did, it ended up matching my hair! See Below!
Tags: court house hotel, hair coloured, world's greatest shave
