Back to Life

Back to life indeed. Since the last post, things have returned to 'our normal', except that I've been sick with the flu since Saturday. It's now day 4 and I still have it. Ex went all out on Monday and took care of lunch and dinner, but I've taken over since then, resting in between. Right now, at least half my life is spent lying down. My mother-in-law was worried I'd contracted a nasty mosquito-borne virus, so I went to the doctors and I'm fine, it's just the flu.

And my daughter wasn't well last night. She was dizzy and her head and neck hurt. She couldn't close her eyes or lie down because it made her dizzy. She could only sit up, with her eyes looking straight ahead. For a frightening moment, I thought she may have had meningitis, but then she didn't have a fever and there was no rash. She eventually had to lie down and close her eyes because she was so tired, and after that she slept. This morning she's a bit better, but not good enough for school. Tomorrow, if she goes, she'll have hours of catch up homework to do.

I'm agonising over my tax returns for our business in Australia. This year ex sold our last asset - ownership rights to some technical software. That all went smoothly enough, BUT i've just found out that I made a huge mistake on the invoice - I've added gst, thinking it was a software sale, but I shouldn't have, because it was the sale of a business!! How was I to know that! The people who paid the invoice obviously didn't know either and they happily paid the few grand of gst, but now I don't know if I should come clean to ex and the other company, or just leave it be. Ex doesn't know of the mistake yet, and I seriously don't want to tell him, but I know I probably should, reason being, in a few months another invoice needs to be sent out and when I send that one out without gst on it....well there will be questions. I really do hate accounting.

In other realms of my life, I'm trying to get the teachers at the autistic centre into some sort of routine. I want to do this by making a schedule with communication pictures and then showing the teachers how they can use this as a gateway to communication with the students. The schedule will be on the wall, with pictures big enough that they can be seen from across the room. Then I want all the students to gather around the display to look at and choose what they want to do. Eventually, I want to teach them to find the picture for the activity that they like to do and be able to give it to me or one of the teachers. Sounds easy enough, but these kids don't follow rules, they don't sit and pay attention, they don't understand english and most of them have never been to school before. I have my work cut out for me. The Autistic centre committee have approached me to go in and co-ordinate the teachers and they've offered to pay me as well. I refused the offer, mainly because I'd rather see the money spent on the school and I've told them that I'd go in a few times a week anyway to see that the teachers are on track and to help them plan activities. Teaching these kids is not an easy job, but when the kids respond or they achieve something, it's one of the most rewarding ones around.

So that's life at the moment. I'm going to go get well now.