Things can only get better ...

cause they couldn't get any worse !!

I'm sure last Friday was "Friday the 13th" ... if it wasn't it should have been !!

We were meant to leave early on Friday to go to Port Macquarie for a few days with friends ... but ... due to dramas with flooding through the roof of a house and internal ceilings collapsing (not my house), waiting for the SES and re-arranging occupants we didn't get away until after 5pm ... a very stressful day ...

We travelled to Bulladelah and stopped for tea and then set out again for Port Macquarie ... well ... 9klms out of Bulladelah our 4wd broke down (with the van on the back)! Oh Joy! The temp gauge was on H and steam was pouring from under the bonnet and making the sound of a whistling kettle ... eek ! Not to mention one husband blowing steam but his words didn't sound like a whistling kettle they sounded more like something that rhymes with 'truck' !?#@!!

We phoned and arranged help, including our friends (who were already at Port Macquarie) and come back to take our van ...

What a scary experience ... stuck on the side of the Pacific Highway with very little space between you and the cars, trucks and otherwise flying by and nowhere to go ... then when night came and so did the expanding truck population, this doubled the fear factor. Everything seems to shake as they thunder past ... the word "sitting duck" comes to mind ... it was awful.

Well after nearly 5 hours and the amazing effort of 'mechanics by torchlight' (my DH, Dad and our friends), we were up & going but only running at half mast!

The consensis was that we could make it to Port Mac ok and get the 4wd looked at on Sat morning cause at this stage it was thought to be a faulty thermostat (which had now been removed) ... learnt something new - cars can run without a thermostat!

However, it wasn't to be that simple ... the car overheated again at Kew but a couple of litres of water later we got to our destination. A trip that would normally take 3 hours took approx 8! Oh boy ... it was a long night!

Saturday we took the car to a local mechanic to find out that there was a lot more wrong than first anticipated .... The head was cracked on the motor ... double eeek !

Well the long & the short of it is that our 4wd has stayed on Port Mac to be fixed, we left our van behind to be towed by our friends when they come home and we hired a car to bring us home cause DH had to be back at work ...

We will go back up next weekend to pick up our fixed vehicle and will be about $4000 poorer on return [sigh] ... oh well ... as they say "sh*t happens" !!

On to a better topic ... scrapbooking :O)

Last night was my "For the Boys" online workshop over at SCRAPBOOKnBITS. The girls were a great bunch and here are the 2 LO's we created.




Well, this weekend DH is working and i am hoping to have a quite weekend at home getting my next SnB project ready for my new monthly 'Scrap your Stash' challenge (commencing in February) ... hope you can pop in & join us!!

Keep Smiling :O)
JULIE x