We have the Go Ahead

We have been waiting for the local authorities to approve the building of our retirement home by the sea.

We didn’t want to have any issues with the approvals. So:-

We researched, we planned. We read. We asked Questions.

Plans were drawn. Colour selections made.

After changing my mind a hundred times adding and deleting – we had our final plans ready for submission to the local Authority.

And we waited.

Did we get approval to go -ahead?

No, Not at first.

• The steel design had to be altered slightly. This resulted in one bedroom (a spare one), being reduced in width by 15 mm.
• The Developers wanted the fence posts to be thicker and heavier. After all, we have a secondary lane frontage and heaven forbid someone not have a matching fence post!
• The worst part – we had to re-site the whole house – moving it towards one boundary 350mm – just over one foot!

No matter how thorough you try to be – there are so many different rules and regulations, some by the Local Authority and some by the Land developer. And they aren’t the same.

Early last week, we were finally granted full approval to go ahead with the build! Yay!

The builders have begun to make their presence known. A temporary fence and Portable Toilet are on site. They are ready to go!

Things will progress fairly quickly. They seem rather keen.

Have you built a house and experienced delays or issues? This is all new to me.

I have started a new blog to chart the building process and progress, which you can find at:

A Home by the Sea

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Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – Illumination

“Rather light a candle rather than complain about the darkness”

This photo challenge is alternately hosted each Friday by the bloggers:
Something to Ponder About  and The Snow Melts Somewhere

The prompt for this Friday is:

Illumination

Everyone is welcome to join in with the Friendly Friday Photography challenge.

• 

  Sunset

• 

  Sunrise

• 

  Schnauzer Sunset

For me, illumination means sunsets, sunrises, candlelight, or nights with the moon.

• 

  Moonlit nights

• 

  A Mackerel sky

The city can be illuminating, especially when there is Fireworks

• 

  A little bit of Nepal in Brisbane

• 

• 

You can also see some photos of Tokyo illuminating at night here

Instructions for Joining In:

• Write a post including a URL link back to this Friendly Friday post.
• Tag your post ‘Friendly Friday’
• Once published, paste the link to your Friendly Friday ‘Illumination’ post, in the comments here, so we can find you and visit your blog.
• Include the Friendly Friday logo, found below, in your post if you wish.
• Please note there are no deadlines for participating. New prompts are posted each week alternately at the host blogs.
• Be a part of the Friendly Friday Community and visit the links in the comments section. It can be quite interesting to see another interpretation of the prompt.

Find more Instructions on joining in with Friendly Friday here

Pingbacks – Do you help creating a link back or pingback to your post – click here

See you at Snow’s blog next week for the new prompt.

Amanda

Sunday Saying – Democracy

My daughter voted for the first time ever yesterday. It was a proud and important milestone for both of us. Time for her to exercise her democratic right as an Australian female citizen.

Completed Embroidery in hoop

For centuries, women were disregarded as not being able to understand the complexities of the parliamentary system and relegated to the parlour where embroidering was a more suited pursuit.

Rather shocking to think of that now…

If my daughter had been born over 100 years ago, she would not have qualified to vote. Thank goodness times have changed.

Yay for New Zealand!

It is unsurprising to see which countries offered universal suffrage first:

“New Zealand was the first country to allow women to vote -1893 – [ well done, sister kiwis], while the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia granted women the right to vote in 2011. “

• 1893 New Zealand
• 1902 Australia
• 1906 Finland
• 1913 Norway
• 1915 Denmark
• 1917 Canada
• 1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia
• 1919 Netherlands
• 1920 United States
• 1921 Sweden
• 1928 Britain, Ireland

“Compulsory voting for national elections was introduced in Australia in 1924, following a pronounced fall in turnout at the 1922 federal election. “

Furthermore, I have grown up knowing voting was once a privilege of the landed gentry, or a domain of men, and thus, take my democratic right very seriously. I am Australian and we expect to vote. It is compulsory here. Yet for many people, voting is a painful process, they avoid it, cast an informal protest vote, or don’t vote at all.

When you think of how many generations did not have a say in how their government was run, it is sobering to think that some would take this right to determine our parliamentary makeup frivolously.

American Thomas Jefferson noted,

” We do not have government by the majority.

We have Government by the majority who participate.”

Whilst many other countries don’t make it compulsory to vote, be it bad or good, our compulsory system, means we do get a more comprehensive view of the public’s wishes in our federal elections. Notwithstanding the preferential voting systems, of course.

“Bad Officials are elected by good citizens who don’t vote.”

~ George Jean Nathan

Do you agree with Preferential system of voting? Or, ‘first past the post’? [ie. those with the most votes in first place].

Should voting be compulsory?

As Ab Lincoln said, “the ballot is better than the bullet.”

Something to Ponder About

Friendly Friday Photo Challenge – Chair

We all use them.

Functional, practical, comfy, sometimes stylish.

Who invented the chair?

The ancient Egyptians are believed to be the first to invent a four-legged seat with a back,… The earliest examples have been found in tombs dating as far back as 2680 B.C”

The most common theories are that the chair was an outgrowth of indigenous Chinese furniture, that it evolved from a camp stool imported from Central Asia, that it was introduced to China by Nestorian missionaries in the seventh century, and that the chair came to China from India.

Here are some of my favourites.

• 

  Big chairs for Little folks

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  Resting

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  Dalen, Norway

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  Vigeland Sculpture Park, Oslo

• 

  Norman Point, Tin Can Bay

You will find this photo challenge is alternately hosted each Friday by the bloggers:
Something to Ponder About  and The Snow Melts Somewhere

Thanks to Snow for this week’s excellent prompt for Friendly Friday. I’ll be back next week with a new prompt. Be sure to check out all this week’s participants linked in the comments section on Snow ‘s blog.

Something to Ponder About

Raising Children and Productivity

Lindy is a young Mum to two energetic boys. Lindy’s house is orderly and tidy, and Lindy works part time in a local law firm. The boys go to Daycare when she is at work, and she reports they love the activities there. Even so, she ensures she makes up for the time away from them, by rewarding them with an extra special outing or activity, on the weekends.

Every day she keeps their young minds busy by taking them out to parks, playgrounds, recreational facilities or plays. They are rarely at home.  Twice a week, they are enrolled in Early Music tuition and next year they will join a junior football team. She is also considering Maths tutoring so that will have a head start on their peers, at school. Lindy wants them to grow up to be motivated and ambitious individuals, living life and experiencing the opportunities she missed during her childhood.

But is she doing the right thing for her boys?

Are the boys benefiting from all these scheduled activities?

Or are they being raised with the expectation that entertainment will be provided, each and every day?  Will they thrive on this daily dose of stimulation, or come to expect it as a birthright? Could they even become victims of information overload?

Some experts now think it’s essential for our mental well-being to make time to relax, unwind and do nothing. But, isn’t that a tad boring? Won’t the kids get into mischief? Do young children really need down time at all? And what about us? Do we really NEED some down time away from the “bling” of notification tones? What is the value of downtime, anyway?

Confucius has some words of wisdom: –

“Learning without reflection is a waste, reflection without learning is dangerous” – Confucius

As well as Confucius, Forbes offers some insights –

“Introspection and reflection have become lost arts” as we are unable to resist the temptation to ‘just finish this’ or ‘find out that.’

With vast amounts of information at our fingertips, who needs to memorize facts at all?

“Working harder is not necessarily working smarter. In fact  slacking off and setting aside regular periods of ‘doing nothing’ may be the best thing we can do to induce states of mind that nurture our imagination and improve our mental health. “

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insead/2014/07/01/the-importance-of-doing-nothing/#354e533e75e4

Does free-time sound appealing to you? Works for me. Schedule time for Feet up, drink in hand, and letting one’s mind free-wheel. Muting notifications of course.

I hope Lindy and her two boys are listening.

Something to Ponder About