News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 24

Hubby got me an early birthday present for my 70th birthday. Although my birthday isnt for a couple of weeks yet, we saw that Spotlight had a 50% off sale and they had machines listed.

I actually have two machines already, mine has jammed up and the one Ive been using was my Mums which she used when dressmaking and was more suited to fine materials.

All I seem to be using it for the last couple of years was to sew his jeans/pants up and it was a little difficult to do the heavy duty sewing.

So when he asked me to take the waist of his work pants in I said buy me a new machine for my birthday that will handle the heavy stuff.

So he did! This one is designed for heavy duty sewing but will handle the finer materials too. There were two models, this one and another that is the same bar it has a few extra fancy stitches.

As I havent used anything other than a straight stitch and a zig zag for years, this one will do the job.

Now I have no excuse to not fix his pants!!

Well this house just keeps giving us (not so nice) surprises. Since weve moved in we have found so many unexpected things that need fixing or replacing aside from the renovations we had to do inside the house.

This time it is the hot water system that began leaking about a month ago. The neighbour is a plumber and he had a look at it and said it could blow up at any time.

Problem was that the company that made the tank is no longer in business so just getting a replacement wasnt an option.

We started getting prices for different options and decided to stick with the split system rather than the one that had the tank on the roof where the solar panels are.

Meanwhile the old tank just kept leaking more and more and I was dreading getting in the shower one night and all of a sudden no hot water.

Fortunately it held on and we got a new system fitted.

They had to replace the solar panels as well as the tank. Looks so much better than the old one too. So no more panicking that wed not have hot water especially as the cold weather has arrived and we had the coldest morning recorded in May for decades last Tuesday.

Last week my news was about finding family through doing my DNA so a bit of a follow up this week.

Although I knew a name for my bio mother until this week obviously I had never seen her.

Well my new found sister sent me some photos of her from over the years. One photo in particular I will treasure as it is a photo of my birth mother on her 21st Birthday cutting her birthday cake.

When working out dates of her 21st and my birth she wouldve been 3 months pregnant with me when the photo was taken.

I wonder if she knew at that point where our lives would go.

So my daughter, son and I are now planning a big road trip at the end of July or early August (I must be crazy because I hate hate hate the cold and we are heading down south in the coldest time of the year) when my daughter can get leave from work.

Shes due for long service so we are working around her for dates. Shes also planning on taking me out to the snow fields so I can see snow for the first time in my life.

Im loving have someone to call sis and my sister (half sister) and I are talking everyday and learning more about each other.

Finding a lot more about my BM too. She sounds much like me in some ways and I know where I got my craft side from now too!

I was adopted at birth and have known all my life that I was. My (adopted) parents used to say I was chosen rather than adopted as apparently they had a choice of a boy or girl and chose the girl.

I have never wanted to know about my birth mother because to me the parents that chose me were my parents.

They fed, clothed, changed my pooey nappys and put a roof over my head. They went without things to make sure I was raised in a happy loving environment etc.

Just before my Mum passed (Dad died when I was 5) she told me that there was paperwork in a tin in her wardrobe but I told her I wasnt interested.

So in the course of going through things after shed gone I found some paperwork about the adoption but it didnt have names in it.

About 10 years ago (mum passed in 1999) I applied for my adoption records and wow……the information was extensive.

Names, occupations, circumstances about why I was put up. My daughter has encouraged me to look so I went on a Adoption FB page and a lady did a fair bit of research, actually spoke to my BM but mainly to sus her out.

BM actually did tell her some things but didnt deny the fact.

Ive put it in the drawer and not followed through although I had an address and phone number until Christmas this year when my daughter brought me a DNA test kit.

Well results came in last Sunday. There were 5 people on BM side and 1 on BF side that were high cms (1st and 2nd cousins).

I sent them all a message and have 4 replies. One of them was my BMs brothers daughter.

She said my BMs daughter would love to talk and I gave her my phone number to pass on. Well Tuesday morning I had an hours conversation with BMs daughter!! Very emotional, nervous and overwhelming. My BM is still alive and the daughter is going to bring it up with her in the next week or so.

She had suspected a couple of years ago but her mother clammed up. Its scary but exciting so will be guided by what happens when the daughter has the talk. But after being an only child for just on 70 years I finally have someone I can call Sis. I have run into a dead end on the BF side of things though.

We miss our kangaroo mob that used to visit us morning and night in Hervey Bay. So imagine our joy at opening the curtains the other morning down here and seeing a mumma kanga sitting in the middle of our back yard.

We have suspected there was kangas down in the environmental park at the back of us as weve seen roo skat (poo) when walking round down the bottom part of the yard but so far have only seen one small bush wallaby right down on the edge of the park.

This little mumma that came to visit appears to have a joey (baby) in her pouch so it equates that there has to be at least another kanga out there somewhere.

With all the development on the other side of the park, we are hoping that we may see more eventually.

But it just gave us so much excitement and happiness to see this little girl.