News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 34
Last weekend Australia had their Federal elections. These are held every 4 years where the country decides who will run the nation.
Ive worked at elections for both the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) and ECQ (Election Commission Queensland) which runs both the State and Local Council elections for many years now.
This time I was a Declaration Officer which is for people who cant be found on the electoral role at their current address or are not on the roll in the electorate they are voting at.
Reasons are they havent changed addresses when theyve moved or they may be visiting someone but live in a different electorate within Queensland.
People from interstate have to go to a polling place that takes interstate voters. It was an extremely busy day, busiest Ive ever done in all the elections Ive worked at and just to add insult to injury the rain hammered down all day.
We thought people might have prepolled because of the weather but seems not. So Ive done my part this time round and now just wait to be paid in a couple of weeks.
Next election will be a State election in a couple of years and Ill reapply to work again. I love doing it.
One of my favourite pastimes is photo manipulation and restoration. I have restored a lot of photos after floods and even housefires where photoshave been destroyed or distorted from water or smoke damage.
I recently did some touch-ups and colouring of my Uncle who was in the RAFduring the war.
A lot of the photos I have of family from back during the war areonly sepia photos so to update them Ive taken cracks/creases out, touched themup and colourised.
I did a lot of photos for people after Hurricane Katrina and that is what got me into it.
Some of the groups I was in at the time (back inthe MSN groups day) had people wanting the only photos they salvaged fixed up and that is what got me interested and I think I did about 50 photos from that.
After TC Larrythat went through North Queensland I did quite a lot as well. I still redo photos when they post wedding photos of their parents or grandparents and its cracked and creased or markedso they have photos they can keep that are in good condition.
They often then get them reprinted and even resized so they can put up on a wall. Its a good feeling to be able to help people.
Well La Nina sure is living up to her reputation of more than average rain this year. As it was supposed to have died out by now and May traditionally being a dry monthsomething has gone wrong.
La Nina is alive and well and really showing it.
We have had rain every day so far in May with a total, to writing this, of 201.9mm of rainwith only about 24 hours in total of sunshine since 1st May and its still raining quite heavily.To say the ground is waterlogged is an understatement!
The photo is of our back yard with the rain we had all day yesterday. It started rising just after the last heavy downpour about mid afternoon.
The rain eased off about 5pm and within an hourthe majority of the water had gone down but with falls of up to 200mm forecast for the next 48 hours no doubt it will be running a torrent again.
The yellow line is where our back fence should be visible.
Our local shopping centre recently had an event on their FB pages for people to put in for a give a way.
People had to put their name down and in 25 words or less say why they loved Flagstone.
Well hubby is always entering competitions so he put an entry in but didnt tell me. About 2 weeks later he did tell me that hed received notification that a parcel was to be delivered. All hed say was I think I know what it is. Anyway parcel turned up and he gave it to me.
Opening it up there was all sorts of goodies in it. A huge lollipop, Toblerone, a big chocolate with all sorts of lollies set in it and a packet of fairy floss.
Also in it was a little sachet of bath salts, I guess you go have a nice relaxing bath and pig out on chocolate!!
I think Ill be on sweet treat overload for a while.
Weve been having some very indecisive weather lately with it raining and sunshine, hot and cold, and it really not knowing what it wants to do.
One thing that has come from it is some stunning vibrant rainbows, sometimes double rainbows.
We had to take our neighbour to the airport last Sunday morning early and coming back along the freeway on our way home we had the most vivid part rainbow in front of us.
At times there was a hint of a second rainbow too but mainly the one that would appear to be a couple of hundred metres in front of us.
As wed get to the point where it appeared it moved and it was like we were chasing it (and maybe that elusive pot of gold).
The brilliance of the colours was astounding. Weve also had very strong rainbows at home sometimes a few times a day as the rain rolled through and the sun came out.
This morning I swear the pot of gold was in the neighbours yard opposite it right in front of their shed!