28 February, 2007

What's going on?

Things haven't been going well health wise at work lately. It's like an odd cloud hanging over us.

Not only did we lose B a few days ago (see previous post) after an accident on the weekend, but I found out that one of the guys in my team was taken to hospital yesterday with chest pains. Apparently he's still in hospital but they don't know what the problem is (so presumably not a heart attack?). As it is, another of the guys in my team will be back in a week or so after having a minor heart attack - he also felt chest pains at work, but went home (then later to hospital where they told him he was having a heart attack).

I found out B's wife has lots of family helping her out. Apparently both she and B come from large families and with their help she's doing as well as can be expected. Though considering it's their son's first birthday today, it can't be easy. I have to admit I get choked up whenever I think about that.

I think I need something to lighten the mood... look out for my next post.

27 February, 2007

State of shock

I'm very sad and shocked right now. A workmate had a bicycle accident over the weekend, was in a coma for a day and has now passed away.

I didn't work directly with him (different departments), but we were on a committee together, as well as having a similar extra role (which meant we had several lots of training together). We (the people in the extra role) got to know each other quite well and our friend was a very friendly and happy person.

I'm told it was probably a blessing that he died, as he would have had very severe brain damage if he'd lived, but it's all pretty heartbreaking when you hear that it's his youngest child's first birthday tomorrow. I really feel for his family.

26 February, 2007

Not a lot to say lately

Life's been pretty uneventful for me lately - work, home, sleep. All pretty boring, not a lot to blog about really. I've organised accommodation for our trip to the Gold Coast in March, so not much left to do there but wait a few weeks now.

I'm on a day off today so I checked out Dogbait's Babble. This is his other blog with stories about his trips and he's recently put up a post about his trip to Nepal and India late last year. You really have to go have a read. It sounds like it was an amazing trip. Take a look at the slideshow too. You may want to make sure you have some time - there's over 300 photos in it! Amazing photos though.

23 February, 2007

My sweet son

It's been a long week. We're very busy at work and having had a few weeks, recently, of 2 days on, 5 days off has meant it's a bit hard to get used to 5 days on and 2 off again (it's those 7am starts that do it, I'm sure!)

So, today I came home from work with a headache. After I'd picked up Chickie from childcare, I had a bit of a lay down/nap.

Well, I tried to... Chickie was being very solicitous.

First he came in and gave me a kiss on my forehead (to ease the pain), a few minutes later he gave me a plush flower (he bought it for me a few months ago). After that he came in and tucked a fluffy scarf around my neck and finally came in and very lovingly placed his toy wooden snake next to me.

In the end I just got up and had some panadol (paracetamol). It was easier.

Chickie's been so sweet lately. Finslippy had a very cute post about her four and a half year old and I really know what she means. I've got one of those too!

Oh and he looked adorable today. It was bug day at his childcare and he wore his black ninja outfit, with the red sashes tied up and down his back. He was a red back spider - not technically a bug but the closest we could come up with at short notice!

By the way, if you want to see what a red back looks like, you'll have to google it yourself. I really don't like spiders so I'm not about to go searching out a picture of one!

19 February, 2007

Gung hay fat choy!

J's work social club organised dinner out for Chinese New Year last night. So we went to a very nice dinner and saw a lion dance and kung fu demonstration.


The menu was quite nice, ranging from prawn dumplings, pork dumplings, sizzling black pepper prawns to Kong Po Chicken and Wu Xi Pork Ribs. The ribs were delicious - so tender.

We were up the back of the restaurant so couldn't see as well. This was probably a bit of a blessing though, since the drumming was very very loud. The lion dancers came around the restaurant though (to collect the red packets of money), so we were able to get a few better pictures.


The performers were very good. I was quite impressed, though I will admit I've never seen the lion dance before. I loved the way the lion fluttered its eyelashes!

There were two lion dancers and I was surprised that the back half did so well. The restaurant was crowded and there wasn't much room to move between tables. The guy in front could see a bit out of the head part of the costume but the guy in back had to follow - at the right pace - bent over and had to wiggle the tail of the costume!

Apparently the social club organises a similar outing every year. They're talking about doing a Vietnamese style new year next time.

Earlier today I went for a checkup on my eyes. After my LASIK surgery (in November 2005) I've been pronounced to have 20/20 vision in my right and just a shade less in my left (but she said it's so close you may as well call it 20/20). Everything looks good and she can't see any diabetic complications, which will please my doc. I really really hate that puff of air into the eyes though. How the heck are you supposed to keep your eyes open for that?

I had to suppress a fit of giggles at one stage though. The eye doc really concentrated on my left eye, since it has traditionally been the one with the 'history', as she called it. All I could think was "omg, one of my eyes has a past!"

Then this afternoon, I went and saw Music and Lyrics. I really liked it. A good light-hearted chickflick. According to the credits Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore performed the songs they sang (to be fair Drew only sang once-ish) and they didn't do too bad a job! The movie certainly gave me quite a few laughs (and it gave two ladies down the front many many hyena laughs...)

18 February, 2007

A bit of fun for Sunday

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?
Make a Quiz



Also, I've been looking through the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2006 results (if you haven't heard of it before, the Bulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest). The two are my favourites and are the winner and runner-up from the Vile Puns category:

As Johann looked out across the verdant Iowa River valley, and beyond to the low hills capped by the massive refrigerator manufacturing plant, he reminisced on the history of the great enterprise from its early days, when he and three other young men, all of differing backgrounds, had only their dream of bringing refrigeration to America's heartland to sustain them, to the present day, where they had become the Midwest's foremost group of refrigerator magnates.

Dick Davis
Circle Pines, MN

Herr Professor Doktor Weiss' reputation was made when he conclusively proved the fraudulency of the Mayan codex that claimed to show that that ancient people knew the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter to an exactitude unknown until modern times, in his article, "Bye, Bye, Mesoamerican Pi."

John L. Drost
Barboursville, WV.

Some of them are hilarious - if you want a laugh, go have a look.

16 February, 2007

A public service announcement...

Do not - I repeat - do not drink and fish.

I can't believe this story of a guy that wrestled a shark onto a jetty! One quote I saw was this:
'well, it's amazing what vodka does'.
Uh yeah...

Well, onto more rational people - Chickie's surprising me with his burgeoning independence lately. His grandmother looks after him two days a week and he told me, the other day, that he wanted to live at nanny's place. I asked him if he'd miss me and his answer was no - apparently he'll visit me a lot.

Then today, when I picked him up from childcare, he asked me to go get his pyjamas. Chickie told me he was going to go sleepover at his friend L's place! These two so cute - almost every time I pick Chickie up, he and L have come up with a new idea to spend time together. Last week they wanted to catch the bus home together. Don't know what bus, since the friend's mother picks him up in the afternoons!

My little boy is growing up.

15 February, 2007

hehe!

I found this poll (where you have to log in to the page and vote to view the poll) - look at those numbers...


I don't have a screenshot of it, but earlier today it had the numbers at 97% for Yes, 3% for No and 1% for I do not want to answer this question.

I guess the joke about 95% (or pick your preferred number here) of all statistics are made up, must be true!

Oh dear...

One of my team-mates just told me he won 2nd prize for putting a valentines day message in the local paper. His message to his wife?

"I love you like a fat kid loves cake".

You might be reassured to know that the prize drawing was random...

13 February, 2007

Could I ask a favour?

Could you perhaps spare some healing vibes, positive thoughts, prayers or whatever works for you, and send them fairsCaPe's way?

She's dealing with cancer and chemotherapy and hasn't posted in a few weeks. I'm concerned and I'm not the only one, judging by the comments on her blog.

I guess this is one of the downsides of blogging. If someone doesn't surface for a while, you really don't know what's going on with them. I hope with fairsCaPe it's just that the chemo's knocked her for six and she's just rebuilding her strength.

12 February, 2007

What the...?

Today is one of my normal rostered days off and a friend had asked me to pick up from kindy and look after her little girl for a few hours. She has to work extra today and doesn't have any childcare. Since I didn't know where the kindy was located, we took a drive yesterday to find it (a good idea, as it turned out my friend left out a few streets in her directions).

On the corner of the street where the kindy is, there is a house with lots of signs up. They're on the fence and in a tree that hangs over the fence. The gate is quite high and locked with really thick chains and huge padlocks, there are bits of tarp and bricks on the roof (presumably covering holes in the roof), pockmarks and holes in the wooden bit of the front verandah near the roof and what looked like a cobweb of ropes between two metal poles (for the verandah).

The signs were basically saying that the owner wasn't under any obligation by law to speak to anyone who came to his property unsolicited and wouldn't be opening the gate for them. Other signs said that some person (with her name and place of work) was harassing and terrorising him. The house sure looked like it's had lots of stuff lobbed at it.

Today, when picking up my friend's daughter, there was a man (presumably the owner of the property) sitting on something so he could see over the gate and waving to all the kids as they left. He had long curly hair and wore a scarf on his head so he looked just like a pirate. He looked a bit creepy, to be honest.

All very odd and makes you wonder what's going on.

09 February, 2007

A load off my mind

I spoke to y yesterday (see this post for context) . We caught up and let the kids have a play together.

Y and I chatted a bit and one stage, I said to y that I was planning on staying friends with both of them, so would not be passing information back and forth between them. I said that anything said to me by either x or y would remain in confidence.

Y said that they both figured that would be the case (they were chatting about friends when they were talking about custody/property division, this week). Apparently they both think of me as someone who would be scrupulously fair and they thought of me as someone with integrity. Y said they both knew I wouldn't take sides.

Definitely a relief for me - and a compliment. /blush

I hope it stays that way. This is all early days and none of this can be easy for them.

07 February, 2007

A giggle to start the day


Chickie was watching Postman Pat this morning. In the show, one of the characters was going through a cupboard and playing with an old gramophone and some instruments. Chickie asked what some of them were so I just named them as they were pulled out.

One of the instruments pulled out was a recorder, so I named it. Chickie then said (in a very sage tone) "some people call that a stick".

A giggle is always a good way to start the day :)

06 February, 2007

Is there some rule??

I've just flicked the telly over (after another excellent episode of NCIS) to some Dancesport show. Can someone tell me if there is some rule that says the competitors have to be a violent shade of orange with fluorescent white teeth (of which the competitor must show as much as possible) - or is the colour on my tv off?

"I'm leaving on a jet plane..."

Next line goes "don't know when I'll be back again", but that's not right - coz I do!

I've booked our plane tickets for our trip to the Gold Coast in March. Now, I'm looking at accommodation. Anyone got any recommendations for nice places to stay in the Surfers Paradise area?

I'm thinking of an apartment rather than hotel, since my Mum and Dad are probably going to meet us up there. Would also be easier to have a bit more space and a kitchen as well. Looks like there are some nice places in the Surfers Paradise area. Hard to decide between them really.

It's cheapy Tuesday at the movies again. Last week I saw Epic Movie - silly but good for a giggle. Today I saw Stranger than Fiction. I really liked it. The previews do show some of the best bits from the movie (like the bit where the narrator says he's going to die and Will Ferrell's character says 'What? Why?"), but it's a nice movie. I thought Emma Thompson did an excellent job. She had the 'tortured writer' bit down pat.

So what movies have you seen lately?

05 February, 2007

heh, I'm an idiot

I've had a vague feeling for the past week that I was supposed to have an appointment with the eye doc that did my lasik surgery. I thought I was supposed to have it this week or so. I hunted around in my wallet and found an appointment card - for the 1st of February! I felt so dumb for forgetting it and berating myself for not putting it in my diary.

So, I just called them - and that card was for last year! I am an idiot (picture me laughing and shaking my head at myself here).

I made an appointment anyway, since I'm due for another checkup.

My foot is feeling heaps better. I'm still limping a little but at least I can put most of my weight on it now. I'll probably stay home and do very little today to give it a bit more time to fix itself. Not that I really want to go anywhere in this heat. A cool change is on the way though (thank goodness!).

Oh and blogger has forced me to change to the new version now. So if you pick up any problems, let me know. I can't see anything wrong at the moment, but I haven't had a good look through everything. Only thing I can see is that they've forced me to add the nav bar at the top of my test blog Visual Parallax. It blends in ok, but I think I like it better without it.

I quite like the template over there, I'm half considering using it here. I'm feeling like I'd like a change of template, you see. The other template I've been considering is one of these at Moodswing Creations. I just can't decide which one of those though.

03 February, 2007

What a day

And not in a good way either...

Ok, I just need to whinge for a bit so if you don't want to hear (read?) me moan, just click next blog now.

Worked this morning so up early (I start at 7am). Saturdays are usually pretty busy. I really think we need more people rostered on in our team, on Saturdays. Anyway, busy as usual but then there were some problems which just added to our workload. I ended up with a headache by the time I finished.

Came home and went to do some grocery shopping. I was walking through the carpark, past some bins with vegetable type garbage in it. I didn't see it at the time, but I slipped on something dark green and leafy. Managed to skin my right knee, bruise my right hip and do something to my left foot (like a sprained ankle but it's definitely my foot). It hurts to walk on it anyway.

So later, we went to a pub restaurant to celebrate some friends' birthdays (married couple with birthdays on the same day). J was telling me he'd had lunch there a few weeks ago and it was great there. Since we were a very large party, they asked us to wait until 7.30 to order. That wasn't too much of a problem, though I was a bit concerned Chickie might get too ratty. He gets like that when he's excited and hasn't eaten. I figured a kids meal shouldn't take too long though. Oh how wrong I was... we were served at 9.15! We immediately ate (the food was delish at least) and then took Chickie home to bed. He was a champ though. He and another boy there were pretty good, though we had to constantly keep them occupied (otherwise they wanted to run around).

In the end we left as one of our party was just receiving their meal (she'd been forgotten) and then forgot to pay our share of the bill on the way out! Luckily J had already planned to go back to our friend's place afterwards so they paid for us and he's got the cash for them. We've never done that before though - we felt so embarrassed!

So I'm sitting here - hot (was at least 39 degrees today), achy, I still have a headache and for some reason, I'm craving ice cream.

So that's my whinge. On the upside? I have another 5 days off now, so at least I don't have to worry about driving to work with a sore foot.

01 February, 2007

One less worry at least

Chickie will probably start some sort of formal school this year. If we want, we can send him to school at the start of third term. He'll then do two terms this year and then the (same) full year next year as well (the school tells me he'll need to do a minimum of three terms of the first year of school). Alternatively we can just have him start school at the beginning of 2008.

I'm thinking the extra two terms might be useful for him. He's always been a 'slow to warm' kid and because J and I work full time, we aren't able to send him to a formal kindy/pre-school (usually a couple of hours, mornings or afternoons that 4 year olds go to). Though the childcare centre he goes to is a kindy as well, it's really a different setting to a school/classroom.

I'm in two minds about whether to send him this year or next. I'm leaning towards this year because I think he's just about ready, plus he's the youngest in a 'group' of kids about the same age at his childcare. The centre has three rooms and each time he was moved up early to the next room. All because he ended up being the oldest in the room and a bit bored, since the next oldest kid just wasn't at quite the same level. Unless they get some new kids this year, that are a bit younger than him, I think he'll be a bit bored again once the kids start moving off to school (two of his closest friends have already gone to school).

On the other hand, if he goes in third term, he'll be joining kids that have already formed friendships and are used to the routine etc. How hard will it be to join an established group of kids? I don't know if there will be any other kids starting then (possibly but I'm not certain).

Then there's the fact that most of those kids will then move off to the second year of school and he'll stay where he is to do the full first year. Perhaps it would be best to just start him with the group he'll most likely stay with? Either way, he'll end up in the older range of his year, but I think that might be an advantage when he's in high school.

The one less worry though? I doubt he'll have any problems making new friends.

Chickie and I, as well as a friend and her little girl (the same age as Chickie) went to one of those indoor play places today. He really needed a good run-around/work-out but it's way too hot outside, so these places are good. Anyway, after school let out, a boy in a school uniform, but obviously not much older than Chickie, came in with his little brother. It took about two seconds flat for he and Chickie to become friends. They were all having the best time and pretty much wore themselves out. Chickie looks as if he can barely keep his eyes open. I'd put him to bed now except dinner is almost ready and he really really needs a bath after all that running!