RIP Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin - the crocodile hunter has died in a diving accident. I'm stunned. See the story here.

Chickie loves 'Crikey' as he calls him. I was never a big fan but you can't deny his love for Australian animals. His website is here (but timing out right now).

RIP Steve.

In case you weren't aware...

4 year olds can not keep secrets.

Heh, I should have known better. You see it was father's day in Australia yesterday and J's birthday is tomorrow. So, on Saturday, Chickie and I went shopping for presents. We bought some DVDs that J's been wanting for a while (Stargate, Futurama and American Dad).

Now I know from last year that Chickie has trouble with keeping secrets so I suggested we play a big trick on his dad (Chickie loves 'tricking' people at the moment) and tell him we got him tools. Chickie thought this was a great idea and on the way home we practiced what we'd say.

So what happened when we got home? "Guess what dad? We got you Stargate". D'oh!! Oh well... at least he didn't mention the others. So I wrapped up Stargate for father's day and wrapped the others separately to put away for his birthday.

J has a sleep-in yesterday and then when he gets up, Chickie tells him - "Dad, we got you tools!" (too late kid, hehe). J opens the Stargate and then Chickie asks me where the Futurama and American Dad was... double D'oh!!

Ah well... maybe next year.

Something I've never done before...

Chickie and I were heading out to get J a father's day present (happy father's day for all those celebrating it) and we found the 'other member' of our family sunning itself in the driveway. S/he's a shingleback lizard that we discovered a few months back. It hung around for about two months, then we didn't see it for ages. I thought it had gotten too spooked, since Chickie had to check on it every time he went outside.

So, it was right behind my car - just when I'm wanting to drive over that very spot. I'm standing there wondering how to move it. There was no way I was going to try touching or moving it by hand, and I have to tell you, lizards do not respond to hand-flapping and loud 'shoo'-ing. Next thought was to get a broom but I was a bit reluctant in case I hurt it.

Luckily, when I blogged about it months ago, I did a bit of searching and discovered that it was a Shingleback and that they are very partial to yellow flowers. Next door has a huge bush with yellow flowers (probably the reason it's hanging around this area) so I grabbed a flower and lured the lizard over to the grass. Problem solved! Though I'll bet the guy mowing his lawn, across the road, must have thought I was a bit odd.

So there you go - caramaena, the lizard lurer!

I really should be in bed...

busy day tomorrow, but I'm up very late because of a very funny movie called The Happiness of the Katakuris. It's described thusly:

From prolific Japanese cult director Takashi Miike comes an all-singing, all-dancing zombie horror flick. The story centres on recently retrenched Masao Katakuri who has decided to take over a bed and breakfast on a piece of land he bought which was originally a rubbish dump in a remote mountain area near Mountain Fuji. This venture is intended to unite his dysfunctional family but the dream doesn't seem to be going to plan as their guests keep dropping dead one after another.

It's hilarious. Even the zombies get in on the act. The grandfather doesn't sing though, he shouts. Oh and anywhere where you'd expect to see stunts, it changes to clay-mation.

Ah SBS... it's a treasure chest...

A school for Chickie and a whinge about my diabetes

Today J and I visited a school that we're thinking of sending Chickie to, next year. I'm pretty happy with it.

The classrooms looked nice. They have a program that places an emphasis on encouraging kids to believe in themselves (which will be good for Chickie). It used to be a lot bigger (now unfortunately shrinking in numbers), but they do have a lot of resources, because of that. All the computers are being upgraded at the end of this year and I hear a lot of good things about the school from different people. Also, very handily they have an onsite before and after-school care program (since J and I both work full time).

Chickie will look so cute in his grey shorts and red shirt!

In the afternoon, I visited a friend who's pregnant and on bedrest. She's been on bedrest for 4 weeks now and she's really 'over it'. On top of that, now she's been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. She's been measuring her blood sugar levels for a few days now and she showed me her numbers. To be honest, I'm as jealous as hell. She hasn't had anything over 5.9 (that one was two hours after a meal). I really wish I had those sorts of numbers. I got a 6.4 two hours after dinner today and was thinking it was pretty good (I'm supposed to aim for between 6-8 two hours after meals).

I'm still getting fairly high levels first thing in the morning. Was 7.7 this morning - recommended is 5.5 or lower, but that's pretty rare for me. My usual morning level is about 6.5. My doctor's not so concerned with the 6's for now, she wants to monitor it for a bit, but she's sent me off to a dietician to see if that helps bring it down. Plus she says the medication tends to bring down the levels overall, which might be harder since there are times where I get down to 4's (and feel pretty weird with it).

I've seen the dietician twice and she's told me that I'm doing all the right things and, if anything, I'm not eating enough carbs. She's said to make sure I have a snack before bed but mentioned that sometimes eating right isn't enough. I'm not really certain I want to start taking medication though. I know tablets aren't like the insulin injections I had to take when I had gestational diabetes, but still, medication feels like a slippery slope to me.

yay!

I'm now on annual leave for just over a week - woohoo!

I solemnly promise to sleep-in several times, to see a movie or two, do some beading, blog about some very random stuff, catch up with friends and generally do nothin' much at all.

As you can probably tell, J can't get time off so we're not going away or anything.

driving home today...

I'm stopped at traffic lights listening to the radio. Over the radio I can hear the beat of some very loud music right next to me. I figure it's some hoon in his hotted up car with his 'doof doof' music, loud enough for all to hear. So, I casually glance over at the car (I didn't want to make eye contact).

Wha?? The car is a white station wagon with the logo for a local plumbing centre on the door. Huh?

I steal another glance and there's a grey haired guy grooving to the music...

Intrigued now, I muted my radio to listen to the music. It's some wurlitzer organ version of the Animals' House of the Rising Sun.

Ooh-kay then...

Kids can be funny

I'm still chuckling about Chickie's reaction to something, from the other day.

Chickie has been totally resistant to cheese for as long as I can remember. I think he tasted it once and then refused to have anything to do with it after that. He's eaten it in stuff, but by itself, well put it this way - superman's reaction to kryptonite is a mild dislike, in comparison.

So anyway, his dad made himself a cheese sandwich on the weekend and Chickie decided he'd have a bite. Then he decided he'd have the whole sandwich, thank you very much! Since then cheese has changed from kryptonite to the most delectable ambrosia in the universe. Chickie now has to have it everyday.

I was driving him home from childcare the other day and cheese was on his mind, I guess, because he asked how it was made. I started to answer 'well, you know milk comes from cows, and what they d...' I didn't get much further because this startled 'WHAAAAA!?!?' came from the back seat. I repeated 'milk comes from cows' and he just said 'that's a bit strange' (in a very disbelieving voice). I had to try very hard to not burst out laughing.

Now, it's not like he hasn't heard this from us before. Not to mention that he has several books with that very statement in them. I guess it just didn't register clearly with him until now. I wonder where he thought it came from?

I never did get to tell him how cheese is made either...

Spending lots of money!

I've been on a bit of a spending spree this weekend. The weather's been great here so I finally succumbed to the shops' displays of new clothing. I bought myself two pairs of capri pants and a crinkly type shirt - the sort you twist up to dry and don't iron (heh, that's my type of shirt!).

I also bought a new pda. My old Palm Tungsten E is about 3 years old and it's been great. I use it a lot. Unfortunately it's developed a high pitched hum/buzz when turned on, the screen is losing sensitivity and, this week, I've noticed the button to turn it on is dodgy, taking quite a few presses to actually get it to turn on. I figured I'd better sync it and upgrade.

So, I did a bit of thinking about what I wanted in a pda, did a bit of research and came up with... the Palm Tungsten E2. Yep, pretty much the same thing as before. I bought it, it's just what I want. I'm happy.

I can't help but wonder if this means I'm a bit resistant to change, though. Not only have I just bought the newer version of the pda I've had for the past three years, but I did the same thing a few months back with our microwave (ours was on the way out, we had a look around and settled on one in the right price range with all the features we wanted, got it home and it's the same model as our old one - just updated).

I know I don't welcome major change, but perhaps I'm a little more entrenched in my ways than I thought.

Updated links

I've updated my links again because some very nice people have linked back to me. Thank you very much for the links everyone! Make sure you check out their blogs.

If you have a link to my blog and I don't have yours here, please let me know.

misdirected emails

Robin over at the Internet Institute for the Easily Amused has an amusing post about a misdirected email. Email is such a handy thing but can go oh so wrong if you're not paying attention.

I have many email addresses and one of them happens to be a very common name. As you might imagine, I get many emails sent to me by accident. Usually it's because the person with the similar email address gives it out incorrectly.

Some of the emails include boring stuff, like 'will you pick up Steven on the weekend?' and 'Joe, are you going to be at soccer on the weekend?' or I'll get a gazillion test emails 'just to see if this works'.

Others are more amusing. One was from someone who did uniform orders and was corresponding with someone about mistakes made in a school order. The first couple itemised the mistakes the employees were making, the last sounded like the poor writer was about to have a nervous breakdown. Not surprisingly since the mistakes in the school's order were pretty major. Sounds like the company sent uniforms in a range of sizes, including a large number of women's size 22, 24 and 26 (for those outside Australia those sizes are very very large). Then there were hats in sizes that were equivalent to a 1 year old and 2 year old's head size. To top it all off the embroidery was done in the wrong colours!

I think the most amusing misdirected email though, was the person who did an online IQ test. The results came back as:

Hello Joe (name changed to protect the identity)

Your age adjusted IQ score is 98 and the average score is 100.

Your IQ score is the result of a formula based on the number of
questions answered correctly on the test. This score has been further
adjusted to account for the differences in capabilities among various
age groups. Your percentile score means that you scored higher than 45%
of the people who took this same test.


Your Grade:Lower Average

Total number of questions:30
Questions answered:27
Questions not answered:3
Questions answered correctly:13
Questions answered incorrectly:17
Percentage correct answers:43%

Surprise, surprise - the other thing he got wrong, was his email address.

You know, I often wonder if he even realised that he'd given the wrong email address and was just sitting there anxiously awaiting the results that would reveal his brilliant IQ.

No decision required.

I rang the lady about the jewellery course and apparently they didn't get the numbers - so no class this term.

I'll wait and see what happens next term.

decisions, decisions

I'm tossing up whether to go to jewellery class again this term. I did enjoy it but last term I felt like sometimes it was a waste of my money.

About half the class was entirely new and the people who'd done the term before (including me) felt that we couldn't get the teacher's attention enough to get on with what we were working on. I understood that the new people needed a lot of initial instruction, but the things we were working on used new techniques too. I didn't get my project finished and I would like to finish it off, but is it worth the money if it's just going to be the same as last time?

The other thing they've done is move the class to a different TAFE campus. Now it will take me twice as long to get there.

Ah, I don't know. I'm kinda leaning towards not going this term and perhaps go next term instead. I have to make up my mind today though.

I'm 'chucking a sickie' today...

at my manager's suggestion. I did ask for a day's annual leave but he said it was easier to just have a day out of my sick leave than to have last minute annual leave approved. I haven't used much of my sick leave so I'm fine with that.

The reason for it, is that I went home with a migraine last Friday and since then, I've had a mild continuous headache. It just won't go away. I think it's more a tension headache though, since it has that feeling of a tight band around my head. I'm hoping that with a couple of days relaxing it might just leave me alone. Particularly since I have today all to myself.

I thought, if the weather was nice, I might take a nice stroll around the neighbourhood. Unfortunately it looks like it might rain (and it's been so sunny all week!), so I'll skip that, I think. I might go visit a friend who is pregnant and on bedrest (she's in danger of giving birth very prematurely). I have another massage booked this afternoon. I also plan to get off the computer after this (and stay off for the day). So hopefully a relaxing day will fix my head.

Any other suggestions for relaxing welcomed!

Census

Census night tonight in Australia and jeez the questions are nosy!

They want to know all sorts of things besides the usual how many people in the house, what religion are you all, are you working type of stuff. Things like, did you look for work in the last week, how did you get to work today, how much time did you spend on housework, did you look after any children this week.

The ads say it's to help plan the services required for the future (hospitals, transportation etc). Umm... so where does the housework amount come into things?

I wonder how many people will lie in this form? Particularly given that last time there were a surprising percentage of jedi knights living in Australia. Interestingly though, apparently Australia has one of the highest census counts in the world, well according to channel 10's news anyway - they reckon the last census covered 98% of our population.

Governments are so damned nosy...

Signs of things to come?

Normally Chickie is an early riser. Way too early for J and I. I wonder though if that will last when he's a teenager.

He has this little alarm clock since he's very interested in learning to tell the time at the moment. Anyway he must have switched the alarm on at some stage. He's been in bed for about half an hour or so (so probably not yet into his deepest sleep, I'd imagine) and the alarm went off. It's not hugely loud but I could hear it with his door almost shut (I just couldn't figure out where it was coming from).

I went in there and, at a quick glance, he looked to be fast asleep. I was surprised he hadn't woken up. I turned off the alarm and double checked him and nearly laughed out loud. He was fast asleep - with his hands over his ears!

Oh, these teenage years are going to be fun. Good thing I have 9 years to prepare!

Domesticity

It's a glorious sunday afternoon. Sunny with a slight breeze, around 18 degrees (about 64 for those who use Fahrenheit) and this weather is making everyone feel that spring is coming soon.

Yesterday was similar and it was quite funny to go shopping and people watch. We sat down at our local Yiros place (we often share a yiros on a plate before doing the grocery shopping) and watched as people wandered by. The lovely temperatures meant a very wide range of clothing. I saw one lady bundled up in a thick coat with fluffy hood, then another with a short denim skirt and shoestring top. Neither was really the best dress for the day, if you ask me.

Spring is definitely coming. Both J and I are feeling the urge to spring-clean. J's been clearing out the shed so we can actually use it as a proper workshop and I've been madly washing clothes (to take advantage of the sunshine), sweeping, mopping and vaccuming. I've got all the windows open wide, with all the usual sunny sunday sounds coming in. Lawnmowers in several yards, kids riding their bikes up and down the street and the birds singing at the tops of their voices. Domestic bliss...

All a bit traditional, I guess. Mind you, I'd much rather do the mopping and washing etc than clear out the shed - way, way less cobwebs to deal with!

Updated my links

I've been meaning to do it for ages and now I've finally done it. Please check out the links over on the left hand side. There are a lot of interesting people out there.

Dear dieters

How do you keep your cravings in check?

I have type 2 diabetes, so I need to eat a balanced diet, eat healthy, eat small portions often, leave the junkfood alone... blah, blah, blah

What do you do when you just don't feel satisfied?

I'm in a mood tonight, I think. I'm not hungry but I'm not feeling satisfied by what I'm eating. I'm a bit sick of healthy food tonight too. Fed up to here (picture me with my hand waving around eye level) with vegetables. What I feel like is a pack of plain potato Tasty Jacks or paprika flavoured Pringles (it's probably a good thing they don't make these anymore, I think - I loved them!). By the way, the reviewer on both those links didn't really think much of either of these items - but they're my favourites anyway.

So, I'm obsessing over food tonight. Feeling in crunchy, salty kind of mood. An 'mmmmm.... potatoes' kinda mood. I've had to make do with a handful of salted cashew nuts. Again yummy, but not exactly what I'm craving.

I'm sure I never thought this much about food - well, junk food - before I was diagnosed with diabetes. I ate it sure - but obsess, nah...

What to do about the cravings then huh?

Big Bother.. er Big Brother is over for another season

And Jamie has won. I have to admit I didn't watch the finale, but I did hear an interesting tidbit/soundbyte this afternoon.

A bit of background - Jamie and another housemate Katie got very close (even had a mock wedding apparently) though she was evicted several weeks ago. Things were supposedly all still on even though, they've been separated for weeks.

On the radio I heard about how Katie ran up to Jamie and said something like 'We're rich!'. I thought that was a bit presumptive. I mean, they've had a very short relationship - in a weird situation that may not stand up to the pressures of day to day normality. Why would she assume that she's getting half? Sure Jamie might want to share the prize winnings, but that's his choice.

I think Rove said it best. The housemates were all on his show tonight - except John and Ashley who were removed after the turkey-slap incident. One of the housemates mentioned he was disappointed they weren't included and Rove said he would have had them there but he wasn't allowed. The housemates said that he could have them on next week and Rove said that by next week no one will care.

Hate to say it guys - I reckon it's true!