meme for the day

From charm school reject:

Look at the list of books below: Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. If you are reading this (and haven't participated yet), tag, you’re it!

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18 The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58.The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Too much rushing...

I took Chickie to the doctor's today. He has another appointment with the Ear, Nose and Throat doc on Thursday and I needed a new referral (lucky I called to check that today!).

I picked Chickie up from childcare and instead of driving straight there, I brought him home to get him changed. I'd forgotten today was their pj day at childcare (they have themed days every now and then). I probably could have just taken him in his pj's since they really looked more like shorts and t-shirt (green and black pirate themed pj's), but honestly they were filthy!

So I rushed home, rushed him into the bathroom, pulled the shirt off him and then looked straight into those reproachful little puppy dog eyes of his. After inquiring what the problem was, I was told "Mum, you caught my lip on the shirt. You hurt my beautiful lip!" It was all I could do to keep a straight face...

Oh, and by the way - the rumours were true, I've won another award at work. This time it's a "Most Valuable Player" award (and this one came with a $50 gift voucher).

Today...

I spent the day with Doctor Who. Well, alright watching Doctor Who (it's as close as I'll ever get!). I caught up with the Runaway Bride ep and the first three of this season. Thanks for the heads up velcro - much appreciated.

I'm really enjoying this new series. I really liked Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor - love that cheeky grin he used to flash (oh and if you like his stuff, check out The Second Coming - very interesting) but David Tennant is doing a great job - and I can't deny it, I think he's cute! I quite like Freema Agyeman in the role of Martha too, though it's early days. I do believe I'm going to have to put all the DVD's down on my Christmas/birthday wish list.

As for local tv, I'm a bit annoyed I missed tonight's Biggest Loser elimination. I hear Kim got eliminated, is that right? I thought for sure it would be Pati. Leaving Kim in would make it easier for the other contestants, I would have thought. So for those of you watching, who do you think will win? And who would you actually like to win? I think Chris will win, but I don't like him much and Munnalita irritates me as well. I'd like either Marty or Pati to win personally.

Oh and the party on Saturday was fun. J's mum had organised a friend to come and do a belly dancing show (J's mum used to do belly dancing). It was great catching up with all the rellies and the food was pretty yummy too. Had some interesting choices like kangaroo shaslicks with chilli plum sauce. Got told I looked 'mega-skinny' in my new red top too. hehe I'll accept that exaggeration any day!

What animal were you in a past life?

You Were an Otter

You are a faithful friend who guides others toward success. You are also light hearted, and love to play around.

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

Some days things just 'click'

J's mum had a 'big' birthday recently and they're throwing a huge birthday party this Saturday. I think she said, at one stage, that almost 100 people were invited - but quite few won't be able to actually make it.

So I've been making an effort to lose weight in the last 18 months and it is slowly working (though it seems to have stalled lately). One problem with losing weight is that your old clothes don't tend to fit very well and you literally have nothing to wear.

Of course, one of the good things about losing weight is that your old clothes don't tend to fit very well and you literally have nothing to wear - so you have to buy new ones!

Well, ok I could make do with the shirts/tops I already have but all my 'good' pants are getting to the annoying 'hitching them up every few minutes or they will fall off like you see in funniest home videos' stage. It's not a good look.

I figured this was a good excuse to go have a look for something new. I went shopping yesterday and was completely disheartened. I couldn't find anything I liked at all. Nothing really excited me and the one or two things I thought might do in a stretch, were out of my size. It was looking like I'd have to wear jeans (not really what I wanted to wear - I live in my jeans already).

Today however, I went to the bank and then thought I'd drop into the shops nearby. Found a classic pair of black pants - dressy rather than business wear. Then I found this cute little shrug shouldered top in a deep red. I tried it on, and even better - had to go get the next size down!

So I'm all set for tomorrow night now. It feels good to find just the right outfit :)

After the holiday

So what have we been up to since our trip away? Taking it easy perhaps? Nah, that's no fun!

I think I've mentioned before that I hate our light green lounge/hallway carpet. Funny really, since green is actually my favourite colour. Just not this green...

Anyway, I kind of made a snap decision to have it ripped up now and replaced with floating floors. We've been wanting to do it for a while, but I just got completely sick of it.

J's put in a heck of a lot of work in ripping up the carpet, ripping up the carpet underneath (icky swirly brown stuff) and then scraping off the black underlay that the original carpet layers so 'kindly' glued to the existing floorboards. The existing boards aren't good enough to polish up (plus there's been a wall knocked down in the past sometime and they replaced the boards where the previous wall was with a couple of really wide boards. Floating floors are just easier. Well, so long as you're good at doing puzzles!

J decided to lay the floorboards on the diagonal to make the room look larger and to disguise the fact that the lounge/hallway don't exactly match the two bedrooms we had done years ago. It really looks quite nice and it'll look great once he does the finishing touches (beading around the skirting boards, the metal strip between the doorways etc).

On the weekend, he and his dad were going to put up a wardrobe in our room. When we first moved in, there was a homemade job that was really poorly done and looked awful (we pulled it down). Of course this left us with even less storage space (this house has an absolute dearth of storage). Handily for us, J's parents renovated their place a year ago and had a spare built-in type wardrobe. Of course it was over a year ago now, so they couldn't find all the bits they needed. They've found them now however, so I should have a nice newish wardrobe in a week or two.

The other thing we've scored from J's parent's renos was their old stove. It's in excellent condition and to be honest, provided it was working in any way, shape or form, it would be better than our current stove. Our stove only has two working gas burners and using the oven is pure guesswork since most of the numbers have disappeared off the dial. The plumber has agreed to squeeze us in this week so we can get it installed. Very nice of him!

Then on a personal note this week, I won a customer focus award at work and someone mentioned today that there may be another award in the offing. All I can say is it's very nice of people to nominate me - I'm just doing my job!

What I did on my vacation... part 3!

Friday (aka my dad's birthday) was our day at Seaworld. I would have to say this one was my favourite.

We started off the day checking out the dugongs, then headed off to the seal/sea lion show. This show was good but not my favourite because it was a bit warmer that day and we started out in the sun (I was paranoid about Chickie getting sunburnt the whole holiday). At least it was still earlier in the day so the sun wasn't at its hottest yet.

After that we thought we'd catch the water ski show and figured if we headed over to the stands, we could scope out some good seats in the shade and have an early lunch. Worked out the timing perfectly because we got great seats. The show was fun and some of the stunts were pretty good.

From our seats we could see a 'volcano' that occasionally flamed/erupted and Chickie was desperate to find out what was going on there. After the water ski show we took a ride on the monorail and the spiel they had over the speakers mentioned there was a 'secret' under the volcano in the Bermuda Triangle ride. Of course this made Chickie even more desperate to find out!

We then headed over towards the rides and discovered that the volcano was a water type ride and that was it for Chickie. He'd gotten wet, on the log ride, the day before and didn't want any part of a ride like that today. Mum and dad went on the ride while we headed off for a ride on the 'tennis wheel' - as Chickie kept calling it - aka the Seaworld Eye (a big ferris wheel with enclosed carriages), so at least we found out the secret. Click here for a look at all the rides.

We did a bit of looking around and then headed over to the dolphin pools for the show. This one was my favourite. It's amazing how strong the dolphins are. They jump so high and can carry people, who are standing up, across the water. When they tossed those trainers in the air it was surprising at how high they went.


After the show Chickie and I checked out Shark Bay and this was also very cool. There's a section where you're encouraged to touch the sea stars, sea cucumbers etc. Sea stars are actually quite hard - not exactly what I was expecting. The underwater viewing part of Shark Bay is amazing. The size of some of the fish! We were pretty impressed by it.

We then headed over to the kid's rides and Chickie had a ball on them and playing with the water fountain jets. By that time it was getting late and we headed over to the volcano ride to meet up with J who'd gone on all the water type rides. We then caught the Skyway back to the exit and headed back to the apartment.

We didn't get to do all the rides - the Corkscrew roller coaster and Pirate ship are two I've been on years ago and we knew Chickie would be too young for them. Also both Dreamworld and Seaworld have water attractions (Dreamworld now has White Water World and Seaworld has a pretty cool looking pool and water slide), as well as Wet & Wild being in the area as well. Still, Chickie's too young to really enjoy these things. We're thinking that perhaps we can go again in a few years time (perhaps staying at the Nara Resort) and do all the water worlds.

On Saturday morning, mum and dad left to drive home and we had to do a bit of shopping. Yes, had is the correct word here. At Seaworld one strap on my bag broke and I lost the little screw out of my sunglasses so they only had one arm. My eyes are pretty sensitive to light so if I'm outside, I'm wearing sunnies. A new pair was necessary. I suppose I could have managed my bag with just one strap but it wasn't comfortable.

In the afternoon my sister's husband and 3 of their 4 kids came to visit. We had a swim in the pool and then we all went to see "Meet the Robinsons". A cute movie which all the kids loved.

Our last day (Sunday), we checked out of the apartment and went up to my sister's place for the day. Chickie had so much fun playing with his 'cousins' (that's all he calls them by the way, I don't think he can remember all their names so they are just collectively his 'cousins'). Then later that afternoon we headed back to the Gold Coast and flew home. I thought for sure Chickie would sleep in the plane since it was a late flight home, but no such luck. He wanted to do some colouring in. Oh and his idea of colouring in? He tells me which colours to use and where he wants me to colour. He's not that interested in colouring in himself, he prefers the activities like spot the difference or dot to dots).

Some overall impressions:

The weather was perfect! The day we arrived was a bit overcast but the rest of the time idyllic. I shouldn't have worried about it. Steve mentioned that the rain held off until after we went home, which was very considerate.

Flying with ear infections is not fun. Both J and I had colds just before leaving. Mine was a little chesty but J's gave him ear infections and landing was quite painful for him. Getting sick, for him, was not well-timed. At least it cleared up by the trip home.

A self contained apartment was a very convenient thing for 5 people and having the pool and heated spa was fantastic. Chickie would have spent hours in there if he had the choice.

Edited to include: Daylight savings finishing still screwed up Chickie's inner clock. He got up at 5.30 every morning. I was once able to give him a snack and get him to go back to sleep until 7, every other day he wanted to go swimming. 5.30am is way too early to wake up when you're on holidays. At least now he's getting up at 6.30 again (though, this is still too early, in my opinion).

The food at most of these theme parks didn't seem too great to me. Chips, nuggests, hot dogs etc or pre-prepared salads/sandwiches/wraps. Whilst these would normally be ok, I'm fussy and detest raw onions and mushrooms (they overpower the taste of everything else in the salad so you might as well forget the rest of the stuff and just have mushrooms and onions!). Of course all places had onions etc in their salads so I ended up with chips etc. Not good for the waistline or my health, I'm sure. You're not supposed to take your own food in either. At least Seaworld had a stand selling fruit.

The phrase we heard most from Chickie? This is the best day/place ever!

What I did on my vacation... part 2!

So Thursday we went to Dreamworld. This was kinda the whole reason for the trip. You see, Chickie and his 3 best friends from last year at the childcare centre used to talk endlessly about Wiggles World (which is at Dreamworld). Chickie had told me about the little 'plots' they'd make about escaping from the centre and heading up there. It was very cute.

Anyway, I figured since he starts school later this year, now might be the best time to take advantage of not having to fight school holiday crowds and pay premium rates for accommodation etc. Plus he's still young enough to actually like the Wiggles.

The timing was perfect - we left the day before the rates increased at the apartment complex. There were hardly any crowds at the theme parks and we only had to wait once or twice and not for very long. Most rides we were able to get straight on. We were also able to get great parking spots up close at both of the parks (Australia Zoo was a bit further but not by much).

So Dreamworld... well, we went in and headed for the Nick Central part of it. Chickie loved the place where you got to shoot foam balls at stuff (I shouldn't be surprised here). Mum and Dad then headed for the Imax Theatre while we headed for the Spongebob show. We never made it to the Imax ourselves but I've seen it before so I wasn't too worried. Chickie was desperate to see the Nick Slime Time show but we ended up missing that unfortunately.

We had a bite to eat early, which was a good thing (no lines) and then checked out the Nick area. We went on the boat ride then checked out Wiggles World. Chickie fell in love with Captain Feathersword's ship so when I spotted a guy dressed as Captain Feathersword, I thought Chickie would be excited to see him. Nope... He came running over when I told him, took one look at the guy and said (in a very loud voice!) "He's a FAKE!". No fooling Chickie there.

Dorothy the Dinosaur and Wags the Dog were easier but he wasn't having any part of going near them for a photo. Waving from a distance was his limit (though I kind of expected that). Mum was a bit disappointed by it. She wanted lots of photos of him with all the characters, but we still haven't been able to convince him to get a santa photo yet.

We went on the Big Red Car ride and that was enough to convince Chickie that rides weren't so bad. He even wanted to go on the log ride later. This surprised me since you could see it come down the big hill and splash everyone, but he was really excited and kept saying it was wicked!

He didn't like it so much afterwards though - we all got drenched! Take a towel with you if you're planning on going on those rides. Still he was ok with rides after that and we spent a bit of time later at the kid's rides.

Heading home, we stopped at the souvenir shops and he chose a Spongebob toy where you press a button on Spongebob's back and his eyes and tongue pop out.

Then next day was Friday and my dad's birthday. That day was spent at Seaworld and I'll tell you all about that another time.

What I did on my vacation... part 1!

We had a great time at the Gold Coast. Caught up with family, did a couple of theme parks and did a teensy bit of shopping.

So to start with, we flew to the Gold Coast on the Monday. Chickie's been in a plane before but he was much younger, so I wasn't sure how he'd go. He's an active kid usually and I thought he'd be really bored for the flight. I didn't want that to happen so I (over) prepared. We borrowed J's mother's portable dvd player, I had a couple of new colouring in books, a new book (Cat in the Hat) and a small toy (a Cars car). He ended up watching a dvd for most of the flight so it actually went pretty quickly.

From there my mum and dad met us at the airport. They'd been on holidays for a week already (staying with my sister and her family south of Brisbane). They then drove us up to my uncle's place where we stayed the night. They live on the Sunshine Coast just near Australia Zoo and we were planning on going to Australia Zoo on the Tuesday, then drive back to the Gold Coast to check into the apartment.

I haven't seen my aunt and uncle for quite some time. I lived with them for a couple of months while I was doing a radio course back in the early 90's, so it was good to catch up. It was quite funny seeing Chickie running around the yard (they have a huuuuge back yard) and trying to get the dogs to play with him. They have two pretty elderly dogs and Chickie was trying to get them to run along with him. They followed him around - only at a very sedate walking pace.

While we were up that way, mum and dad drove us past the house we lived in when I was little. I have vague memories of it - painting on the shed down the back, a dog we had called Mitzi (I thought her name was Mincey and only discovered it was actually Mitzi when I was a teenager), and I vividly remember a black vinyl couch with bright purple cushions.

Then Tuesday we went to Australia Zoo. We saw the crocodile show plus a few others (my personal favourites were the otters). Chickie had great fun playing on this big wooden crocodile there. At one stage he climbed in the crocodile's mouth and waved his feet around pretending he was being eaten. J did get a photo but it was a bit dark and you can't really see much. Chickie got a kick out of seeing this crocodile because he's seen it in the Wiggly Safari dvd.

I'd decided beforehand that I'd buy Chickie a small souvenir from each theme park and so from Australia Zoo he chose a rubber snake. What is it with boys and snakes? He's got two toy snakes now. Not to mention, we've got a very good photo of him moving his finger up the glass window of a snake display and the snake following his finger. brrr... I'd post the photo but I'd rather not show photos with Chickie's face for now.

After a pretty full day at the zoo, we drove back to the Gold Coast and checked into our apartment. I'd organised a 3 bedroom apartment at a town called Labrador. We stayed at Sandcastles on the Broadwater.

J and I had the main bedroom upstairs, mum and dad the second downstairs and Chickie had a room to himself downstairs. I felt a bit guilty taking the main bedroom, though I'm pretty sure mum would have been complaining about the stairs after a day or two.

The main bedroom had it's own ensuite and balcony with private spa and a lovely view. If you haven't seen the pics yet, check them out here (I've set up Picasa Web albums as well as Flickr and prefer Picasa since you can organise them quite easily - thanks for the tip dogbait!). I've added photos of the apartment for holly & scolly mainly, since they're looking at a holiday at the Gold Coast too (and most of the accommodation websites have very few good photos of the rooms).

The apartment was quite self contained with laundry facilities in a cupboard. We didn't use them though, what was more handy to us was a full kitchen. There was no way I wanted to be in a hotel for a week and having to eat out every night. Our dishwasher didn't work though. It sounded like it did but it turned out that the motor/water pump was broken and though it generated plenty of steam, no water actually touched the dishes etc. I haven't washed dishes in the sink for a looong time.

The apartment complex also had a lovely big pool and heated spa, as well as a games room (you had to pay to play so I doubt it gets used much), a large bbq area and a mini-gym. The gym was pretty cool actually (yes, I did exercise while I was away - not very regularly mind you, but some). Some machines I'd never used before. If I had the money and space I'd get a few different machines.

On the Wednesday, we took it easy. My sister came down to visit and we had a look around a few shops. We didn't buy anything but some groceries (dinner, munchies etc). I found a bead shop that I could have gone mad in but thought better of it. I have so many different beads already and don't seem to find the time to do as much as I'd like. Then there were the different beading magazines. Cool, but magazines like these are so expensive these days.

The next few days we did Dreamworld and Seaworld, but I'll post about those tomorrow. I need to get to bed!

piccies

Ok I'm giving Flickr a try-out. If you're interested click here.

Haven't worked out how to get the pics in the order I wanted (they're backwards and some out of my preferred order) but it's late and I ought to be in bed.

Oh and don't worry, I'm not putting up all the 300+ pics, hehe - these few took me long enough to organise!

Some pics of our holiday.

I've been looking at the photos we took on our holiday and there's almost 400 of them! Oh and I say 'we' but I really mean J. I took about 3 myself!

Anyway, I think I need to set up a Flickr account or something. Is Flickr ok or do you have any other recommendations?

Here's a few pics to whet the appetite!

The view from our bedroom in the apartment - pretty nice huh?

Chickie croc wrestling at Dreamworld.

The view from the 'tennis' wheel (as Chickie called it) - Seaworld call it the Seaworld Eye.

Polar bear chillin' at Seaworld.

The dolphin show was my favourite. I can't believe how high the dolphins were able to jump.


More detail to come!

back again

Hi all, back home again. Thanks muchly for the well wishes. We had a great time on our holiday. I'll post a bit of a round up tomorrow but I'm now off to bed - I'm exhausted!

Karma? Or a trade-off?

I woke up Friday morning feeling like:

1. someone had broken in while I slept and used a cheese grater on my throat
2. my head was throbbing in time with the ceiling fan
3. my sinuses were threatening to burst out of my face and go on an angry rampage.

Yes, I have a cold.

Was it karma, for hoping that the rain would hold off one week for my holiday? Perhaps, since the weather report now says rain for first two days but none for the rest of the week. Yay!

I stayed home from work Friday and slept a lot of the day. Saturday, I was feeling a bit better (sinuses were down to petulant tantrums by that stage) so I went to work. Funny how exhausting just sitting and trying to help people fix their internet can be.

Today I'm just a bit congested. Could have done with a bit more sleep (since I'm now on my time off) but the clocks went back last night and Chickie was up at 5.15am (would have been 6.15am in daylight savings time). I've been trying to tell him all week that today he'd need to sleep longer but his internal clock will probably be set to daylight savings time for a while. Though I heard him when he woke up at 5.15, at least he didn't come asking for his breakfast until 5.55.

No idea what the holiday is going to do to his internal clock, but I'm hoping it will reset it to slightly later. This kiddo has zero concept of how nice a sleep-in can be (no matter how much I try to convince him).

We fly out tomorrow - I can't wait!

A high note

It's always nice to receive compliments and work yesterday ended on a high note. The reason - I was complimented twice on my work!

In my job, we make outbound calls to help with customer's technical problems and only take incoming calls from the reps on the floor (we help them with their calls). Apparently the centre manager was listening in on a rep who got through to me for help. The manager was so impressed that she passed on the feedback to my centre manager, who then dropped into our team meeting to pass it on to me (and everyone in the team!) *blush

I also hold another extra role in my workplace. There's actually a bunch of us throughout the building that have the same role. As part of that, we had a meeting a week or two ago with some auditors. I made the mistake of sitting opposite the guy doing the interview. So he'd look at his notes, then look up - at me! There were about 8 of us in the meeting/interview but I felt like I was monopolising things a bit (not to mention feeling a bit 'deer in the headlights'-ish). So anyway, I was chatting to our HR person yesterday and she said she'd heard I'd made an excellent impression during the interview.

Wonder if I can top that today ;)


Oh and I have a request. Is anyone into knitting at all? If so, can you recommend any pattern websites? J's mother said she'd knit me something as a birthday present. I've been trying to find something that I like but honestly there are some really crap looking patterns in the shops locally. I need to trek out to Spotlight some time and see if they've got anything. The stuff around here is either baby/craft or 70's ugly stuff.

I'm thinking of something fairly simple - perhaps a cardigan to keep at work (since the temperature is usually a fraction above freezing mostly). I'd like it in a fairly soft wool and I'm not into the chunky knit look (I really don't need any help with looking chunky!). The only request J's mum has made is no Feathers wool!

So any recommendations?

Well, that's a bit of a relief.

I picked up Chickie from child care today and as usual, talked to the carer about his day. She said he'd been so helpful with everything today - just a joy to have there (always nice to hear!). Then she said he was so ready for school. So, I'm thinking it will be a good thing to start him later this year.

We were talking about it further and she was under the impression he'd start in a few weeks, but he misses the cut off by a couple of weeks so has to wait until third term. So he'll be there for a bit longer yet. Because of this the carer is going to talk to his room leader about putting him in the extended program. Apparently there's a couple of kids in a similar situation so they're going to concentrate on things he'll find helpful in school. I don't know what it is they'll be doing exactly, but I plan on having a chat with the room leader to find out more.

I hope Chickie enjoys it. Sounds like he probably will as the carer today said he was very familiar with the usual program already. She was concerned he was getting a bit bored.

My baby is growing up!

Bah!

I just checked the weather channel for the Gold Coast weather for the week we'll be there.

Rain...

Every. Single. Fricken'. Day!


In fact the weather channel long range forecast, for that area, says it will rain for two weeks solid. Couldn't it have waited just one lousy week???

Then and Now (part 1)

The tv was on at work today, tuned to the ABC. Rage was doing a bit of an 80's flashback and they showed the Hunters & Collectors 'Throw Your Arms Around Me'. I loved that song (along with a lot of other Australians!).

It brought to mind though, the show from the 80's/90's The Big Gig. Anyone remember this from it??

Then and Now (part 2)

As for Now? Well, I'm kinda liking this song - a lot!

A why, a how and a hard to believe

Why is it that the sports bottle Chickie has by his bedside (in case he gets thirsty at night), had to lose its lid about two minutes after I've changed his sheets and tucked him in... Yes, he and his bed got soaked - thank goodness for waterproof mattress covers.

How is it possible to spend money so easily? My bank account is $3000 lighter tonight. All it took was a (smaller than usual) Visa bill, a couple of plane tickets, accommodation for a week for 5 people, childcare costs and car insurance. Bills always seem to come at once, don't they?

Hard to believe but looks like Chickie has his very first girlfriend. Well, to be totally honest - he may not even know it! Apparently one of the other parents at the childcare centre came in asking which boy was Chickie. She said her daughter would not stop talking about him and she was saying that he was her boyfriend. I haven't asked Chickie about her since he's not too enthused about girls lately (girls are icky, doncha know).

So, that's my day, hope yours has been better.

By the power of Grayskull...

I went and saw Hot Fuzz today - loved it! If you liked Shaun of the Dead, go see Hot Fuzz. It's very funny. If you've seen it you'll recognise the title of this post.

If you have seen it, can you tell me how you would describe the segues between various bits of action? I really don't know how to describe that style. I found it really effective for this movie though.

Usually I'm a chick flick fan but this was a nice change of pace. Comedy still but definitely not a chick flick!

Then tonight I watched the last episode of Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee on SBS. I really quite liked it. I might have to go search out the book.

You know, thinking about what sort of movies I like, you'd think I'd watch a lot of tv shows that are along the chick flick lines. To be honest though, I can't even think of any shows I watch that would fall into that category. The closest would be Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee, and it doesn't quite fit. My fave shows at the moment are NCIS, House, Medium and Bones. Funnily enough all on an investigative theme.

So what shows are you watching at the moment? Are they the same genre as movies you like to watch?

Whaddya think?

Do you like my new banner picture?

I'd never make a graphic designer though, since it's taken me most of the night to get it to the stage I'm happy with. I have to admit, I quite like it.

Happy to accept constructive criticism (just be gentle mmkay?). Oh and if you know of any good (free) clipart/photoart/digital scrapbooking sites for bits and pieces/tutorials, please do comment with the url. The photoshop bug has bitten me again ;)

An advertiser's dream

I was talking to Chickie yesterday, about his birthday (he'll be 5 in June). Earlier this year, I was thinking that he and his 3 closest friends at childcare could have a little party. I'll have to rethink that now since two of the 'four musketeers' (as the childcare workers called them) have gone to school already and I don't have their contact details. May just have to make it Chickie, L (who is still at childcare for the first school term) and the kids from the mother's group we used to hang with.

I was thinking of doing a ten pin bowling party. J's work had a social club outing at the local bowling place last year and Chickie had an absolute ball. Something about being encouraged to knock things over perhaps??

So I mentioned this to Chickie and he got all excited. He must have seen an ad on the tv for a bowling birthday party, because he started talking about what they could do and how they could have chips and hot dogs etc. So I said "So you like that idea then, and you want to do it?". His response? "Yes! I want to do exactly what the tv tells me!"

Oh dear... better cut down on the tv.

What shall I do on this sunny Sunday?

It's my day off and the sun is starting to shine a little. Weather reports said it would be cloudy and a chance of rain over the weekend. We did have some thunder and about 5 minutes of rain on Friday night but then yesterday it was a little cooler and cloudy.

Yesterday's weather was very appropriate for B's funeral. Overcast and grey. The funeral was Greek Orthodox so most of it was conducted in Greek, with one tribute from B's brother in English. 95% of the service was sung/chanted by the priests. I've never experienced that sort of service before. I have to say though, the sound of B's wife and mother weeping is the most heartbreaking sound I've heard in a long time.

On a more cheerful note, we bought Chickie a trampoline yesterday. They had them on a fantastic special and I've been wanting to get him either a swingset or trampoline for ages. It's a small round one with a net. I'm hopeful it will stop him from jumping on our bed (that drives me nuts!). I think we need to organise some sort of steps for him to get in and out safely though.

So what to do today? Chickie keeps asking to go to the museum. J took him yesterday while I was at the funeral and he loved it. I think his new favourite word is mammal because he keeps saying "Mum, have you heard this word before? Maaammaaal" (he really stretches out the word). Perhaps we'll all go next weekend. Maybe we'll take a train ride into the city. He loves that. Today though, I don't know.

So what are you planning on doing with your Sundays?

Grrr

I've been trying to post a video from youtube for over a day now, but I'm having zero success. I keep getting error 400. No idea what it is though - guess I'd better go search through their help section.

Anyway, here's a link instead...

Especially for House & Baby

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.

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.

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.

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!

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...)

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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 :)

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?

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.

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.

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!

Am I doing the right thing?

So tonight J, Chickie and I went to a birthday dinner for a three year old. Her parents are in the process of splitting up and both were there. It was a little awkward at times but it wasn't nasty or anything.

I'm friends with both. I used to work with one and the other was a member of our mum's group (disintegrated now but I still catch up with most of the mothers). I'd like to stay friends with both.

I've heard some details about what happened from one and tonight the other asked me what I knew about it and what the other had told me. I played dumb and just said I didn't really know much about it all. Was that the right thing to say, do you think?

I have no intention of passing information on to the other. If one tells me something, I feel that information/discussion is in confidence. I didn't feel comfortable saying 'yeah, x told me what went on but I don't feel comfortable telling you what s/he said' - particularly when I've only heard the story from x. I feel that would be a little like saying I was on x's side.

Once y has told me their story (if they feel they want to, I don't want to push them either), should I then tell them both that I have no intention of revealing what's been said to me from either side? Or should I continue to play dumb? I can't see how they'll believe that for long really.

It's all a bit messy. Relatively civil, but messy. I just feel so sad about it all - they looked like the perfect family and then this, seemingly out of the blue.

A bit of introspection

I've been thinking today, about the effect of reading someone's blog regularly. When you read a prolific poster you tend to find out quite a bit about them. Their likes, dislikes, how they feel about people, how certain events affect them.

You really start to think you know them.

And you start to care.

The past few days a blog friend (Carmelo) has been through some... well interesting times, to put it mildly. Now, he assures me that he's fine with it and even had a bit of a laugh, but I'm rather angry about the way he's been treated. There's been a few times where I've wanted to wade in and make some not so nice comments. I was going to say there were times I was biting my tongue but given the medium, I'll have to settle for 'put my hands behind my back'. It's his life and his 'fight' to deal with.

The whole thing is just messy and spilled over to another blog I read - Nicenurse. Another person who did not deserve the attacks he received.

In the end it looks as if Carmelo will no longer be blogging. I really hope it's not forever, as I quite enjoyed hearing about his experiences in learning to be an EMT/Paramedic.

Then there's the worry about another blogfriend fairsCaPe. She's currently undergoing chemotherapy to battle cancer. When you don't see a new post in a while, you start to be a bit concerned. Hoping the treatment isn't taking too much out of her. You'd like to see a new post but, at the same time, you feel selfish for wanting it when she may be tired or not feeling well enough.

It's funny how you feel you know someone through what they write. Is it the full story - heh, not by a long shot, says the logical part of me. I guess there's a bit of 'presumption of intimacy' when you regularly read someone's blog. It sort of feels like riding the same train, morning and night, and always sitting near the same group of people chatting about themselves. You overhear all about their lives, their hopes, their dreams and feel you know them, but you're not really a part of it all. It's a bit voyeuristic, isn't it?

As for the full story about me? Well, I will admit that I censor myself sometimes. Thoroughly sure anyone reading doesn't want to hear me moan on about stuff, or being boring and just prattling on about nothing. Though for some reason, I'm fascinated by the daily minutiae of other people's lives.

Ah well, I never claimed to be logical about it.

Mac Beautiful

Ok, I love my Mac but obviously not as much as this woman...

quick catch-up

J and I went out on Sunday - sushi was good, though missed out on trying the black sesame icecream because their freezer had broken down that day. Saw Deja Vu at the movies - excellent movie, though J couldn't quite suspend his belief so he didn't enjoy it as much as me. My advice - just go with it and don't think too hard about it. Not going to say any more in case you've not seen it and want to... would hate to be a spoilsport.

Since my usual massage guy hasn't been around lately (he went overseas just after Christmas and then was sick when he got back), I tried a Chinese massage place yesterday. Was quite good and just what my back needed.

Today and tomorrow I'm home because I don't have childcare for Chickie for Wednesday and Thursday for the next three weeks. Since my days off are Sunday and Monday, there's really no point in then working Tuesdays... so for the next three weeks I'll be working two days and having five off. Now if I could just work out a way to keep doing that at the same pay rate, I'd be right!

Well, better be off, I promised Chickie we'd go out for lunch and then we're visiting a friend. Hope your day is a relaxed and happy as mine!

Probably The Best Caramaena In The World.

Carmelo had this link on his blog and I think it's quite amusing. It's an advertising slogan generator. You can put in your name or whatever word you like and it will randomly come up with stuff (that's where I got the title from). Some of the other's I've seen are:

Super Caramaena is Almost Here.
Better Living Through Caramaena.
It's a Caramaena Adventure.
All Caramaena, All The Time.
It's Slightly Rippled with a Flat Caramaena. (rofl)
Show Me The Caramaena!

Ok, that's enough of that silliness...

It rained yesterday, all day. Not a heavy rain, no flooding (where I am, at least) and definitely not a drought breaker. I was watching the news last night (state news - though they call it 'national') and the rain was not only the first story, but they did a live cross to their weatherman, who was at the state head office of the Bureau of Meteorology!

Slow news day, I guess. Perhaps all the local crims were out, peering upwards, wondering what this wet stuff falling out of the sky was?

Still, it has continued to rain a bit, though it's warming up again now and it's so humid outside. A bit more rain would be nice. My lawn sure could do with it (it's just a teensy bit parched).

Thanks!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone :) Much appreciated.

I had a lovely day, even though I had to work. I was given some gorgeous flowers from my two special guys, amongst other things (yes, I did get the Sims expansion pack I hinted at). I just love getting flowers.

We had takeaway chinese food for dinner (chicken and sweet corn soup and prawn with cashews - yum!) and Vienetta icecream for dessert. I haven't had that in a while.

Chickie actually wanted us to go out for dinner instead of doing the takeaway. He's asked to go out to restaurants several times recently. He's a little social butterfly! Since we're all going to a 21st this saturday and then J and I are going out by ourselves on Sunday night (sushi and a movie) though, I wanted a quieter night last night.

We're thinking of seeing Deja Vu on Sunday, has anyone seen it? Is it any good?

I declare today...

to be all about me!

Last year, the company I work for instituted a paid day off on your birthday, and have decided to continue it this year. You can take your actual birthday off or another day - provided it's in the same week. My birthday is tomorrow but I had Sunday and Monday as my rostered days off so I took my birthday leave today to give me a three day weekend.

So far I've slept in (just a little) and I've spent the morning with Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law (yum) and Jack Black. This afternoon I plan on either playing Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (got it for Christmas) or spending some time with Keanu Reeves (yum) and Sandra Bullock, whilst trying to make a necklace of a design that's been bubbling around in the back of my mind for a week or two. As for tonight, well I guess I'd better do some exercise because I plan on not doing any tomorrow. Since I'll have to actually work on my birthday, I figure I might as well take it easy during the evening.

You may possibly notice that today's activities are very indoor based. That's because it's bloody hot out! It's meant to get to 40 C today (104 F) and currently it's 38 (100). I think it feels hotter though because there's also a very hot dry wind going on. It's the sort of day you just hope there are no bushfires about.

Now a question for those of you who have visited the Gold Coast recently. We're planning on taking Chickie up to Wiggles World in March. He's been talking about it forever and we figure it would be nice to take him while he still has the interest, plus it's easier to take him before he starts school (so we can go in non-school holiday periods). I'm thinking Australia Zoo might be cool and possibly Sea World. Chickie's not really a water person so Wet'n'Wild Water World may not be the best option. So any other recommendations?

I've been tagged!

Carmelo tagged me! So here it is:

A - Available/Single? - Nope. J and I have been together 10 years, this December.

B - Best Friend? - J, of course. I also have an online best friend who goes by the nickname bunny. We've known each other for almost 10 years and I'd love to meet her one day (she lives in America).

C - Cake or Pie? Well, I shouldn't really eat either very much. I'd have to say pie though. My grandmother used to make the most delectable lemon meringue pie... mmmm

D - Drink Of Choice? My everyday choice would be regular coca cola, but because I can't really have that (and I'm not a huge fan of diet drinks), water is what I drink most. Booooring!

E – Essential Item You Use Everyday? Ummm, is it just too sad to say it's my computer? Yes? Thought so. It is, though.

F - Favourite Colour? Teal Green

G - Gummy Bears Or Worms? I used to love the sour gummy worms. I love sour lollies.

H - Hometown? - I grew up on the mid north coast of New South Wales.

I - Indulgence? Beads. I buy way more than I use in my jewellery making. Problem is I can't really do any beading around Chickie because he loves to play with them and they're a real pain to pick up if they get spilled. I do have some time off where he'll be at childcare soon though, so I have plans to do more beading.

J - January Or February? January - coz it's my birthday month (this wednesday, in fact!)

K - Kids & Their Names? I have one sweet little boy but I'd rather not say his name. I will tell you that it's not very common, all the baby books say it's Irish and the only times I've seen it used as a first name recently, is by a supermodel for her son and a tv character.

L - Life Is Incomplete Without? Chocolate ;)

M - Marriage date? No plans for that at the moment.

N - Number Of Siblings? 3 younger sisters.

O - Oranges Or Apples? I prefer oranges but I eat more apples. They're much easier to take to work as a snack.

P - Phobias/Fears? I really don't like bugs much. I recall working at a radio station once, where I was on air reading the weather. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a cockroach and believe me, you've never heard the weather read so quickly! I ran out squealing as soon as I could and had to get someone to go kill it for me.

Q - Favourite Quote? May you live all the days of your life - Jonathan Swift. That and Carpe Chocolate (no idea who said that).

R - Reason to Smile? Getting a hug from Chickie and him telling me I'm "the best mum". Also, purely selfish here - going clothes shopping and having to go get smaller sizes to try on.

S - Season? Autumn - I love trees that change colour. I once lived in a town that had a lot of trees like that and it was just beautiful.

T - Tag people? Charm School Reject, House & Baby and Four Legged Furry Penguins

U - Unknown Fact About Me? I've been married and divorced previously.

V - Vegetable you don’t like? Pumpkin, brussell sprouts, asparagus, cabbage - blech.

W - Worst Habit? Being late. I don't know why, but it's near impossible for me to be on time for things!

X - X-rays You’ve Had? My knees, my lungs and teeth. I've never actually broken a bone (that I'm aware of - I'm told it's quite common to break a toe without realising it).

Y - Your Favourite Food? Roast lamb with rosemary, roast potatoes and spinach. yum!

Z – Zodiac Sign? Capricorn.

iWant??

I wouldn't mind one of these...



I am a Mac fan through and through. They even call me Macgirl at work :)

Nothing much really

That's what I've been up to lately. A big ball o' nuthin...

Christmas and new years has been and gone and they were relatively quiet, but nice. Next year's Christmas should prove more lively, as most (if not all) of my family should be here for it.

Lately I've not been doing much more than work and try to get Chickie back into his normal routine. He's had so many late nights over the past few weeks that he's looking really tired.

Had some sad news at the new year's party - a former team mate and his wife are splitting up. I'm close to both of them and they seemed so good together, so I'm sad to see this happen. Came out of the blue too, there was no hint that things weren't going well.

Work's been crazy busy, since our team has basically taken on a new role to do with adsl tech support. We're still feeling our way with it, but it has its moments. For those not aware, adsl is broadband delivered by the phone line. Now I was trying to help someone whose adsl wasn't working. I asked him to unplug all phones and other equipment and just plug the modem in by itself. I asked him to ensure that the phone line was going directly from the back of the modem to the wall socket - several times in fact, because it just wasn't working! I was thinking I'd have to start doing a few of the more drastic troubleshooting steps when he asked me, out of the blue, if the phone line should be plugged into the modem... (insert image of me slapping my forehead here!).

I have to admit, I'm feeling so much happier at work. Even though it's busy, I feel like I'm actually using my brain. I'm learning all sorts of bits and pieces, like how to figure out the distance from the telephone exchange the customer is, and how to recognise a line fault from the lines tests we do.

The only other remotely interesting thing we've been up to, is we're looking at pulling up the carpet in the lounge/hallway and replacing it with floating floors. It will be a big job though. Not only will we have to pack everything up and shift it out of the way, but the carpet is glued to the floor. Pulling that up will be a real joy.

I've actually been wanting to get rid of it for some time. It's mint green and shows everything! Particularly stains from where it's been thrown up on (kid and cats). I've mostly got rid of the stains from ages ago when Chickie was sick but the cat was recently sick on it and I'm having no luck getting rid of the stain. Anyone got any hints for me? I have a feeling the problem is food colouring from the dry cat food.

Anyway, once the mint green carpet is gone, that'll just leave the lovely red carpet in Chickie's room to deal with. We'll do that later. I tell you though, the person who did the decorating in this house previously had some interesting taste... mint green carpet in lounge room (with dark green velvet curtains to match - now replaced with cream coloured ones), brown swirly stuff in the main bedroom (long gone because it was shredding - thankfully), red carpet (glued up on the skirting boards) with apricot coloured walls in Chickie's room... blech.

Ah, now I'm just rambling - I'm off to bed. Night night!

I bought shoes!

Yeah I know, any guys reading this will be saying 'big deal'. Honestly though, for me it is. I am so not a shoe person. I'm slightly flat-footed so a lot of shoes just look strange on me.

Anyway, I was given a new handbag from J's brother and fiancee after they visited Hong Kong but it really didn't look right with any of my current shoes. So I've been looking for a new pair to match it. I saw a really nice pair with a cute little leather flower on the top, only they didn't have my size. Probably for the best since they were $90. Eventually I found an el-cheapo pair that are quite cute - on sale for $21.

I'm very glad I didn't have to spend $90 on shoes, since I've spent a bit on clothes the last few days as well. In the last few years I've not enjoyed shopping for clothes, but since losing a bit of weight it's kind of a novelty to take stuff into the change rooms and find they're TOO BIG! Woohoo!

I must admit I haven't gone overboard in my spending. Apart from the fact that the post-Christmas credit card bill arrived (more than I'd like but not too bad), I'm still working on losing more weight. I'm hoping that by the start of summer 2007 (next December) I'd like to be in the position of having to buy a whole new wardrobe!

Happy New Year!!

I hope 2007 is a wonderful year for every one of my blog friends - and any anonymous readers I'm still to 'meet'.

I've decided no new year's resolutions this year. Pretty much like last year - I'm doing the stuff I 'need' to do as an ongoing project (still 3 kilos from my ideal weight for height, but I will get there soon).

We went out to a friend's place for new year's last night. He's a friend I used to work with, plus another ex team mate was there too. Was great to catch up. It was also fun meeting some new people.

One of the people we met had a very interesting question to ask. "If you had your own half hour tv show with unlimited budget, how would you fill it?" There were various answers ranging from a reality show following around a real medical student (yes, he was a medical student hehe) to bringing back It's a Knockout! So what would you do with it?

Post Christmas exhaustion

I don't know why exactly but I'm absolutely exhausted.

The last few days I've come home from work and had to take a nap for an hour or two. Then after dinner I'm barely able to keep my eyes open. I guess the busy season is just catching up with me. Work has been flat out as well, so I guess that doesn't help.

I really could use some time off. I haven't had any real time off, just my usual rostered days off (which happened to coincide with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day). Handily enough the same rostered days off give me New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off. Not that I'm much of a party animal. We are going to a friend's place but it won't be like the party one of my workmates is going to (that one involves jelly wrestling in the blow up pool apparently).

So I guess the next step now is to think of some New Year's resolutions... will have to get back to you on those. Got any you'd like to share?

It was a lovely Christmas

Hope you had a lovely day. We certainly did.

Chickie let us sleep in until 6.45am (we were expecting a lot earlier) and then had a look at the presents Santa brought. After that we opened our presents to each other.

Then it was around to J's parents for a delicious lunch. Nothing fancy - cold meats (leg ham, pork, turkey, chicken), about 5 different salads, potato bake, fried rice and chicken shaslicks.

After that it was more presents! Chickie ended up with a very Pirates of the Caribbean Christmas. He was given the sword that makes sword noises when you wave it about, a Jack Sparrow dressup kit, Jack Sparrow's old style pistol and a big pirate ship with various characters (not Pirates of the Caribbean but very cool). He also got other things that his letter to Santa asked for - like a tank and toy electric guitar.

The funniest thing was when he was opening his stocking from Santa and pulled out a small Matchbox type car of Lightning McQueen, sighed and said "Now, I'm happy". I think if Santa had known that that's all it took, it might have been a lot cheaper for him ;)

Chickie's excuse

Chickie's in the bath and is squirting water up the walls with some toy. I went in there and shook my finger at him and said "No water outside the tub". His response?

"I didn't want to, but my bones are doing it and I tried to stop them, but they won't let me. Naughty bones!"

And yes, I did have to walk away quite quickly so he wouldn't see me laughing.

One year old

Hard to believe I've been blogging for a year now. Who would have thought I'd have this much to say!

Only two things left on the 'to do' list.

1. Christmas present shopping - tick!
2. Put the tree up - better do that tonight
3. Grocery shopping - tomorrow (oh that's going to be fun)

I can't believe I'm this close to Christmas and I've only just finished the present shopping. Why on earth do I always leave it this late? Next year, I will be more organised, I swear!

Ok, ok, I say that every year, but next year I'll have to be. I'll have most of my family (if not all) coming to visit/stay, and there's no way in the world I want to be out present shopping with everyone here. Hopefully that will be enough of an incentive!

Chickie's much better. Thanks for all the well wishes. He had a very lazy day watching tv or sleeping. I can't believe I managed to convince him to have a nap - mind you it helps when the power goes out for a couple of hours in the thunderstorm (yes, it rained, and quite a bit too). He didn't eat much - half an apple, some vitawheat crackers with vegemite and a couple of bites of watermelon, which is very different from usual. By the end of the day he said he was 'a big daddy bit better and a little baby bit sick'. Fyi - that's how he asks for juice - a big daddy bit of juice and a little baby bit of water.

And luckily, whatever it was doesn't seem to be contagious. Both J and I appear to be fine. Perhaps it was something he ate, a bit of heatstroke or something. I'm also very glad it didn't happen Sunday. That wouldn't have made for a very fun Christmas Eve!

Matchbox 20 says "It's 3 am I must be lonely"

I say "It's 3 am and I want to go back to bed!". But I can't just yet - it's my turn.

Chickie's not well, and has been having bouts of throwing up for several hours. J really needs to go to work tomorrow, er later today, so he's off to bed.

Apparently Chickie will get about 30 minutes of sleep before he wakes up again, so I figure I'll stay up for half an hour and see how he goes. We gave him some kids Panadol (paracetamol) this time since he's also running a fever, so perhaps it might help him sleep. If he stays asleep after the half hour mark, I might chance lying down again though.

Chickie did say that he had a 'stummy-ache' before he went to bed, but he seemed perfectly fine. Now he says his insides taste strange. I hope it's not catching because I feel a bit queasy myself. Mind you, that could just be because I'm not so good with people throwing up - I tend to gag a bit myself.

If past illnesses are anything to go by, the Panadol should help. He's the sort of kid that throws up when he's got a fever and if we can bring that down he should be able to get some sleep.

It's a good thing I have a proper clothes line now, since it's sure to get a workout tomorrow! Um.. later today...

Tony vs. Paul

This is quite funny and very well done.

The thought of all the effort put into it though - amazing!