The Bank Told Me to Have a Quiet Weekend

Hi!

Well. Here we are. Nice, very quick week. Now arriving at a rainy and cool Sunday evening. Suits me fine after all the stinky hot weeks that were summer! Week was good. Weekend was good. Ahhhhh, everyone is happy!

So work. Yep. Is good, if not slightly confusing at times as to who does what, when exactly. And that’s all I’ll say on the subject. Suffice to say I have never let go of the fact that I’m on a contract that could end either A) At the expiration date or B) Boss’s will (which is pretty much the same thing). Oh yeah. I’m meant to expire at the end of June. I optimistically organized (tho haven’t sent to HR) my renewal paperwork for either a 3 or 6 month extension. So we’ll get to the middle/end of June and see what shakes down….. Otherwise work is good, really!

And then the weekend. Was just fine. Try as I can, I cannot say it was exciting, no matter from which angle I look at it. The only thing lively about it was the schizophrenic weather – raining sideways one minute, lovely, calm and sunny the next. Made doing laundry and chores interesting. Yes, I’m afraid it’s savings lock-down mode. The Girls and I just paid off 3 of our domestic plane tickets in one shot, so all of our bank accounts are suffering slightly. Plus, I had to take the car in for its regular tune-up and oil change. $325 dollars later (needed a new battery, sigh)………….. Which means, for the most part, the bank says there really will be no fun having!

And today. Was mainly quiet (gasp!surprise!). Spent a good part of it organizing and detailing our trip plan. I know all this planning must seem a bit overboard (you haven’t seen my Trip Plan Spreadsheet), but when you’re showing two gals all over the US, who’ve never been, over 4 weeks, covering both coasts and a fair few places in between, flights, rental cars, hotels, etc, with that many details to keep track of, you’d fill out a spreadsheet too. So I did that today. Researched rental cars, hotels and their distances from stuff. Hard to believe it’s only like 3 months away! I must say, all this research and planning is kinda fun. Hooray!

And that’s that. Quiet but true. You want for things to liven up, then come on down! Yaahhooo!

BYE!

J!

Paws in Weekend

Hi!

Well. Here we are at the end of another week. Another short week I may add, but regardless, the end always seems to come too soon. Ahhhh, never mind, it was a perfectly nice week followed by an even lovelier weekend. The lorikeets chattering away outside announcing the sunset is my hint to get started writing!

So work. Yep. Is good. My Big Project that got pushed up to be due in like a week, well, it's going fine. I showed the "draft" to the main "client" and overall he really like it....... "except, well, can it do this.......?". So it was back to the drawing board for a couple of fairly major adjustments. All I can say is I owe Hasse at least one case of really nice wine. The request that the "client" made, I thought was needing at least a few weeks to fix up, took all of ten minutes. It'll do for now. Next year, bells, whistles, the whole lot. As long as the client is happy, I'm happy! Hurrah! So yes, so far so good on the work-front! Whew!

And then the weekend. Started off kinda painful by taking the bus from work into town to run errands. Mistake on a Friday. Errand-in-town day is usually Thursdays but for some reason I thought I'd shake things up a bit by doing them on Friday. Guess it's been that long since I've taken the bus into town on a Friday evening. Plus there was a rugby game on at the Suncorp Stadium (near my house), so traffic was doubly-horrible. Put it this way, it took me over an hour and a half to get from work to town. Normally takes around 20 minutes. Traffic. Sigh. Nevertheless, got my errands run, and to treat myself for being so patient on the buses (cos bus to home from town took about 45 minutes instead of the usual 15, because of everyone walking into the game), I bought my first batch of Indian Takeout all by myself. Yeah. There's a reason why I don't ever buy Indian food on my own without having someone to help me decipher the menu. It was good (love naan bread) but the next day...oooooh, tummy doesn't agree with Indian food. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Weird thing is I can eat really spicy Mexican and Thai food until the cows come home, but something about Indian food.......... Hmm.

And then Saturday. Was up and out bright and early to meet the girls for a morning Trip Planning Session. And boy did we get lots done! Booked all of our domestic flights (except San Diego to Tucson cos we're not sure of the dates yet, depends on length of roadtrip), and booked most of our hotels except Vegas and LA - those'll be easy. Whew! And now that we have a good idea how much all this stuff costs, we can pay it off now and save the rest for partypartyparty! Ha, more like shopshopshop! Hard to believe it's only 3 months away. HOORAY!

And today was up and out bright and early to meet Jan and her family out in her neighborhood of Samford, which is about 40 minutes north-east of the City, not toooooo far from me, kinda. Very pretty, for the Million Paws Walk for the RSPCA. Oh it was really fun! All these dogs! Big ones, little ones, everywhere, all getting along! And supporting a good cause! Jan's mom had made the costumes for the 8 dogs in our group - Brisbane Lions football uniforms and cheerleader outfits! We won for Best Dressed! Hahahahaha! Oh it was fun. And I got to "borrow" a gal's dog while she ran the RSPCA merchandise table to take him on the walk! He was a lovely Golden Retriever named Danny. Funny thing is, she was from Northern California! I thought she sounded kinda familiar...... Ahhh it was a reallyreally nice day out. And really cool to meet Jan's mom and niece and god-daughter!

And that's about that. Soooooo nice to get out and about for once instead of keeping my head down saving money! Ahhh well, there's a great trip to be had for it! But until then, you should come visit!

BYE!
J!

An Adventure without Bailey...

Hi!

Well. First off - am sorry am late. I didn't do a single thing even remotely exciting over the weekend. But I knew I was having an adventure today, so I thought I'd wait..... And here we are!

So yep. Work. Is good. Had a day off today because I could. It's cool how the Government works with little scrubs like me - for every standard day of 7.15 hours you work, technically you earn 15 minutes towards a day off to be used any way you see fit. And you're supposed to stop accruing it at 22 hours (but, depending on how you play it, you can save up to at least 30+ hours, sweeeet). Well, because Qld Gov't employees are wussies with their sorry little standard 7.15 hours a day (they wouldn't last a week in New York City), I work about 8.5 hours a day, therefore I accrue these little gems faster than the average bear. It's EX-cellent if I do say so myself. Ahhhhhh, short weeks. So yes, had a well-earned day off. Otherwise work is good. The big project am working on has had its due date pushed forward about a month, so they want it in like 2 weeks. I'll have to save all my money to bribe the 2 super busy IT guys to help me with the final interweb touches and adjustments! Fingers and toes crossed that they can help and that it works!

And then the weekend. Started off reallyreally cool Friday evening. Went with Hasse (guy from work) to an art gallery show opening thingy. Friends of his own the gallery, and it was photography, so he thought I'd get a kick out of it. The photos, eh, I have some good stuff that I've done, and if I took Photoshop to some of them and blew them up and put them in fancy frames, they'd be just as good as this chick's. But what made the evening even more interesting was the fact that the Governor General of Qld was there! She's not much of a real, governmental decision-maker or anything political like that, she's basically good for - and this is my tourist understanding of an already strange system of Government - she's good for basically reporting back to the Queen what's happening in Australia. And she just so happens to like art. And she lives like a couple blocks from me in a huuuge mansion down the road! She was there for about an hour, chatted with the owners and the artist and anyone else who had something to say. I couldn't think of a thing to bother her about, so I drank another glass of champagne and thought of my first art gallery show opening for my photography. Hmph! Then we headed off for a lovely meal of Thai food, which, for some reason, if it's spicey and made with coconut milk, I eat it like someone at the next table, or someone even walking by, is gonna take it away from me. Wierd. I just really like Thai food... Then it was home and sleeeeeep. Can only handle so much excitement for what had been a school-day.

Otherwise, the weekend was Yawnsville, Australia. I couldn't even be bothered to do all my chores beyond laundry. Eh, the place is teeny, am only here to sleep, how dirty can it get. And really, vacumming this carpet, am not too sure it really matters (one good thing about this crappy place and its crappy carpet - the cat can throw up on it and all I have to do is just pick up the chunks and know not to step on that section for a few days. Cool).

But today - an adventure was had! Even if it was kinda small and short-lived. I took the day off and so did Lauren and Hasse - so we drove up to a lovely, quaint little town in the hinterland up north of Brisbane by about an hour and a half called Montville. Very cutesy, country, crafts, wind chimes, tourists with babies in strollers (including one on a leash - the kid, not a tourist, but the kid coulda been a tourist......). We wandered through pretty much most of the shops then finally had lunch at a pretty neat restaurant called the Poet's Cafe. Then we drove back into town to miss the evening rush hour. Even tho it was short, it was a really lovely way to spend a day off. Must do that more often.

And that's about that! It's tough going this saving money to go on vacation for 4+ weeks. Gahhhh, I sometimes lose my mind from boredom and too many naps some weekends. But, nevermind, will be there soon and it'll be fun! Hooray! So hurry, c'mon down - the weather's fine!

BYE!
J!
P.S. Tho some sad news - my pup in Tucson, Bailey, died over the weekend of some scary leukaemia. It was quick and kinda painful. Poor pup. Now he's up there with all the other good pups and cats have known over the years - Piper, Freddie, Muffy, Teddy, Grandma Kitty, Chelsea, Joey, Maddie, Geisha, countless goldfish, a couple of birds, numerous lizards, a few mice......... Here's to you Bailey!!!!!!!!!!!!

Field Trips with the Rent

Hi!

Well. That was a fine week. Didn't seem to get much done, but I went to work for 5 days, from 7.30am til 4pm, so I must've done something to keep myself entertained that whole time. And then at home..... I know I didn't bother with tv at least one night..... Oh yeah. Week went by quite nicely, just like most weeks......!

So work. Yep. Is good. Semi-busy, in a very manageable way. Projects ticking along slowly but surely. If I can just put the cool RoboHelp project to bed (hopefully in the next month or so) then I can really get started on another, tho not as cool, project. Heck, they're all cool, but this RoboHelp has been the coolest so far! Annnnd then I get to go learn Flash level 2 (website animation kinda stuff) towards the end of the month! Yeeaaa for learning! So yes, work is good, ticking along quite nicely!

And then the weekend. Ahhhhhhhh, another 3 day weekend! This time it's because of Monday being Labor day - hooray! Tho I didn't know it was a long weekend until the Thursday before, too late to really plan anything major like going out of town. But, the little group of work folks and I have just managed to put together a little field trip for tomorrow - we're taking public transport (so no one gets caught drinking and driving) up to Sandgate (not too far north of the city, but by train it takes about an hour), where we're going to what's known as a pretty awesome pub called the Full Moon Hotel (never been there, have heard it's really good, am excited), plus it's right near the water so it should be really pretty. So we'll have lunch and then hopefully try to find a lawn bowls club - my absolute favorite weekend thing to do in this country! So that'll be a lovely way to spend Labor Day! That's if stuff is even open, owing to the holiday lots of stuff actually closes here. It should be interesting nonetheless!

Otherwise, yesterday was nice and productive in a very chore-like way. My neighbor has just got his lease renewal, he's been here 6 years and they've decided to raise his rent an extra $30 bucks a week. Highway robbery for this dump. So I brought my little laptop over to his little place (and I thought my place was crap) and helped him look for a new apartment. We found a couple but he'll have to go check them out. So if they raised his rent that much, I'm terrified to see what they do to me! I should be receiving my lease renewal soon too, since they're mailing them out like 2 months in advance. Weird. So who knows, I could be pulling up stakes again. Sigh. Someday I'll be able to stay in one place longer than a year.

And today was very quiet in a studious kinda way. Doing research for a new screenplay I'm developing. Should be good. Won't say any more as will jinx it. Suffice to say it's another sell-out Hollywood bit of semi-fluff. Hey, I don't care, just want the money, then I can be artsy. Yeah!

So there you have it. Am looking forward to tomorrow's field trip. Haven't been out on a field trip in ages. I should do this more often, I know. If it turns out to be quite good, well, when you come down I'll take you!

BYE!
J!