Hi!Well. Late, again. Like late. Am sorry. Last weekend I couldn't check in..... well, for now I'll just say I can't party like I used ta could! And this weekend it was just way too bloody hot and humid in the evening to make my poor little computer suffer through that, only a year after the heat killed it the first time! Let alone make me suffer through it! So today am writing from the cool comfort of work - hooray for free air-con!
So. Work. Is good. My boss is going away (to the US actually) for a while and then to an air show outside of Melbourne, and he won't be back until April, which is when my contract expires.... So I hit him up the other day about whether or not he wanted to keep me around..... And so far I still haven't got a real answer, but
today he said at the very least he'd extend my contract for another 6 months! Hooooooray! So that's a relief that I won't have to go job hunting in the next couple weeks like I was afraid I might. WHEW! But otherwise, it's still pretty quiet, but again, I don't mind because I'd rather learn a complicated company and its workings while things are quiet than when things are super busy. Apparently there's a big bid/proposal coming but no one will tell me much about it...... So I can only sit here, red pen at the ready!And then there were the weekends... Last weekend was really really good. A guy I used to work with (Julian) at Southbank (my first job here), he always throws
a good Australia Day BBQ, and lots of folks from Southbank that I used to work with always come along, some with little ones. It was a fantastic afternoon that went way too late for me. Not that I drank a lot, it was just a very long day. I got up really early to make my bean dip (which they loooove and I have to bring otherwise they'll revoke my invite) and my guacamole (which I just loooooove), and that kinda magic takes time. So yeah, while it was a good day, it was long. Plus he lives a bit far from me, so public transport is always an adventure, especially on the weekends and carrying food and booze. It was well worth it tho!And then that Sunday, a gal I work with (Heidi) and her partner (Naomi) picked me up (so nice to
come and get me) and we all, pups included, went up to Red Beach, the dog beach on Bribie Island (in the photo on the right - the dark bits on the sand there - those are soldier crabs!) that we went to a couple weekends ago. Thankfully the sun wasn't roasting us and there was a good breeze. It's pretty out there, but I still prefer Peregian Beach, even tho there's not much up there at all, it's quite a nice, swimmable beach. Someday when I get another car I'll head up there for a weekend. So yes, by the time I got home from there, it was getting late in the day, I had a shower and laid down on the couch for a minute to catch my breath and ended up having a 3 hour nap!So that's why I missed last weekend. And then that week was pretty busy for the first half with errands after work, dinner with Kim at
Kookaburra Cafe (the best!), and then I put in my first appearance at a meeting of the Queensland Society of Editors, it was more of an info session about accreditation, which I'm kicking around doing. Is tres expensive tho, at something like $680 a pop...... So will kick it around some more..... So yes, busy weekend with a busy week! And on top of all that - the Thursday 3rd of Feb. was my "Australia Birthday" - the day I arrived here 5 whole years ago! Waahhooo it's gone so fast!And then there was this weekend. Saturday was good because, again, Heidi & Naomi picked me up and we headed out to the "Tip Shop" - it's a shop the city council has set up, they have a few of
them around, where council folks go through stuff folks drop off at the dump (or as it's called here - the "rubbish tip", hence "Tip Shop"), pick out the good usable stuff, dust it off, plug it in and test it and sell it for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheap. It's awesome! I picked up a little Ikea wooden (pine) folding table and a matching folding chair for $10 bucks! That sells at Ikea for like $50 bucks at least! And it's in fine shape. Such good shape am thinking of putting a coat of sealant on it because it'll live outside. Coooool. Then we wandered into the DFO (a mall of outlet shops) at the Airport because the girls needed new shorts and I bought two little dresses and a cover/wrap thing for work 'cos our office is so freezing cold. And then we went over to their place to pick up their portable air conditioning unit (the kind where the hose hangs out the window) that they weren't using. They took pity on me living in my toaster oven, so are letting me borrow it for however long. It works pretty well, tho with my place not having insulation it takes aaaaaaaaaaages for it to cool down to bearable. But it's better than no cool, dry breeze! Whew!
And then yesterday was more running around, again with Heidi & Naomi (I think they feel kinda sorry for me not having a car or having seen much of Brisbane in my 5 years, so they take me out and show me stuff. It's fun.), we tried another Tip Shop then drove up near Redcliffe to have a look at the sea and how much crap might be still floating around out there from the floods. Not much stuff floating at all, but it was just nice to be near the sea and to not have it be
blisteringly hot. Then we drove around looking for a good place to have lunch. With happy tummy's they dropped me home where I dove right in to get the chores busted out in honor of the real estate idiots doing an "Invasion" on Tuesday. So I have to make the place presentable....... meaning: hide all cat evidence. And by the time I was finished with that I was dying from the heat and the humidity and there was no way my brain, or my computer, would be able to deal with checking in.So there you have it. A couple of busy weekends compared to how boring I normally keep them! Oh, and we survived the cyclone fine down here in Brisbane, not even any rain. Further north didn't fare so well, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse if it'd hit Cairns. So, overall the state was pretty lucky. And now the outskirts of poor Perth are on fire and South Australia is flooding! Poor Australia is really copping a hell of a lot of crap from cranky ol' Mother Nature! All we did was suffer through 10 years of drought - why all this at once???! So once Mother Nature has finished hammering the country, feel free to come down and have a look at what's left before she strikes again!
BYE!
J!
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