Ironing Out the Zombies.....

Hi!

Well. Sunday, late afternoon. Little early, but might as well, have finished most of the chores.......... The birds are out there with a few chittering away, but I think most of them are hiding in the cool shade of... whatever they can find. Most of them are probably too busy panting. They're pretty chatty in the mornings but I guess by evening they're too tired from trying to get used to summer arriving so early. One thing I can hear is a group of kids playing in what must be a pool (so jealous. I totally wish I was a kid playing in a pool right now), and I assume it's a pool because when did you ever play "Marco Polo" on land??? But, have the cool glass of stand-by white wine, am just in time for the strange show tunes radio show (aside from Judy Garland and Danny Elfman, good god they're playing songs from "Annie"), there's a cool-ish breeze to push the hot air around - life is good!

So work. Yep, is pretty good. Have been bloody busy the last couple of weeks, which is just awesome considering I had 8+ months to prepare. I like being busy, makes the day/week go by. One thing I did manage to squeeze into my busy days was move all my stuff from my desk in my "old" department to my "new" department. It was a nice feeling. With full blessing from my bosses of course. Nice to know I've made a nice, clean space at my old desk for whatever new person my boss might hire to help the folks up there (not doing my job, helping the other gals do communications stuff). Cool. I quite like my adoptive home and team. Glad they let me live with them and keep me busy. Another reason why it's so nice to be busy as not only does it speed up the days and weeks, it scoots us closer to Xmas and a week & 1/2 break - waaaahhoooooo! I had planned to go out of town (options included coming up to the US) but decided to save mah pennies (and vacation time) for another time of year when tickets are $millions$ cheaper and crowds less. So all in all, work is good! Hooray!

And then there was a brief bright spark in the week - Thursday evening I headed over to Kangaroo Point Cliffs for my first "social climb" with my rock climbing shop. Didn't know a soul but everyone was friendly enough (except for 2 chicks who've been noted for not being so friendly. No Xmas card for them), but everyone else was pleasant enough. It's tough rocking up to things like that not knowing anyone. I tried to introduce myself to as many people as I could without being too wierd. Thankfully, a gal I did my course with showed up, so that took a bit of the gangly new kid at school feeling away. Bummer was, there were about 15 of us wanting to climb 4 climbs. So I really only got in a climb & 1/2 (that last climb about kicked my butt - it was kinda hard and being off these last few weeks, am not in as strong as I was!). So most of the time was spent waiting to get on a climb. Hmmm. Will give the group a few more tries before I decide what to do......... The gal on my course and I decided to give the indoor climbing gym a try (again) hopefully tomorrow evening, if not sometime very soon. I didn't mind that indoor gym - good for working on technique. It's fun when you can get climbing! But hey, at least I'm trying!!!!!

And then there was the weekend. I must say, by the end of the week I was really beat. So I spent yesterday doing laundry and watching movies. I can't recommend "Resident Evil" unless you like that sort of thing (it started life as a really cool video game). I didn't mind the idea or the story (am still in a Zombie movie phase), but the film itself, while Mila Jovovich is a cutie and did the best with what she had to work with, the film was a stinker, in my opinion. But then I quite liked "Zombieland" so there you go. Later that evening "Back to the Future" was on TV, again, so I had to watch that. One day I'll own them all, along with "Raiders of the Lost Ark", on blu-ray....... Oh, and I gave myself a manicure. And that was Saturday. Thrilling.

And today was much the same. Got the ironing done. I figured it was already hot, I wasn't gonna do it at night, might as well get all the hot done at once. Meant to vacuum and clean too but it was too hot for that kinda stuff. So I sat here and restocked on toiletries from Walgreens. And Bisquick from Amazon. Again, another quiet yet constructive day! All I can say is HopShopGo is either the best or worst web-service I've ever come across. Good for staving off homesickness, baaaad for bank account.

And that, sadly, is that. Summer is here, so weekends not filled with Adventure will be much the same as above. Apologies now because it's gonna last until March at least. Hopefully I'll be able to check in with details of some good storms, or so the weather bureau is predicting for this season.......... Otherwise, I hope you're all well up there! If you're planning a visit, feel free to come any time after March - there, that gives you 4+ months to plan and save (oh, did I mention that last week? Huh.....)!!!! So c'mon down - later!

BYE!
J!

Napping Jacarandas

Hi!

Well. Sunday evening. Missed last week, but then I kinda knew I was going to. But never mind, here we are now, got the interesting show tunes radio show that precedes the way cool and groovy jazz tunes radio show; got a very, very nice, cool breeze. Nice because it's already started being stinkin' hot and humid, tho thankfully the humidity dropped earlier this afternoon so it's now bearable, considering the temperature gauge in the kitchen still reads nearly 90 degrees..... Sigh. Summer. Knew it was coming, bummer it's here. Tho no chattering birds of any kind this early evening, which is kind of weird. Too bamboozled by the arrival of the heat and humidity I suppose. But, still, got the cool glass of standby white wine (Rosemount Estate Semillon Sav Blanc) got a lovely, cool breeze, jazz tunes are soon to arrive - life is good!

So work. Yep. Is pretty good. Busybusybusy, which is really good. Still waiting for paperwork from HR about my Permanent Residency application..... especially the whole contract business, whether or not they're going to give me a permanent contract or a 3 year contract............ almost sort of nail-biting in a way, either way it'll be the longest contract I've had yet here! Wouldn't know what to do with mahself with a permanent job...... It seems so permanent. Haven't had a gig contract here yet that went for longer than 6 months. Fingers crossed! Otherwise all's well. Still with my adoptive department and it looks like I'm not going anywhere any time soon - hooray! So yes, all's well, and always happy to have a decent job! Will keep you posted how the HR/PR stuff goes.......Fingers crossed!

And then there were the weekends. Did I happen to mention last last week, last Tuesday I believe it was, I had my last rock climbing course? Yep, all done! That was heaps of fun! Now the onus is on us, now that we're members of their social club, to go along to the regular weekly climbs. I meant to go this last Thursday (the night they climb at Kangaroo Point Cliffs) but I was way too tired. These last few weeks, or month-plus, have been busier than I normally am, which is really good but am not used to being busy with places to go and things to do! So hopefully this coming week I'll get mah butt in gear and go down there. It's so much fun and the people are so nice.

Anyways, weekends! Last weekend was the Adventure to Grafton with Kim for their Jacaranda Festival! Hooray! Roooooad triiiiiip! Took about 4 hours to get down there, which I thought was wasn't bad, tho coming from California where the roads are straight and the speed limits are fairly high, if they had straight roads and speedy speed limits, I bet we coulda done it in like 2 hours. Eh, that's ok tho, the roads here are a thousand times better and safer than they are in NZ, so I didn't mind the extra time. Plus, it was just really nice to take the "new" car out for it's first long spin in a while, and it was fantastic. Super easy and comfortable to drive (I look forward to the next road trip!). Once down there, we dumped our bags at the hotel and went for a very short walk towards the "town square" (for lack of a more modern word, seeing as the town is split by the Clarence River into a sort of suburban side and a business side) where we were just in time to catch the Scottish pipers, apparently they were being judged for their performance. It was actually kind of nice in a Disney movie kind of way - town square, happy locals gathered in the little bleachers, sunshine, Jacaranda tress in full bloom, kids with ice creams, it was nice, and sort of relaxing in a small town kinda way. But after the third piper band our attention waned and we went wandering, looking around, taking pictures. Didn't take us long to work out the layout of town and how interesting yet nice it is that a lot of stuff is closed on the weekends........ Or maybe things were closed because most of the businesses were getting ready for the big parade to celebrate the closing of the Jacaranda Festival. So off we went in search of a pub with a view and cool wine to sit and watch the parade from. Happily settled into the Valley Harvest Restaurant with some nibbles and a bottle of white wine, we watched as just about every business and elementary school and stuff in between (like the local roller derby team) had a float in a parade that went non-stop for an hour! It was nice and kind of neat, and boy you could tell most of the town was involved.

Then, after the last piper band had whined into the distance, we headed off back to our hotel to change to go to dinner at a nice little restaurant we accidentally stumbled across in our wanderings along the river earlier in the day called No. 1 Duke Street. Turns out it's a brand-new restaurant only open, I think, 2 weeks. Right on the river with our table outside on the patio under the sky. It was niiiiice. The weather was perfect and no mosquitoes! The restaurant, being new, wasn't crowded, the diners and staff relaxed, friendly and polite. And the food was amazing. Sooooo good. Really good. It was such a good, accidental find. If it wasn't 4 hours away I'd go all the time! Always happy to support little local businesses!

Then the next day we drove around and scoped out all the places we didn't have time (or energy, seeing as it was hotter down there than it was here lately) to check out the day before. Took lots of pictures and decided to hopefully come down next year, tho maybe a week or so earlier to really catch the trees in super full bloom. And then we headed off to start home, taking a small detour to the even littler town called Yamba, which was right on the sea. It was so nice. We had a decent look around as we drove in, stopping at the top of a hill overlooking the sea to check out their lighthouse and take photos. After probably way too many photos of sea, waves and rocks, we stopped into the Pacific Hotel (at my Manager's suggestion) for a quick drink. Well that quick drink turned into a two hour stop with beers, vodka and sodas (I was a good girl, being the driver, and only kept to the two beers) and a big bowl of "chips" (fries). We were so mesmerized by the views that we ended up staying a fair bit longer than a quick coke a couple of pictures. I vowed to come back for at least a week sometime not during peak tourist season. Then we regretfully continued on our way back to Brisbane. Three uneventful hours later saw us back in Brisbane tired yet happy. It was a fine weekend, tho if I was going to do it again, I'd stay for longer. That's a fair trek to do in 2 days.

Then there was the uneventful but busy working week. And then there was this weekend. Well. After the last month or more of busybusybusy weekends of either selling, buying or building stuff, or going places, I planned to do nothing more than the chores and nap. Both of which I succeeded spectacularly in doing; I even got in a few DVDs. Of course I spent some of the time plotting my next room makeover/purchase/build, tho nothing to happen probably until after Xmas. I (and mah bank account) need a break! But the place is starting to look a bit better, am not as embarrassed to have people come around, tho the only thing to really improve the place is to move..........

And there you have it! One nice, busy weekend after another (and another) topped off by a very boring yet restful weekend. Nice. So I hope you're all well up there. Drop a line and tell me your news! I'd say to come on down for a visit, but summer is upon us and it's not going anywhere until March at the latest. So unless you like Florida-in-the-summer hot, don't c'mon down until April! So there - you have 4+ months to plan - so get planning!

BYE!
J!