Another Weekend in the Lucky Country......!

Hi!

Well. Sunday late afternoon. Weather has been absolutely perfect, gotta love any season but summer here! Got some groovy 80's tunes courtesy of SomaFM (the good alternative punky stuff, not the crappy gag-me-with-a-spoon-like-totally top 40 stuff, tho I must say this station has a preference for rare Heaven 17 and Human League tunes.......... hmmmm), got the cool glass of stand-by white wine, the little apartment gets more and more tidy, clean and organized as my guest's arrival approaches this coming Friday, the cat and plants have all been fed and watered, gotta baked potato doing its thing in the good ol' toaster-oven..... life is good! And hey, am checking in on time - life is good!

So work. Yep. Is way good. Learning new stuff which just makes the week spin past. I have Friday off (sweeeeet) to play Chauffeur and Perfect Hostess, so yes, all is well with work. As ever, always happy to have gainful employment and bonus if I don't mind the work and like the people! 

And then there was a weekend...... another too-quick weekend if you ask me. I'm still so tempted to have Mondays off but the bank just frowns and shakes its head. Fair enough, especially if I think I want to buy a house....... But oh to have 3 days to get stuff done...... Oh well, must streamline those errands! Saturday was busy with the usual chores, thankfully the weather improved from Friday's showers and wind and coooold - it was the opposite - the sun was out, the temperature was warm  - perfect for drying 3 loads of laundry on the ol' hills hoist (local speak for round, spinning clothesline - invented here in Australia no less)! And next thing I knew it was Sunday. Time to organize..... amazing how long it takes me just to organize a couple of bookshelves........ But it looks fine for now, need to buy some frames and actually print out some photos of friends and family to display. If you think about it, it really is kinda wierd when you go to someone's house and they have no photos of friends or family hanging around the place. My excuse is that I'm a renter, and that's the lamest excuse on the planet, more so in my case when I just don't give a crap about drilling holes into my walls let alone hammering in a few nails. So up with the pictures! Just as soon as I buy some frames, print out the pictures that I like..........

And that was the weekend really. See why I kinda don't check in every weekend? Dullsville, USA. But hey, if all 3 or so of you are still paying attention, well done. I should send you guys and any regular readers a prize...... like a little boomerang (or something equally as exciting and local) as a reward for keeping up. Honest. This new and improved whiz-bang blogger has stats and even a world map so I can see who checks in where, which apparently most folks (or rather, person) is/are in the US and of all places, Russia. Huh. Well hell, if you're still with it, a prize to you, my one or two friends!

Otherwise, all is well down here. I hope you're all well up there and have perused the handy web links I provided (and updated) over on the right side there - like Qantas, Getaway, The Great South East, etc, and are excitedly planning your next trip down here to Australia. It's a happy place, a place where the politicians seem to spend a lot of time arguing who paid for what hooker on which corporate credit card, as opposed to who was born where and if women should have rights - it's a happy, lucky country, with a subsidized medical system, decent public transport and good, fresh food - I highly recommend coming for a visit!

BYE!
J!

P.S. Here's a lovely article about a guy and his motorcycle trip around Australia, just to give you an idea...... "Finding America's Past In Australia's Present".

Reshuffling Weekends........!

Hi!

Well. Here we are. A little late tho...... am sorry..... but we're here now - the sun isn't really shining, cloudy, but the birds are happily twittering away out there, doing whatever birds do on a Monday afternoon. It's lovely and warm and breezy, got some hip n' groovy streaming internet 80's tunes courtesy of SomaFM's "Underground 80's", have a lovely small glass of Hardy's Merlot to go with my late lunch - life is good!

So work. Yep. Is good. Not been crazy busy, which is good, gives me more time to focus and learn new stuff. And because it's been kind of quiet I took today off as my one 'free' day off a month (man I miss working for the State Government where we got 3 days off a month.....!) so I could finish getting stuff done, because yes, one weekend just wasn't enough. But yes, work is good. Still ever so happy to have been adopted by this team. And, as always, happy to have gainful employment, until the end of March next year that is!

And then there were a couple weekends in there..... So last weekend, the reason why I didn't check in was because I woke up Saturday morning and decided that in order to perhaps create more space for guests to stay, I'd "flip" the bedroom and the living room as it hadn't been done before and I wanted to see. By myself. I started at 10am and didn't finish until 9.30pm. To say I was beat is an understatement. And get this - when I finished and stood with a well-deserved glass of wine surveying all my hard work, I realized I didn't like what I'd just spent all day plus doing and instantly wanted it back the way it was. Crap. And come Sunday I was too tired, I absolutely ached (those muscles hadn't been used since that year's stint back at Centennial in 2005-6 and boy were they shocked) and was also a little depressed in a "this damn apartment is too small, I wish I had my own normal place where people could stay in comfort, etc" kinda way. So I sat and watched Mad Men instead of checking in. Am sorry. But I did make sure to take pictures for posterity and to remind myself why I shouldn't swap them around if I ever get that urge again. Doubtful, but just in case. Hopefully next time I have to shake my furniture up it'll be to move to mah own place once and for all (working on it but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day and neither has the "perfect" villa in that Brendale complex come available for sale). One thing I did learn is that I really don't have as much stuff as it looks like I do. Sweet! One benefit to living in a teeny place with zero storage!

So this weekend, on Saturday, Kim was kind enough to come around and help me undo what I'd done last weekend. Thankfully it took a third of the time to put right as it took to mess up (I should ask for help more often). And to celebrate we went to - guess - Kookaburra for dinner. Man, I say every time I go there if I could marry that place I totally would. Love their food and the quirkiness of the space. Someday if you come down thisaway for a visit, we're totally going.

Then on Sunday it was up and out early to meet my friend Jan out in the lovely little village of Dayboro (about 45 minutes north-east of Brisbane) for their annual "Chook Show" as a friend of hers was showing some of his chickens ("chook" is local-speak for chicken. Cute isn't it?). It was a very small turn-out, apparently most years they get about 300 chickens being shown/judged and this year there were maybe 50; something about in-fighting within the local poultry club (people not chickens I assume), no advertising done, etc...... But regardless of the number of preening chooks on show, we had a good look around followed by a small homemade sandwich (chicken and egg - har har), cookies and a cup of tea from the local Country Women's Association (for a small donation) - Jan says it's what you do when you go to these little local shows - a sandwich and a 'cuppa' (again, local-speak for cup of tea/coffee/cookie. Cute.) from the old gals. Then, happily educated on the local chooks and who's on top of the roost, we headed "downtown" for lunch at Rendezvous Readers Teahouse cafe, which is a super neat little independent cafe/bookshop combination. Food was pretty good, staff were nice, and it was just nice to eat in a little bookshop that wasn't a massive big scary obnoxious chain. Go the little local independents! But then by the time I got home from there, cleaned up and organized the apartment a little (from the reorganization frenzy) it was too late to check in.... so I watched the Towering Inferno (original) instead. Have you seen it? It was really good! Tho how could it not be with a cast that included Paul Newman, Steve McQueen (battle of who has the most piercing blue eyes), Faye Dunaway, William Holden and even Fred Astaire! And a decent, even relevant story to boot. I know they recently did a remake, haven't seen it, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to because the original was so good. Man, that movie really stands the test of time in my opinion. I highly recommend seeing it or seeing it again if it's been a few years. Which reminds me, I need to add the Poseidon Adventure to my rental list.......! And that was Sunday.

And today was a lovely little productive day off from work (I could so get used to having Mondays off....... tho the bank probably couldn't) to finish all the little things I just had no time to get done over the weekend - laundry, vacuuming, cleaning, organizing, etc - chore was fun (har har har....)! 

And so there you go. See? Again, you didn't really miss much. Contrary to current trends, I am trying to check in more often, exciting Adventures or not. I quite like my little Sunday ritual it's just that sometimes it's harder than others to muster the energy/time/enthusiasm to rabbit on about how I did or didn't do much over a quiet or exciting weekend...... But I will persevere! Things should get a little livelier come June when Mom comes to visit for a wee while - Adventures! Family! Hooray! So there you go - there's the solution to livelier weekends - come on down for a visit and we can go on Adventures, thus sparkling up the little blog! Hooray - c'mon down!

BYE!
J!

Time Flies to May..........!

Street Art in the 'Gabba

Hi!

Well. It's been a while.......  But first things first. The march of technology, in addition to Blogger in their infinite wisdom, has dictated that I update my little blog template. I've resisted it for a few years as whenever I've succumbed to their updates, baaaad things have happened in the background (as you may recall from snafus with uploading photos........ and it could happen again, we'll see.......). And, seeing as I went to school to learn how to make films and TV not computers, I can only fix so much. Now finally change has rendered my resistance futile and updated and modern I am. It's still a work in progress, so to use construction parlance - please excuse my dust. Either way, I hope you like it. Then again, you have as much choice in the matter as I do!

So, the delay in checking in........ there's really been nothing to report.

S.B. Palace

Every week has been pretty much like the last. And really, it's only been 4 weekends since last checking in, and over those 4 weekends, sadly, not much has been happening. My tiny, dumpy apartment block has seen two annoying tenants move out (OK, 4 if you count the fact they were couples) and 2 new tenants move in, including the unit next door to me. It's a young gal and she seems nice with her head screwed on (tho why she's living in this dump is probably the same reason I am and why I've failed to move - it's cheap and it's close). Our poor old suffering washing machine, killed off finally by one of the recent ex-tenants with her obsession with spinning everything numerous times, was finally replaced with a newer model. My lovely Indian neighbors to my other side have finally been given real jobs

Young Neighbor....

and are working on getting their permanent residency. He just finished his Bio-Engineering PhD and is working on post PhD stuff and she's a mechanical engineer thinking of going for more school. Put it this way - they're smarter than all of us in these units rolled together. I really quite like them and am very happy for them - they've worked hard and have had to suffer our racist, bogan (Australian for white trash/redneck) neighbor. My other neighbors below me, you might remember he ended up in a sudden, medically-induced coma for a few days around Xmas, they're expecting their first child and I think that's really cool, am very happy for them. But me, not much happening, tho all is well. Still kicking around the idea of buying a place, but it could be held off for a wee while yet as I have a few bills coming due (hello car registration and flights to Cairns and Lake Eyre), so I've been trying to be good about not doing much. That and I'm trying to save my vacation time. Which leads me to my next topic........

Worker Bees (in Melbourne)

So. Work. Is good. In fact, we have the day off today for Labor Day - Hooray! But yes, work has been good, busy, which is super nice. Did I mention they extended my contract 'til the end of March next year? And I told you I've moved permanently from my other team.... Still really happy to be working with my adoptive team. We're getting another editor gal back who'd gone away to have a baby, only two days a week (I envy her tho not her reduced pay check), which will maybe make my life slightly easier...... at least it's someone I can whine about punctuation with! And that's work.....!

And then there were a few weekends in there, but

Storm Clouds Over the 'Gabba

not much to report. Over most of those weekends the weather was appalling - rain rain rain and wind and cold and damp. This weekend has thankfully been perfect, so Saturday I took myself on a little bit of an Adventure walk - from my house over to Southbank to check out this year's Buddha's birthday celebrations (lovely, tho slightly crowded). Then I continued wandering to Woolloongabba..... not much to see or report from that really. I'd gone to a little cafe called Canvas (neat, hip n' groovy, nice little place, tho we weren't there long) for a drink with a co-worker a few nights previous (on our way to our totally riveting Qld. Editor's Society monthly meeting - yawn) and thought it'd be nice to check the 'hood out during the day. Meh. See, I used to take my wee scooter to the Yamaha dealer around there for it's check-ups and since I've sold it, well, the dealer moved and they've been fixing up that part of town like it's the Next Big Thing. Eh. For one it's right near the stadium where they have some pretty big cricket and rugby games, tho not around the same time because of the pitch or the grass or whatever... I don't know, I hit "mute" when that bit comes on in the news), it's around one of the biggest and busiest intersections in town.... ehhh, I wouldn't live over there, even if they do have the German Club, two whopping huge hospitals and a good bus-way!

Kitchen Organization.....

And then yesterday, Sunday, I took the car out for a spin and we ended up at Ikea of all places, oh dear. But thankfully the crowds were pretty thin (tho not all of them - har har har) and I was able to wander and redecorate to my heart's content - ideas galore. Picked up a new shelf thing for the kitchen, although I might have to make more of an effort and re-hang it with proper butterfly screws because I'm convinced it's going to crash down at any time because the drywall is super thin and brittle....... But I was determined, tired and slightly cranky that I don't live in a normal apartment..... But it looks great - more space, until it crashes down that is!

And today, a day off to do no labor has been pretty much just that. Checking

Small But Comfy!

in, emails.... might watch another episode of Mad Men (finally up to season 3!) and that's about it.

So there you have it. See? You haven't really missed anything. I did want to write but knew all 3 of you would be bored stupid, so again, I thought I'd spare you. You're welcome! But hope you're all well up there! Hurry and book that visit - the couch will be available August 9th, you'd be more than welcome!

BYE!

J!

Small and Pretty, Spiky!

P.S. So far so good with uploading photos, aside from some funky spacing issues....... overall, they must've listened to people's complaints because it was a thousand times easier than with template updates in the past! And bonus - captions that are easy to add!