Delayed Check-In Amidst Fine Weather...

Hi!

Well. Leeeeetle late. Am very sorry. I had every intention of checking in last weekend, the weekend before and the weekend before that...... but last weekend was Linus' birthday celebrations and helping a friend clean her yard, the weekend before was a wicked thumping headache and a too-long nap that waylaid my checking-in plans, and last, last weekend, well, I can't remember why I didn't check in........ Probably because I haven't been up to much worth writing about...... But, am here now! The lorikeets have returned with the longer, warmer days - they must be fair-weather spring/summer birds... I wonder where they go for winter then.... Cairns? Somewhere in tropical north Queensland? Hmmm. But, happily, they're here along with the usual kookaburras, crows and the odd Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (who's sudden screech freaks me out every time). Got a nice glass of the stand-by Stoneleigh sauv-blanc, the fading afternoon is lovely and warm although overcast - life is good!

So work. Yep. Is good. Still busy learning new stuff, which is good and sometimes really frustrating but hopefully worth it in the end (end, meaning March when my contract is up for renewal.... or not). There are only 3 editors in our department - me, a gal down at the air force base in Wiliamtown (northern New South Wales) who actually doesn't do very much editing for us at all because she works like super part-time, and a gal who's finally returned from having her baby like 2 1/2 years ago, and she'll only be working two days a week. Not that there's been much editing at all for even me to do, so not too sure what the returning gal is going to do...... surf the 'net I suppose, it's what I did for 8 months when I had nothing to do.... Which is why they're training me to be a Technical Writer, so I'm actually useful when there's no real editing to do. Anyways, work is good, busy - always happy to have gainful employment and will enjoy it while I can!

Then there were a few weekends in there...... The weekend of the 9th I didn't get up to much. I may have done chores, can't remember, it was so long ago...... Nothing exciting happened that I can think of anyways....... Then the weekend of the 16th was busy, I sort of remember that. Well, busy, not exciting, just busy. Saturday I did the most basic chores and Sunday was up and out early on an Ikea Adventure! Picked up a couple things, including a thumping headache. Sunday mornings are usually pretty good because I get in when the place opens and by the time I finish, that's when it starts to get crowded. But this time they came many and early. And every single person came armed with a minimum of two, small, screaming and/or howling children. It was terrible. So by the time I got home I of course had to lie down (crowds of screaming and howling children can really take it out of a gal) which turned into a 2 1/2 hour nap too long and by then it was almost too late to check in and my brain felt like it was full of damp diapers, couldn't string a thought together. Plus had to get mahself together for the coming work week. Bloody screaming children.

But last weekend, the weekend of the 22nd, definitely made up for the previous two. Saturday was my friend Linus' birthday celebrations, which meant lunchtime steaks at the Morrison Hotel, one of the better steakhouses in town, followed by drinks, more friends and much gossip at the German Club that lasted until, well, I tottled home at 11.30pm, and there were still folks there when I left. It was a fantastic afternoon/evening. Most of the folks that came along I used to work with when I worked at Southbank, and where most of them all still work. It was good to see some of them after what had been a few years. Some I catch up with at the odd BBQ that either Linus or Julian will have...... It was just a great day with great weather. And it's always good to help a friend celebrate their birthday when it seems more and more folks want to pretend that birthdays don't happen - for shame! Birthdays are your one day of the year to be selfish! To celebrate a year of successfully dodging death! What's not to celebrate?!

And that Sunday, was up a bit later than I intended.... I was due to go on a mini-Adventure to the lovely little town of Toowoomba to help my friend Kim (different from my blonde friend Kim who lives just north of town at Strathpine) clean up her house and yard that had been trashed by her renters (bastards, giving good gals like me a bad rep). Toowoomba is a good 1 1/2 drive south-west of Brisbane, and where my Xmas Foster Family has moved back to. It's a bit of a hike to get out there, but once you cross over the Great Diving Range (which I thought was way exciting and unexpected) it opens up to this beautiful, green, lush and leafy valley surround by hills. I'd never been there and it was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately, no sight-seeing for me tho as I was late for yard duty. And because I'd come out to help and not play tourist, I neglected to bring mah camera..... another trip, most definitely! So after helping to clean, inhale pizza and wine, and then drive back, by the time I got home I was exhausted and filthy with a strange rash on my right elbow...... So by the time I was showered and settled, my god the weekend was over and it was time for bed! Honestly, we devote five days to work and only two to ourselves, that is just so wrong. There's no "work-life balance" in a skewed percentage like that! But never mind, a very good and productive weekend, with a mini-Adventure, was had. Hooray!

And then there was this weekend. Thankfully, my work lets me have one free day off a month (well, that's not true, I actually build up the time to be able to take it off, so naturally with any company our size, ain't nuthin' free), and seeing as I'd neglected to take my September day off, and in light of the fact the rental agency wants to do another one of their "invasions" (inspections) this coming Wed, and also in light of the fact that because we here in Queensland have all of our holidays lumped into the first six months of the year, they've moved the Queen's Birthday day off from June to the 1st of October, to give us a bit of break on our way to Xmas. So what I've done, in my infinite wisdom, is to take the Tues and the Wed off with my two monthly free days. Which means I don't have to go back to work until Thursday - sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! So what was my point........... Hrm, no point really. Yesterday I took the day off, put mah feets up and watched Die Hard 1 and 2. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Today was chores, tomorrow will be more little tidying up and dusting (gotta make the place ready for the "invasion"), Tues am thinking a run out to Ikea could be in order not because I wish they sold t-shirts that said "I heart Ikea", no, a set of glasses I bought at the last excursion, well, one had a chip. Gotta swap that out. And really, have to give the car a good little run after a week of sitting around. And Wed is the invasion around noon, and that will be mah lovely loooong weekend!

Ohhhhh yeah, I remember what I did over that first quiet weekend - I made, from scratch, Kahula and Bailey's! For a first go, they came out not too bad at all! They could do with a little tweaking, not sure how or where, but they're a good work in progress! If you'd like the recipes, drop a line and will send it; they're too big to get into here...........

Oh yeah, and this weekend I also had to patch up the kitteh - turns out Kona had somehow taken a sizable chunk out of one of the pads on his paw (that funny one up near his wrist), and a week later it was still sort of bleeding and giving him grief. So got out the first aid supplies, channeled my inner Florence Nightingale and patched him up. He seems happy enough. And no vet bills!

So there you have it. Very sorry for not checking in. I miss it too when am unable to scratch that Sunday item off my list. I hope you're all well up there. The weather here has been glorious so far, only a matter of a couple more months and summer is on, then it's back to glorious, perfect weather, which is perfect for sight-seeing....................!

BYE!
J!

Adventurous Drives While the Laundry Dries.....

Hi!

Well. Here we are on another sunny and bright Sunday afternoon. The birds are out there happily chattering away - happy that it's the second day of spring! The sky is a bright happy blue without a cloud to be seen. Not that winter down here is all that horrible (it ain't NYC that's fer sure!), but to have such perfect weather (and over the weekend) to mark the beginning of spring is..... hooray! So, in honor of the second day of spring, have got a nice glass of a new Sauv Blanc from NZ called Two Tails - ehhh not bad, the label and cap design are better....... I guess we have our 'ol reliables for a reason tho....... The little apartment is semi-clean, the laundry is super clean (looooove having mah own washing machine!), got some cool streaming jazz tunes thanks to SkyFM - life is good!

So work. Yep. Is quite good. Always stuff to be doing, stuff to learn. Am getting better and faster at doing the stuff they've taught me so far- fingers crossed I do so well they won't hesitate to renew my contract come March! Otherwise, all is well, busy as usual, which is good, and even better - hooray for gainful employment!

And then there were a couple weekends in there....... Sorry for not checking in last weekend. I started to last Sunday when I realized there just wasn't much to report - chores, a couple DVDs (or rah-ther, BluRays, dahlink. And such exciting BluRays I can't even remember what they were.... oh yeah, they were crap - "Horrible Bosses" (it had such potential) and "Black Death" (again with the potential)). I didn't even take the car out for its weekend spin, the weekend was that dull. Thought I'd spare you. 

And really, this weekend hasn't been that much more exciting either, with the exception that yesterday the car and I went on a mini-Adventure drive..... So, first headed out to scope out a 'hood am thinking of moving to (Enoggera , a few 'burbs out from me, north-ish away from the city.... not bad - nice, normal, sunny, quiet, tho not walking distance to the city, hmmmm, gotta get over that little perk if I ever want to get out of this apartment....). Then, bored with that after having freaked out about three blocks of folks thinking I'm casing their 'hood for driving back and forth that many times, saw a road sign that said "Samford: 44 km's" (Samford is roughly where my friend Jan lives on her big property) and this particular road would take you to there via the D'Aguilar National Park (actually, I can see some of it from mah little apartment.....), so, kind of an adventurous, picturesque back way to her house. EXcellent! So off I drove. It's a very pretty drive with very twisty, hilly roads that motorcyclists loooove so much they go around you regardless if it's safe to or not (bless 'em - future tree ornaments). You have to be on your toes tho because the road is so twisty. I was just thinking it was the kind of TV commercial-perfect road that would be excellent if you had, say, a Lotus, when one zipped right past me..... In a lumbering Rav4, perhaps not so much 'exciting' or 'thriling' as 'tranquil'. Hmmm...... Either way it was a really really lovely drive - perfect weather for it. Until about 3/4 of the way through when I spotted the gas light steadily glowing in "oh shit" yellow on mah dash. Turns out a quarter of a tank isn't enough to get you around town and through a national park. So, not quite in panic-mode yet, or through the Park, I coasted as much of it as I could until I saw the sign that said "Samford: 16kms". Well. That was the longest 16 kms I've ever sat through. Eventually, after what felt like 100 miles, most of the road straightened out and leveled off, so next time I looked at the gas gauge, instead of below the "E", it was just above it. Thank the road gods for that. I wasn't going to be stranded on a twisty forest road with nowhere safe to pull over, nor was I going to have to walk however many kms to town - I was going to make it! And did I. Just. I swear, I was never so happy to spend $74.60 in my life. And you know what the funny thing is - it's only 18.7 kms from that gas station in Samford to my driveway. Huh. So there we go - little lesson learned - if you're going on a mini-Adventure drive, even if you're in town or a National Park, check that you have more than a quarter of a tank, because that tank won't last as long as you remember it usually lasting. 

Then, once home with my full gas tank and happily Adventured, sat down for a minute with a glass of wine to calm the nerves and committed that little gas tank lesson to memory then continued on with the hum-drum, non-Adventurous world of laundry. Whew!

And today was more laundry. I know, it's just me and yet I seem to do a thousand loads of laundry in a weekend. No, yesterday was clothes, today was sheets and towels - there's a system you see, also means am not spending an entire day doing laundry, that would be downright depressing. And that's about it. Checking in, sitting on my freshly stained and varnished chair and watching the breeze through the palms and just being happy to be here in Australia. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! 

So there you have it. Hope you're all well up there. I think you've just about missed your window to come and visit because even tho it's only the second day of spring, magically spring lasts half of what winter does, so summer will be here in like two weeks. So your next window of opportunity opens around March/April and lasts until Nov/December-ish..... Happy planning!

BYE!
J!