Spring, No, Summer! A time for invasions and beachful thinking.......!

Hi!

Well. Here we are on yet another sunny Sunday afternoon. This has been the kind of day where you'd throw all the chores and errands to the wind and just go to the beach. And I would've done just that if I thought for a second all of Brisbane wouldn't be there at the same time. Not to mention, the traffic this evening coming back from said beaches would be murder. No, have decided to stay home, drink lemonade and enjoy the breeze, even if it is a little warm. Thankfully it hasn't been as furnace hot as it was earlier in the week. Yikes. It got to 93 degrees last Tuesday - and it's still only Spring!!!!!!! Oh well. I have to keep reminding myself that beautiful, perfect winters are why we endure gross summers. I only wish summer didn't have to start so early........! But never mind, we're here now - the birds were sure chatty this morning, some extra keen to chat before the sun was even up (looking at you Kookaburra family....), Kona's making sure the couch doesn't float up to the ceiling, have got a lovely glass of stand-by white wine, got hip n' groovy jazz tunes from you-know-where, the breeze is blowing, and seeing as we're at the hottest part of the day and it's not too bad furnace-wise, ahhhhhhhhh yes, life is good!

So work. Yep. Is good. Bit quiet, but I can always find something to do. There were hoof-beats that the bid people were going to be in need of an editor, no, scratch that, an editor to format - but that danger has passed and I escaped unscathed - yay! Still no word or paperwork from HR about my job or anything else they were sent off to do. No surprise there. 'Expect incompetency' is how I've come to view the most useless department our organization. Otherwise, all is well. Always happy to have gainful employment while I can!!!!!!!!!!!

And then there were the weekends. Sorry for not checking in last weekend. I know I vowed to check in even if nothing remotely

interesting happened, but I felt so bad because it was so boringly nothing that I didn't want to punish all two of you out there! Last weekend was pretty quiet, as you may have guessed. Didn't get up to much at all. I swear - some weeks am dead tired and other weeks am not. It's weird. Guess maybe I should try going to bed earlier during the week, that way I don't spend my weekends sleeping and just fluffing around........... I did have a tiny mid-week excursion to Ikeland with my friend Kim. I think we went just so we could catch up and buy dishtowels. It was actually pretty nice to be there on a mid-week evening (Thursday and Friday nights they're open "late" - 9pm - woooooo), the place wasn't full of big families (members and weights) with howling, free-range babies and toddlers. It was actually a way different crowd - I think it must've been some UN-sponsored shopping evening as nearly every nation on the planet was well-represented. It was actually kinda fun.

But the rest of this weekend has been busy with the chores, serious this time because this Thursday the Palace is having an invasion from a real estate monkey and an owner. We

have these little invasions every few months. Considering three out six apartments have been here for a good number of years and not once have they found anything amiss (quite the opposite in fact - it's us who always point out things that are amiss, which they promptly ignore, yet the rent goes up anyway), I always wonder why they bother. But I guess they just like to see how we have our places decorated and if anyone bought any new toys. As you all are well aware by now, I hate these bloody invasions. I have to take a whole day off of work, waste my one free day off a month, to babysit two idiots as they wander through my little place judging and peeking inside my shower (why???!). And do you know, by law they're allowed to do this every twelve weeks?! Crazy. 

And today has just been tidying up little bits and finishing the laundry. Like I said, it's absolutely the kind of day to go and wiggle your toes in some sand while waves crash only a few feet away......... Now if only I could afford my own little beach house with my own little ~private~ beach (looking at you families with howling, free-range children) I'd be writing to you from there!!!!!!!!! Ahhhh it sure is fun to dream about winning the lottery.............!

Anyways, hope you're all well up there! I see folks are gearing up for Halloween.... I wish they did Halloween here, but no. Every now and then you'll hear about a couple of kids who made a half-hearted attempt to go trick or treating but it's nothing compared with the US. They just don't go in for that stuff down here, which is kind of a bummer. Every year tho the grocery store has a great big box of pumpkins right smack in the middle of the produce section, but they're like $40 each, and not very big. Hmmmm. I'll have to get online and buy a bunch of Halloween decorations from Walgreens or Target or wherever and have them shipped to me here and decorate the outside of the little apartment - maybe I'd even get a couple trick or treaters! Hmmmmmmmmmmm! Will totally have to have a look after checking in........!!!

Speaking of the Motherland, I'm thinking of coming up for a visit around the end of July/August like this last time, so if anyone's around and wants to catch up, drop me a line! I figure as long as I have a decent job that wants to keep me around, I'll be able to come up and visit on a more regular basis like a normal person. Cool! In the meantime, feel free to scope out your own tickets - the window of nice weather opens up again around March, April until November.... So c'mon down!

BYE!

J!

Weekends of Errands, Re-Potting and Organizing - Ahhhhh Springtime!

Hi!

Well. Here we are on another spectacularly sunny and breezy Sunday afternoon. Spring is here, although with the temperatures we've been having lately you'd be fooled into thinking spring got it's butt kicked into next year by summer. Thankfully, instead of the all-day muggy furnace that summer is, this is just a teaser and is only hot and gross for a couple of hours. Ooooooooh yeah, not looking forward to summer. But that's a ways away yet. Right now we have a lovely cool breeze, bright sunny day fading into evening, the birds have gone a bit quiet but I guess they're all busy rushing around trying to get stuff done before all the stores close (Sunday closing times for most shops around here, if they're even open on a Sunday, wrap things up around 4pm). We have a nice, cool glass of a new stand-by white wine (sem sauv blanc) from Story Bay, got the hip n' groovy jazz tunes - ahhhhhhh yes, life is good!

So work. Yep. Is good, tho a bit slow at the moment. I don't mind. Have been pretty busy since I got back from vay-cay-shun, so a little breather is nice. Tho I don't want too much of a breather, I hear hoof-beats coming from the bids and proposals department that they might be in the market for an "editor" (by their definition tho, an editor is someone who simply formats their absolutely woeful hundred page plus documents - which is something one of their admin assistants can do, but they don't know that), so I have to quickly find things to make me look super busy and very important. We'll see....... And speaking of waiting and seeing, The Bosses have a meeting tomorrow with HR to discuss, well, me and... my future? My tilt at permanent residency? All I do know is I gave my Manager all the P.R. info and costs that I could find and beyond that, it's in the hands of the HR gods. If I'm not nervous now, I'm sure to be around 10.30am tomorrow morning! I'm just super worried the Manager above my Manager (yes, we're an extremely top-heavy organization) will have the attention span and patience of a flea and will deem the whole thing too hard and let me go, only to run an ad and hire a local. Sigh. Hopefully will know something more tomorrow..... And hopefully it's good news................... They say the Australian unemployment figures have risen to some percent (it's numbers, which are math's best friends, so I automatically tune out), either way, now can't be a good time to go looking for work.......... And you guys know how much I looooove job hunting. Never mind - here's hoping it won't come to that.......!? Otherwise, work is good. Will enjoy it while I can!!!!!!!

And then there were a couple weekends in there....... Sorry for not checking in last weekend. I was buuuuuuuusy running errands all over town. I mean, somehow, I started running errands at 8am on Saturday and didn't finish, technically, until 9pm Sunday evening. Sheesh. I think I'd just saved up all these teeny little errands and just decided to bust them all out at once, for whatever reason. Spring fever perhaps. Errands which included a trip to Ikealand, the car wash (honestly, the thing is too big for me to wash, it'd take all day. Rather pay a coupla teenagers to do it in 45 minutes - yeah!), the auto parts store, the pet store, a couple of BBQ stores, the hardware store, the grocery store, I mean, I was everywhere. But the car really needed a a good run to blow the cobwebs off of it (poor car) and I got lots of stuff done. Including (.........drum roll.........) - I bought a proper BBQ! A cool little two-burner deal that was only $200 bucks (tho, heh, I see it's since gone on sale - $60 bucks cheaper. Gah!)! 'Course, by the time I put it together, fought with the nozzle thingy on the gas bottle, cooked mah chicken and sat down to eat, it was just after 9pm Sunday. But I gots a BBQ! Like a normal person! And just in time for the perfect weather. And also just in time for storm season, during which our power usually goes out lots of times, so with the BBQ I can still cook! Yay!!!!!!! Pretty exciting. I love it. Now to discover not only what I can cook on it, but how!

And then there was this weekend. No rushing around spending money like I had it, thankfully. This weekend was chores and all the little fluffing around things I've been putting off - re-potting a plant I tried to kill by knocking it off a railing, ironing, and (don't laugh) organizing my little bathroom drawers. I know, I know, it sounds, like, toooootally lame, fer sure, but if you'd've seen the state of those drawers...... So I bought an organizer from Ikealand and presto! Organized! Threw out old perfume and medicines, consolidated the band-aids, that kinda stuff. And now I can see everything, including three of some things that I bought thinking I didn't have any. Organization is awesome! Now to get through my stock of Burt's Bees and Bath and Body Works soaps and lotions................

But yes, that's been the weekends. All is well..... getting back into the post-vay-cay-shun swing of things. You're not missing much.......... Other than perfect weather!!!! Hey, if you can get to Hawaii, well hell, you're already halfway here - just keep going! It costs about the same too! If you're a glutton for punishment, I hear flights from LA to here (Brisbane) over Xmas are going for around $1,200 - a steal! But you have to really love hot and humid weather. Like, looooove it. Like, a lot. But hey, lots of places, except mine, have air conditioning! C'mon down!

BYE!
J!

It Can't Always Be Vaction-Time...............

Hi!

Well. Here we are, another stunning Sunday afternoon. It's the first official day of spring down here in the Southern Hemisphere and the weather over the last couple of weeks (well, gee, at least since I've been back, which is two weeks now (only two weeks?!)) has been absolutely perfect. Starting to warm up a little more and the sun is rising earlier and earlier - yay no more getting up in pitch dark! The birds are happier, the plants are happier, although I don't think the possum living in the ceiling above my bathroom thinks so highly of more daylight hours (oh well, toooo bad).

But I should apologize for checking in late - again. Y'know, I started the year promising to myself that I'd check in every weekend, news or no news. And

tho I knew I'd be away for a month (hooray vay-cay-shun!), I figured I'd still check in with lots of details, if not during mah trip certainly when I got back. And now I look at the numbers of all the posts according to year/month and it looks like I failed at that little resolution. For cryin' out loud it's the end of August already. Wow. But don't get me wrong, I like writing this little missive once a week. It's fun and certainly beats sending out lots of emails with photo attachments, which is why I got into this little blog lark in the first place. I know that most of the time my little stories and routine are really rather dull....... you try summing up a usual home-work-home week in your life and see if it's Super Exciting!

But never mind, we're here now. The birds are out there happily running their

little errands (eat those bugs!), Kona is happily stretched across most of the couch (I swear he's half dog, half Viking), the bats have settled someplace around the neighborhood which makes for even livelier sunsets/evenings, have got the cool glass of sparkling wine this time, and of course all to the hip n' groovy jazz tunes from my fave internet radio station ever - ahhhhhhh, life is good!

So work. Yep. Is pretty good. Was super busy for a bit there right after I got back, which is why I think I was unable to check in last weekend - I must've

been absolutely beat from my first week back at work, and I know for a fact I was still trying to kick that pesky jet lag. So by the time the weekend came, I was dead. All week long it was all I could do to get home from work on the bus in the evenings let alone stay awake past 7pm! But yes, work is good. Before I left to go on vacation they'd threatened to "transition" me to a being permanent person instead of this contract stuff, but that has yet to happen. And they've also threatened to support my permanent residency application too. Again, that hasn't happened either. Ahhhhhh HR, so far they have yet to show me what it is they really do....... So, all do know is I am for the most part pretty busy and that my contract ends in March. Fingers crossed something goods happens before then......?!

And then there were the weekends. Well, last weekend was a bit of a fizzle -

of my energy that is. Come Saturday, all I really felt like doing was fluffing around the house (laundry, dishes, unpacking - still), went to the grocery store, and then sat on the couch and watched movies for the rest of the day. Felt a heck of a lot better for it that's for sure! And get this - I specifically bought Oreos (something I haven't done since I was like 16) to celebrate my lazy day on the couch with movies and I was too tired to get up, put them on a plate with a glass of milk. I know, sad. But I was so damn tired.

Sunday I felt I'd finally nipped that ol' jet lag in the bud and managed to get

a little more done, like a quick trip to the charity donation bin with two bags of clothes and shoes (yay, more room for mah new clothes!), paid some much-needed attention to my few little plants, got mah pile of ironing done and even more laundry happily washed and dried. Ahhhhh, it was a fairly productive day!

And this weekend has been all the chores I've neglected to do last weekend. But in saying that, some stuff I had fantasies of doing, like washing the car and taking it for a tour around the 'hood, going to the grocery store, returning my DVDs, meh...... Besides, even just thinking about washing mah car the sky filled with clouds! And c'mon, who wants to spend all that time washing their car only to watch the heavens open half an hour later? So I though checking in would be a much more productive way to spend the afternoon.......

So there you go. Another non-stop thrills and fun-filled weekend this has been........ Hey, if one of you fair readers wants to spring for the cost of a maid service, I'll get out there every weekend and have all the adventures my little fingers could write about! Errrr, that and if you could float me an extra twenty years on the odometer I'd have the energy to work full-time and then go on 48 hours of Adventures every weekend! Ha!

Otherwise, I hope you're all well up there. I hear it's gotten hot again - ha, it wasn't when I was there - dodged that little bullet! Well, if you find yourself with a couple grand in your pocket and a couple weeks of spare time, the weather here is absolutely perfect. Your window is open until, roughly, November/December, when it's a disgustingly hot and humid, utterly miserable summer until around March/April, then your window of perfect weather opens again. So c'mon down! Love to show you the place - it's awesome!

BYE!

J!