Happy New Year (Little Late)!

Hi!

Well. Look at that, haven't checked in in months, and am very sorry. Every Sunday afternoon I thought about it though, it's become that much of a habit! But life and the holidays conspired against me - if I wasn't busy that day I was too tired from being busy to write. And as you can see it all started at the end of November when I hosted my first house guests here at the Hacienda, Emily and Ian, and from there the crazy busy period of the holidays kicked in, time flew by, and now here we are, end of January. Sheeessssh! But, all is well - the birds are out there happily chattering away, doing the chores, tidying their nests, going to the store, catching up on all the day's gossip. And as always, have the hip n' groovy jazz tunes from the new Radio Tunes (I still like name SkyFM better, less lame). And seeing as it's the middle of summer, I've got a nice cool beer, a very easy-to-drink James Squire's The Constable Copper Ale. The sun is shining in bright blue skies, the humidity is actually starting to dip (temporarily) for the first time in months (yay!) - life is good! Now I'll just try to dust off the memory and give you the latest.....!
 

So work. Yep. Is good. Busy, which is standard for me most of the time. The publication am working on is giving me wicked headaches, literally, but I finally got it to a point where it was off my desk Friday, and that's awesome, so I could actually do some of the other work piling up. The headache book will come back after its reviews, but it shouldn't give me headaches next time around. Still, always happy to have the work! Our open plan office is still stupid and myself and my cell mate got moved away from directly in front of the kitchen to across from where we were sitting, next to the kitchen. It's better, but people are still noisy. Open plan is just an all-around bad idea for what we do. But HR are reportedly needing to hire 200-300 people over this year to staff all the new contracts we're apparently winning, which will eventually, hopefully mean our tiny group will be deemed so insignificant that we'll be moved to make way for all the HR people they'll have to hire to hire all the new people. So hopefully they'll move us far, far, far away from HR and onto a quieter floor. Ahhh, typical work woes! Otherwise, all is very well. Yay for a good gig!

And then there were the weekends, including Xmas and New Year's! Let's see.... So, Emily and Ian's visit was good, tho a bit hotter than the snow they'd just left behind. I hope they had a good time even tho it was only for a couple of days. It was Ian's first visit to Australia, and tho we were on a limited budget, I hope the little bit of local sight-seeing we did gave him a rough idea of how diverse Southern Queensland can be - from forests of gum trees to tropical forests with towering leafy trees and ferns galore!

And then what was happening.... We had our work Xmas lunch at a nice enough place called the Waterloo Hotel. That was fun, food was pretty good. It was just nice to get out of the office with everyone, have a few drinks and just hang out. It was a good afternoon.

And then there was Xmas. This year was again spent with the foster family (The Adcocks) but was a little different in that we spent it at their son Russell and his wife Kim's newly-built house - with a pool! Really nice place, tho a bit far out in the 'burbs for me. But hey, Brisbane being the over-inflated property market that it is, it was one of the few places they could afford to build a nice, big house (in one of those planned development community thingys). And tons of their family came up from Sydney and Adelaide. Everyone that I've met over the years has been really, really nice, and so tolerant of an interloping American orphan every year. And this year was no different - the food was awesome (we had turducken!), the conversations were fun, it was great to catch up with everyone, and the afternoon simply flew by. It was lovely as always. Tho Margaret (foster Mom) mentioned something about this Xmas they might go down to Sydney to spend it with her sister and her family. Fair enough. If I didn't go around to theirs for Xmas, it would be totally fine, really it'd be like any other day. Hell, probably take myself out for a good walk to enjoy the city while it's so quiet. So we'll see. But yes, Xmas was very, very nice. So nice of them to have me crash their day! And New Year's was pretty quiet, didn't feel like doing anything, pretty much like every year. I don't like the crowds, the cost and I don't like trying to get home. So best to just stay in, watch movies and drink my own nice wine!

And then as soon as it all had come, it was finished and it was back to work. Oddly enough, lots of people didn't take a lot of time off like they usually seem to. So it was kinda like business as usual. Which was fine by me. The quicker the holidays are over with, the better!

And then these last few weekends have just been catching up with my friend
Bruce, well, he was my old boss from my days at Fire but we've always stayed in touch. We haven't caught up in a very long time so we've just been hanging out, going on fun 4x4 drives in his whiz-bang Toyota FJ Cruiser and watching Breaking Bad (he's never seen it). It's been fun. Tho I don't think my waistline appreciates all the beer and pizza, still, it's been good to re-watch the show with someone who's not seen it. If you haven't seen it yet, I can't recommend it enough!

And then last weekend I adopted the newest member to the family. Her name is Lola and she's about nine months old (Kona will be nine years old in March). She and Kona seem to get along well enough tho haven't figured out the difference between playing and killing each other. They like each other well enough to be in the same room and eat in the kitchen at the same time, they just have to work out actually playing together. They'll get there. I'd been wanting to get him a friend for a long time but couldn't, mainly because I wasn't even supposed to have a cat at the Palace and I didn't want two cats to worry about being outside. But now that we're here and we're legal (tho don't think I'm allowed to have two cats), he can't go outside, so I dare say at times he's gotten a bit of cabin-fever. And I also hoped with a girlfriend around he wouldn't be so shy when people come around. So she's been here a week and so far so good. Bruce came around last night and we watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad and Kona actually came out and hung out. Ah-mazing. He NEVER does that when anyone is here. So my plan could well work! But she's a cutie and fulla beans, just like he was/is. So, hopefully they'll learn how to play and not rip each other to shreds. Time will tell!

And there you have it! I hope you're all well and happy up there. If you get tired of that cold, wet or snowy weather, c'mon down! I gots me pleeeenty o' space!!!!!

BYE!

J!

P.S. No idea what's up with the highlighted font - can't seem to turn it off. Hmm. Sorry 'bout that. Stoopid computers.