Third time lucky ...

Here it is something like about three days in a row. Even three days in a week has been good lately. Nothing like having my precious laptop up and running.

The shoulder has been giving me gip again, and I might take some paracetamol before going to bed. I find complaining doesn't help.

There are going to be some changes at work next week. One lady has been off on maternity leave, she had a sweet little boy. So one of the temps has been terminated and will be leaving at the end of next week. I will give her a handmade card. She liked the one I gave her at Christmas so it will be worth giving her another one for leaving. She is a very nice young lady, well raised to the most extent, the youngest of about 6 and the others are apparently much older than she is. Her mother seems to be a very nice lady, very charitable. I gave her some money at Christmas to help a family she was helping. She was sick with gall stones and had to wait an age to get them removed. All the time she was doing a Work Opportunities for Women course. So her courage is pretty remarkable. I think she is in her seventies.

So I will miss this young lady.

I will be the switchboard operator. At my proper computer as well. This will suit me no end as I find I can operate the switchboard more effectively from my proper computer. It will be interesting to see how it pans out because there will be three of us doing three days per week, all of us in on Wednesday. The current temp and one of the long term temps will be doing the clerical support around the departments. That was not what I applied for and found it very annoying when they sent me out to do it. If I had spent much longer doing it I would have complained to the union. I am a bit annoyed I will be loosing my higher duties allowance but that is the way the cookie crumbles.

The sister was given some tickets to the circus on Sunday, so I will take the two boys and we will have a fun day out. It is at Darling Harbour. I will take the camera, but I don't know what sort of pictures I will end up with. We will have to walk from Central Station to DH so that will take a while, but I think I will pack lunch rather than buy stuff. It is too expensive in the city. I will duly report on the day.

The old person is watching the cricket and is pretty disgusted with the Australian side. It seems they are pretty pathetic at the moment. I mean how hard is one day cricket? lol.

I will work hard to get the last of my stuff done tomorrow so that I can have Sunday off. I know my feet will be killing me by the end of the day; so I have to wear lace up shoes. I had fluid retention this past Summer which I have not had since I left Whyalla in 1994. (Gosh was it that long ago? Gasp.)

I return to study next week, so my blogging may wane a little. Not because I don't care ..

Long day ...

It was a long day again at work, still doing mind numbing work, but at least it is work and makes the day pass. Then afterwork it was into Spotlight. I am desiring of a gluepad. I have lifted it up twice and twice I have put it back. It is only $13.00 but I tell myself next week ...

So I settled for the ribbons I needed and the alphabet chips I need for the Wedding Album and the page for the Take it Further Challenge. It is almost finished, but I needed something. I hope the chip letters will do it. I just have to glue them to some interesting paper and cut them out and ink them and see how they look before gluing. Fascinating times - lol.

After Spotlight it was off to the Mall and Woolies for the weekly grocery shop. This is not a good idea. It was alot better when we did it on the internet. Then the daughter decided that she didn't like the idea of giving her bank details over the internet. So we went back to shopping in store. However, no matter where we go the old person insists he is coming too and wants to know the minutae of what we are buying and why. I will not use this space to sicken you on his knowledge of nutrition. Let's just say if I can make him a T-shirt with "No Gut, No Glory" I will force him to wear it to the races even if I have to get off my bum and go with him. Harharhar.

Her ladyship uses her stable now when the storms are at their worst and she finds it heavy going. She will not use the old stable next to Cody's but we aren't fussing. The rain has a definite chill to it and I will probably have to surrender any hope of celery pills in favour of buying her a new winter rug. I will have to get a hay net so that she can eat off the floor of the shed. She sucks on the haynets afterwards and chews on them. They don't last very long. And any day now that halter is going to pop and need replacing. Nope, I will make her suffer the rope one for a few weeks. Just can't lead her around in it unless it is a dire emergency.

I am going to be very busy this weekend, but that is so I can get my blogging done and up to date. I am quite looking forward to it. Don't know if the sister is coming or not.

Adieu ..

Achey breaky neck ...

I think I have arthritis in my neck - I had treatment on it back in the 80's (yeah last millennium). Now it is back. At first I thought it was just a crick but even with the heat bag it is still aching. It affects my shoulder and arm as well.

I fell on my head off a horse in the late 1960's and I think this is a result of that. Wrecked my riding helmut and my mother was ropable. The next day we visited Jenolan caves and freaked out as I am with caves normally (I hate low ceilings and narrow spaces) having the stiff neck as well did not make it an enjoyable day for me. It was one of those excursions there was not way to get out of since the whole "family" was going. And I am sure it made the stiff neck/pulled muscles even worse. So now in my middle fifties after haunting me in my thirties has come back to give me annoyance. I think all this rain we have been having has been a contributing factor. I don't know how I am going to get through Winter if this is true.

The cure offered by the old person is to rub it with rubbing alcohol. It might be an idea. I know the heat creams cause burning on the surface of my skin and I just want to scream. I refuse to use them anymore. I use a beanie heat bag (wheat) but as I said, it didn't help much.

I am not a great one to complain about aches and pains, but this can affect my ability to work and my ability to continue writing.

Yes, I know that I can take celery pills and I will give it serious thought. See what the budget thinks.

Will update again on the weekend as I have to post on my craft site. Being the end of the month and all.

so...

Hello from underneath ...

I haven't blogged in ages. Partly, because seriously there is no news from me, and partly from lack of inspiration. I still seem to be feeling down with things at the moment, no motivation at all.

The saga of my laptop has come back. My credit card company rang to say I was over limit - where I thought I was getting in to pay the thing off. Well it turns out Bigpond has slugged me and not told me. So I have to deal with all of that today. Joy, oh, Joy.

I have made a few things and now that the daughter is back from her weekend down the coast partying with her girlfriend and all their kids (it was a kids party - lol) I have the camera back and can take some more pickkies.

One of the cross stitch mags has a beautiful Unicorn pattern and I have started that. Drop the rest of my life for it - ah, not really. But it is something to do when the old person is watching either the cricket or one of his painful movies. Last week it was Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Too much blood and guts, I watched only one scene and that was it. When I needed a break from the cross stitching I just went out of the room altogether. (Daughter was using her computer and see above about the laptop).

(His latest movie was "The Princess of Thieves". Are you kidding me? It is a kids' movie about Robin Hood and Maid Marion having a daughter. Oh, come on, why do you think the term "Maid" hung around the woman and not Mrs Hood or something of that nature? People in the 13th Century didn't go around having illegitimate children (especially girls) that went on and became as famous as their infamous fathers. DID NOT HAPPEN.)

So you can appreciate my point.

Work has picked up! I actually had a decent conversation with them last week (well it was a very slow Friday) and gained some insights into them. Mind you I was doing some pretty mind numbing work looking for numbers to identify people. Seems the new computer system can have stuff entered into it and it is not stored and the only identification is a numeral not an alphabetical list. So they asked me to look at over 2000 enrolment forms one at a time to dig them out. I did it and found most of them as well. But looking through 2000 forms ten plus times is to put it mildly, incredibly mind numbing. Maybe that is what has put me off as well, my brain is still numb.

I have a friend. It was quite by accident. This woman rang up for some Course Information and said she was 50 and at a loose end. I told her that I was over 50 and had done the course she was interested in and had also gone on and done Certificate IV. You just get in and do it. You don't think about it. Thinking becomes procrastination and procrastination means you put it off. So she enrolled in the course and is thoroughly enjoying it. Turns out she was the daughter of an old work friend of the Librarian at work. She was able to catch the Librarian up on her mother (who is in a nursing home) and then told her all about how I had encouraged her to do the course. She comes to see me at least once a week. She is actually a very nice lady and if she didn't live so far away, we probably could become good friends.

On Friday afternoon, I arrived home to find the daughter was baby sitting two little girls for a friend. Since the friend babysits occassionally for the daughter and drives her places, it was only fair. Anyhow, Bell came down to say "Hello" at the back door. The girls on discovering Bell was a girl, grabbed hairbrushes and began brushing her. The smaller of the girls grabbed Bell's tail faster than anything. However, Bell being Bell, absolutely loves little girls and just stood there letting this tiny thing brush her tail. She turned around and watched them do it. Almost as if checking they were doing it right. We did tell the little one not to stand directly behind the horse. Bell is good, if she gets flustered or spooked at the back door she is very careful in running away; still she is huge compared to the kids.

I am going to braid her mane for winter and if it is a warm day this afternoon or tomorrow I am going to bath her. She has been shedding again, for whatever reason, and is itchy across her back. There is alot of dirt and dead skin coming off but she is not balding so there are no sores. She uses the trees and bushes to scratch on when I can't brush her. So a final bath before the cold weather sets in (it is getting chilly at night here) will be good for her. I will let her long coat come in for about 4 - 6 weeks and then buy a new blanket for her. Her old one is almost as shredded as Cody's was winter before last.

Will write more later ...

Good for a giggle ....

Sometimes you just have to see the funny side, sometimes the funny just happens ...

On Wednesday, just as I was due to leave work, a phone rang. The lady whose phone it was, put her calls onto loudspeaker, rather than listening by ear. As we listened we realised there was a huge domestic arguement going on with a couple on the other end. Had they knocked the redial to us and not realised it? Anyhow it went on noisily for several minutes and then hung up. Bit embarrassing really. As I said goodbye for the day, one lady who shares are surname with the old person said, "Don't you go home had have a domestic". Laughing, I left.

So later that evening, the old person is doing his usual trick of flicking around the channels when he comes onto the ABC and there is "The Cook and the Chef" hard at it, cooking. We have decided the male on this program is gay. So off handedly, the old person makes a comment on how I should learn from them how to cook. (Forgetting of course, the only meal I ever made from a recipe of theirs he totally refused to eat). So I commented back about the guy being the old person's boyfriend. Normally this just gets a glare and a snort and he continues watching. However, Thursday, he decided that this was the ultimate insult to his manhood and it was blah, blah, blah, never driving you cows anywhere, ever again. "But you must be gay," we commented, "otherwise, how do you explain how abusive you are to us?" well, that was it. He went on like the proverbial pork chop and alas, as my entertainment value from him has not been much lately, I just dished it back at him. Then it was the glares all night, "I am not gay".
Don't pick on me when I am trying to quit.

The next amusing incident came as a result of a couple of coincidences.

There is a new Head Teacher at work. He is teaching the daughter in her Cert IV in Website design (yes, as a matter of fact, it is the course I am doing, good of you to remember). He was teaching her yesterday morning, blissfully unaware of the plot being hatched against him. He is less than 30 years old.

We were sitting there making our usual rounds of regaling each other with the stupid/amusing/boring anecdotes of the previous evening as we often do, when a courier rocks up with two huge helium filled balloons tied down with a bunch of furry animals and a bunch of small roses. "Who are those for?" we asked. Courier mentions name of said Head Teacher. Well, being elderly women, this guy has a fanclub already. So we hatch a plot. One lady says, "I will ring his office", "He isn't there, he is teaching the daughter in class". "Oh, what will we do?"
"I will message the daughter and ask her to get him to come down", "good idea". Madly SMS daughter, tell him to come to admin urgently, boss wants to see now.
Daughter messages back a few minutes later "on his way".

Soon as he walked in the door, he knew who they were from, and why (pay back for him doing it to her last year). He is falling all over the floor laughing, dying of embarrasment and snide comments from the Boss who has come out to see what the commotion is about. We are also falling all over the place watching his reaction. He must have a brilliant girlfriend.

Guy takes them back to his office then has to go back to class and explain to them why he left. Daughter was not impressed in being used in such a ploy. But when she saw how much of a good giggle it gave us, she saw the funny side.

I have today off...

Something to share ...

I have finally put up the pictures onto Bilum, my craft blog. It is not the entire album, but will give you some idea of what I have been doing. I have written about it over there so I will not go into the details here.

The Day before Tomorrow

I am only making a big deal of tomorrow, today, because it will be my birthday. Lol. And I like to have a nice heading to each piece.

I will be 55. This is not a great age any more, and sometimes I marvel that I have made it this far. I consider several people I have known who have died before this age, who seemed to live at least healthier lifestyles to my and I guess I am grateful to have lived this long. Not a good time to get maudlin, but nevertheless, this should be commented upon.

Friday at work they had chockie mud cake and shortbred tarts and sang their usual round of "Happy Birthday". Which was sweet of them. One of the younger temps made me a small box of peanut butter cookies. These got shared with the daughter and grandsons. The sister came over but she and Sunnyboy do not eat stuff like this. I have no idea and probably do not want to know.

The following Monday will be the first full year since my best boy died (Cody aka Eternal Strangers) and I guess that explains the maudlin bit. I still miss him, and still, of a night when I feed the mare, feel that there is his soft nicker to me as I walk to the feed shed "don't forget my hay, Mum".

I haven't posted for a while because I have been busy and tired. I worked on Monday, because it was enrolments and slept a good deal of Tuesday. I feel I have been trying to catch up with everything since then. The daughter and grandsons are staying over at a friend's house and I have a little peace and quiet before the old person gets up and starts his ranting and raving for the day. I also seem to have lost a good deal of motivation. I guess that also comes from the maudlin bit. I'll get over it sooner or later, but posting may be a bit sporadic. After this I am going to edit some photos for over at my craft blog.

I am close to writing another vent on Alien Thoughts. If I do, I will post a link here later. There are a couple of things getting on my goat at the moment and a public rant will be carthetic if nothing else.

I have subscribed to Google Reader, and have some interesting sites to read every day now, about things I am interested in. It is worth learning more about RSS feeds and how they can liven up one's thinking. Some of the photography people on the internet indulge in is quite amazing. I have resolved to try and do better myself. A new camera might help, but being me, it might not. lol.

Write again soon ...

Long story short ...

Do you ever have times when you do something for the best and it sorta backfires on you? I have had a weekend like that and even though it is Sunday it is still not over!

I mentioned that for Christmas I was going to give the daughter a store gift card, which I did. She wanted one for "Sanity" where they sell CD's and DVD's. She used it to layby the complete series of CSI. So she paid it off and began watching it on her TV. This weekend has been wet so the boys have been stuck indoors. They get the X-box and she moves onto her computer to watch her DVD's. So I should be able to use my laptop with its whizz bang wireless connection. Ha. No signal. No matter where I went, no signal. I don't know why I am paying such an exorbitant amount for something I am not getting. So no blogging for me.

I have to work again tomorrow, again till 8:00pm. I have Tuesday off. So they want to do a swap for my day working tomorrow. I am going to see if Friday will be okay - I guess it will depend on how much of the data entry work has been done. Friday will give me five days off over my Birthday. Will be very nice if I can. And that is when I will have to do my catch up blogging. I have some fantastic photos that are on the computer but not cropped to fit on the blog yet.

So, till then, you will just have to wait, sorry ...