News

Well Christmas has come and gone, a mad rush right up until the last moment.  I left my job and it still hasn't sunk in.  I guess maybe next week when the others go back I might feel a bit adrift.  I am going to the City tomorrow and I am quite nervous about it.  Silly, I know, but there you go.

The old person has a two bedroom flat in Leumeah for the moment, and seems to have settled in quite well.  We got him a mobile phone so that he can make and receive calls.  It is cheaper than having a line phone, as it is prepaid.  He still comes over to do washing and generally annoy us.  We didn't see much of him while the X was here, but the X is bad enough anyhow.  Having to deal with two of them at the same tame is very frustrating.  It wasn't particularly jealousy, but more like just dislike.  The old person is not a sociable person and the X is from my "past", so it worked out well.

We also had two of my other grandchildren here, my oldest son's daughter and youngest son.  The older boy elected to go to his gran's place in Port Pirie, but I think he was having it a bit rough with one of his aunties there.  

It was super having so many children around for Christmas.  Christmas should be shared with kids, and it seems to make it more fun.  I do not cook at Christmas, I buy some cooked chooks, some premade salads and paper plates and plastic cutlery.  We rounded up a big box and put a garbage bag into it and it was fine.  That all of it should be so easy.  The X actually bought food as well for the day and the Missus made a fruit cake which was really nice.  

I will put in a link on the side to my new blog which I am keeping for public viewing, this will remain a close family blog, not for public.  I will update all of them during the week.  Look out for more announcements.

Quick note ...

Just a quick hello, as I have been back working full time and not had time to scratch my butt.

I went to the funeral of the husband of my supervisor at work.  It was nicely done at a funeral home out at Leppington - behind Denman Court.  It was very sad, and it was hard greeting her afterwards, but I couldn't not greet her.  I hand stamped a nice card for her and gave it too her.

She has been off two weeks.  The Boss's secretary phoned her and she said she just was not up to being with people.  I feel so very sad for her.

The Americans are in the process of voting for their new President.  Whoever they choose the weight of the world is going to be on that person's shoulders.  If it is Mr McCain, things should naturally progress from how they are now, but I have a nasty feeling if Mr Obama gets in things could get very bad.  

I think either way Australia will probably fare reasonably well, but it will not be easy in the present circumstances.

Did I mention I handed in my paper work to leave work in December?  I think I did.   I still do not regret it and hope that it will work out to be wise and move forward from there.

I am teaching myself a new computer language - Python - and it is fairly straight forward.  I am learning the concepts of Object Orientation which although I know what it is, I have not done in previous languages.  I want to use it to do gaming programming and multimedia in 3D.  I will keep you posted how it all goes.

Must go, but next weekend after another full week of work, I will post a longer item and pass more opinions.  I have also started up a fun blog which you can find here.  So till next time ...

So sad and so awful ...

Yesterday has to have been one of the worst days for work. One of our "other" ladies, who is on maternity leave, came in with her little boy. He is not quite two and is very funny. He was dancing around and we were all laughing and enjoying having such a sweet child with us. At 11.30 I went off to have my lunch, as I always do.

When I came back I noticed one of our ladies gone, but I assumed she was either out for a smoke or cuppa. Another lady came and said her husband had a heart attack. The lady who was on maternity leave left just as they were telling me. It was a really dreadful thing. One other lady was crying and later in the afternoon, we found out via a phone call that he had passed away.

I just have felt so very bad for this woman. She had been married to him since they were 19 years old and they had raised a family of five children together, including twins. They had been married for over thirty years. It is all so very sad, and so very awful.

I will write more later. Having a few computer glitches ...

The Chrome Wars ...

Well, for goodness sake.  About the same time I downloaded Google Chrome as my web browser, the daughter downloaded Internet Explorer 8 (IE8).  I rather like Chrome and I am hoping it wont be too long till it will be supported by Exit Reality.  (Yay!)  Maybe it is just the fact that it is not a Microsoft thing.  Actually, I have always been supportive of Microsoft and its ideas, when everyone else has been very anti.  I don't like reading nasty things about Bill Gates, especially if it is personal. I think his building of Microsoft has been an inspiring story.  

However, when we have gone to use IE8 on the daughter's computer, when clicking on the icon a message comes up informing us Google Toolbar is not supported.  Sure enough, if you do a "Google Search", you can still use the search engine, however,  you cannot connect to any of the websites.  

Now I have heard of some childish things before, any parent has (lol).  But seriously this is one of the  most pathetic things I have ever come across.  It is only a backlash against google for bringing out the beta version of Chrome at the time Microsoft was bringing out IE8.  If IE8 is so good it should be able to stand alone without the makers resorting to this sort of childish payback behaviour.  

I also notice in Chrome, when I go to access my Hotmail, that a warning comes up that I should update my browser.  

Guys, get over it.  Microsoft will always rule the world, you do not need to resort to this kind of childish behaviour.  Just fix things so that it all works fine both ways.  Find ways to get along.  The Chrome browser is probably here to stay, I like it and I know plenty of people who do as well.  But business wise, they will always use IE xxx because it is the industry standard.  

Tell you what, once it supports Linux and Macintosh (Apple) I think I will change the whole hog.

For crying in a bucket ...

Bin raining ...

Having my "Nanny Nap" this afternoon,  I was rudely awakened by what I at first thought was a heavy wind.  No, it was a rain storm.  It was heavy enough and windy enough to have been a cyclone.  But this is Sydney, and "they" will tell  you, "We don't get cyclones in Sydney", so who am I to argue.  What was it then ... ?

I have been quite tired lately, so I am off to the Doctor's tomorrow to find out what could be causing it.  I have a feeling I am still anaemic.  The doctor tells me I should eat red meat for the iron and then says not too much because of my pre-diabetic state.  Luckily I can also take iron tablets and I am using resistant starches to help with the insulin.  That and the Weight Watchers should see me right - eventually. lol.

My arts and crafts are stalling, partly because I don't want to buy anything else now that my layby is done and I need new this that and the other thing.  Partly because I have the artistic equivalent of "writer's block".  I have been trying to design my own cards, and the first couple have been really nice, but lacking that certain level of professionalism I would like, and just a bit short of "complete".  Still, better to be experimenting and doing something than just sitting there staring at the idiot box.  

There is no news. One of the reasons for not writing for a while, is that nothing has happened. Oh, the daughter went to Canberra to stay with my niece, but she will have to blog about that, because I wasn't there.  I have joined myspace, but that is hardly news.  Even her ladyship is so normal (touch wood).  She stood out in the rain, just waiting for it to stop and went back to her grazing.  

I am off work this week, as it is the second week of the holidays and not much happening at work, but the daughter is going to be babysitting up to six kids and I don't want the old person terrorising them.  He said he missed them terribly while they were away but has treated them horribly since they have been back.  He is a very scarey person.  The daughter says his Gemini traits are worse than Jeckyl and Hyde.  

So if I think of anything, I will either edit this or I will write another post ... adieu

Horse Germs ...

Now the old person and I have owned her ladyship for 9 years and have spent everyday of that nine years with her. Not once have we had any health problems, except the old person has a bit of an allergy to dust. Since it affects his skin, he wears gloves when preparing her food and no problem.

A while ago, the old person watched an item on Landline on the ABC about Hendra virus. So now herladyship has horse germs because a bat infected a horse and the horse infected a Vet who died - in Queensland.

He is convinced that her ladyship is going to infect him with it and he is going to die. She intimidates him when he eats anything outside, and one time he had a cup of coffee which she proceeded to lick from the cup. He had to thoroughly wash his hands, change his clothes and was actually going to throw the cup away. Luckily he decided just to thoroughly wash it in really hot water.

She bit him as well. She really hates having her chest played with, even touched, so it can be a bit dicey when putting on the small belt on her rug at night. I will sternly say "No" and she will stand. He doesn't talk to her at all, ever. (She is an animal). So even though after all these years he knows she hates it, he still fiddle faddles around with her rug. Then gets upset because he wasn't smart enough to read her body language (ears back, head swing, probably tail swishing) moments before it came.

Alas the daughter and I have been laughing about this for a while now.

BTW, we don't get Hendra virus here, 1. No bats (and therefore no bats with Hendra). 2. Our feed is kept in a shed. 3. We feed her ladyship under shelter. I tell you there are days when bashing your head against a brick wall would be softer than dealing with the old person. lol.

tra ...

Long time no see ...

Sorry it has been a while since I have blogged. No major excuses, just got tied up doing other things. Things that have sort of been pending for an age and have finally got around to finishing. The good thing about my medication for the depression is that it has chirped me up no end, and I can finish things and focus more. My Doctor warned me about feeling euphoric, which I guess I need to be careful of, but I must say I am feeling much happier these days.

Having said that, I am also aware that the chemicals could make me say things differently to what I would if I wasn't on them, so if I suddenly sound a bit nutty, please point it out to me.

I have a million (well about 100) cross stitches that are just in a pile waiting for a home or display of some sort, so I made a stick book and put in 8 of them into it. I still have to finish the cover, and I will post it on Bilum in a while. I will probably make another one for another pile, and maybe a new star book for some smaller ones. This might eliminate about 30 from the collection. lol.

About three weeks ago the sister and I left Sunnyboy with the daughter and the grandsons. We got a bus and two trains to Rosehill Racecourse. We spent about 4 hours after that wandering around the annual Stitches and Craft show. It was a super day and we saw loads of things we "wanted" to buy, but luckily were able to limit ourselves to our budgets. Actually I had about $30 left, which was unusual for me, but I just have enough scissors for just now and buttons. I did buy another iron, a little one about 10cm long, so it is about 5 times bigger than my dear little clover iron, which I love. It is specifically for ironing cotton and afixing iron on - whatever needs ironing on and has iron on glue, such as interfacing, hemming web etc. So it doesn't need heat settings. It cost a little more than I really want to pay, but I have it now.

I also bought some fabric strips, about forty of them. They are selvedge to selvedge and 7cm wide. I have sewn some of them together to make a bag for my laptop, but as it is a quasi crazy quilt thing, it is going to take a bit of a while to make. I got some fat quarters as well, some Japanese inspired fabrics. I also got stamps, I mean, can you see me going anywhere like this and not buying stamps? They were paisley pattern, and not very expenive at all. But I am going to have to mess around with colours for them.

It takes two hours from home to Racecourse and then two back. So it was a long, full day. And the Daughter said Sunnyboy was good as gold.

Work has been much the same as ever. I was off almost 7 weeks with being sick and my heart scare ...

I didn't tell you about that. Ha, well, I did a stress test on a walking machine for about five minutes at speed (walking) till my heart rate went up. It did not go up as high as they were expecting, either. (I am not totally unfit). I had a heart ultra sound as well, lasted for about 20 minutes. Lady was very nice, very professional.

And the outcome? Next time I have chest pains, see a gastro-intestinal specialist first. I paid a crapload of money to find that out! Still, can't complain, better than there was actually something wrong; better than a blockage. FFS.

So until next time I get my butt moving to blog ...

Long time ...

Although I have been sick, and spent much time in bed, I have also been doing things. Not alot, because the whole thing has left me weak and tired, mostly. I have finished of my "chatelaine" and will photograph it and load it onto Bilum in the next few days. I have also finally watched the video for my Embroidery Sewing Machine after having it for a few years now. I hope to sit down and do one little design this weekend. If it works I shall tell you.

I have begun sorting out things to keep and throw away for our "move". I am a junk collector. It isn't second hand junk, I just buy things and think I will use them one day, and end up never using them. Mostly my motivation peters out and I just forget about it. Now that I am on medication, I feel more motivated to do things, and finishing the blog, the "chatelaine" and stuff was really easy to do. I should live on this stuff! lol.

Her ladyship is loosing her hair for the warmer months ahead, and there is brown fur everywhere outside. I have been brushing her, rubbing her with a towel and whatever I can to ease the itching, but she has about 2 months to go of the worst of it. Poor thing. She just asks for a carrot now and then. Okay, she is somewhat spoilt, but being alone still she needs some sort of company.

The old person is getting grouchier and nastier and fatter. I suppose partly to do with his old age, but I think now more than before, he might be getting dementia. He refuses to see the doctor for a diagnosis. "There is nothing wrong with me. It's everyone who has a problem."

The daughter is blogging now. She bought a movie camera and is trying to load videos onto her blog, but has struck some technical complications we are going to have to get more information on. Once she has the videos uploaded I will let you all know.

Must go serve dinner. Nice chatting with you again ....

Nigh unto death's door ...

I hear ya knockin' but you can't come in ...

So I am a bit of a drama queen. What else is new. I have been sick. I have been feeling like the bottom of a dog's stomach and then some. It has been the dreaded lurgy, bitten me three times in seven weeks. It has left me feeling weak and tired. So I haven't been blogging or anything. Not even my sewing, cross stitch or horse have cheered me up. Although I have cheered my horse up, lol.

I also had a very nasty scare from my Doctor during this time and have had to sit down and rethink much of what I am doing and still want to do. I have been taking medication for the depression, and about the third day of taking it, my stomach, chest and throat felt funny. I went to the doctor's and he did an ECG test on me. He said that I had a small blockage in my heart.

Do you know what freaked out feels like?

He referred me to a cardiologist at the new Campbelltown Private Hospital. Swanky place. Not impressive when you could die there. Anyhow, the cardiologist had a newer machine and buttoned me up to it (yes, buttoned up. He put little disposable press buttons onto my vital points and hooked the machine up to them). After a few moments of reading on his computer, he assured me that I did not have a blockage, but that because of my weight and general health (I have high bloodpressure), I should do more tests. I have had to put these off because I got the dreaded lurgy again.

I am going to loose 40kg and get fitter than what I am. Nasty scare and not happy, Jan.

There is much more news, but let me get back into the swing of things again, and I shall catch you up.

adieu

The dreaded lurgy ...

I have been sick. I have had a head cold and have been feeling cold (or as my late Mother used to say "Death Warmed Up"). My head has been stuffy, my throat sore and my nose, well let's just say I wish I had a faucet handle with an off direction. Aaaarrrggghhh!

Anyhow, I am over that now and will be blogging on tomorrow with my late but not forgotten second part of my Tutorial on my craft blog.

I have been back to see the Doctor, after he did a blood check on me last week. It was all good, although he did say to watch my blood sugar. Since diabetes runs in the family (again, from my Mother, "like a wooden leg") I take this warning seriously. The old person doesn't, since it does not affect him. But I will be looking seriously at our/my diet and make a few adjustments. If he wants to claim we are starving him, well let him starve. The doctor said he has to loose about 20kg. He gained it all since he quit smoking last year. I will not even think about what he has been eating much less print it here, but it involves alot of sausage meat.

And frankly, if I never saw another potato it would be 20 minutes too soon.

I saw the Doctor about my depression and for the time being he has put me onto medication. This is okay, but it takes a few weeks for the body to adjust. He said to be aware of feeling euphoric, but mostly I have had even worse erratic sleep than normal and feeling anxious. He assured me it was just the medication and gave me this week off work. I have been trying to go to bed at normalish times and try and sleep all night, as I wake at sixish to feed the horse anyhow. Last night was not too bad, I went to bed about 10ish and woke just after six, but I had woken several times during the night, and probably had one wake time of about an hour. It was too cold to get out of bed, but I tossed and turned.

So I will keep up with this and should eventually get back to normal. The medication does not cause me distress, and I will settle down with it, but if I appear nutty or something, in the next week or so, you will know why. lol.

Now the daughter has the dreaded lurgy and is struggling to keep herself from drowning.

Adieu ...

Out on the town ...

The daughter has a friend who often makes plans with her, and then just before all these events are going to occur, has to cancel them. The daughter often has quite good plans of her own based around these events, and it is always a disappointment for her and the boys when this happens. The friend is well intentioned, but does it with consistency. I often think I should advise the daughter to drop this person as a friend, but the grandsons are very fond of her daughter and would miss her.

So the latest let down was a sushi party they were to attend on Friday next week. The friend has had to cancel it. So the boys, who she had told herself, were really disappointed about it. It was to be the highlight of their holidays. So I told the daughter I would take them to see Kung Fu Panda, a cartoon on a the cinemas. It is a really kids thing and loads of fun. However, when we got to the cinema, it was booked out, and there wasn't going to be another session of the movie for four hours.

The boys really wanted to see the new Will Smith movie, Hancock. My feeling was that it would have been better for the daughter to call that one. Will Smith is good with the one liners, but sometimes a bit over the top and the younger grandson is only nine. So I said, what about, Get Smart? Mumble, mumble, okay Granma, since you want to see it so badly. Say What?

So we waited about three quarters of an hour for the session, and saw Get Smart. Very good chuckle, a few rudy bits, but nothing that was even porno in it, just jokes. And these went right over the boys' heads thank goodness. Other than that it was a delightful movie, not stupid funny but much slapstick and good jokes. Some really hairy scenes that left you a bit on the edge of your seat. I heard the boys giggling at quite a bit of it. We all agreed, that while it was disappointing not to see Kung Fu Panda, Get Smart wasn't a bad movie at all.

So Granma has the brainwave that while we are downtown, we might as well do the grocery shopping. When Granma is tired, some of her brainwaves are more like high blood pressure and not very brainy at all. Grocery shopping with two bored little boys is not fun for Granma or them.

The old person has said, ring me when you are ready to come home and I will pick you up.

What I forgot about the old person is his great leaps of assumption. The phone has rung, therefore it must be me, he does not need to pick it up and answer it, but just to come and pick us up. Meanwhile we are a little concerned: has he finally died? (This is us, we don't get that lucky), Is he in the shower? (Not for half an hour he is not), Is he out mowing the last of the horse's grass - again? We go downstairs (this is with a loaded trolley) again and, lo and behold, there he is.

I've been looking for you, where have you been? Ringing you. You should have known I would just come.

Is any of this logical to you? Now you know why I have high bloodpressure. Even my doctor is concerned about this.

Let me know when it is okay for me to go insane ...

... Brass Monkeys ...

Whoa! Here I sit in the garage on my laptop freezing cold - well sort of. The parts of my body with bare skin are cold, but the rest of me is quite warm. I came out to clean up after the grandsons and I had a day making Artists Trading Cards. They had the best fun. Grandson2 got stuck into the punches and grandson1 got into the paint pens. Every box of stuff they opened and saw all the goodies evoked a response of "Oh, Sick!" which in kid talk means the best ever. They spent a good half hour going through the sticker sheets, and then I showed the the boxes of beads, brads and eyelets. One got a tiger eyelet for his card and the other got a zebra. They were easily pleased. Being in the garage means they can make a bit of a mess and as much noise as they like and not disturb the old person.

The sister came over with Sunnyboy. So they then got stuck into the mud. We have had some rain here, and as it is so cold the ground takes forever to dry. Anyhow one of the benefits of living in a first world country is running hot water, so the mud was no big deal. When you are 9 - 12 years old, mud is as much of a toy as anything else. These days will draw to a close all too soon.

We had hot pies for lunch, except the sister and I who had pasties. Have not had a pasty in absolutely years. The places that still sell hot pies, no longer have them. I bought these ones frozen from the supermarket and heated them in the oven as the sister had sms'ed me to let me know she was on the bus.

The other sister has e-mailed to let me expect a visit at the end of the month. She has been out and about with her job, and hasn't had time to scratch her butt. It will be good to catch up with her.

So that is all my news. Yeah, mind boggling I know. Deal with it.

ciao ...

Woohoo ...

Wow, I feel so very good, right now. Last weekend I stitched a panel for a Cathederal Window Quilt and photo documented sewing it. I have just finished uploading it as a tutorial on Bilum.
Well part one anyhow.

There are 20 photographs in all, so it will take an age to load on dial-up connections and takes a while on ADSL1 (broadband). On wireless, take pot luck, I'm afraid. If it is clear where you are it will download fairly quickly, but on a cloudy to overcast day - potluck.

Next weekend I will have Part Two ready.

Not alot has been happening with me. It was enrolment week at work last week, so very work intensive. I am still a bit tired from it all, but I will comment, the Boss ordered in Pizza for afterwards and there was much bon homme. Two more weeks till the gathering of the clans for semester two.

This week I am off work to help the daughter. She has to go to a training course while the boys are on school hols. I have them this week and a very kind girlfriend has said she would take them for the three days next week. We are going to see a movie, do some scrapbooking and bake some biscuits.

Till again ...

Meanderings ...

Well, the sister came over yesterday and we had a pleasant afternoon. I have moved things around in the garage so that I can do my sewing and crafts out there. We sat at the big table the daughter and I had moved from the house. We drank tea in her case, and coffee in mine, and chatted. The kids watched a movie the daughter had rented and then they played happily enough outside.

Today I got in and sorted the rest out, my boiler iron and ironing board, my sewing machine and started a small project. It gets very cold out there at night, or I would be out there now. When the weather warms up some, I will take the laptop out and spend evenings in there as well.

The old person is a bit miffed the car doesn't fit in, but he has better peace and quiet for watching the idiot box. There is less noise as the daughter has her computer in another room and I don't invade anymore. So in most ways it has worked out well.

I will be documenting the small project on my craft blog because I am doing it as a tutorial on a type of quilting not often seen anymore.

I have some news, and that is I am not going to finish my course this year. I have been suffering depression for a while now and it has got to the stage where it is zapping all my concentration. It is why I haven't been blogging as regularly as I had planned. I have not abandoned my studies, just delaying till I move - the course is offered in other states as well. I can finish there, as well as here, but hopefully a move will help put the black dog to sleep. What little focus I have has to go into my job and just generally living. The delay will also give me impetus to keep on and do the rest of the course as I am still determined to do the Diploma as well. I haven't failed any of my subjects, in fact I have a couple of credits and at least one distinction that I can think of at the top of my head.

So there it is, I have said it, make of it what you will ...

Aliens ...

I have just updated Alien Thoughts. Wow, totally blows you away what some people can convince governments to do. Creepy to think that could happen here in Australia too.

Labour Government = vested interest and denial of the right to make fun of the lunatic fringe.

'nuff said.

Seriously ...

So tonight was last class for the Semester and we had an exam. I had a resit on Tuesday which surprisingly enough, I think I passed. lol. However, one of the other people from my class last year had a resit which the teacher said he could do with our class tonight. He is an Iraqi and a very nice man. He also has a good sense of humour and likes to try to understand Australian humour.

The teacher told him to sit away from us, as we can be a pretty rowdy group. We had to wait for the last remnants to rock up before he would give us our papers, but let the guy start his.

There is a Fijian Indian guy in my class. He takes many liberties "because he can" with what he says, does and believes. Mostly he is just silly and has a strange sense of humour. I have gotten on okay with him, because he isn't dull. But tonight while we were waiting and the Iraqi guy had started his exam, the Fijian guy started going on about Muslims. I don't know if the Iraqi guy is Muslim or not, (although I think he is). What was being said was rude and not necessary. The teacher did not pick him up on this, which I guess he wasn't sure how to react. Anyhow, I just turned around and said to him, do you mind not going on about that stuff here. He said to me, I didn't know you were a Muslim. I replied, I am not, but what you are saying is not appropriate here.

I am probably never going to set eyes on them again, as they had only joined the course to learn PHP, which we have finished now. Next semester we go on to learn Javascript and some other stuff. But honestly, they just made me so cranky.

I have met many Muslims in my time, both in my work, which is in a high Muslim area in Sydney, my leisure - Darley bent over backwards to make me and my horse welcome when we bred Eternal Strangers - and I know Princess Alia of Jordan a bit through one of my forums and a few others. I have never, ever had one Muslim be rude to me or show any sort of disrespect. When I worked in the Automotive section of my TAFE, the young guys used to call me Miss. When the daughter did TAFE courses, her immediate friends in her class were Muslim women, who always were nice to her.

You would be hard pressed to get me to say anything bad about them.

Yeah, it is a while since I last blogged. I have been doing other things, like study and working on my assignments. I will probably be a while before I publish again while I finish of the clearing and cleaning project and the last of my assignments. I shall return. With some news, I think.

The Empress' New Clothes ....

Yup, we finally got Her Ladyship a new rug and a new halter. She looks so chuffed. She didn't like the smell of them when we first took them out to her. A carrot soon fixed that. She was happy enough to let the old person and the daughter put it on her and do up the straps. Then she was miffed that no carrot was forthcoming to reward her for just standing there.

Where she stands is where she can see everything from all angles, the road, the house (there might be a carrot) and the stable area out the back. She can see our comings and goings, even pegging out the clothesline and the boys when they go out and play. She sincerely believes it is her duty to watch them. She will stand for hours, not grazing, not moving, maybe swishing a fly with her tail. She dozes off. Even if we go out in the car she does not move.

It is somewhat neurotic behaviour, partly having been a stable horse since she was very young and partly because she has no other equine company.

We were lucky, as the horse equipment shop was having a sale at the time we go it, and it was quite inexpensive. Her name is Blue Bell Babe, so a blue rug is quite fitting.

Work has been much the same, although I have hardly seen the Boss for the past two weeks. He has been off on personal matters for one week and doing work related things off Campus the other week. I have been to classes but skipped one. Lucky for me that I did, as there has been a virus going around the IT section computers that kills USB sticks. All my classwork is on mine, and I have not had enough sense to have backed it up recently. When they ran mine through the detector program, it said mine was clear, yet everyone else in the class had it. I was away for one class and that was when they got it. Still, it gave them a closer time period for the onset of the virus and now they are able to treat it. Actually, I think it might have been a Trojan. Creepy. The weird thing about it all, was that until I had my USB stick checked, I felt as though I had some disease. Not to a great extent, just a bit of a grubby feeling. lol.

I get my sewing machine back tomorrow, and I have been madly doing the last of the cleaning up. There are still large boxes to check what goodies they contain, but I have a feeling most of the stuff is junk we can toss. The recycle bin has been full every fortnight it has gone out. I still have things that I am working on that need a temporary home till they are finished. But so much has been done that I don't mind having to wait a couple of weeks to get the other storage units for them.

Before I moved here, I salvaged about 10 shoe boxes and covered them with Contac. I filled them with ornaments and glasswear. Now there are some trades in them, stuff I have received in trade for stuff I have made and sent to other people. So those will have to be rehoused to so I can repack my ornaments and glasswear. We moved here in September 2003 and so it will be over five years when we leave at the end this year.

It is a lovely location and I would have loved to have lived here longer, but the place is not maintained by the "Landlord" because eventually the place will be bulldozed to make way for a highway. They have been talking about this highway for over 20 years, so the locals tell me, so whenever it will be. The place is also full of termites and may fall down before it is bulldozed. We have asked repeatedly for work to be done - basic maintenance and it is never done, so we have little choice but to move on.

So that is all for just now ....

Clearing and Cleaning ...

One day on one of the yahoo groups I am in, we posted photos of our work space to see who had the messiest. I was convinced I would win, because I just move things around till I work on a space barely six inches square, at times. No, they told, me. You have nothing on your chair, you can still sit down. Yes there are people who have a worse mess than me, but not many.

So the day came I decided I had better do some slum clearance. The daughter has offered to have my sewing machine serviced for me, so I need to get in and sew. I am actually excited at the prospect. I joined a fabric craft network recently and feel that it will help me extend myself a little which is what I need.

So the table is getting cleared and cleaned. I had to layby some drawer units to enable that. I have loads of things for my papercrafting and scrapbooking so having a nice neat, clean place to keep it is a necessity really. What I need is a similar thing for my sewing ephemera, and I saw K-mart had some nice units for around $80. They are only plastic and for a few $$$ more I could probably get some nice chipboard/wooden ones. I would love to see Ikea, but getting there is more trouble than it is worth. Randwick or Homebush, both involve train and bus trips so I couldn't exactly carry heavy stuff with me. The old person, will drive to Randwick for the races but will not drive there for any other reason (go figure). But who always moans and complains about the mess?

This will leave me with more room so that I can cut and sew to my heart's content, and use the papercraft stuff when making art dolls. I have several ideas I am itching to try.

The other cleaning out was my RSS Reader, on Google. For whatever reason, it does not read properly on the Daughter's computer and will reinsert items I have already looked at. I have gone through on my laptop using up some wireless time to do it, so that I know they stay "read".

The entire house could use a bit of a scrub and I might get in and do some vacuuming tomorrow if I feel in the mood.

ciao ...

Unethical ...

So the daughter got phoned to say she had a job, as I mentioned in my last post. So she is very excited and hopeful of a new life for her and the grandsons. You can imagine her utter despair when the woman rang back to say that because the old boss is leaving, they are not able to put her on after all. Is that not the most pathetic and incredible brainless thing you have ever heard in your life (well, maybe the second most brainless)?

Disappointment and anger do not begin to describe how we all felt.

There isn't anything to be done, either. Placating words, of "oh, she will get another job", etc., will not get her another job. Neither does it alter the fact that we are leaving at the end of the year and some work experience would have been such a confidence builder for her new life.

I have endured another three days at work which does not put me in a better mood for blogging. So I had better go ...

Moving right along ...

The daughter finally got a job! She is so excited. It is working in a shop selling things. The interviewer said she wanted someone with no experience so that they could train the person to their way and not have to untrain them, if you get my drift. She doesn't start for another month, but it is a good step in the right direction.

Dramas :

After the major fiasco with Telstra and my laptop, I now have one brewing by Optus and my ancient mobile phone. We have decided in the family to all use Vodaphone. So the sister got a new phone and went with them from scratch, the daughter has been with them for a while and so I thought I would do it as well. Should be just able to go buy a Vodaphone SIM card, plonk it in and away we go?

You have got to be kidding. The SIM card was rejected. Phone Optus and the voice recognition software does not work very well. So I ring a local branch, but no, one is required to ring the voice recognition software. At my age, this is not a good thing. I do not have the patience. So the daughter knows how to trick this stuff into connecting to a real person. In India or some other third world call centre. I have to push keys on my phone, give them the serial number. Okay, not exactly rocket science. If he has it on his computer, he can give me the code over the phone (yeah, right) otherwise I will get an SMS message within 10 working days. Does anyone seriously believe their number is on his computer?

Now, the thing is, when you are in a Third World call centre, you are not going to give much of a shit about the problems of a person living in a First World country, are you? So it is the 2nd June today, let's just see how long I have to wait? Who is betting against 10 whole days?

It is raining ...

So Her Ladyship was really annoyed I was late with breakfast this morning (imagine looking at watch and going "What time do you call this?"). She has a choice of three dry stables and she was sopping wet. Stupid horse. It wasn't really all that cold out, so I imagine that didn't bother her all that much.

Fairly quiet weekend. My DVD for yesterday was Event Horizon. I had seen it before, and I do not know what possessed me to borrow it again. It isn't a bad movie, and the FTL theory is okay, (ye kenna break the laws of physics) and it starts off well. Even the idea of the ship having gone beyond the universe is okay, but to Hell? That is where I think they lost the plot. Why couldn't it have some nice/positive connotation just for once? Why do SF writers bother with this religious stuff?

Sam Neill is a delicious baddy. He is a superb actor and brings quality to anything he is in, so with a plot like that, it looses credibility very quickly. But then, you would also have to ask yourself, Why would such a good actor take on that sort of role. Oh Well. I should have stuck with the daughter's DVD, Predator, with the Governator in it. (lol). It didn't even pretend to be something it wasn't.

I did seriously try to watch Gatacca again, really I did. No amount of talking will ever convince me it is a classic or even worth watching again. Anyone who wants it can PM me and I will post it to you. Solaris is on video and once the VRC dies, that is it for Solaris as well. Whoever came up with this list has their brains in their undies.

Gotta go do something ...

Got a life ...

If you have spent any time reading this blog, it might have occurred to you that I do not have much of a social life. By and large this suits me, I am not a social person in that I do not really enjoy going out, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and saying witty things to people I barely know and stuff. However, last night was a bit different.

About two weeks ago one of our old managers came by our workplace, and suggested we all get together the following Friday for drinks and social activities. My first reaction to this is always, erh, thanks but no thanks. But feeling a bit annoyed at the time with some of the things at work,
I changed my mind and said I would go.

So last night, I walked up the street, towards the venue, the Padstow Bowling Club. I did my hair, put on a light jacket that matched the out fit I had on, and a puff of scent and walked in. No one else was there at the time, so I sat on a poker machine and won my self a couple of extra $$$. Chuffed with that, I wandered off to find one of the part time workers who works the opposite end of the week to me, had turned up with her 15 month old baby. So I sat with her and gooed over the baby. We chatted and finally the others turned up. There were also some people from Bankstown workplace. I had met them a few times before, so I wasn't totally lost in the conversations. And I had a nice discussion with the supervisor.

Then one of the teachers came around selling meat raffle tickets. Using my poker winnings I bought a minimum amount and won a meat tray. That was a buzz. It was some sausages, bacon and pork chops. There was another win at our table and everybody was happy for us.

I bought a huge burger and large plate of chips for $5.00 which was a bargain these days. I didn't have an alcoholic drink, but sat on a can of soft drink for the night. I left just before eight pm for the station which is less than 200 metres away.

It was a buzz going, and I had a good time.

But I slept all afternoon today.

Quiet ...

Well, after the excitement of the weekend, it has been a bit anticlimactical. Went into Campbelltown this morning and got goodies in Spotlight, then the sister turned up and we came home (yeah really exciting). Sister had some goodies that she wants us to store while she returns to Queensland. So we put them into plastic containers.

Sunnyboy watched a DVD while we yakked some and then they left.

I have decided to do some crochetting and had bought some hooks. I also got some nice "grunge board" shapes that I am itching to colour and stamp. So I wont be bored on the weekend. The old person is pressuring me to go to the races. I don't know about that, yet.

s'all ....

Updating ...

The aliens packed up all their goodies and left for the darker reaches of outer space.

I have updated my craft blog with a star book. It has many photos which drive me mad sometimes. One or two like I use on here isn't so bad, but when I load more than three I have to drag and drop, then add a caption. Still, I am pleased with the result I have now. Do pop by to have a look.

We have to get Her Ladyship a new rug. The old one was about seven years old and just not usable any more. The only place we can get them is out at Camden. With the price of petrol these days, it is an expensive venture.

Feed prices have remained high, whereas in the past, once the drought is broken, prices go back down, the cost of transport has kept them high. Once she has her foal next year, she can go onto food that pony club horses eat, not this expensive lah-di-dah Thoroughbred fancy food she gets now.

Last week I went to a shop run by a Lebanese family. The father asked me if I knew the story of the first horse ridden. Well, knowing the family is not Muslim, I had to think. Yes, I said, it was Ishmael. What is the story, he asked me. Ishmael gathered a hundred mares that he had kept from water for three days. He then let them go towards the river, just before they reached the river, he called to them. Only five mares turned around and returned to him. The others all went for the water. So the five mares were selected to form the foundation of the modern Arabian horse.

Chaswyck Calyph (Her Ladyship's next beau)

Yes, he said, this is the true story. All the Arab people are decended from Ismael and all the Jewish (he pronounced it Yewish) people from Isaac. Both were the sons of Abraham. He seemed pretty pleased that I knew the story.

When you retell it to a Muslim Arab, you have to say that it was the Prophet who had the mares and they decend from his five mares.

Spending time on the horse forums, mixing with people from all over the world, including the Middle East gives one a good perspective of what is really important. Cultural differences are all put aside when discussing horses.

that is it for now ....

Confrontation ...

So I ran into the alien who left the Port-a-dunny and this was his reaction when I confronted him:


Do you think he was a bit pyst? I was scared of those teeth, let me tell you. But he just made a Worf like roaring noise and walked away muttering about inappreciative women ....

Well, here is what happened at the girl guides grounds today

(Click on the photos to enlarge, 'k?)

We were wondering about the other tent near the Port-a-dunny. It was a blowup thing.

Bungy Trampoline. I kid you not.

There were about 200 people turned up; it was a recruitment drive for the GG's. I hope they did well. Her Ladyship was unimpressed with the Bungy Trampoline and refused to visit the

little girls who really wanted to pat her.

So yeah, a vibrant and exciting day - not for us though.

UFO...

This is what the aliens left us in next door at the Girl Guides camping ground. No, it is not a green TARDIS. (Alas). It's a Port-a-Dunny. And you can see it directly from the kitchen window. What a thing to wake up to of a morning and go to rinse your cup to make your morning cuppa. I think there is going to be a gathering of the clans in the next 24 hours or next weekend. Bell will be so happy, she just loves the little girls and will be hoping a few will have brushes, combs and ribbons for her mane and tail. I guess if they do you will know that they really are prepared.

The sister came again today with Sunnyboy. Her computer has died. It looks like it died a horrible death too, with bits missing. We tried to see if it would regenerate Dr Who like, but alas it does not have a Eye of Harmony. I guess for the price she paid for it, it would have been asking too much. She is going to try and find her reboot disk, and if not or, if that doesn't work I shall have to give it to one of my teachers. They love that sort of thing. The challenge, the gauntlet, the despair ....

Ooo Oooo I nearly forgot. EzyDVD will order in Forbidden Planet for me, if I go in and pay for it in person. Coooool.

So back to the drawing board ...

This is my life ....

more cat pictures

Anniversary

Yesterday, Alien Thoughts went on line one year ago. I still have till the 10 of June for my anniversary for this blog. Thought I might just mention it.

Update ...

I have just added an opinion piece to Alien Thoughts. After all this time. It is just a small piece about a couple of stallions and just musing about something they both did.

Not alot is going on at the moment. My night classes on Monday is just preparing a project that is going to involve me actually designing a website and getting it hosted on the internet. If it is any good, I will provide a link.

I will write more later on.

More DVD's

Aaaargh! The old person took an extended nap, so I thought I would watch Solaris. While I finally got the point with Blade Runner, Solaris is just awful. The movie isn't really all that SF, other than the main plot is based on a space station orbiting a thing (one gathers a star, although even that isn't stated). There are flash backs to the guy's life on earth, and after a while you realise he has become one of the entities. But the entities remain anonymous. So you are left wondering - are these aliens or are they the sub atomic particles left over from a previous life and Solaris is where they spend "eternity". I guess maybe that is the point of the movie, you don't know.

This is also the premise behind Peter Hamilton's trilogy. Although it is explained by him how the entities came to be, even who they were prior to death. But speculation about death in this manner (both Solaris and Hamiltons works) is not really useful SF. It crosses over into religion and becomes a bit pontificating, whether this is intentional or not.

So these SF writers postulate death. They feel that the subatomic remains after death go somewhere (neither being the religious concept of Heaven or Hell). They don't necessarily get reincarnated, but the potential is there for them to do so. Afterall they are just hovering, in, I guess, some sort of limbo waiting. That is even more pointless than atheism's death is the end of life and there is nothing more.

It seems to me to be a sort of grasping at straws. The rejection of the atheist version of death, but also the rejection of the religious "afterlife/reincarnation" as well. They try to postulate another way through but at a more earthly body human type way. Undead and zombies.

Another genre is related to this, and it is vampirism and undead/zombies. Although they appear more to be fantasy stories rather than speculative Science Fiction. I don't mind a good vampire movie.

I watched Blade, a vampire movie, which both my grandsons had seen before and insisted on watching again with me. At the gory bits, I tend to look away. But my younger grandson said "Granma, you have to watch this bit, it is so cool..." so I did. One character took a huge sword and slashed the other character in half with it. The top of the slain character jumps up into the air and all blood rushed from his body. It was disgusting. But my grandsons insisted it was the coolest scene in the whole movie. They left after that. Goodness only knows what sort of psychological damage that sort of thing does to wee boys, but for those two, it is just cool. They do insist that I don't take it so seriously (the blood thing) - "it is only a movie, Granma".

seriously ....

Classic SciFi ...

So I have just finished watching Blade Runner for about the forth or fifth time in my life. Until now I have sort of not got it, but I think now I have. It is a strange sort of movie in that it is raining the whole time.

Now since the story is set in the year 2019, and scientists are predicting global warming, surely the rain is an anomoly, right? And how come the internet is nowhere to be seen? Harrison Ford is kinda not the best person to have played Dekert, he just isn't brooding enough and obviously the part should have been played by someone who was "brooding". (Although this is a funny word - one always associates anything 'brood' with breeding, eg broodmares, broodie chooks), yet for the sake of mood, the word brooding is used to mean, well not a happy character. Harrison Ford, to me is Hans Solo or Indianna Jones. Gung ho as all getout. Not the dark, seedy character he is supposed to be in this movie.

The lines are a bit pathetic as well. Although I guess overall the movie makes its point. It is much of the point of Astro Boy as well, and I guess finding an anology there means I watch too much stuff and not read as much as I should. lol.

Well, now I have to try to get through Solaris. It is supposed to be one of the five classics that you must have in your really geek SF collection, with the aforementioned Blade Runner, Star Troupers (you have to be kidding me right?), Gattica and I think the other one is Forbidden Planet. Now, I saw Forbidden Planet when I was a child. I vaguely remember it and it was a creepy movie then. I have never seen it on Amazon or any other DVD online seller. I have seen it mentioned, but not as for sale as a DVD. But I would love to have it. It was apparently one of the first ever SF movies made of the more psychological genre, and not the monster/alien movies. I only have Solaris on Video, so it may have to wait a couple of weeks till the old person is at the races and the sister not visiting. He doesn't like the movie and I find it somewhat annoying myself. But I haven't watched it all the way through yet, so I intend to do this.

Well whatever SF powers that be that decided these were the classics, the best SF movies, must be fairly limited. I would like to see more Asimov as movies, and there are books out there I read years ago and have since passed on to others, that I need to collect again and reread. SF is good because perhaps one day it could be possible.

But not with a Labor Government.

till next time ...

The Budget

Well, seriously, what did you expect? He had to reward all his little mates for voting him in, now didn't he? All those "rich" folk who voted for him have had their eyes opened, and all the not employed people who thought their time had finally come. Well, hello, reality. I did try to warn you. Even the old person is not impressed. He who told me only idiots do not vote for the Labor Party. Now who is the idiot? The daughter has also been extremely vocal.

This budget seems to be deliberately aimed at causing the inflation they were touting it to fight. Raising the Medicare Levy means many people will drop out of private insurance causing extra pressure on the system which isn't coping all that well with present levels. Making the top bands that come to Australia have to have a lead in of a local band is going to mean the big bands wont come here. Just because Elton John does it, doesn't mean the gangsta rockers are going to do it. Thinking it is going to be some sort of leg up for wannabe bands is not going to happen. Appeasing the arty farties is going to backfire when the big bands don't come here. We are still a long way away from anywhere, it is expensive for bands to come here and to find out they have to support wannabes is not going to encourage them to come. Oh, Peter Garrett ordered it, so it has to be done.

I think the biggest chuckle I had on Tuesday night watching Swannie do his thing was seeing PG in a suit. That was just so funny. And if you saw the half face of KRudd in the background that was funny too. The lady sitting behind them was like a puppet with a hand up her back. It is often more telling to watch these sort of people than the actual speaker. I had the feeling the woman had not an idea of what was being said. I don't think she realised she was on camera. She joined in a few "here, heres" rather belatedly as well. Do you think PG uses anything on his head to make it that shiny? I know old guys use stuff called Cherry Wax. Hmmm. PG is a nature lover I don't see why he wouldn't.

Maybe I will get a little extra with the tax cut and all, but with prices skyrocketing, I doubt it will do much. I shouldn't be ungrateful, I suppose. And my union is going to e-mail me with rave reviews about it all (cringe). Ah well, such is the way of things I suppose. You all did vote for the dears.

Why don't all those guys have balls and do something ballsy with their time in Government? I guess 'cause they don't.

so much for politics...

Dinner ...

I am cooking a meatloaf tonight for dinner. Maybe I will photograph it and you can see for yourself how it looks. I am not a cook. You put stuff in front of me on a plate, tell me it is food and I will eat it.

Reading through my last lot of blogs, I have done alot of really negative writing. Putting thoughts on, well, not paper obviously, but you get my meaning. lol.

The sister came over with Sunnyboy. We chatted about this and that. We debated the merit of keeping ducks. Ducks quack at rooster times and do not impress me anymore than a rooster would. She likes ducks, mostly from the critter perspective and I guess there are uses for them.

She blogs about them, and the other birds she sees around. I do not find birds all that interesting, although we have many here at Unicorn farm. I wish I could photograph some of them, simply because they are of interest to other people. We have had a tribe of rosellas take up residence in the weeds at the bottom of the paddock. I think, although I don't know for sure, that they might nest in the bushes next to the weeds, but in the next paddock. There are some native bushes there that the seem to fly off to occassionally. And the magpies. I think they are the descendants of Cody's Friend. He isn't around any more, been gone for almost a year, I think. He went not long after Cody. I haven't talked to the other ones. Since I am leaving, I don't want them getting all human friendly that others can take advantage of them and kill them.

The sister and I were discussing how when we first came here there was a small group of plovers. The lived in next door for a while, and we thought they might have been nesting. But there was a man who came by with a ride on mower and mowed everything.

Then the plovers moved into our front paddock. The horses didn't bother them too much. They would come and go, as plovers do. Wander down the middle of the road so that the old person had to toot them along so we could come or go ourselves. But even then, when the drought got even worse, they left. Probably in search of permanent water. They never entertained the idea of the horses' bath like other birds did. They appear to be waders of some sort and I guess they need different type of water to the land birds.

The cockies have gone and wont be back till about the end of August/September.

Well grandson1 has signed on to help junior kids at school with their reading. He has to go early on Tuesdays to do this. It is a pretty decent thing for him to do. I think it is also pretty responsible of him. The students have to volunteer to do it, and make a commitment to get to school early and do it every week. I don't mind that we have to leave around 8:00am to walk to school and I might have to sit for a while with grandson2 till the teacher turns up. Means I will be home earlier as well.

I am trying to keep my walking up to about 15 miles per week. I did it last week, and I aim to do it again this week, but it leaves me a bit tired and hungry all the time. Weird. But I guess over time I will adjust to it and I will actually have more energy and wont need to eat all the time (grazing - lol).

Well, that is my lot for just now.

adieu ...

My week so far ...

The old person will be home tomorrow as 1. he has run out of money and 2. It is a stand alone Saturday for Hawkesbury Racetrack. This came about when the Olympic Games were on in the year 2000 and the racing fraternity decided not to hold a city meeting for the Games Week. So Newcastle was given a stand alone day. There were dire predictions that it would be a doomed meeting and no one would turn up (because they would all be at the Games, right?). Ha. It was one of the best race days ever. All the city folk who normally went to city races went up to Newcastle and had a rip snorter of a day and declared it a success. So the city group grudgingly said they could have one day a year for a provincial stand alone Saturday.

Hawkesbury Race Course has its own train station. It is directly across the railway and road from Richmond Airforce Base and it probably one of the most beautiful racetracks in the Country. If it wasn't for the fact that it takes an hour and a half to drive there I would probably go more often. I guess the real sentimental value of it is that it is where I first got to meet Bell and pat her and see her actually run, even though she didn't race. They had only just bought her for the Derby Club and it was the first time we saw all the horses together. They had only just got Russian Romance as well. RR looked like a doll, and being chestnut was just a shiny red horse. Bell looked, and still does look, very utility. She never had the exotic looks of Night Whisper or the bread and butter guts of Measure of Luck. She never had the gumption that Wave a Wand had for busting up a field to win. Gumption is not her style.

But I was concerned in those days of the fact she was by Citidancer. Citidancer had sired a horse that had been a bleeder. That was in the days when they thought bleeders were a genetic thing, and I didn't know any better. Bell never bled, neither did Goldie when she raced. Bleeding is not a genetic thing but a condition caused by the horse not being fully fit for racing. It comes about in a similar way to shin soreness, running a horse not really ready for that level of work. Why they have to ban a bleeder for life isn't something I fully understand. They don't do it in the US. At least a bleeder mare doesn't have to be excluded from breeding.

Well, yesterday at work was another time the Boss decided I and another woman needed a bit of "reminding" about our work. I just thought it was that perhaps I didn't have the right attitude to my work and was nothing major so I just agreed, listened to the new work load I was to be given and let it go.

But the other woman, who is a really hard worker and good at organising was appalled and very upset by it. She came in distressed this morning and when the Boss was out of the office began telling us why it upset her. The others joined in and it turns out that another woman who only works part time at the opposite end of the week to me had complained. It was unfair on the first lady. Anyhow, I suggested that she needed to give herself a "get out clause".

She had mentioned previously she was interested in doing MYOB so that she could help her son in his business. The classes are at night and it is a good step to another job. I told her, " I wont beat around the bush, night classes are a bitch. But in the end you have the stepping stones to go on to a better job and work with better people." I told her about having to repeat this semester, but that I was learning more and will be in a good position to become a Web Designer with the stuff I was learning.

Besides, I told her, your son wants you to keep his books because he can trust you. If he has to send them outside, he risks the outsiders cheating him, but if you do the books for him he doesn't have that worry. So because I know she would do anything for her son, I think she will seriously consider it. So in the end, the "talk" may have turned into a good thing for her.

I seriously thought about finishing up there and then as well. If I was really as bad as they say I am, they wouldn't still give me work to do, they would complain more frequently and the Boss, now that I know him better, would be alot shittier towards me than he is.

Later when another, third woman, took his secretary aside and told her what had gone on, she said that if the Boss was really serious about telling us off he would have taken us into his office alone not with each other and certainly not with the supervisor as he had. She claimed it was only an appeasement to the other woman. She seemed to think he had only said anything to me at all because he didn't really want to say anything to the first woman so had generalised for us both.

I just said if there is a problem, perhaps the Supervisor should just say it to our faces.

I also noticed discrepancies over what was said and what is the actual true position of things and I am wondering why there are lies going on? If another person had not been involved, I would just think, they are picking on me and leaving others alone. But both of us?

Next time I will involve the union. It has got to the stage of being ridiculous.

Well, that is my moan and groan for the day.

The sister is coming tomorrow and we will have a good chat. The old person will go hide in his room and listen to the races. It will be good, because the boys are going to watch the Youtube episode of Dr Who from the BBC on the daughter's computer. That will keep them all out of mischief. It is pretty decent of the daughter as she does't particularly like her cousin Sunnyboy.

so till next I gripe ...

Hmmm....

I have been thinking seriously about making one of my blogs commercial, probably the Craft one, as craft on the Internet seems very popular. Or I could do the horse one. But that means a daily commitment to blogging and interacting with other bloggers, leaving comments and researching. It isn't that I am not capable of doing these things, it is just the commitment of time that would be required to do it.

I never blog from work, even though I will read blogs at work when there is no work. I don't think my boss is paying me for that, even if reading is done on his time. The onus is on him to give me enough work. I can't just sit there twiddling my thumbs. Also, I am fairly certain that from time to time the IT department reviews what gets done on the computers, just incase that, despite their really onerous nanny filter, someone might look at porn. I know a couple of blokes that were in trouble for forwarding on inappropriate e-mails. Funny how it is always the guys, and never the girls. I have received plenty of questionable e-mails from female staff. I just delete what I don't really like. I don't have time to be that petty.

Once I have finished work, the commitment wouldn't be a problem, it is just that I would really like to set it up before then. Still, making decisions like that usually end up with "I am sorry I didn't do it sooner". lol.

I also have some ideas for a couple of other blogs, that I am thinking about. However, I often wonder if I don't just think these things up as amusing thoughts just for the sake of being amusing when I should be thinking about other things. I guess my middle name should be procrastinator and just get on and do it.

Pencil and paper on the weekend.

adieu ...

The Forces of Darkness ...

are gathering. Yes we are.

Why is everyone so interested in a wannabe like Danni Minogue? She always seems to me to be riding on Kylie's fame, and can't quite make it herself. But I guess she is more accessible to the journos than Sis, so she makes good copy. I guess we should be grateful she isn't as batshit crazy as Britteny Spears ...

I am breaking one of my own rules here, if you don't pay them any attention they will go away.
Eventually, I suppose.

Everywhere you go, someone is commenting about some looney, wannabe. Maybe I am just old and cynical, but I don't remember them being so talked about when I was in my teens and early twenties. The big raves then were all the scandals the famous groups were getting into, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. One of the girls wouldn't invite me to her birthday party because I wasn't a hard core Rolling Stones fan. In the end no one turned up anyhow, and it was supposed to be the birthday bash of the year. She came to school about two days late and was very contrite. Funny what sticks in your mind after all these years.

Now, of course, we are into Jazz and more classical music. My daughter is talking about taking the boys to Paint Ball, and I am trying to talk her into getting them taught music. I guess she wants them rough and tumble so that they grow up as men and not effeminate. Being a single Mum is not easy when you have boys. I don't think the boys care either way other than they will be doing something better than being at home.

This is our Oleander bush growing outside the front of the house and near the front paddock. I like Oleander, because it is so pretty, but it is poisonous to animals if they eat it. But none of our
animals are ever that hungry. We have privet and Lantana as well which will make animals sick
as well. None of them show the slightest interest in eating any of it.

What you must do next ...

I was going to make this into a grand political rant, but really, I can't get up the enthusiasm. What sounds good in my thinking doesn't translate so well into blogspeak. lol.

Anyhow, since we have a Labor Government, just to remind you, the following are important:

Global Warming - that is what is making it so freezing cold around here. Understand?
Villification - the only people you can villify anymore are white people.
Standardisation - a mediocre education is better than a good education.
Atheism - is the new black.
Gay people - are the next step forward in human evolution.

And if you do not toe the line, you are a card carrying member of the forces of Darkness. Do I make myself clear?

Ah, the joys of social democracy ...

Nicotine patches ...

Okay, so I have been smoking since my 13th birthday. I have quit on several occassions over the past 20 years. Obviously, since I am writing about this, not very successfully. I will not bore you with the whys and wherefores of all of this, but I will cut straight to the chase. The last two times I gave up, I gave up with the assistance of nicotine patches. The first time for about 18 months and the second time for about a year. The last time was about 18 months ago. Oh, yeah, the patches work, but smoking seems to be a default status with me. lol.

The patches work by putting a continuous but teeeny amount of nicotine directly into your bloodstream so that you do not have to actually put a cigarette into your mouth. You go three weeks without the habit of smoking and cut down the level of nicotine to almost nil and then voila, you are a quitter. The theory sounds good.

One of the side effects of nicotine patches are "vivid dreams", psychobabble for nightmares worse than the most deplorable acts of terrorism. Those tiny nicotine driven nanobots travel into your brain, take a look around, have a good chuckle and take your absolutely worst fears and make them into a dreamscape reality. Waaaaah! Yeah, in otherwords you dream of your own death at the hand of some psychochotic serial killer and die. Yeah, you do. But then, you wake up in some way and watch the CSI:Miami team doing the forensics on your death and you get in and help them. G0 figure.

Now before you go, ew, I don't want to do that, let the words of experience stroke you gently.
You don't wear the blasted things to bed. Take them off about an hour beforehand and have a large drink of water. Make sure you go to the loo just before you go to bed. It doesn't get the nicotine out of your system, but reduces it to a more manageable level. You just don't dream about the post mortem. Okay, you don't get the "vivid dreams" either or they aren't so bad. Yeah, I know they aren't nanobots either.

They really do stop the cravings. The patches have nothing to do with why I have failed before. This time around I have done some stress management stuff and have alternative things to do with my hands. I also have some stronger painkillers - although the pain that I had previously was because of my gallbladder which has since been removed. I still lack strong coping skills, but as I am aware of this, I am able to deal more with it. As long as the old person doesn't annoy me more than usual. It is still against the law to kill people.

Ha. bye ...

Brass Monkeys ...

Anyone who knows me knows I prefer cold weather to hot weather. Winter is my default season. However, this is totally absurd. It is so cold these nights that I just want to crawl into bed and keep warm. My feet get cold unless I wear sox, and that is not good. If my feet are cold my whole body feels cold. We only have bar radiators here and they are expensive to run. It isn't even May yet! I can recall this time of year when there have been bushfires. Yeah, it's chilly. Brrr ...

I went over to the Scrapbook shop at Leumeah today to cut out some lettering for a friend's scrapbook she is doing for a friend of hers. She was inspired by the Wedding Album I did for another lady where we work. I have loaned her this and that to help her and another lady at work has loaned her stuff as well.

While I was there, one of the shop people gave me the Calender for May. There are a couple of good classes on offer and a Stamp Club one Saturday that I am very tempted to do. They have knocked the class cost down to $5.00 plus materials. Materials are rarely over $20 so it would be a good way to do something productive and some time out from home.

My own scrapbooking that I have done lately has been rather uninspired. Of course, now I use different techniques to what they taught us at Scrapbook University, but even so, the pages are pretty boring. Maybe a few classes would remotivate me.

I joined a Yahoo group a few years ago of local scrapbookers (i.e. in Oz) but it got to the stage where it was a couple of people doing all the threads, mostly on upcoming weekends away they were promoting or their own line of scrapbook stuff. There were a few swaps, but nothing of grand interest, so I finally left. I didn't joing another group for ages, but there is a US based group who use stamps from After Midnight, which I own a couple of, and Krafty Lady moulds of which I own several and will be buying more later this year. They have swaps, if you want to join, you can promote your blog/webpage, so I follow some of the blogs. Also they have tutorials and video tutorials which are really useful. It is all run by the people in the group, so it isn't a professional set up by any means. The people seem very nice, too. One Australian lady is on it whose art I have admired for a long time. She lives at Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory. Her work is a bit eclectic, but I love it anyhow. So little by little I am learning new techniques for my own art and hopefully in the near future will have some interesting things to post. Like all my stuff, it is a big maybe.

Her Ladyship finally managed to go down the back to live with the stables and a bath and tub for water, long grass, the sand in the round yard she looooves to roll in and the smell of the boy must have finally gone. The grandsons had set the stables up as a cubby house, so I felt a bit bad asking them to put it all away. They had built some clever stuff there and very imaginative problem solving for their ages. They are alot smarter than they let on. Both of them could be engineers.

Well, I must be off, my nice warm bed beckons me, and I have to go earn the pennies tomorrow. Till again we blog ...

Surrey with a fringe ...

After Ben Hur, I thought the barrel bottom had finally been reached, and from there it could only be up, right? Hahar. Now, the old person found Okalahoma! with all the song and dance of the original - heck it is a video not a DVD. Why hasn't the law changed? So I sang away the afternoon much to the annoyance of both the old person who went to bed before they got up to singing Poor Judd, and the daughter who does not care if it is a classic, I hate musicals that old, please don't sing and why do you want to watch it? okay, then give me back my computer.



Truth to tell, the songs are singable if you know the words, which I have done for what seems like all my life, but the story itself is a bit trite. The costuming, even for those days was cheap, and some of the acting was sloppy. They would churn them out in those days, so I guess it is only to be expected. Rod Steiger was far better as the Illustrated Man than Judd Fry.



I fell over the other night and banged my head on the ground. Not hard, not even enough to bruise me, because having rained there was mud and it was soft (lol) but it gave me a nasty fright nevertheless. My glasses fell off and I was lucky I found them in the dark. Neither the old person or the daughter heard me calling out, because for a few moments I seriously could not get up. But my trusty old Her Ladyship wandered up and had a smell to see if I was okay. She just stood there waiting. I have fallen in the past and when I have not got up, she has started neighing, so I knew I would be okay one way or the other. Still no one came, I got back up finally and went and gave her her hay. When I got back inside I was a bit grumpy from hitting my head, the leg on my glasses had been bent and still isn't quite right. I yelled at the old person and the daughter, changed and checked for cuts and bruises. Since then the old person has found where he left the torch and has been coming out with me. Hahar.

The sister and Sunnyboy came out yesterday afternoon while the old person was away at the races. She brought some eggs with her and bread, so we made scrambled eggs for lunch. Usually I put on lunch for us, which is usually sandwiches with a variety of fillings. Sometimes, too, we have hot dogs. Yum. It was a nice treat. We chatted about this and that, and I lent her some punches to punch out some shapes so that she can make some Artist Trading Cards and maybe a little scrap booking. I showed her how to make concertina books and a box to hold it in and a maze book which is folded in a certain way and then cut and folded again to form sixteen mini pages. (When I think about it, I haven't photographed the couple I have made, so it is a note to self to do so).

I gave her some inkpads and a stamp and a couple of punches for herself. I let her have some paper for the scrapbooking and some card stock. I also gave her some precut bland Artist Trading Cards so she has no excuses not to do it. I previously gave her a small sticker machine with a spare cartridge. She says she has some glue. I also said she was to photo graph the results and e-mail them to me. When she does I will post some, so you can see what she does.

So I am still working in flux to sort, cull and pack all my gear. Must get back to it ...

Thinking ...

I spend much time thinking of all the fabulous things I could say about current events, but by the time I get around to actually blogging, much of it seems pretty trite, and I forego the writing. Hence it sometimes looks like I am not all that interested. Spending time thinking is not sharing my thoughts and I have been wondering if I should perhaps, just for the heck of it.

We are in a sort of state of flux at the moment, and are likely to be for a while. I have lived in Sydney since 1995, and in that time I have collected a huge amount of stuff. You couldn't really call it much else in polite society. So I have decided it needs to be culled to a more manageable amount. It is not a rapid process with me, and much of it falls outside my fetish for lists. So I am starting with my art and craft stuff. I have on lay-by two portable drawer units and I will pack all my arts and crafts stuff (i.e. not my sewing stuff) into these two units and whatever does not fit into them will have to be either sold at a garage sale or put into the recycle bins. Some of my bigger items will come as I kept all the boxes, but the paper, embellishments, rubber stamps etc., will have to fit or go.

Then there are my magazines. When I finally decided to leave Whyalla, I had a collection of over 10 years of several magazines, including the weekly issues of New Scientist. There were over 10,000 individual magazines. Luckily for me, I was able to rid most of them at my garage sale at about $5 per 100. This is not ROI but then, I never had them for investment, just for the information they contained. I kept all my Arabian Horse News mags and some of my craft mags, about 500 in all. I have probably got about 3000 now, of the AHN, Scrapbooking and other arts and craft mags. So again, I will have to cull and sell some.

I hadn't intended on moving for quite a while when we first moved here or I would have curtailed. However, the house here is not being maintained as it would by a private landlord and the rain has caused much land deterioration from having had over 30 horses prior to our coming here. We have had one horse and have had to suppliment her feed as the grass, while it exists now, is not really all that nutritious and the land is very, very weedy. Herladyship will not eat weeds, and really, I can't expect her to.

Work wasn't bad last week, because I only worked for two days, Friday being a Public Holiday. A few people were off on leave anyhow, being the second week of the holidays. In fact, by Thursday afternoon there was only myself and one other person. As she is a temp, I got to be boss.

The boss himself had asked me to do a project which entailed making a small table, cutting out about 10 from an A4 sheet, laminating these and then cutting from an A4 laminated sheet. Then I had to get double sided tape and put a little onto each one. Each of these had to be stuck onto every single telephone on Campus. There were well over 100. It was a fun thing to do, workwise, but afterwards my legs were aching. Partly because instead of taking lifts to the second floor I took the stairs, thinking it would be better for me, and the lift is often out of the way, anyhow. I have been doing alot of walking lately, so I didn't think my legs would be so bad. Mind you for all the walking and eating good food, I don't seem to be loosing much weight. Wouldn't have anything to do with the chocolate, would it? lol.

Well, I am going to be disconnected soon, so I had better sign off. Trah ....

Greater than Ben Hur ...

So tonight's movie that the old person borrowed is Ben Hur. It's up to the horse racing scene. Ben Hur's boss said they were the finest horses from Arabia. Alas, not so. Apparently they were actually Lippizzaners - the horses that the use at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The Americans rescued the herd at the end of World War II, and kept some to take breed back in the USA. Anyhow, Lippizzaners are always white horses, so they had to use boot polish to make the chestnuts, bays and blacks in the movie. Also, the four abreast chariots were not used. Only two horses, and later only one horse.



There were a few Hippodromes scattered through the Roman Empire, but horse racing wasn't all that popular. The horses, far from being the 15 and 16 hand Thoroughbreds we see today, were more like ponies up to 14 hands. Even the Arabians back then were not as tall as you see today - the original imports in the 19th Century were only ever as tall as 14.5 hands. So speed factors only improved when the Arabians were crossed with more modern Trotters.



I could easily sit here all night talking about the history of modern horses, but I would probably bore you to tears.



My interesting news is that I have joined Second Life. I have an avatar called Anika Bondar. Anika is the feminie of Anikin, who of course was the Jedi warrior before he became Darth Vader. The daughter thought this was apt. Of course, for the true trivia buff, Anika is also the human name of Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager.



I have joined Second Life to participate in some of the education programmes offered there, but also to see if I can't set up some sort of business. Experiment on line to see the reaction for the real world, so to speak. But it is taking a bit of a while to get used to controlling the avatar and someone actually called me a Dag. Moi? I guess a cybergoth fatty would only be described as a dag if I am really honest. I tried to capture a picture of her, but alas it didn't work. Once I get the hang of things, I will upload a picture and you can decide if I am a dag or not.

bye ...

Not alone ...

Reading my RSS feed this morning I find I am not alone in my concerns about the Gay Lobby and children. If hetero's were to do some things gay people do around children, we would be dragged off to jail and branded as pedophiles, yet because "dad and dad" are gay, it is okay to do those things around children. Yetch.

Look I don't approve of other cultures that do honor killings of women/girls either, does that make me a racist?

Why can't people just let children be children. Time enough to find out about all that sex stuff when they are old enough to understand it. When they actually have "hormones". Imposing it on them before then is just sick. Call me whatever horrible label you like but that is how I feel and I know many people feel the same. Some even feel "worse", like killing and bashing. I don't think those things really solve problems, nor does writing a bog entry about it, but at least it is here in the Public Domain.

Now that the communists are in power in Canberra, it will only get worse. It is the kids I feel sorry for, because they have to carry the consequences into their adult years and support us oldies in our old age.

I had two issues when my children were growing up. One was blatant racism, because my children where not "white". The other issue was that the feminazis decided that girls were not getting a fair deal in the education system, and the way to solve this problem was to blatantly discriminate against boys. Having two sons and two daughters stuck me between a rock and a hard place. I spent many a long hour going up to the various schools my kids attended and point out to the most senior person and the school counsellor the blantant discriminations and asking what the fnck they were going to do about it. Which usually ended up - not much.

On top of that, one of the teachers decided that violence was a good way to solve some problems. He broke one kid's arm (not mine) and pushed one of my sons into a brick wall. When he was supposed to be reprimanded, the Teacher's Union stepped in and prevented this from happening.

Fortune smiled on me, in the end. I was on a high school council a few years later, and this teacher had come up for appointment as a Deputy Head Teacher. The two students on the council had expressed concern about this - one knew first hand of the incidents above and knew of others as well. My mother was also on the council, and so the four of us spoke to the other parental representatives who also had heard and expressed concern. When the vote came, the teachers were pretty pyst about it, but had to live with our vote to not let him be Deputy Head. The chairman of the council was also the Teacher's Union rep for the city, and also my teacher at TAFE. Later I asked her if it would affect my results at TAFE and she said it wouldn't. To her credit it did not. She knew I was the instigator of this event, and once we had had the opportunity to fully explain, she understood, as she also had a child at that school. There was much taking to task with other teachers, but the majority, once they understood the reasoning were okay with the vote.

Unionism has overstepped its mark in some respects. They should just be worker advocates, not politicians. (ooops. lol). (Insert Capitalist diatribe of choice in this spot).

I told you that story to emphasise the point that the Teachers Union carries much weight in what kids actually get taught. Whether it is in the classroom or not. Somewhere along the way a line has to be drawn in the sand and we say, just teach the kids the academic stuff they need to know and leave the rest of life stuff to parents. You may not think we are doing a good job, but lets not get into a points arguement on who does a better job with our kids, shall we? Hmmm?

Yeah, there are some bratty kids out there, but maybe if you busibodies had let us keep our ability to smack our kids some of them would be less bratty than they are. One quick reprimand will save a lifetime of grief for a kid any day. Argue all you like, with me it falls on deaf ears.

Till again we meet, dear reader ...

News headlines ..

Sydney is a strange place if you live here any length of time. I should probably have never come here, but it is too late now.

Today's news in the Daily Telegraph was about how schools are going to have to drop references to mothers and fathers, boyfriends and girlfriends, etc., as gay people are offended by these sorts of references.

Now call me homophobic if you like but this is seriously getting out of hand. Maybe it could be pointed out to someone that gay people are not the only minority group in schools these days. How is this going to go down in Church sponsored schools and muslim schools? What do you think the consequences are going to be in these situations?

I find it offensive because of this. My daughter has two school aged sons. Their father did not bother making himself responsible for raising those boys and so she is a single mother. To those two boys she is their life and their security. How can they not be allowed to call her "mother"? I mean are we talking stupid or what?

What do Lesbian children call their parents? Most that I know call their parents "mummy" or "mum"; likewise with homosexual raised children, it is "Daddy" or "Dad". So where is the discrimination? What are you going to call them? You can't refer to your spouse as a husband or wife, but as a partner. Married couples are not "partners", they are much deeper than that, particularly ones with children.

Furthermore, I do not know any primary school age children that actually describe themselves as gay or not gay (heterosexual). Sexuality is not really an issue with little children. People who make it an issue have something seriously wrong with them (hmm... let me see, in other areas they are called pedophiles). Even gender issue do not rise with little kids. It usually goes that little girls think little boys are yuk and vice versa. However, even at quite a young age a little girl knows that the other person is not a little girl and likewise a little boy knows she is not a boy, and that is about as far as they think about it. Bringing gender issue into children's lives, no matter how you look at it is sick. Psychologically sick.

Maybe you could take a page from the Christians and Muslims and start your own schools. Leave those of us who want our children and grandchildren to maintain their innocence as long as possible alone. You would never have to worry about a shortage of teachers, which I am sure you know.

But then you are the same groobers who are holding this talkfest in Canberra this weekend, aren't you? If my sister and her family didn't live there, I would strongly urge someone to drop a bomb on the place and rid us of these freaks in one go. If only ...

Not without my ...

...lunch! How about that, I forgot the canteen was closed for the holidays and had no lunch with me at work. I ended up buying a packet of chips from the vending machine and having that. Yuk. Had the munchies all afternoon. Way to go, dopey.

I will have to remember to make something before I leave in the morning.

Long days with very little work. There weren't enough desks for everyone, but since it was my day on the Switchboard, I got to sit at my normal desk. The two part timers are off tomorrow and Friday, so it will be okay. I think when my time is up in September I will go back full time till the end of the year break and finish up then. I will have about ten days leave due and my long service entitlement, should get me through till I can either start my own business or find another job. Whatever.

When the days are long with little work, I find I look forward to the weekend. Especially when I know I have things I can be doing at home. So full time work will be frustrating again, but at least I will have something to look forward to at the end.

I have run out of glue and can't get any till tomorrow night. Why I am finding this so annoying I have no idea but it is really bugging me. I guess I take my glues so much for granted. I use glue in almost everything I do, and as I expand my mixed media arts I will use even more, but I think there I can use liquid PVA glue and not have to worry so much.

I am thinking about packing all my "junk" and it will be a logisitical nightmare without throwing away much of what I have. (sob). So I will be allocating one of my four days off to culling and sorting all my things until it is all done. I will also begin my lists. I cannot travel without a list, so if I have them prepared it will make things easier. It is about the only time I keep a list, and it is silly, because I would probably be alot more organised in my life if I kept lists all the time. I also need to start journalling because I think journalling is good for organisation as well. If I force myself to do it to start off with it will become a habit pretty quickly.

I am getting tired now so I shall bid you a fond adieu. cheers ....