just plodding along

bye bye hubby

i've surprised myself at my sudden sadness over howie heading overseas. i've become quite attached to the boy, and i'm going to miss him. but he's going for good reasons so it's ok. and it's only two weeks.

howie, you better come back alive or i'll bash ya!

winner!

congratulations Dave! you were visitor 30000!

you win the wonderful prize. and what makes it easiest is that i'll just put your prize in the 'C' pigeon hole at church!

well played everyone.

thanks peoples for visiting.

counting down

only 16 to go. will you be visitor 30000???

hard slog

first day back at work and there's the familiar neck, back and shoulder pain i've come to know and loathe.

but a productive day.

plus howie got two new pairs of shorts for much cheaper than we had anticipated thanks to jay jays. kmart didn't have any shorts under $40-50! neither did target. and lowes didn't have anything. unless you want stubbies. which i do not want to see howie in.

2nd in the tour de france is nothing to sneeze at. well done cadel.

oh yes, it is bed time

30000th time lucky

if you, yes you, are the 30000th visitor to this blog, you shall win one hell of a prize!

as seen in the above picture, posted to you will be:
~ one orange photo holder thingy, as used at our wedding
~ one Bananas in Pyjamas Write and Wipe Funbook
~ one TCBC bulletin dated 7th August 2005

leave your comment if you are number 30000!!!

good luck!

bonnes fêtes

today is officially the last day of my holidays.

although the next two days will probably be a little bit of an extension because of the imminent departure of my husband.

i think we're going to the office tomorrow, but howie will primarily be working on stuff for kenya all day and night. i'll be able to get to work on some stuff i really want to get work done on for work.

and then tuesday i think the plan is hanging out with tom, and i think john a bit, and with jane too, before the boys head off into the wild blue yonder.

today we're going to westie to buy husband some new black pants because he still doesn't fit his wedding ones (although he is closer than he was), and some new shorts because all his shorts have died over the last few months!

and on top of all this, we have to watch the end of la tour de france - not sure Cadel will get the yellow, but hopefully he'll retain second on the podium once they've made their way down the Champs-Elysees. it's all happening!

bed time

tim webster's department

cadel is due to start his time trial in less than an hour. that's good news. i thought i'd be waiting at least another hour on top of that. go son!

the swans won tonight against the tigers. which is also good news. i'm hopeful of a good weekend in the tipping, despite collingwood's loss, but also in dreamteam. i need a good score, i think, to beat the guy i'm up against this week in our league. i'm fearful i will lose. and that will drop me back from 4th to 5th behind ben. so fingers crossed that my chosen boys do their job, and keep me up there with the big boys (being will and grant).

and good on freddy fittler getting this third win from three outings.

i think that's all the sporting news i have to cover at the moment.

deciding on the plan for lunch

free movie!

we "won" a free double pass to see Amazing Grace

with thanks to Colin, who informed us that his magazine competition had only received three entries but had five or six passes, we headed off to the cinema today.

i hadn't really read much about this movie, and neither do i know much about william wilberforce. but it was a good movie. speaks to perseverence and justice. this world is and probably has always been a crazy place.

in other news, we got out of the cinema and counted our money in hope of getting howie a coke for $2.70. we only had $2.45 between us. good thing there are cans in the fridge here at home for him.

you can kiss my money goodbye

well i'm a bit annoyed.

i got up early this morning, early for my holidays and early for having been up til the early morning watching tour de france, because i had a tradesman type person coming sometime between 8-9am to do a quote.

so he still hasn't turned up. no phone call, nothing.

sure ain't getting my business now! i'm annoyed because i'm tired, and i could have still been a sleep!

grrr.

30000th

only 100 people to go til the 30000th visitor to this here blog.

could take a while, but we'll get there.

now, for a prize.

i'll get back to you...

the simpsons on the big screen

today was another sleep in thanks to the tour de france.

but we eventually got up and got our act together and headed into the city.

and we saw the simpsons!

it was funny. i reckon they did well. i mean, they'll make millions even if it sucks. but it was still worth seeing.

oh, and we also ran into prawn at maccas before hand. our first face to face meeting. random!

we then walked down to darling harbour to see the photographs of the earth from above exhibition. didn't read all the things, and they weren't always the most interesting photos, but there were some pearlas.

then back north, and now at the parentals for dinner. chicken pizza!

what a dope

it's always disappointing when someone is caught out doing the wrong thing in the sporting arena. particularly when it involves illegal performance enhancing.

so i think there might be interesting viewing late tonight in light of vinokourov's and team astana's withdrawal from the tour after some postive test results.

it's sad because this guy had won two stages in a massive comeback effort after an awful fall and 60-odd stitches - and now it seems he had a little help with that comeback.

i feel sorry for this team mates who have had to withdraw because of him. particularly for the two, kloden and kashechkin, who were in the top 8.

crisis over

toffee reporting for duty.

i convinced howie and tom to have lunch today at macquarie centre so that i could pick my computer up this afternoon. and all went to plan.

so toffee is back with a new battery, and going great guns.

i should've known...

... it was too good to be true.

so i get up early this morning (well earlier than i would have), and drive to macquarie centre, happy to be on my way to being reunited with toffee. i get to the shop and hand over my sheet of paper saying i'm picking up my computer. he goes out the back, and is out there for a while. alarm bell #1.

he comes back out eventually with no computer in hand. alarm bell #2.

he asks me if i'd got a text message saying the computer is ready. alarm bell #3.

i said yes, and that it said to pick it up from this shop, and that i got it yesterday. alarm bells all over the place.

he logs onto his computer and tells me the message was sent when the repair was finished, and that toffee is still at baulkham hills, and won't be in their shop til after 2pm today.

what freakin good is that to me! learn to send a text message properly people!

so i am slightly pissed off. mostly because what a waste of petrol going to macquarie centre for NO bloody reason. and it's not really ever convenient for me to go there. i'm now forcing myself to take deep breaths, remember the good things in life, and thinking about whether to register a complaint.

so in summary, next byte bites!!

ferried around

we slept in a bit today, so adventure didn't start until we left the house at 1pm.

we drove to wisemans ferry for a picnic lunch. i made sandwiches. which isn't anything exciting, because i do that every day for work. but howie was allowed to buy a buddy. and that is special.

we sat on a wall and watched the ferry for a while. there were a lot of old people eating icecream and reading the information on the monument we were sitting on. this is part of the monument thing

we then ventured to the shops for howie to fulfil his coke addiction. we also discovered that rural hornsby shire is renowned for many things.

and we later discovered that hornsby shire owns the east side of the town, and baulkham hills shire owns the west side. the west has proper gutters.

after getting the buddy up the road, we took the ferry and drove 20-odd km along the river. i was hoping there would be some nice parkland or nice little shop, but nothing. so we turned around and headed back.

the ferry took just us back across. 24 hour toll free vehicular ferrys are cool.

then we drove back, via hornsby to visit our post box.

good fun.

toffee repairs

i got a text message today saying that toffee is ready to be picked up. already! i only took it in on friday, so i'm very impressed. i'll be going there tomorrow morning. i hope my impressedness isn't revoked by what they tell me, charge me or show me.

mixing it up

well as promised, we made the boys a new dinner today.

we finally had all the key ingredients, and we were ready to go.

so we started with 1 kg of seafood marinara, which is neither mine nor howie's cup of tea

we added three bananas, a lot of broccoli and some parsley and got our food processor going (with thanks to steve and valentina)

then it was time to add the kangaroo mince

and some calcium and vitamin supplements

and the end product looked pretty unappealing

but we fed some to the boys and they LOVED it - thank goodness. they were climbing (as much as you can in the water) over each other to get to it

i then spooned it into a bunch of ice cube trays for freezing

and we lost two of our freezer shelves to the boys dinner

but yay. new healthy food for them.

i'm worried our house smells now of seafood and kangaroo meat. ewww.

belated

i forgot to blog the last few photos from our holiday, so here we go

on our icecream finding stroll we walked past anz. how innovative! now open business hours. imagine a business doing that!

as we left our motel in the morning

on our way back south, we stopped off at north brother to take in the view of laurieton. howie got close to the edge

dins, footy, tour, dins

last night was cathy bell's birthday dinner at a place called zacs. there was a good turn out of 21 people. it was fun to see, if not really speak much, with a number of people i really like. i ate vegetables. i actually really enjoyed them.

afterwards, a few people went back to my parents place to watch a replay of the swans vs weagles game. howie and i knew the final score because of sms updates throughout dinner and watching the last few minutes at mum and dads. but the other guys - debbie, grant, cath, lach and ben - didn't know and didn't want to know. good thing, coz swans lost. dammit. i'm avoiding james today.

anyway, we left early because it was getting late and tiredmaking. so we got home, and howie turned on the tour de france. and we ended up watching that for over an hour. oops. i've never watched much of the tour before - not really interested. but it's not bad. unfortunately it's a bit like car racing, where you kind of hope people will crash, just to make it a little more exciting. however, cycling crashes seem a little more painful. if me falling off my bike at like 20km/h kills (metaphorically), imaging doing it at twice that speed. although they did say last night that slow crashes are potentially much more harmful than fast ones.

so today was a bit of a sleep in because of that. we're off to hornsby soon. today may be the day of making the boys new dinner mix.

getting into gear

i really have to get back into morning walks. but it's cold. and that is a big deterrent. as is the getting up earlier thing. but i don't think arvo/night walks will happen. so i just have to bite the bullet

first aid

toffee has gone to mac hospital. we took him to the apple shop in macquarie centre. and they're sending him off to be checked out and repaired. hopefully he's not gone for too long. because howie takes lappy to africa in a week and a half, and i'd die without internet at home.

well, maybe not die. but i'd be mighty sad.

holiday tunes

heading north:

diesel - singled out
ben harper - diamonds on the inside
u2 - how to dismantle an atomic bomb
delirious - king of fools

heading south:

rem - best of
ben harper & the innocent criminals - live from mars
the waifs - a brief history of (disc 2)
jamie cullum - twenty something

pear shaped

as we were about to leave on monday i plugged toffee (my laptop) in for some juice to keep it going while we were away. we noticed a small problem, where the charging light would switch between (orange) charging and (yellow) charged. this is a little alarming because it's not normal behaviour. so we switched toffee off, and he seemed to charge ok then. so we charged him for a bit, and then put him away.

now that we're back, we tried charging again, but the same problem.

oh dear.

so howie is putting everything from toffee onto the external harddrive, and we will be paying a visit to an apple shop over the next few days.

fortunately toffee is still in apple warranty (so i don't have to deal with frickin domayne!!). but whether they can tell me what's wrong, and whether it's easily and freely fixed is another matter.

fingers crossed!!

and yes, we are back home now.

mozzie

two nights ago, a mosquito or something just as lovely had a field day (or night) with me as i slept. so yesterday i was quite itchy, with only three bites on my arm, one on my hand and one on my face, and a little swollen but not red. but my arm bites are further swollen today, and they are all more red. why did it have to bite my face! dammit!

what the hell is a mosquito doing in our room in the middle of winter?

poley roley

so so full! we had a lovely dinner at pasta place at flynns beach. it was this sweet little italian restaurant. very cute.

then we went back into town to walk off some of dinner and replace the gap with icecream. we ended up at cold rock. i've never had cold rock before. i shouldn't have got a regular size. and it was so freakin cold. but yummy.

now we're back in our warm room and i am almost able to feel my fingers again.

port play

this morning was going to plan. we went to aussie disposals and bought howie a new pack/travel bag - it's a good one.

we then walked back into town to catch the boat for whale watching. but alas, as we entered town, there was a phone call and it was too windy for the boat to go out. which was a shame because we had decided we were looking forward to it!

so howie consoled himself with a cheeseburger

so we walked the 15 minutes back to our motel, and drove to sea acres rainforest centre. it was a nice board walk through the rainforest. we like trees.

this is a dramatization of me not watching where i was going

this boardwalk certainly wasn't as high as the one we walked in WA

and my hope was to see a brush turkey, and it happened!

as we drove back, we stopped off at harry's lookout, which had a bunch of wooden sculptures and furniture

obviously OH&S isn't a big issue - although there were two padlocks on this gates, they weren't actually locking anything together, so of course we opened the gate just to see if we could

this is the 21st century building - and isn't it!

we then drove across the water, thanks to a ferry, to the other side of the port. we played on the breakwater and beach

and then got a different ferry back across, with our new turtle friend called tony from sea acres

we're thinking of going to the pasta place for dinner. we like pasta.

timberrrrrrrr

this morning we rose nice and early because of the quality of our bed and curtains.

we went into town to look around again, check out the tourist info place, and go to the aussie disposal store. we're thinking we'll go back there tomorrow and buy some stuff with our holiday fund money.

we had some morning tea at settlement city (yum, pillow biscuits!), and then continued on out of town, through wauchope to Timbertown. takes me back!

the two photos you have to take in Timbertown...

the stocks

and the stick your head through thing

the most important thing to do today was to go on the steam train. and so we were two happy campers with the whole last carriage to ourselves

steaming along

dunny time

just in case people aren't aware

what's a visit to Timbertown without seeing the bollock demonstration

and because we are very obviously old people, we indulged in old people afternoon tea

and that was timbertown!

we came back into port and walked the boardwalk that isn't a boardwalk

and now we're back in our motel room. howie is having a nap while i blog, and we're preparing our tummy's for our free buffet dinner at the bowling club tonight.

tomorrow we've booked a whale watching tour, more out of curiousity than interest. then we're going to go to sea acres rainforest centre.

sometimes it fun to do the touristy things.

about town

here we are about to head off on our adventure to port macquarie

we had some yummy snacks on the way, like chomps!

as soon as we got to our room, first things were first. we connected to the wireless

then we went for a walk around town, and took in some of the views

we also had dinner at the pancake place, which was yummy.

then it was back to the room in time for top gear. howie is missing our projector and screen

blue vs red

my two AFL teams went head to head on sunday. it was a nice sunny day at the SCG.

the swans prevailed, which secretly i had hoped for.

but carn the blues when you're not playing the swans!

port power

we've arrived and walked into town for some shopping and walkingness.

we're deciding what to do for dinner. coz we have to be back by 7:30pm for top gear!

on the road again

today we're off to free wireless internet, i mean, port macquarie. yay for holidays!

toot

last night joshy came over for some fun and games, and dinner.

he brought a very fun game called ticket to ride (europe). you get missions of train lines you need to build, and it's all quite complicated. but fun.

this was our final board. i made it from edinburgh to constantinople as required! go team!

howie was a little upset because he lost.

do you like how we dressed up in fluro vests, and howie in his 3801 hat?

it was a close game. only a few points in it!

then we played some uno. everyone wins in uno.

and then phase 10, which i still don't think i have my head quite around, and i was behind for a long time. but i came from there to win! woo!

thanks for bringing fun and games to the house of fun joshy!!

mall

today we visited warringah mall. just for something a little different.

we had some gozleme for lunch, which was ok, but nowhere as good as the ones you can get on thursdays in hornsby mall.

we bought rummykub on sale at big w because we are board game nerds.

we also found a little pet shop that caters for fish, birds and reptiles. had a bit of useful stuff for our boys. but nothing we really need at the moment.

i also didn't go into oxfam which was weird. i think i'm at my purchasing limit for oxfam for a while.

i'm kind of off shopping centres at the moment. i don't have a desire to buy clothing. well, there's probably a bit of desire, but i am aware of my un-need for new stuff. i'm still happy to buy other things, like dvds and games, when there are sales. although it's still in the un-need catagory, i still like that stuff.

my main purpose for visiting shopping centres at present is for groceries. how boring. and i think howie would agree that it's boring.

mechanically minded

one of my headlight bulbs blew last week and today i got around to visiting the car place to get it replaced. i hate feeling like a stupid girl. because once again i completely forgot where the lever was to open the bonnet. grrr. i was thinking of where it was in my old car, and then got flustered. so i looked like a stupid girl. i hate proliferating that stereotype!

i used to want to be a mechanic. good thing that phase passed. although maybe it would have been helpful!

fam bday din

we had family dinner tonight at our place to celebrate dad and grandma's birthdays this month. we had a BBQ. it was yummy. and debbie, howie and i enjoyed the kiddie table we set up - our dining room table isn't big enough for eight.

my grandma has decided that if she's coming to our house for an event, rather than bringing flowers or something, she will bring food for the cupboard. like tins of corn, or pineapple. today she brought 2min noodles forgetting that howie can't eat them, so she had to take them home again. she is a funny lady.

alles Gute zum Geburtstag zu meinem Vati

happy birthday to my daddy!

four fingered and yellow

if i was on the simpsons i might look like this

and this is my version of howie

he looks like a 16 year old because he doesn't have a beard. just like in real life. you can see his version here

and you can join in the fun too here

pop

howie is doing lots of work on his paddlepop city. i've been doing my bit, sawing the balsa wood into cubes for him to use in supports.

but i must admit the glue fumes are starting to get to me.

voice of the people

i am impressed with my local state member today.

i wrote an email to the editor of our local newspaper (go the hornsby advocate!) about some dodgy road work in Hornsby. today i received a letter from judy hopwood saying she'd read my letter in the newspaper, and had forwarded on my concerns to the roads minister, as well as writing her own letter to him.

quite unexpected, as it was just an email to the paper with just my comments, name and suburb. but there is was in our post box. on the bottom of the note, it is revealed that contact details are obtained from the electoral list. so there you go. that took a bit of research on her part. or her staffs part.

i feel listened to.

plus i like getting mail.

i feel weird.

swanning around

was nice to get a win today. good old swannies. still not playing the best, but a win is a win. i'm sure the 23 behinds helped in some way. blimey.

but hooray for mickie o. he's good stuff!

and hooray for being in a stand and undercover!

optimal

this afterevening howie and i used another two of our screensavers to see transformers. round 1 for me, round 2 for him.

i must say from the outset i love optimus prime. and bumblebee. autobots rock my world. unlike my husband who enjoyed the stylings of the care bears as a youngster, i was into transformers. loved the cartoon, had little action figures i played with til they broke, and so on. and i have fallen back into love with them after seeing this film. it was very good. and i enjoyed it.

oh and i love josh duhamel. but that was something already well established before seeing this.

bring on the sequels.

exploration

our little buddies are growing up!

we normally take the boys outside for some natural UV once a week or so. we decided last week to test them out on the grass - they'd never been on grass before. they seemed a little indifferent to the experience. they were very still and slow and just looked around.

so we decided to give it another go today. they were a little more adventurous.

here is pineapple

here is ham

and here they both are in their outdoors box. it's a handy box. they both seem to like it. when we put them on the grass they make their way back to it.

they are getting bigger. they're such fun little boys. and one day soon we will be graduating them to a new dinner menu. kangaroo meat, seafood marinara, banana, broccoli and parsley all mushed up with some extra vitamins and calcium. yummo.

little trip

we just booked a little holiday escape for mid-july to port macquarie. might only be 3.5 stars and on wotif.com, but free wireless broadband will get us everytime! even if our room is no bigger than a shoebox. holidays in a week!! yay!

blistered

yesterday i got blisters on my feet. i wore a pair of shoes that i like very much, which weren't cheap, and which were a gift from howie quite a while ago. i don't wear them often, because everytime i wear them i get blisters. which makes me less inclined to wear them soon again after. so they've never really been worn in. i need to be committed to wearing them in. to power on with bandaids providing a protective shield. to be willing to sacrifice comfort and skin in the name of wearing good quality shoes. but today my feet hurt.

$8 roast?

we're going to the bowlo for dinner with the parentals.

minty fresh?

our current colgate toothpaste claims to be "great regular flavour". well i can tell you it's not at all great. in fact it's pretty yuck. it doesn't leave me with a "my teeth a clean" feel.

i have grown up with blue minty gel. occasionally i have used green sparkly minty gel. and at the moment, because of a thousand little freeby 38g tubes of colgate from my mum, i'm not getting my blue minty gel fix. my teeth don't feel clean unless they feel minty. and at the moment, they are not feeling minty.

wouldn't you want to hang out with us?

bye bye commy

as promised, a pictorial display of last night

peoples

peoples (sorry i cut you out jo)

good to know these boys are in the occupations they are

keith and stella dolls

keith, guitar and old songs

peoples mimicing the picture jemma posted

there is something more to come, but that'll take a bit more work... just hold on to your horses.

picky

because image tricks is crap, i will post photos from tonight tomorrow. all i have to do is resize them, but photo paint is so much better. and there are some doozys so need the images to be crystal clear.

but the event tonight, for those who are out of the know, was the last commy dinner in its current format.

thankyou keith and stella for many years of serving others!! you shall be missed. and not just because of that! happy travels and relocations! we'll be sure to visit - one day i plan to take howie to the territory, alice springs and beyond. we're up for free accommodation whenever we can get it. if the offer is there.

cravings

i think being sick has broken me. i'm off diet coke at the moment. can't get enough lemonade though.

$ $ $

looks like the tax man will be even kinder to me than howie!! i'm shooting for $252.90 to pay. thanks to a lot of work-related driving this past year (almost 3300kms) and the $600 low wage earners tax offset (up from $250 in past years).

good stuff. happy to pay it. but all the more glad for it to be low.

early mark

i've powered on long enough today. it's time to go home. my head is like a big, heavy concoction of snot, sore throat, sore ear and headacheness.

shark

after 11 months in this house, we used the pool table for the first time.

and i kicked howie's butt, three for three. that's the way we like it. except maybe howie didn't like it that way.

july 1st

means fast internet again!

and an $11000 tax free threshold. beautiful!