just plodding along

getting old

i went shopping last night before i picked up howie from the frenchs. i bought bread, milk, canola spray and a BBQ chicken.

once we got home i got to work cutting up the chicken for our dinner, as well as completing the job so today's lunch meat was good to go.

in amongst all the excitement of the chicken, i forgot about the bread, the milk and the canola spray.

not such a problem for the bread or canola spray.

but more so for the milk, which i found this morning still in the green bag still on the bench.

what a waste of $3.00something and two litres of milk. very disappointed in myself and my older getting head.

hehe and hmmm

some things are so cute. but here is not the place to discuss.

and other things are quite scary. like ham being sick. i would be very very very sad if anything happened to him. now or ever. the downside to having pets.

gnw

omigoodness!! Paul McDermott is coming back with Good News Week. Oh i hope it is good like the abc days.

rspca

ham had a vet appointment today, so we took him to crows nest.

the vet had a look at him and his new lesions and decided that it wasn't a good thing. so he is now on a different soaking treatment and has to stay out of water over night, every night. if things don't look better in the next week or so, we'll take him back for some antibiotic injections.

vet thinks he's got an infection through that front foot that's gotten into his blood stream and is seeding elsewhere. pleasant. which could mean it could get to his internal organs and that would be very very bad.

poor little hammy.

meanwhile he was a perfect angel at the vet. i reckon if we put him on our dining room table he'd make a run for it! at the vet he happily sat and occasionally went for a slow walk.

in other animal medical news, xander has spent the night at the vet after having an abcess drained. poor kitty. i will visit him tomorrow. he HATES the vet.

juno

we went to the movies today to see the only thing at the movies at the moment that i would be happy to see.

so we saw juno.

we had been told to expect something like napoleon dynamite but with a storyline. i thought it was ok. not heaps good. got a bit bored in it. i think howie got a lot bored.

there were some funny one liners.

i want more good movies to come out so we can use up our movie monies but for good reasons.

roadworker BBQ

yesterday was australia day.

which meant it was Roadworker BBQ day. hoorah!!

so we were joined by a number of people to eat meat, wear bright vests, drink beer and have a bonza time doing it.

howie cooked a LOT of meat. there's still some in our fridge if you want to come eat it

deb, sam and ben being friendly

a very happy lachie, debbie and deby

ben, joshy and b

howie, martin, tom, james and lesley

sam and me swinging

peoples

juicy and howie and debbie's croquet set

juicy and me

mum and me (and josh)

mr blue eyes and me

you can see more photos here if you like

it was good fun. lots of fun peoples, good weather and lots of laughs.

it was a very sweet set up howie. hoorah for roadworker BBQ.

this year's honour roll:

debbie
mumma
david
sam
joshy
ben
james
b
lachie
will
lesley
ben
juicy
nicola
deby
james
mil
martin
tom
dad

forecast

i hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. puts a bit of a dampener on things.

geddit?

but seriously.

we're started setting up roadwork stuff. it's good fun.

neither a guard nor odourless

i found two problems with odourless aeroguard this afternoon.

firstly, it's not odourless. i prefer the scent of normal aeroguard to a scent similar to malt smell that wafts from the barley factory down the street. it smells a bit like feet. at least with normal aeroguard people know you're wearing aeroguard and it's not just that you stink.

secondly, after applying the aeroguard and then whipper snippering our backyard, i have three bites on one leg, two on another, one on my arm and one on my forehead.

therefore, i'm not convinced that odourless aeroguard is a quality product.

brain cells

man, i get bored way too easily these days. my theory is that the internet is wasting my brain away. how sad-making. because i like the internet. but i also like my brain. and i like my brain to be functioning to it's proper capacity, which includes the bit that means i don't get so easily bored.

maybe i should read more. or write more. or play more. or walk more.

inside my head

everything is a little bit in a holding pattern at the moment.

there's not a whole lot happening at work because of a lot of people being away and the development of new programs kind of still developing. so it more feels like we are just waiting for things to move forward there, but not really know how or when that will happen, or what it will quite look like.

then we're also waiting to start something new with TEAR, and not really sure what that will mean.

then as we look a little further ahead, it's exciting because we have our UK trip coming up in a bit over three months, and it's going to be awesome. so just counting down the days to that.

then there's a little bit of concern or worry in my head about finding out when we have to move out of this wonderful house. maybe july, maybe later. the worry is more about where we end up next and how we possibly find somewhere in this sort of area, and how we possibly afford it. the worry extends to the whole idea of renting because we'll never be able to own a place - even if we both had "real" jobs!

another part of me is also wondering about when we might start a family, but also totally freaked out about the idea. firstly about having kids that we're responsible for the health and safety of (physically, but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually), and secondly for things like my health! i hate vomiting.

and then i'm excited about possibilities, in our lives, and in the lives of other people we love. all the new opportunities and adventures. things in the future that we have to wait for to be the present.

time is a strange thing. like with our UK trip. now it's in the future and muchly anticipated. when it's in the present, it will only be in the present for three weeks. and then it will be in the past and all over. and we'll have the next thing to look forward to, whatever that will be, and just have memories of the trip. it's all a bit strange.

social

having to treat ham every day means we aren't going out much in the evening at the moment. tonight we left him at home in his box by himself for the first time while we went to church. he seemed to be ok when we got home, so we put in back in the tank, and headed off to tom's surprise birthday party. we were only an hour late, but we were still a surprise, so that's good. it was kinda strange to be there with a lot of people much much younger than us. all though i guess it's all relative.

but it was fun hanging out with sam and ben. yay!

happy birthday tom!

cherry

this is my first almost ripe cherry tomato from the seeds we planted months ago.

i can't wait to eat it!

expired

sandwiches aren't exciting me very much at the moment. yesterday i made a pasta salad to bring to work. today i was very excited about chopping up carrots and cucumbers to take to have with vanilla yoghurt from our fridge. so i chopped, found a container to take to work and went to the fridge to get the yoghurt. and to my disappointment, the yoghurt expiry date was yesterday. poo bum wee. i think i'll still go buy some though. yummy!

high school musical

just watched 'high school musical'. not quite sure what all the fuss is about. maybe that's because i'm not 14 and don't think zac efron is hot.

no fan

my work fan died. so sad. we escaped to westie for some air con, but alas you can't legitimately spend an eight hour work day in westie.

i'll have to buy a new fan sometime.

bullets

• it was back to work today. it wasn't really too bad, just sad to not be on holidays anymore. there's a fair bit happening at work in some senses, and not a lot in other ways. it's a bit of a strange balance really.
• howie cooked dinner tonight. rice, tuna, corn and tomato (plus sultanas for him). we've given up on cooking rice in the microwave, so it was absorption method, and it was tasty.
• i had ebay success today. none of this bidding business, just straight out buy it now. we pick up a treadmill on saturday. fun!
• ham continues to hate us. which is sadmaking. i have washed my hands so many times in the last week picking the turtles up lots. we might have to buy some more aqium soon.

xxxx

today was christmas present day. howie and i drove to maroubra for the second day of xxxx gold beach cricket action in sydney.

we got there 1.5 hours before the start of play and the line was already mammoth. but we chose to stand under a tree and apply suncream.

and good thing too because we were in the sun all day, as was most of the crowd. fortunately we all got at least one free hat, which howie looked very spiffy in

we found good seats on the concrete steps, square of the batter. it meant for some good 6's when the lefties batted. the first game australia won (just) against england.

the second game the kiwis blitzed the aussies. the clouds also came over and the last few minutes of the game were played in the rain. fortunately howie had got our umbrella from the car, so we were set.

beach cricket is so much fun. i reckon i'll be going again next year if it's on. it is a shame that you can't hear the commentary like on tv when you are there, because that's part of the fun. but all the players still play up to the crowd. a fine way to finish off our holidays.

good christmas present husband.

new crib

howie in all his creative wisdom built the boys a new outdoor paddling pool and recreation area.

they swam around and walked around and tried to escape many times in many ways. all good fun. and they got some of those UV rays their shells love so much.

as usual piney was photo-shy, so here is a pic of ham.

his foot isn't looking too good yet.

piney is spending a lot of time in the tank playing a new game - "shove myself as far behind the floating dock as i can". doesn't look like much fun but he seems to enjoy it.

chipmunks

after a positively unsuccessful trip to dfo (it's totally wasted on us), we saw alvin and the chipmunks today at rhodes.

it was ok. theodore is very cute. and the voice of alvin is the mac guy. i like the mac guy.

there were a thousand little kids in the cinema. and for the first time ever i bought stuff at the candy bar, because we had a voucher. we finished just over half of our large popcorn. and i almost finished my large sunkist. i'm quite happy not to ever buy anything from the candy bar ever again.

exotic vet

we're back from a visit to the boys new vet. i like him, he's cool.

our boys are doing pretty well. we have to make a few changes to make life better for them, including feeding them only twice a week instead of ever second day. i don't think they will agree that that makes life better.

and hammy is going to hate us for the next few weeks as he has antiseptic baths and a few hours out of the water every day.

but on the most part they are good and healthy. yay!

we're going to rhodes soon and to reading cinema thanks to ian's christmas present! yay ian.

wii

debbie's housesitting this week and there's a wii at the place. so tonight howie, me, ben and eventually lachy went and hung out with the wii... i mean, debbie. it was good fun. we had food, wii and me and ben also caned howie and debs in taboo. a good night all round.

news

we just noticed that ham grazed his foot somehow. poor hammy. so we took him out the tank for a while and put betadine on his wound. we'll do that for a few days and hopefully it will clear up quickly and infection-free!

we bought bourne ultimatum today thanks to howie's cousin vanessa and her family and their christmas gift of a $60 westie card. ooh yeh. the rest of our day is set!

beyond the stool shop

we went to birkenhead point yesterday. i think it may be getting hit pretty hard by DFO. there were a lot of vacant shops and seems they were doing some redevelopment around the place. that is all a bit sad to me. when we were growing up going to birkenhead a couple of times a year in the holidays was a treat! now it's pretty crap. although we did get fresh gozleme.

then we walked the bay run. who's idea was it to do that in the middle of the day in the middle of summer after drinking 600mls of strawberry milk! i only got a little pink on my shoulders thankfully. but it was freaking hot in the sun.

not sure what today holds. we'll check our PO box though. debbie and cathy's christmas presents STILL haven't come. which is very sad making. i hope they do turn up one day.

holiday snaps

here are a few pics from our little family holiday.

on our way up from sydney we stopped at old bar to visit my grandma and get some lunch. we had dessert first - i love butterfly cakes!

the view from the balcony for the three days - lots of wet palm trees with a grey background

we did the good tourist thing and went to the big banana. i say meh. it didn't much excite us and we got out of there pretty quickly

the next day we drove to glenreagh mountiain railway and took a steam train ride

howie was pretty happy about it. i think that means for every holiday we've been on since we've been married, we've been on a steam train.

we're also a sucker for train merchandise and bought this guy. a new buddy for ziggy who permanently lives in our car

and the next morning as we packed our bags, this was the view from korora beach. our first sighting of blue sky and sunshine since we'd arrived three and a half days before. of course

the big seas and heavy rain meant there wasn't much of a beach left anyway. but thems the breaks.

so that was our little holiday to coffs harbour. we still have another week of playtime until work goes back.

we have a few things up our sleeve for this week.

no surprise

this morning blue skies and sunshine. we check out in half an hour.

that'd be right!

fruit loop

sometimes my husband is damn crazy.

it's good fun

coff day

i am impressed with the pillows at this place. they are surprisingly comfortable. and that meant i slept alright last night.

today was sat around for a bit. some interneting. some cricket watching. some looking outside. some reading.

we then ventured out to the big banana and were almost washed away. it must be said the banana didn't much impress us, so we bought our coffs harbour magnet and got the hell out of there.

we continued to park beach plaza and wandered around. but shopping didn't do it for me, so we went back to the apartment for more reading and cricket and internet before lunch.

lunch was yummy cheese and spinach ravioli. it was still raining. i was getting quite sick of having to get in and out of the car in the rain with an umbrella. i always end up soaked.

back to the apartment for more cricket, reading, howie had a nap... i guess that's really what holidays should be made of. relaxing things.

so despite the rain, we are kicking back. cricket, reading, board games, dvds, and the like.

we went to the beach a few metres away from our apartment. it's washed away! so we probably won't attempt swimming there.

we watched fast food nation. i think i thought it was a doco. but it's not. it was ok - kinda left everything up in the air. made me not want to eat meat. but i probably still will occasionally as i already do. you know the deal.

and that is a rundown of our day.

time for beddies.

harbour town

we're here in coffs. the place we're staying is really quite nice. only problem is it's meant to rain for the next five days. sure did get soaked good finding tonight's dinner! perhaps there will be lots of swimming in the pool in the rain.

07/08

some pics from our city adventure the other night

a bit of the bridge

bins at circular quay in preparation for NYE

some cool lights on a boat

cars travelling across the bridge

and then some pics of today

our initial view

still feeling the effects of the heat!

our preferred seating option - thank goodness for shade

the score board towards the end of the days play (i hate image tricks - it's a stupid no good program)

as you may have gathered from the photographs, today debbie and i went to the cricket with dad, mr bob and diane, thanks to kerry chikarovski who supplied our tickets.

we got there at about 9am and most seats in the MA Noble stand were already taken. what was left was in the sun and behind the sight screen. hence our first location. however, diane and mr bob worked it into the reserved section on the premise that after an hour of play all vacant reserved seats are up for grabs. so at 11:30am we got in on that action and moved. thank goodness because i don't know how i would have survived in the sun all day.

anyway, india did pretty well at the start - australia lost 6 wickets pretty quickly. some disappointing efforts from the nsw boys (i'm talking to you jaques and pup)! but yay for roy and brad hogg with their superb efforts. looks like it could be another whitewash?!

but it was fun to go to the cricket. and for free. all the more better.

testing

this better be a bloody good day of cricket to have me up so early!

tradition upheld

sometimes you have to wonder why traditions stay traditions, but nonetheless the new years kfc and movie combo does.

today took us to north ryde for kfc on lane cove road and then greater union at macquarie centre. joining todays frivolities were debbie, tom, david, b, james and derek.

i had my first ever kfc nuggets. all three of them. debs and i shared a six pack. we're hardcore.

after some deciding time, the movie picked was no country for old men.

what a strange and violent movie. i didn't watch a lot of it because i don't like suspense or gore. good pick! ah well. that's number one for the year done.