just plodding along

chill

oh dear, the cold is cold.

my house is cold. especially in the evening.

howie's parents are staying with us at the moment. we only have one functioning electric blanket currently, and his mum gets it. he switched it on for her last night, but didn't realise it wasn't on at the power point. so in the end everyone was a cold getting into their own bed as each other.

slowed down

because the office hasn't had any internet for about two weeks we've been home more in the afternoons so we can send work emails and do other net related work. but that means that we've now gone over our 2GB limit and are slowed down to dial up. most annoying. we would have been fine otherwise.

acclimatising

isn't it nice of sydney to be giving us a taste for what the weather may well be like in the UK.

i'm sure it will be a little more stark heading from scotland to dubai.

six sleeps

we are now less than a week away from our trip. we're so looking forward to it. time off. time seeing new places. time visiting old places. time with relos.

it's our first overseas trip together unrelated to work. that is also exciting. our first real overseas adventure together.

i haven't really started thinking about packing yet. probably will over the next few days. it's pretty cold over there at the moment. so layers upon layers shall be packed. i'm glad the weather here is a bit more sunny - makes it easier to dry washing!! last weeks lot is a little whiffy from being damp for so long.

howie's parents are coming to stay on tuesday and wednesday before they fly out thursday.

social butterflies

we have a somewhat busy weekend catching up with peoples, mostly over meals!

today sam and jenn are coming over for lunch, and maybe some wii action. yay for getting to meet jenn.

tonight year 13 peoples may be coming over for a BBQ - who knows.

tomorrow lunch is tamara's birthday picnic at bobbin head with cathy, grant, debbie, james, aaron and tamara.

tomorrow night is dinner at lesley's.

sunday lunch is at auntie sue's with debbie and james.

how very busy! at least it seems i don't really have to cook for a few days.

reality

we knew it was too good to be true. howie got a phone call today from westview asking for payment for the projector.

the lady who had served me hadn't read the file properly, and so hadn't charged us anything. and she had got into big trouble for that.

so howie had to pay the $900-something over the phone.

overdone

it's funny how you can get sick of things.

like when i had my wisdom teeth out. obviously for a while i only ate mushy food. which included apple puree. i must have eaten much too much of the stuff, because i can't even think about the stuff without feeling queazy.

at the moment, premium crackers are the ones bordering on the edge of overdone. which is a shame because i do like them. well i think i do. but i went too crazy liking them, and now they seem to repulse me a bit.

i guess moderation is the key.

chauffeur

its a wee bit early.

i am a good wife.

today is a bit all over the shop

'm still sick, so home resting. and blowing my nose every 10 seconds.

there's no internet at the office still, so i'm also doing some work at home while howie does as much non-email non-internet stuff at the office as he can.

we had a phone call this morning that projector was ready, so i went and collected that. i got mightily confused because they didn't want any payment. we were told it would be $913. so i'm not sure if we should expect something in the mail one day saying 'pay us!'. the service printout says $0.00 though. so it's all a bit strange.

everything is a bit everywhere at the moment. lots of different thoughts floating in my head. particularly as our UK trip is coming up quickly (yay!), but also wondering about things like a new home, work that needs to be done by others while we're away, the boys, etc.

all good fun.

back! x2

we're back from armidale, and my blog is back working!

we new england highwayed it both ways this weekend. today we grabbed lunch in muswellbrook with the intention of finding a park to sit in. we didn't find one and kept driving hoping to see a blue sign pointing us to a rest area. we didn't see one of them either.

so in the end we pulled into a side street, and after a few strange looks, figured we probably looked like we could be an undercover cop car. so howie put his orange light on the roof to add to the effect. funny.

in other news, my cold is still going strong. lots of snot. lots of tiredness (had a tops nap yesterday though). lots of coughing. lots of soreness. hoping it self limits itself soon!

a-tissue

i'm getting a cold... that is a bit poo.

at this stage i have a sore throat and a slightly blocked nose.

perhaps it will just go away! perhaps.

the things you learn

i just discovered barrington tops is way south-er than i ever thought. the parentals are spending a few nights there on their way back from my cousins 21st in tamworth last night, and then tonight with the inlaws in armidale.

i don't know why i mostly thought it was near QLD, or at least near Coffs.

mr (and mrs) anderson

today was zoe and tom's wedding and it was a lovely day indeed! zoe was beautiful and it was a very classy day. tom and zoe are such lovely people. it's all very exciting!

some pictorials for your viewing pleasure...

james and all his friends

the beautiful bride arriving

the girls and mike

zoe and mike (dodgy camera!)

the now husband and wife

james and debbie

lachie and me

on the way to pyrmont - thanks for the list sam

all in the family

a not so successful self shot of the bride and me

deby, sam and me

awww deby and james

sammy and me

howie and debbie destroying stuff

the bride and groom

howie and me

indeed a special day for two very special people.

afterwards, james and lachie picked debs and i up to head off to ANZ stadium for the swans vs weagles game. we got to about ashfield and i had an overwhelming desire to throw up. yuck. so we pulled over and i paced and breathed and shivered for 10 or so minutes. we decided that i should go home, so they took me home and will has replaced me for the evening. so sad, because it looked like such an awesome game. am feeling mostly better now. it wasn't very pleasant.

am now watching my second ever bond movie with howie and sam. not heaps impressed. but hey.

love and games

i'm looking forward to tomorrow. my buddy zoe is marrying tom. zoe is a good girl and i'm glad she found a good boy in tom. howie and i get to be ushers. that is fun. we also get to spend travel time with sammy and debbie. i'm sure it will be a lovely and beautiful and special day. i'm glad to be able be a part of it.

then the swans take on the weagles at homebush. which i'm sure will be an awesome game too.

tomorrow will be most fun indeed.

as a side note, it's very cool being able to call and text howie for free. good on free virgin to virgin.

picky

a little strangely, the only things that work on the internet for me right now are footboot.net sites, twitter, facebook and howie's blog.

everything else, access denied, including emails.

good intentions

at work today there were a bunch of school students who came to help as part of a community service thing with their school. they came to do some painting and yardwork on one of our buildings.

for the most part they did pretty well in the four hours they were here - the garden looks good with much fewer weeds and leaves. there is undercoat pretty much on every exterior surface we needed undercoat on. unfortunately there is also undercoat on some of the carpet inside, on some of the concrete floor inside, on some of the other already painted exterior walls and all over the concrete floor of the outside courtyard.

but good on them (or their teachers) getting out and helping a non-profit organisation. 40 hands makes light work.

now one day we just need someone to come paint the overcoat on.

fix

duckie is getting his six monthly service tomorrow. that is handy timing because since the battery was replaced last week we haven't been able to listen to music because i don't know the radio code. hopefully mr smith will fix that for me and rescue our sally ford and pachuco playboys CD.

walkies

i'm glad we went for a walk earlier this evening - coz if we were walking outside now, we'd be quite wet!

during our walk we had fun talking about our upcoming trip to the UK - only 26 days to go!! we can't wait. it's going to be so tops.

fun and games

today sam came and visited which was nice because we haven't seen him for a while. we played monopoly and it was a tight one. david also made a cameo visit.

then cathy and grant came over for dinner, swans watching and wii playing. it was good fun to hang out with them. they are good people who are fun.

yay for a fun saturday.

tomorrow we're having lunch at my grandparents. that will be yummy.

bad service

BLOODY WESTVIEW!!!

they've had our projector for over FOUR weeks!! i rang again today, after them saying they'd call me on monday and they didn't. they STILL don't have the lamp. and the guy at the factory or whereever hasn't replied to their emails... then call him!! go to his house and bash down his door!! do something!! and then CALL me! or at least call me to tell me you can't do those things.

i am so frustrated. i was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time. but never again. if anything else of mine breaks that would require a service or repair, even under warranty, i will throw it out and buy a new one before i go to westview again.

rant over.

new phone

this is my new phone. a nokia 6110.

sure it's a bit overkill for what i need, but i figured since i'm paying $30 a month no matter which phone i had picked, i might as well get one with fun features. the gps fits the bill. and the camera is only 2MP, but that's huge compared to my old phone and it's 0.1 MP.

there was a bit of stress yesterday with it all (as virgin's systems were a bit stupid, or perhaps i was), but this morning my number ported over and it was all good!!

it's quite different to my old nokia buddy. more to learn and for the moment it seems less user friendly.

but being on virgin will be a winner once howie swaps over.

goodbye soul!!!

rescued

after an almost three hour wait, and a few phone calls and mix ups, duckie has a new battery.

that should keep him going for another five years.

i can't wait to get home and completely turn my brain off.

roadside assistance

my car has died and i'm waiting for nrma to come and rescue me. i hope it's just the battery. and not too spensy. and that resuce man comes well within the hour timeframe given to me.

dear oh dear, today is not my day.

phew

for a moment there i thought i was going to get shot as the messenger. but it seems i dodged a bullet.

the surprises keep on coming

as you will read on howie's blog, things are about to change pretty dramatically for us. some new skills to learn, new friends to find, new everything really. yikes.

virgin

if you're my friend, you should get a virgin mobile so i can talk to you and text you for free.

that's right, in a matter of days i will be the owner of a new phone (fancy!) and a plan. eep! scary. but since howie is leaving soul in a week or so, and moving to virgin (primarily because of the 10000 velocity points, but also because the same plan is $15 cheaper) it made sense that i do the same to take advantage of free virgin to virgin and also pay the same amount per month i do already.

so hopefully my phone is delivered in the next few days, and there aren't any problems porting my number across as i never changed my last name with optus after i got married. whoops.