I run Konfabulator widgets on my desktop. (I’m not giving them free advertising via linkage – I’m sure you all know how to use Google if you’re interested ๐ ) Anyway, I mention this only because my What To Do widget has been empty of tasks since I started keeping my To Do lists on my PDA. So the following has been sitting around for a while, and it makes me giggle.
:giggle: :giggle: :giggle:
And btw, doncha just love my faux-leather wallpaper?!
Some of you know that a young life was lost in my family this week. To the on- and off-line friends who have given me your condolences and lent me your ears, I thank you sincerely.
With more knowledge of what happened, I have more understanding, but along with that has come blame and anger which, though futile, I feel unable to quash. It is going to be extremely difficult to attend this funeral.
I hope you understand that I cannot discuss this here, but what I do want to say is this:
No matter who or what your children become, love and support them without limit. Always.
Posted in General Ramblings
Morsel 1
So apparently by the time I posted last night, the ‘incompetents’ had actually won the match on a penalty shoot out and “we’re” going to the World Cup. Yay us. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi. There. No one can accuse me of being un-Australian now ๐ The most amusing thing for me is that OtherHalf fell asleep and missed the excitement. Ha!
Morsel 2
We have a washing machine! The guy who installed it raved on about the brand as he ran me through the workings of this new model. I rolled my eyes. I must say though, I am honestly happy with the larger size, despite what we’ve been through to get it. It seems the company will only honour the original warranty, which expires in August ’06. That’s what I expected, but it would have been nice to have a few months added to the warranty in compensation, if not an entirely new warranty for the new machine. But hey.
Morsel 3
Last week’s SBQ. I can’t really flesh it out enough to be a post of it’s own, so:
When comparing large projects versus small projects, which do you get more excited about finishing?
Without a question, it’s large projects for me. I like finishing small projects, for sure, and they certainly make the numbers add up faster. But for me, nearing the end of a large project (and I’ve only finished two) brings a tangible excitement, and once I’ve actually finished, I find I can’t tear my eyes away from it for at least a week!
Morsel 4
Want to know what made my day today? I retrieved a man’s walking cane for him as I waited in a checkout line… and he responded with “Thank you, my lady”. My lady! That is 500% better than ma’am. Which I hear all too often… and it’s been far too long since I heard a ‘Miss’. I say we return to ‘milady’, and to hand kissing and jousting for favours, too! What fun :giggle:
Morsel 5
What didn’t make my day today was a $50 parking fine. OK, my own fault, I deserve it. I thought I looked at the parking sign, but I somehow saw only the time restriction, and not the fact it was paid parking. D’uh! I was at a perfectly wonderful toyshop while unwittingly parking illegally, but somehow my toy shopping expedition feels a little tarnished now ๐
Morsel 6
Lastly and leastly, though I answered her already, the answer to Cathy’s question of a few posts ago is that I am due June 20th. Just reached the 9 week mark this week. I would put a countdown over on the side bar there, but I don’t want to be tempting fate just yet, no no no.
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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, General Ramblings, Memes, Pregnancy
Tagged pregnant, SBQ, soccer, washing machine
The sound you hear is me emerging from under my mountain of notes and textbooks, to discover myself still stuck beneath mountains of boxes in the new house.
Yes, we’ve been here for 2 weeks and it looks frankly worse than it did on the day after we moved in. A lot of stuff has been unpacked, but a lot of boxes are only half unpacked, in the frantic search for this-that-or-the-other, which leaves us with M-E-S-S ๐ I’d like to say I’ll get on top of it soon, but health-wise, things are kind of difficult at the moment. I’m feeling really good for only a few hours in each day, and I’m trying to spend those playing with Finn, lest he nominate me for world’s worst mother:giggle: (And after I accidentally opened a door in his face the other day, believe me, I’m in the running. Poor kid :ouch: ).
I did finally get my redwork exchange piece finished and off in the mail, only a day late. I’m feeling somewhat anxious about the finishing of the piece. Not what it is, but what colour it is (hint: not red). The rules didn’t say the finishing should be red, but the other finishes I’ve seen already are all red. I just didn’t find a red fabric that worked for me, and what I chose does make the redwork stitching stand out. I just hope it is well received, because I like it ๐
Now on to doing my Christmas ornament exchange. Huge hugs to Cathy for the 2005 Just Cross Stitch Ornaments issue – I love a lot of the ornaments this year, so I’m going to try and settle on one from there to stitch.
Not much else in the works at the moment, due to the feeling-like-crap thing. Sleeping is high on my list of priorities, that’s for sure. Will try and be around a bit more often though… I’m missing blogging, and feel like I’ve dropped out of the community a little bit in the past weeks.
Posted in Blog Blather, Counted Stitchwork, General Ramblings
Tagged blog, cross-stitch, exchange stitching, moving house
In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, just remember this post. I’m just taking a breather while I try and survive the rest of October. Of course, it’s not helping that every time I do have a little bit of time online, I end up thoroughly irritated by some-little-thing-or-other. I just don’t want to blog about that stuff right now. I could blog about uni, but you don’t really need to hear about how dreadfully my exam prep is going, I assure you!
There are other things going on in my life at the moment, too. Good things, mostly. Things that deserve blogtime. The house… and other stuff. Which will come to light at the appropriate time, but not now. Right now, I just need to get through the next four days, and then… sleep and sleep and sleep. Oh, and stitch a little, too – I’m just going to be able to squeak my Redwork exchange into the mail on deadline day, I think.
‘Til I resurface, hope you’re all having fun ๐ And Laura… mondo congrats on the house-signing ๐
Happy Birthday Me ๐
Finn decided I was in fact turning 88 :giggle: So sweet.
I feel that at 30, I should probably feel like an adult. Normally, no, but this week, with pressures from all directions, I think I do. Reached my goal of no grey hairs though!
Because of said pressures, there will be no big celebrations. I’m not a big one for parties even on a good year, but this year it’s just impossible to stop and breathe, let alone party. I’ll be spending this evening writing sql and php, and if I get a chance, a Usability report. Joy :yuk:
However – once the next few weeks are a mere memory, I plan to sit down with my brand new Will & Grace DVDs (Seasons 1 & 2)… and STITCH! That will be sweeeet ๐
…
PS. I decided I was not allowed to be miserable and stressed on my birthday (well, not all day anyway), so Finn and I trundled up the street for coffee and cake. Orange flourless cake, to be precise. Ooooh. My body, having become accustomed to high protein, low fat over the last 3 months, has a little bit to say about that kind of abuse. But heck, it was worth it! Now… I hope Mum doesn’t decide to bring cake over later :giggle:
Yes it does. It tolls for my former life as a scientist. Gone. All gone ๐
Really, I wasn’t a scientist in the true sense of the word. In this country anyway. In this country, to call yourself a scientist you need a PhD, and usually som time under the PostDoc umbrella. My actual title for five years was Research Assistant – aka “one who does all the work but gets none of the credit” ๐ Actually, in terms of giving credit, my boss was quite reasonable. He gave his RAs responsibility for their own projects, and I even have authorship (not primary, alas) on a few papers. So with those, and a published Abstract and conference poster from my year-long Honours project, I felt like I could call myself a scientist… at least to those who wouldn’t know any better!
I left it behind, though, for something which gives me a lot more potential to enjoy myself. I had no intention of ever doing a PhD, and without that, there’s nowhere much else to go – sideways, from academia into industry, would’ve been the most attractive option. My little sister took that option. I completely backtracked and started studying again, in a whole different area. As difficult as it has been, studying while raising a baby, I really am loving web programming. Perhaps one day I might actually feel like working for a living again!
But back to that bell tolling. For a long, looong time, all of my lecture notes and other stuff from uni (the first degree) has been in storage. Probably 5 or 6 years. I’ve obviously never had a need to refer to it, but something kept me from throwing it out. Tonight was the night though. Not enough storage space at our new place, so there are now two boxes worth of papers waiting out front to be picked up by the recycling truck ๐ I had to let OtherHalf throw most of it in the bin while I turned away. I know it’s sheer craziness, but it feels like a whole lot of my previous life just got erased.
Oh well… moving right along…
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Posted in General Ramblings
…Not yet delivered! Loan documents finally arrived (again) yesterday, and like the title tells it, we have now signed our life away. They’ll be back in the post tomorrow, and we can begin the countdown to the new house (like I haven’t been counting down since we signed the offer!)
On a totally unrelated note… we have spiders everywhere at the moment. Ev.Ry.Where! These are a particularly innocuous little spider, and they are mostly outside (have found a few who wandered indoors though). Mostly in our hedge… apparently breeding there, I guess. They’re kind of cute – I reserve my meagre allotment of arachnophobia for whitetails only. I don’t even kill redbacks on the rare occasion that I come across them – they leave me alone as long as I leave them alone. But whitetails encroach on my personal space – they come into my house without wiping their feet, take up residence in some pile of stuff (study notes, laundry…), and jump me when I try and dismantle said pile. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.
But these. These are cute. If I could be bothered, I’d find out what they are. But I can’t be.
Countdown begins in 3 minutes…
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Posted in General Ramblings
I wasn’t going to post this, I was going to answer this week’s SBQ. I probably still will, later. But I’m feeling a little confused and miserable about something right now, have to get it off my chest.
Did you ever get the idea that someone just didn’t like you? I’ve been experiencing this feeling for a couple of months. I really have nothing concrete to base this on. A particular person in my life seems to be constantly avoiding me, despite my friendliness towards her. However, in the company of others, she will appear to be perfectly pleasant. So really, it’s just vibes that I’m basing this on. I’m usually reasonably perceptive about these things, and it isn’t that I’ve never had people not like me before (get that for a double negative!) It’s just always been blatantly obvious before, y’know! The silly thing is, I really don’t crave this person’s friendship, so I don’t think I’m coming across as a desperate loser :giggle: As I said, I’m just friendly in a general friendly-towards-strangers sort of way. I wish the courtesy could be returned. If not, I would prefer she would just get her dislike for me out in the open, then we can all go on our merry way.
Sorry for the blah. I need to get past this. Hopefully “talking” about it will help me. I’ll be back later… it’s time to introduce you to my UFO!
Posted in General Ramblings
With all the hoops we’ve been jumping through with banks lately, in order to get our home loan approved, our day-to-day banking switched over, and what have you, I’ve become rather accustomed to undergoing the 100-point identity check. Upon meeting someone new, rather than say “Hi, I’m Melanie”, I’m just as likely now to just to whip out the driver’s licence, Medicare card and birth certificate:giggle:. It’s got me musing about how we prove we are who we are. Particularly since I’ve run into a few little… um… “issues”. For the purposes of illustration here, let’s say my middle name is “Krispy”, my married last name is “Kornflakes”, and my maiden last name is “Krunchy”.
(Ah, but how do you know those aren’t really my names?!)
Anyway.
Issue #1: Bank accepts birth certificate as part of 100-point check. Bureaucrat in State Revenue Office does not accept birth certificate, as birth certificate is in name “Melanie Krispy Krunchy”, not “Melanie Krispy Kornflakes”. Well duh, I wasn’t born married. Offer Marriage certificate as evidence these two are one and same. Instead, must attend police station to have “Change of Name Statement” witnessed, even though I am not changing my name, have actually been known as “Melanie Krispy Kornflakes” since y2K. Learn lesson, and do not use birth certificate again in 100-point check.Issue #2: Bank will not accept Certificate of currency of insurance because said certificate bears only “Melanie Kornflakes”, omitting vital “Krispy”. Return to insurance company to request addition of “Krispy” to certificate and resend to bank. Curse OtherHalf, whose lack of middle name I have previously always poked fun at!
Issue #3: Post Office responsible for forwarding of mail requests maiden and married names, ‘just in case’. No space for maiden name on form. Insert “Krunchy” in parentheses after “Kornflakes”. Confirmation arrives in mail, citing “Melanie Kornflakes Krunchy” as a member of household (ok, totally my fault, and let’s not go into missing “Krispy” on this one). Phone Post Office concerned that confusion will arise, and no mail for Melanie-Anyone will be forwarded to new address. Informed that should have filled form in with both “Melanie Krunchy” and “Melanie Kornflakes” persons. Oh fer crying out loud. I am now two people?!
Don’t you think that just sometimes, it would be easier to undergo fingerprick-DNA-analysis a la Gattaca, to prove your identity? At the very least, it would probably be easier to be known by a number our entire lives, rather than having to hoop jump because of middle and married names. Oh, OK, or not change our name when we marry. But that’s a whole other issue-filled post and I just don’t want to go there! I like my married name ๐
Posted in Family, General Ramblings