Friday, March 31, 2006

Who put that door there?

I was at a loss as to what to post about today - nothing terribly exciting has happened lately. And then it hit me. Well, actually, the door hit me. The door frame, to be more precise. Or, maybe it was me who hit the door frame?

You see, I would have to be the clumsiest git who has ever lived. 'Accident prone' my Mother used to say. I just manage to injure myself on a constant basis.

Whenever Christian hears a thump and a hastily bitten off swear word he yells out "What on Earth have you walked into now?" because it is almost always me not seeing the wall/corner/door frame and heavily colliding with it. I'm lucky I don't bruise easily or I'd have many a raised eyebrow and concerned questions regarding my marriage.

When I was younger, there was an official inquest into my family because my school thought I was being abused at home. It all happened after one particularly nasty week.
It started off with me falling over on my rollerskates and bruising my hip. The next day I was playing with my cousin and I fell onto the window ledge and further bruised the same hip. I had to go to the doctors for my asthma and Mum got my hip checked out as she was worried I may have fractured a bone. No fracture but the following day at school I slipped on some playground equipment and hit my head. Hard. I don't remember much of the rest of the day but I was taken to hospital by ambulance with swelling and bruising to my brain (No one say a word! I was dumb to begin with!) . I had to stay home from school the next day and I was so bored that when my sisters got home we started playing chasey. I went flying over a chair and put my knee through the glass front of a cabinet and ended up needing five staples to keep my kneecap from falling out.

Mother was not impressed! She had a hard time convincing the authorities that it was because I was clumsy, and not because I pissed off my parents.

So now I kind of stumble through life, trying to avoid things made of concrete and always looking for a soft landing. Unfortunately, my name means 'Grace'. It's quiet laughabe actually as I have all the grace as a blindfolded mating rhinoceros.

PS. Odd fact about me #2 - I have broken my little toes so many times that they no longer touch the ground. When I have wet feet, I leave four toed footprints.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Attack of the millipedes

One of the lovely little quirks of living in Perth is the millipede invasion that occurs every winter. I forget where the millipedes come from - it's South Africa or somewhere like that, but somehow they ended up here and they are a pain in the arse if there ever was one.

From the first rains, nowhere is sacred. The small smelly creepy crawlies come in under doors, through gaps in the flyscreen on windows, they gather in large numbers in the bath and are fond of dropping from the ceiling onto unsuspecting victims. Their skins are acidic and if you are unlucky enough to have one crawl into bed with you, you are greeted in the morning with strange half moon burns all over your body.

Perth has had a weird summer this year which has included quiet a bit of unseasonal rain. Such rain occurred earlier this week and out came the millipedes. In droves. Into my house. They're everywhere.

And so, yet again begins the battle between me and the millipedes. I'll hit them with everything I've got; pesticide, tomato dust, my trusty vacuum cleaner. Only God himself knows how this will end.

I'll keep you posted.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Where am I?

Just letting you guys know that I'm alive and well but haven't been on for a while due to lots of things going wrong.
Biggest of all was my Mum was in a car accident on Tuesday. She's ok, but very shaken up. She was taking off from a green light when a little kid (bout 13 I think) on a bike ran the red light and smashed into the side of her car. Mum had no idea what had happened except her window imploded. So she stopped and saw this kid laying on the ground. He's ok too, couldn't stop apologising apparently.
Also, I've started my new role at work and it's a lot to take in, and I'm getting out rather late and also feeling exhausted, so I haven't been feeling like doing much except sleep. It doesn't help that the woman training me is the most condescending woman in the world. Talk about been made to feel an inch high.
Anyways, that's about it. I'll hopefully get around to seeing you all in the next day or two.
Love yas.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

A bit of this, a bit of that

After a couple of weeks, I thought it was high time for an update. I have recovered from my bout of the plague, organs intact and am proceeding to catch up with life. It's always hard to come to terms with the fact that you've slept almost an entire week away.

I start full time at work tomorrow, a decision that I may come to regret, but hopefully wont. I am taking on the 'Teller A' role which involves many more duties and quite a bit more responsibility. I will become treasury custodian, will be responsible for ordering and clearing cash, process the business express deposits plus a few other bits and bobs as well as my normal telling duties. It's going to be extremely full on for the first month or two, but after that at least I'll have my holiday to look forward too.

Meanwhile, I've been reading and watching a lot of Red Dwarf. Years ago I had seen a few episodes and found it funny and amusing but I was never what you'd call a 'die hard' fan. It was shown at a particular time on telly that found me usually out of the house or otherwise occupied and so I never watched a lot of it. Years passed and I picked up the first book while visiting my brother in law last week.

I was hooked after the first sentence 'Saunders had been dead for almost two weeks now and, so far, hadn't enjoyed a minute of it', but by page 26 after this paragraph describing McIntyre's suicide 'The rubber plant was surprised. If the rubber plant could have spoken, it wouldn't have said a thing. That's how surprised the rubber plant was. Over the last few weeks it had witnessed the gradual deterioration of McIntyre's mental health, but if the rubber plant had had a name it would have said: "George McIntyre is not the kind of guy to commit suicide, or my name's not..." - whatever it's name would have been, had it had one.' - I had fallen in love with the books. I laughed so hard at times, I cried. Which is probably not the best thing to do when you're alone in the lunch room with your boss. You do tend to get some funny looks.

So, once I'd read the first two books (Mike doesn't have the last two and no ruddy bookshop in Perth seems to stock them anymore), I began watching the series. I had bought Christian the series 1 dvd for Chrissy so I started with that and then went out and bought 2 and 4 (3 had sold out). So I've worked my way through them and now can't wait for the time when I can afford to blow another ridiculous amount of money on more dvds. I'm loving every moment though and the episodes I had seen previously, I find even funnier now that I'm a fan as I get the character jokes.

Oh, and I suppose it wouldn't really be me if I didn't add that I find Rimmer, in his own nerdy way, rather sexy ;-)

Catch you on the flip side guys.

Friday, March 10, 2006

I feel such a fraud

Here I am, off sick for my third day in a row. However, unlike Wednesday or even yesterday, I am not hunched over the toilet trying to dislodge my inners, nor in a semi-comatose state, rather I am feeling almost 100% again and more than healthy enough to return to work.

Unfortunately, due to a silly legal technicality, I cannot return to work toady because my doctor told me to have today off and gave me a medical certificate covering me for Thursday and today. I rang my boss yesterday and told her what had transpired but I was feeling much better and would most likely be in today. She then told me that if I had a doctor's certificate, I couldn't come in to work as I would not be covered under insurance and if I injured myself or we were held up, I would be screwed.

So here I am, sitting at home, feeling like a fraud. I've never chucked a sickie when I wasn't sick. Even when I am truly sick, I feel guilty for not going into work. So I feel awful being at home when I feel well enough to work.

I know most of you are saying to yoursleves 'God I wish my doctor would give me a couple of days off' and I know I should just take it easy and make sure I'm completely recovered before I go back, but I feel bad for my colleagues. The work load gets harder on them and when we have a person off sick we almost always get out late.

But enough of my whinging for now. I'll try and make my next post about something happy and fun. Maybe about butterflies and balloons. Or something.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Fun in the sun

Being the first part of the year, there are a ridiculous amount of public holidays here and Monday is one of them. It's Labour day but the meaning of the day has long since been forgotten and now it only signifies one thing - an extra day off work.

As no one one has to work tomorrow, Christian organised a bbq on the shores of the murky Swan River in Bayswater, and we arrived, picnic blanket in one hand, a pack of sausages in the other, despite the sweltering heat.

We've held one of these before at this spot and although the turnout to this one was smaller, the guys who did rock up are just fantastic and we had a fun time.
Between the lot of us, we had brought two vortexs, a soccer ball, a footy, a couple of tennis balls, a frisbee, a hackey sack, two cricket bats and a tennis racket and the boys set about throwing whatever they could into the air all at once ( a flying cricket bat is not a good idea!)

The funniest bit is watching everyone cover their heads and cower when they hear the evil whistling sound a vortex makes as it flies through the air. Some of the boys could really throw it hard and after several people had been hit, me included, we all took to running for shelter when we heard that ominous sound.

It was a hot day though and we didn't stay too long, only till about three thirty. The sun had done it's job though and most of us are sunburnt. You can clearly see on my arms where I couldn't reach with the sunscreen (I, ah, 'forgot' to take photos...)

I'm exhausted now, I think I have mild sunstroke so I'm going to go lay down for a bit. Sorry this post isn't that long, or even very exciting, but at the moment it's all I can do to stay awake.
Ciao.

P.S. Happy birthday Cammy!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Somewhere in this dump...

I feel extremely sorry for anyone who visits my house who is a 'neat freak'. My house is an absolute pig sty at the moment.

There are dishes piling up on the sink that haven't been done for about four days (I used my last knife tonight), the bed in my spare room is piled high with unfolded washing which, without exaggerating one little bit, I can tell you hasn't been folded in about four months, I have cobwebs on my loungeroom ceiling that I'm not allowed to remove as, according to Christian, they 'keep the mozzies away', and my back verandah is a fire trap waiting to happen as there are leaves piled ankle deep.

Each weekend I tidy the house, vacuum, clean the toilet and the bathroom and then do a few loads of washing to get the towels, sheets and our work uniforms done, but the rest of it just doesn't seem to happen. I hate with a passion doing the dishes and folding washing and so I leave that to my dutiful husband (he manages the dishes usually but not the washing).

I just never seem to find the time to get all those little extra things done that make the difference between 'tidy' and 'clean'. Occasionally I'll just be in a cleaning mood and attack the place with a ferocity that somehow scares me, but these incidents are few and far between.

Does it make me a bad person that I would rather be spending my weekends on the net talking to you lot, or lounging in my hammock reading a book? Personally I don't think so, but the people who get attacked by the creatures growing in my sink may think otherwise.

Anyway, if we ever get around to having an Australian MoH Sleepover, I'll make sure I take the time to clean my place properly.

Just for you.