Rolling on the river

Well Easter has come and gone for another year.

Thank feck for that!

I didn't get any eggs this year (by request) but I still ate too much of everyone else's eggs and other horribly bad stuff at family bbq's and so forth. A bit of a stand still in the dieting saga but I'm rather forgiving of myself (it was Easter after all!)

Unfortunately the gym was closed over the long weekend so I found myself not doing the 45mins of exercising a day I'm supposed to be doing. I managed it on only one of the four days and on another I did half an hour. But still, it was Easter! I can only use that excuse once a year so I'm planning on taking full advantage of it ;-)

Sunday, the day that I did manage to get off my butt and do something physical saw me going for a long walk along the river (about an hour and twenty minutes). I started off at the bird sanctuary and found myself at some historic tearooms before turning for home again. The silliest aspect of the walk was that I started it at 6:40 in the morning. Easter Sunday and I'm out walking before the bloody birds have even woken up! (ok, so that was a tiny exaggeration - the birds were stirring in their little sanctuary). I guess you could class me as being a bit mad.

Anyway, I took photos for you all, think of it as my little Easter pressie for you all!

This is the view of the river and The Garrett Road Bridge with the clouds looking all pretty in the background.

I like the mirror image in this one of a pond.

You can't really read this sign but it basically says don't drink the water or play in it. Well duh!

Around the bird sanctuary area there are lots of little wooden boardwalks over the plant revegetation areas and in some parts the river itself. They're very pretty.

And finally not the best photo in the world, but one of me! I always have a bit of a furrow going on but that could have been because I forgot my sunnies and it was rather glary! I just know I'm going to get told of by Boo and Ro because 'glary' will turn out to not be a proper word or something... :P

Lastly, I found out the most exciting news today! Alex messaged me and he's sent his manuscript off to his editor! Yay! I'm literally bouncing up and down I'm that excited! So it hopefully won't be too long before we all get to read his new book. Go Alex!

Off on an Adventure!

Well, almost.

Adventure World (Perth's rather second-rate amusement park) had a corporate day today and through my social club at work I managed to pick up some super cheap tickets for my family.

We loaded two cars with kids, eskis and picnic blankets and were on our way.

When we arrived we discovered that quite a few more tickets than we expected had been sold. We ended up parking a mile away from the front gates and had to then lug kids, eskis and picnic blankets all that way. We did have a rather scenic view of Bibra Lake on our way though, looking lovely and ...dry. Damn drought.

We couldn't find where my social club had set up so we found our own little spot in the shade and after lunch we got down to the business of the rides. The kids were uber excited and we headed off towards the kiddie rides first. Several more rides had been bought in especially for the day and so they had a ball going on as many as they could. Darce was a little scared of some of them but Chiara had a heap of fun on the more daring ones.

This is Chiara on the Little Leaper (third from left). It was the second time for had been on it but both times she went on alone as Darce was too frightened.

The guy who was operating the ride was really fun and had a great way with the kids. He'd ask which of the kids wanted to stay dry and then spray the others with a hose. As most of the kids had just come from the water slides, not too many said no.

The castle in the middle of the park has recently had a make-over and we got all excited thinking that they had re-opened it. About twenty years ago when we were kids they had it decked out as a vampire castle and you'd walk through it and look at ghouls and monsters while dodging vampires, before ending up on a balcony with a stunning view. There were signs everywhere pointing to the Castle Lookout and so we made our way over to it.

Unfortunately it was still closed off. The 'lookout' was up one flight of stairs on the outside of the castle. The kids were pretty disappointed, almost as much as we adults were!

My sisters and I then went on a few rides, including the one below, the Power Surge. I went on it first with Barb and thought it was really fun as it did all the upside-down things but you didn't get jerked back and forth like some rides tend to do. So Jo decided to go on it with me as I said it was pretty lame and she's not too fond of the scary rides. Thirty seconds into it she's proclaiming how much she hates me and how she will never ever forgive me. I replied asking her if she'd lost her balls on her thirtieth birthday.

Another one of Adventure Worlds' signatures is the Skull Cave. It's pretty cool looking and I knew I just had to get a photo of it for my Goth friends (you know who you are!). Unfortunately it's pretty boring inside. You just climb up some stairs to get through it and it's very fibre glass looking inside.

There's an enclosure near Kids' Cove that has lots of native Australians (of the animal variety!) and I took some pics for them for you. There were lots of emus but they ran away when I tried to get photos and I didn't really want to post seven different photos of an emu's butt as he's running off. This is the only decent photo I got.

The koalas didn't do much (do they ever?) except for sitting around looking stoned. Really, they may be cute but they're bloody boring!

This koala wasn't boring though. He went around the park giving everyone hugs and dancing and Jo was kind enough to take a pic for you all. Darce wasn't at all impressed with him as she could see his arms where his gloves were coming off and realised he wasn't a real koala. She then stormed off, mightily offended and when we asked her about it she huffed 'He's tricking everyone into believing he's a real koala, but he's not. He's a human! It's just a costume Mummy!'. We didn't have much luck convincing her that we had known all along that he wasn't a real koala...

Christian isn't a big fan of Adventure World and spent the entire day sitting on the rug. He didn't move once! I came back at one stage to find he had borrowed my hat to stop from getting burnt. It was then that I felt it necessary to inform him that we had sunscreen in my bag.

He didn't bother with the sunscreen in the end and spent a lot of time dozing. Honestly, it was the most expensive nap he's ever taken!

And that was my exciting day out! Honestly, I'm pooped. I just feel like going to bed but it's only 7:30 and that's too wimpish, even for me!

Take care guys and have a wonderful Easter!

How age has changed me

I've found that since I've gotten older I've become quite a lot more politically incorrect than I used to be.
I'm not saying I've turned into one of those dreadful old women who say whatever they feel like, usually uncomplimentary things about the person next to them in line at the shops, as loud as they possibly can.
It's more in my general conversations.
For example if I see someone doing something completely moronic I'm more often than not going to make the comment 'Gosh, are they retarded or something?'
Now when I was younger I would never use the word 'retarded'. This may or may not be due to my mothers' influence (Mum worked in Disabilities for years and would have cuffed me round the ear if she's heard that term come out of my mouth). I have just always thought it to be too derogatory a word to use. But something has changed in me and my way of thinking and I'm not too sure what it is.

Another example is I'll make bitchy comments about people in a grumbly sort of way. The other day Barbie and I were at the shops and this really tall guy was walking sooooo slowly down the middle of the isle and we couldn't get past. After we'd detoured out of our way I mumbled to myself 'Honestly, could you move any slower Goliath?'
Barbie heard me, gasped and told me off for being mean. As you may have guessed, she found this out of character for me.

I've also noticed that when it comes to the native population of Australia (and I'm sure calling them 'natives' isn't exactly PC) I've found myself becoming more and more cynical. When I worked in my last job I'd see a young Aboriginal girl walk in wearing a really nice top and I'd automatically think 'I wonder where she stole that from?'
Now I have a theory that I think this way about this particular group because almost every time I'd do a bag check as they left the store I'd find several small but valuable items shoved at the bottom of their bags.
I don't have this opinion about the whole race, I've met many upstanding citizens whose ancestors probably used to camp in what is now my backyard. It's just after a while the actions of a few really start to reflect badly on the rest of a group.

I guess in such a politically correct society any little thing I do I find myself over-evaluating. I'm just glad that I have a circle of friends who are probably just as un-PC as I am and don't get all huffy when I say something that I really shouldn't. And if any of you do, then you're probably hanging about with the wrong crowd.

Teapotty goodness

I was chatting to Boo the other morning on msn and I told her about how I got one of those tea-for-one teapots. I think they're awfully cute plus it was on sale! How could I resist such a bargain? Christian doesn't quite grasp the concept, saying if I want tea for one, I should just use a teabag. Christian as you may have figured, doesn't drink tea. I got a photo of my teapot for you all to admire.

Ok, go ahead, admire away :)



Boo also asked me what plans I had for the weekend. I told her I was going up to my Mums' to drop some stuff off, then I was going to soccer to watch the boys play and then I was going to go for a big walk around the river with Barb. I was instructed to take my trusty camera along with me to capture my day.

I wanted to try and get a photo of the scenery on the drive up to my Mums' as she lives in the hills just down the road from where I used to live. Problem was, it was just me in the car at the time. This is my one handed attempt whilst driving at taking a good photo.

Thankfully I didn't pass any cops as I'm sure they place photography while driving in the same category as using a mobile phone while driving. I got to Mums' in one piece and we had a cup of tea and a chat. I took a photo of her pond for you all and also of the hippo that spits water into the pond. I guess if I was a hippo with a tube shoved up my arse, I'd most likely spit water too.


There were some baby maggies playing up the back and I tried to get close enough to get a good photo. The maggies there are really quite tame as my Mum feeds them a lot (they'll come right up to the back door and even into the house if they can get in to sqwark at her to feed them) but with the babies they weren't as trusting and so this is as close as I could get. One of them kept rolling over onto his back, almost as a dog would and playing dead. It was quite funny.


Alas, after I left Mums' I failed miserably at my appointed task. I did go to soccer but I didn't really feel quite comfortable taking photos of the guys as most of them I don't really know very well. Mike was there ( a nice surprise as I thought he was away for the weekend) and I've posted photos of him on here before, and you've all seen photos of Christian so I didn't think you'd be missing out all that much. Especially Super Intelligent Hunky Sex God Brother Mike and Acci who I'm sure don't particularly want to see photos of sexy blokes anyway.
While I was at soccer I had a good read of the Thai Chi Times (I think it was called anyway). There was a wonderful piece in there written by someone called Smerk, no idea who that could be ;)

I also didn't end up going for a walk along the river as Barb pulled out on me as it was going to be just too late. Instead I dragged my dogs around the neighbourhood and unfortunately with a leash in both hands and a rocket on the end of each, it's a tad difficult to take photos.

Perhaps next time I shall be more successful. But you got to see my teapot and really, that's what's important eh?

The Bad Egg Brigade

Easter is just around the corner and this year my gym is having a 'decorate a boiled egg' competition.
Now, I have the craft ability of a four year old but I enjoy it immensely. As I'm avoiding eggs of the chocolate variety at the moment, I got very enthusiastic about the idea and thought long and hard about what I could do. I wanted to do something different, something that wasn't just throwing a fancy scrunchie around the egg and saying it's a ballerina.
I started to think of making a 'Bad Egg Brigade'. I figured Hitler and the Devil would be pretty easy to make with eggs but I needed more than just two eggs to make a brigade. Imhotep came to mind and after rooting around a bit I found Christian's medical tape that he wraps his toes in when he plays soccer and decided that would do well as a mummy's bandaging. I wanted one more but couldn't really think of anyone else to make until Christian suggested Dracula. It seemed to fit and so I got cracking (sorry, couldn't help myself).
Here's how they turned out. I took two photos so you could see both sides of Hitler and the Devil's forked tail. There's a prize for the best decorated and even though I don't think I have a chance, I'll keep you posted.




Finally I'll leave you with some pictures of my doggies. It's been getting rather cold here at night lately, especially with the tiles and so they really have to snuggle up in their beds.
Aren't they just the cutest???

Rant time!

I haven't had a good rant for a while now and I saw something today that annoyed me so I thought 'What the heck, that's what a blog's for'.

Now, as most of you would have figured out from my previous few posts, I'm not the skinniest person in the world. I do like to dress nicely though and go to I'd say the average amount of effort in my appearance. I always try to buy flattering clothes that fit nicely but don't make me look like a granny.

Now, today I was walking across the road from the parking lot to work when I saw a young girl walk up to the ATM. She was probably a size 12, maybe 14 at the most, pretty average I'd say but the thing that made me notice her was the fact that she was muffin-topping ridiculously badly. Her jeans must have been a full size too small for her and she was wearing this tight crop top that really didn't show off her figure to it's full advantage.

I hate it when people do this! If she was wearing jeans that actually fit properly, she would have looked really nice. But instead she looked...skanky.
Is it some obscure sense of pride that makes some women only buy one size of clothing even if it doesn't fit? Because that's just plain dumb. Clothing isn't always the same size. I have clothes that differ by as much as four sizes because one brand varies so much from the next. I'm not going to squeeze myself into something that obviously won't fit just so I can claim to be a certain size.

And you know what makes this really bad? When it's a case of mutton dressed as lamb. I find it particularly frightening when it's a 45 year old woman dressing in her teenage daughters clothes. I understand that you are only as old as you feel, blah blah blah, but come on, have a little decorum. There could be children present for crying out loud.

Ok, rant's over now. I just needed to get that off my chest.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

and shake your bum...

First of all, I apologise to super intelligent, hunky sex God brother Mike for not referring to him as Sexy Mike or even just regular Mike. I hope this more than makes up for my little lapse.

Secondly, in the two weeks since I've started my new resolve, I've lost about 4 kg. Yay me! I'm very proud of myself for sticking to it and working my butt off so much.

Thirdly, I much prefer millipedes to ants. Our new house is invested with the little sugar ants and for some reason ant poison isn't working. Perhaps they're a mutant variety, immune to poison and hell bent on the destruction of my kitchen?

Fourthly, I managed to break another watch by smashing the face of it. I don't know how I do it, but I manage to whack my wrist against everything I walk past. I guess it was inevitable.

Lastly, I've been watching Farscape. I never watched it when it was on telly but my supply of quality sci-fi has dwindled so I borrowed the dvds from a work mate. It's not a bad show and if I'd watched it during the 90's when it first aired I'm sure it would have been better (remember people that I watch SeaQuest) but on the whole it's a tad cheesy.

Ok, a lot cheesy.

I just think that Aussie accents on tv sound so corny and hollow. Especially in sci-fi. I mean, why on Earth would aliens have Australian accents? Fair enough, they really shouldn't have Merkin or British accents either, but out of all the accents in the world, they wouldn't have Australian ones. Ok, that sentence didn't make a lot of sense (why on Earth??? I'm talking about Aliens who aren't from Earth.) I'm sure you get my drift anyway.
Ultimately I get to watch Ben Browder run around making calf eyes at Claudia Black. It can't be that bad, right?

May contain strong language, sexual references and adult themes

Yesterday my friend Kat had her final day at Pie Networks (where Christian, Mike and Sexy Mike also work) and so we went around to her place last night for farewell drinks.
She lives in Scarborough about one hundred meters from the ocean and the view from her backyard is apparently spectacular during the day.

Sitting in her backyard I could see some lights that were ships and a whole lot of black.

Not so spectacular.

But I wasn't there for the view. There was just the five of us there, Christian and myself, Kat of course, Mike and a girl called Mel (Kat's boyfriend Sexy Mike is in New Zealand at the moment). We had gone for a walk into Scarborough to get some dinner and then we spent the rest of the night sitting about chatting. We covered topics such as Kat's new job and what she'd be doing, a guy at Pie who the others found to be really annoying at work but great out of it, crazy customers and funny stories about them and the like.

Now, I'm sure you'll all understand that the conversation wasn't exactly PG rated up until that point (how could it be with me there and the line a long way behind me) but about one in the morning we started to explore more obscure topics.
Don't ask me how I bought this up because I can't remember the context of the conversation directly beforehand but I mentioned an article I'd read years ago about Christopher Reeve and his wife Dana. One morning Dana woke up and found Reeve had a stunning morning glory. They both got very excited and went straight to their doctor who told them that, yes it was possible for them to still have children but Dana would have to do the majority of the work so to speak.

This then led into a lengthy debate over how male erections and ejaculation actually work. A few of us were of the opinion that there must be a large psychological aspect to it and that it must be possible for men to cum without physical stimulation at all, citing wet dreams as an example.
The others disagreed saying if Reeve wanted to cum just by thinking about it, why would Dana have to do all the work. There must be a manual release mechanism of some sort seeing as he wouldn't feel her doing anything and so he wouldn't have the same sensation as the rest of the men out there.

We went round in circles on this for quite a while and it'll be interesting to see what you guys think.
Then the conversation led into the subject of porn (and you know what? I bought that up too...nothing if consistent eh?) and I asked if men really sit around and watch porn together like they do in the movies. I couldn't understand how they could watch porn and not get the urge to jack off, or do they still do and then they just sit around wanking off in front of each other?
Christian and Mike both said that they'd never watched porn with a bunch of friends before and said they'd never even heard of anyone doing it. I suggested maybe it was just private school guys and then Mike had to go and bring up 'soggy biscuit' and it all went downhill rapidly from there.

Two thirty came and so after having another ogle at Mike's R32 that he'd finally gotten licensed after importing about a year ago (and I also ogled Mike) we headed home and I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Ogle. That's an odd word. Just look at it. It doesn't even make any sense. Who on earth invented it? Was someone just sitting around one day writing down random letters and decided that ogle would be a good word?

I digress. I wanted to leave you with a link to some PG rated porn that my brother Mike (I know too many Mikes!) shared with me.

Roof Sex

Catch you all later!

The battle begins

I apologise in advance for the self pitying post.

I jumped on the scales the other day and to my dismay, found I was the heaviest I've ever been. Not exactly the most promising start to any day.
I thought about it and realised that even though I've been pretty good with the exercise bit of it (I do try and get to the gym three or four times a week and try to walk the dogs just as often) I think I fall down when it comes to what I eat.
And it's probably not really what I eat but how much I eat.
The old portion size war.

On the same day a friend of the family pointedly told me that people who are as overweight as I rarely conceive and that it shouldn't come as any surprise to me that I hadn't fallen pregnant as yet.

I got very low after that. Low enough to start falling back into my old habits and I didn't eat anything for a day and a half.
I managed to pull myself back together again as anorexia made me skinny for a couple of years and I've pretty much been this size since a year after I started eating again. I know it's not a healthy attitude to have, and I forgive myself the little lapse as this woman was quite nasty about it, but I knew it was time to make a battle plan.

I've been involved with a few strategists in the past - fad dieting, weight watchers, and I knew it was time to try something different. My sister put me onto an Australian site called Calorie King which is like an online diary that first works out your BMI (Oh God, not pretty!!!) and then tells you how many calories to consume in a day and how much exercise to do and then you can keep track of it.
It's only early days yet but hopefully it'll go as planned.

The hardest bit is finding the support I need. My sisters yo-yo back and forth when they're dieting and I often find it's when I'm with them that I afll flat on my face and give in to those Tim Tams.
My Mum is like the Will Power Queen and although she tries, she sometimes makes it sound like she's criticising.
Then there's Christian.
6"2 and about 15 kgs underweight, Christian has never had to lose weight in his life and really has no idea how hard it can be. I mean he does try and be supportive (he stopped me from making a screen saver out of an unflattering photo of myself and the caption Time to lose some weight lardass or you'll never have kids) but I sometimes find him to be a little derogatory. Not that he means to be obviously, but if we go for a walk he complains because he prefers to run, I crave a coke zero (the bastards have made it addictive) and he says he can't see why I could drink that crap, I'll measure out my food religiously and he piles his plate as high as he can and says he doesn't see how eating two cups of salad instead of one would matter (well it does if your counting calories!).

*sigh*

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I'll actually stick to it this time instead of going AWOL like I usually do.

Home open

We've been moved in for a while now and although we've still got a spare room chokkas full of crap I thought it was about time to post some 'before and after' photos of our house.

The before photos were taken when we were painting the house and so my dad was still living here. He had gotten rid of a lot of his stuff by then and had only kept the essentials. I took the after photos the other day.

This is the loungeroom. The way we've got it set up now means we've cut off the gas point and will have heaps of fun plugging in the heater come winter, but it's really the only way we could set it up to fit in all our crap.

The angles on this photo are a little different to the 'after' shot and we'd already painted the feature wall when I took the 'before' one, but this is our bedroom. Both photos are taken from the doorway. Oh and those pictures aren't staying. When I get some hooks I'll take them down and put my 'Electric Wolf' pic (that you can sort of see in the lounge pics) up in the middle of the wall. We loved the colour of the feature wall (passionate blue) so much that we decided we'd paint the doors that colour. We both hated the green and wanted something different. A lot of people don't like such a dark colour on the doors in such a small house, but they don't have to live here!

This is the bathroom. It didn't change all that much except for the doors and a little drawer unit I bought.

This was the only 'before' shot I had of the kitchen and I had taken it more because my Dad was in it than to get a shot of the kitchen itself. The walls in the kitchen and dining were just repainted white, Dad fixed the pantry door but not much else was done to it. My Mum gave me some cafe curtains that once belonged to my Nanna to put up which I love. Nanna bought them back from Germany with her and never got a chance to use them so I'm glad that one of her grand-daughters finally gets to use them.






This photo of the dining room is taken from a different angle to the 'after' shot. In this one I'm standing at the back door whereas in the 'after' photo I was taking it looking at the back door. I took this photo when we first began painting (back when we were naive and still enthusiastic), it was the first wall we did.

Right, so that concludes a rather boring post.

Sorry bout that...

Once our patio is up and I've finally gotten around to mowing the lawn (I thought that was a husband job but I've been informed otherwise) I'll post some 'before and after' shots of the garden.

Bye!

Photo adventure with Nettie

Today we went to a bbq at Whiteman Park to celebrate Mike graduating from Uni. Lots of his family and friends turned up for the festivities and I was there with my trusty camera to capture the moments.

This is a sign we passed when we entered the park. I automatically yelled 'COW!' and then paused and asked Christian why a cow would be on the sign. He informed me it was a bull and it's on there because, like roos, they can cause serious damage to your car if you come into contact with them at high speeds. Duh. Also, snakes are protected so you're not allowed to deliberately run them down with you car if they're crossing the road.

We were having our bbq in Shelter Q which was near Mussel Pool. I didn't see any mussels in the pool, only lots of ducks and duck poo, and I found the stream running into the pool more interesting. I actually think the pool may be technically a billabong as a billabong is 'a body of water formed when the U bend in a river or stream becomes cut off from itself'. I'm sure that's what's happened here. It's pretty anyway.

We found a playground for the kiddies that had PLUNGERS! I was so excited! For those of you who don't know, plungers (I'm not sure what the technical term is but that's what we call them) are like upside down seesaws. You sit on top of what looks to be a big plunger and you jump up and down.

Jo and I had a go and had heaps of fun. Then I got bored and hopped off without warning her. Needless to say Jo fell on her arse...

We also played a lot of the little merry-go-round thing majig. I took these photos of the kids while we were spinning around at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. Aren't they just the cutest!

Darcie wanted to have a go with my camera so she took a photo of Mum, Chiara and I. I think she did a pretty good job!

My brother Scott and his partner Michael came along (yay!). We don't usually see Scott very much as he works away as a botanist on the mines so it was really great to catch up with him.

Scott has always called me his doppelganger. I'm not sure if we're that much alike but I think the family resemblance is pretty obvious.

Me and Michael. I'm so glad Scott found such a wonderful person as Mike is just gorgeous. But really, how many Michaels can I know at once???

Christian hates having his photo taken. I don't have many photos without his middle finger raised in protest...

Tash managed to get the day off work to come along which was great as we don't see her very often anymore :(

Barb's friend Kim who is as much Barb's sister as I am.

Daniel, Mike's brother and also one of Christian's best friends. It's all so rednecky around here!

It was a really great day and afterwards a lot of the guys crammed into our house to play Wii and board games. On a related note I totally blew my diet. Oh well...

I succumbed

Well I guess a change is as good as a holiday...