When soccer becomes 'more' than a game.

Several of you already know about the 'incident' at Wednesdays soccer match so please feel free to amuse yourselves while I regale those unfortunates who have not yet heard the tale.

First of all I think you all need to know something very important about my husband, Christian.
Christian is a very non-violent person. He swears like a pirate, his sarcasm cuts to the bone, he watches action films and plays all sorts of nasty games on his wii and PS2 but when it comes to physical violence he's just not into it. It's also very rare for Christian to lose his temper.

So anyway, Christian still can't play soccer at the moment as his ankle just isn't fully recovered, we've still been going to the games however as we want to support the team. So on Wednesday we went round to Sexy Mike's place first so the boys could play Magic (I helped Tiho and we lost horribly so perhaps my aspirations to become a kick arse Magic player are a little deluded, but I digress) and then we headed off to watch the game with Kat. The boys were playing a team called Nothing Suss and I would like to point out here at the onset that there was a lot of things suss about them.

So, the opposition score two early goals but despite this they yell and swear at each other and get rather aggro all round. The boys score two goals and then we're even. Then we get called by the ref for not throwing in from the sides correctly. The ball has to be thrown in from behind the head, not released when it's over of in front of you. Fair enough but then the other team do it and don't get called.
So Christian (who has become a rather vocal spectator) calls at the ref 'So, how is that any different???'. This guy from the other team stops and yells out at Christian, the conversation going something like this.

Loser : 'Do you need your prescription checked mate?'
Christian : 'Come on, there was no way that ball was thrown from behind'
L : 'You've got no fucking idea mate'
C : Yeah, maybe if you're head was this big it might have been ok' (Christian holds his hands out a foot or two)
L : (grabs crotch) Well what do you think of this then?
C : I think I'd need a prescription to see that!
L : Oh you're so gonna fucking cop it after that
C : Whatever mate, it's just a game
L : Nah, you're fucking dead. Ref, sub!

So Loser then proceeds to march off the court and come yelling at Christian about how he's going to beat Christian's head in. Stupidly (it seemed like such a good idea at the time) I step in front of this guy and say 'Look, just calm down mate'.
Now, this guy wasn't going to calm down. Quite the opposite in fact. I honestly thought then he was going to punch me. Obviously so did Christian because when Loser yells out 'So, you gonna hide behind your fucking woman???' Christian then went 'Fine, you want to have a go at me?'

So Loser goes for Christian and we all thought (Christian, Kat and I) that this guy was going to throw a punch. Instead he takes a running kick right at my husbands family jewels.
Well, that did it.
Christian starts grappling with him and this guy just goes beserk, punches Christian in the face and pretty much body slams him onto the ground. I jump on top, trying to pull this guy off and one of his team mates comes running and tries to help. Meanwhile this guy can't really do much except squish Christian (he was much taller and much, much heavier than Christian) and Christian, after discovering this guy doesn't flinch to being punched in the head then starts gouging out his eyes with his thumbs. On the court our keeper Enzo notices something's amiss and jumps over to help, bringing half of our team and half the other team with him.
In the end it takes four guys to pull Loser off Christian and drag him away, and within a minute this guys is all like 'I'm so sorry, it's my fault, I overreacted and I shouldn't have lost it'.

The court is in an uproar, everyone is yelling at the ref (who did diddly fucking squat the whole time), the manager on duty of Loftus comes down and takes this guy away to do up a report, Loser keeps apologising and my heart is beating six hundred times a minute. Kat and I are in complete shock that this guy just lost it so completely and Christian is spewing his glasses have been twisted (and although he didn't show it at the time, his balls must have been killing him).

Eventually the game resumes and we sit in silence for quite a while. Loser comes back down to the court, again saying how sorry he is. Christian doesn't want a bar of it and retorts 'Yeah, well try telling my nuts that'.
The game ends and at some point Mike scored a goal without us realising it and so we've won the game. As Enzo put it 'We weren't going to let them win after that.'

As they're leaving, the other team each walk up and apologise to us and the manager comes down to inform us that Loser has been banned, although we don't know how long for. We discover Christian is bleeding from several carpet burns but he manages to bend his glasses back into shape. We stood about in the carpark for a bit afterwards chatting and then headed home, but it took me a long time to fall asleep that night. I don't think my heart stopped pounding until about four in the morning.

And so Christian's first punch up will echo on down through the ages, immortalised by Blogger. He probably won't ever read this (actually I know he won't, no matter how much I nag him to) but I'll say this anyway.
Christian, I salute you. Also, I hope your left testicle will finally decided to work it's way down from behind your left ear sometime before Christmas.

PJA

'Hi, my name is Nettie and I'm a PJ-aholic.'

This was the text message I sent my beloved to inform him of the addition I had made to my pyjama collection.

I just couldn't help myself. I was out shopping last weekend with my sisters and I saw at least six pairs of jarmies that, if I had a much, much larger disposable income, would have found a new owner. Instead I settled on one pair, that were reduced right down for Mother's Day (bargain!).

So now I have : three pairs of flannelette PJ's, my new ones that are pink with froggies on lillipads, my neon orange ones with moo cows and daisies and my bright pink ones with love hearts and ladybugs (although really I should throw these out as they're falling apart, but I refuse.)
I also have a pair of winter black satin jarmies with an embroidered rose. Then I have two pairs of summer satin jarmies, both blue, one with teddy bears and one with whales.
Up until very recently I also had another two pairs of pink satin PJ's, one pair I gave to the Salvos as they were much too big for me and I rather looked like a giant musk Lifesaver in them and the other pair I gave to my older sister who needed a new pair and really liked those.

Christian says my 'spare pair' excuse is wearing a tad thin...

I don't even really know why I buy jarmies and I can't pinpoint when it started as I've not always done it. I just can't walk past a gorgeous pair and not think about adding it to my collection.

Oh, and I apologise if this is too much information for you all, but the really, really silly thing about the whole situation is I don't even wear pyjamas to bed! Yup. that's right, I get twisted and tangled and can't stand it, so I sleep in the nip. I own six pairs of PJ's and they only get worn around the house.

But then again I guess obsessions aren't supposed to be logical.

Who noticed?

I thought I'd lay to rest Cigarettes Alcohol and Rollerblading as the title of this blog as I feel the Father Ted reference my be a tad ambiguous. I've had several people comment that as I don't smoke, rarely drink and have only rollerbladed in the distant past it seems an odd choice of title.

I then have to launch into the whole lent explanation and end up sounding odder than usual.

So, in keeping with the general atmosphere of my blog, The Natterings Of Nettie is born.

CA&R will live on however as I do hope to win the 'longest url' competition one day.

A rant not aimed at any of you

Warning - contains unlady-like language.

I've had a shitty week.

I've been sworn at by customers, had to put up with idiots of the road, been stressed because of understaffing at work and had generic crap happen pretty much every day of the week. This is on top of my Uncle Ian passing away on Tuesday.

It's all accumulated in me being in a very grumpy mood when I arrived home from work yesterday. In response to Christian's query of how my day had been I retorted 'I have come to the conclusion that the human race are a pack of c*#ts and on the whole I want nothing to do with them ever again.'

Now, I swear like a pirate at the best of times but Christian was rather shocked at my use of the C word. I'm sure there will be others of you out there who will be equally as shocked.

That's how crap my week has been.

The end.

P.S. I like stories.

Girls night out

To make up for the often weeks on end I don't post, I'm in the middle of a flurry of posts at the moment, averaging about two or three a week. So I apologise if it's all a bit overwhelming but I may as well post now while stuff is happening than wait until I have to do a completely random post.

So, went out on a girls night last night. Katrina had been organising it for a while and we finally got it under way. We met up at her place to begin with in Scarborough before heading out and about. I actually was feeling a little left out as our mate Mel was there, Kat's sister Mel came along and also her cousin Katrina came out to. Two Mels and two Katrinas and only one Nettie :(

But I guess one Nettie is all the world can handle at once to avoid imploding.

Anyhoo, I got some pics of the girls for so it might be a little less confusing when I talk about all the Mels and Kats.

Right, this is Mel, Kat and me (duh).

I met both these two girls through Christian as they have both worked with him (Kat left a little while ago). Kat and I hit it off with right away but with Mel it took a little longer. She's actually a little shy so she never really spoke to me, giving me the impression of being a little snobby. But we got chatting at a party a while back and found out we have heaps in common and get on like a house on fire now.

This is Kat's sister who I shall call by her full name Melanie to avoid confusion. She's very loud and outrageous and very very funny.

And this is Kat's cousin Katrina. I hadn't met her before but she seemed really nice although quite young. She's early twenties I think but is still very much into the going out clubbing and getting drunk stage which is fine, it's just not something I can relate to much.

Anyway, so we had a drink (or three) at Kat's for a bit and then called a taxi to take us into Mount Lawley where we thought we'd get some dinner and then go to The Velvet Lounge next to The Brass Monkey where Lachlan (another guy who works with Christian) and his mate do DJing. Unfortunately no where were still serving food (that's the down side to living in Perth - it's shocking that you can't get a decent meal after ten on a weekend) so we headed over to the Velvet Lounge with the idea that if we can't eat we can still get a drink.
While there we ran into Lachlan and his mate and also Mike and so we stayed and chatted to them for quite a while.

Now I must stop here and point out that although I consumed quite a bit more alcohol than is usual for me, because we stopped and started and did a lot of running about, I never actually got drunk, just tipsy. Sorry to disappoint Ro! ;-)

Anyway, so we stayed about there for a bit and I chatted with Mike about cars (urgh, can you believe he wanted his first car to be a Commodore??? Thank God he's found some sense now!) and other various stuff until we headed down to HJ's to get something that vaguely resembled food.

After dinner we decided to take a run into Northbridge to go to The Universe Bar where Katrina's Dad's band was playing. We made the executive decision to drag Mike along on our girls night which I think at times left him with a slightly panicked look. Oh, and I tried taking a photo of him but he's a wily one and avoided it rather well. This is the best one I got.

So, The Universe Bar. The music was good. That's about the end of the list of pros.
It was so crowded, I swear you could hardly breathe, let alone move. I'm not used to negotiating my way through such crowds and found I was constantly getting elbowed and shoved around. It was a good thing I didn't have that much to drink because I would have ended up on my arse otherwise.
The drinks were also ridiculously expensive, ten bucks for a fucking Smirnoff for crying out loud! There's no need for that!
Mike didn't stick around too long as he didn't like the music and it was just too crowded so we said goodbye to him and then fought our way to the front near the band to have a bit of a dance. Mel then got a little woosy as she was finding it hard to breathe so she, Kat and I left and decided to call it a night as we were so damned tired.

The three of us got a taxi back to Kats' place and then stayed up for a bit chatting before heading to bed. Kat cooked us brekkie in the morning which was nice of her and we spent the rest of the morning chatting and watching the storm come over the coast.
It was such a fun night out and I hope we can do it again soon. It reminded me of The Edinburgh Adventure a bit actually which was really just an extended girls night out with a couple of blokes thrown into the mix for good measure!

Anyway, I won't bore you any more as I'm sure I'm dribbled on enough for one day.

Golf, injuries and other facinating tales of the macabre

Right, I hope I haven't gotten your hopes up with the post title. It's not all that exciting...

Ok, where to begin?
Last Sunday would be a good place to begin. I'm doing a kind of Back To The Future 2 thing here as I've already posted about last Sunday and then we'll come forward in time and then go back again and by the end we'll be really confused but I think Marty will make it through it.

Ok, so I said we played Mini Golf with our mate Jason. I won (and it wasn't even because Christian and Jason were being gentlemen either, I won on pure talent and a lot of luck!) and so I thought I'd post some pics of the day for you.

Right this is Jason, you may remember him from our frolic in the park a while back. If not, we came across him traipsing through Hyde Park with his normal bike plus a unicycle. We met him through a friend of ours and have always gotten on well with him. He drives an MR2 which is just gorgeous and he's very funny so we always have a great time out with him.

The next photo is of Christian, trying not to do a 'Happy Gilmore' as they're banned and they've even put up little nets to stop the balls from going too far. Unfortunately not all the holes have them and so Christian came last as he kept on hitting the ball too hard and having to take a penalty each time his ball left the course.

They have a big pond there and from a distance we could see lots of big ripples. It turned out to be some bloody massive Koi all swimming frantically around the ducks that had decided to go for a swim. They were all very cool colours and were all chewing on a human leg. (Ok, that last bit was a blatant lie but it would make a great movie - Attack of the Killer Koi)

So as you all know by now we then headed to soccer where Christian proceeded to injure himself. He's doing quite well now but won't be playing soccer for a while (dammit there goes my number one opportunity to perv on Mike *sigh*). He's been hobbling about on his foot and finally took the bandages off. I took this photo to try and show you some of the bruising and swelling but it didn't turn out very well. It looks much cooler in real life!

Ok, that's the slide show over now as I didn't get any more photos during the week. Which is a pity as we had people over on Wednesday but I just plain forgot to get some pics. I have already asked Christian to spank me on your behalf so rest assured, punishment has been meted out.

Anyway, so Wednesday was ANZAC day and we all got the day off. Hurrah for public holidays! As Christian still wasn't mobile at that point we invited a few people over for lunch. Mel, Kat and Mike turned up and we all had lots of fun watching Zoolander (But why male models?) and Candy Mountain (Chaaaaaaaaarlie).
Later that night even though he couldn't play, Christian and I went to watch his team play soccer. Tiho awarded Christian the fictional Man of the Match award for turning up at all which was very nice of him even if it didn't really exist. The boys played really well especially since they didn't have a sub (Enzo wasn't there either) and they won 7-1. It helps that the team they were playing isn't very good but lets not let that distract from their effort eh?

And that's really been it for this week. I had an error at work and stressed my head off over it but in the end we found out what had happened so there was no need for me to start slashing my wrists. We're going to see Hot Fuzz again at the movies tonight as it was so funny we want to see it again before it finishes. I'm going out on a girly night tomorrow which should be fun and I'll let you all know how it goes.

*hugs and snuggles*

Off to Candy Mountain with Charlie

Even funnier than Dr Tran!



I love the magical bridge, full of hope and wonder!

*Note : I deleted this post and re-posted it in the hope it'll get my comments page back. We shall see I guess.

A little re-organising

Well, I've not been able to find any magic button to show my labels at the bottom of each post so I've added the label element to my template so there's a big loooooong list of them over there on the right. *points*
I also went in and edited a whole heap of my posts, dating back to May last year to add labels to them. If I can be bothered I'll try and get to the rest of them some other time.

Had a pretty interesting day today. Yesterday wasn't that bad either. After gyming I headed off to the shops to try and find some shoes to go with my pretty dress I ordered (it should arrive this week - yay!). To my surprise I did find some shoes that fit my fat arse German feet. They're really just fancy silver thongs but they have some strapping that wraps around your ankles to smarten them up a bit. They were also on sale, ten bucks! Can't argue with that.

This morning Christian and I played mini golf with our friend Jason (you last saw him at Hyde Park with his unicycle) and had tremendous fun. Then after lunch we headed off to soccer under a cloudy sky (honestly, it had been completely clear all morning till then!). Mike was at soccer and after reassuring myself he was ok after the split, the boys started to play.
Now, their Sunday games are just a scratch match - pretty friendly but they can get a bit rough (accidentally of course). Today Christian went to kick the ball and Steve went to kick the ball and Steve ended up getting Christian's ankle instead. Apparently a 'crack' was heard, Christian couldn't walk and I went to get an ice pack. After ten minutes or so, Christian's foot was very swollen, starting to bruise and extremely painful. It was at that point we decided a visit to the hospital wouldn't be a bad idea. Mike and Nick both tried to help Christian to the car but it didn't really work well as he's just so much taller than both of them and so he hobbled out himself.
We went to Swan's and didn't really wait very long at all at the after hours clinic. It turns out Christian has damaged several ligaments but nothing is broken so he should recover fairly soon.
I think he rather enjoyed it when we got home and I ran around fetching stuff for him, turning on the telly, passing him the PS2 remote, cooking dinner...pretty much what I do normally ;-)

Anyway, that's about it for now. I'll stop now before I bore you all to tears with the second post in almost as many days.

Like sands through the hour glass

Yesterday was the eleventh anniversary of Christian and me being together. A lot of people say we're silly to celebrate that particular date considering we're married now but to us, this anniversary, as opposed to our wedding one, is much more important. We were togther for seven and a half years before tying the knot and all that really did was make the whole thing official. We'd much rather celebrate the date we met than the day we signed some papers and had a fancy cake.


Anyway, we decided to go out for dinner and, long story short, both my sisters and super intellegent, hunky sex god brother Mike came too. We had a good night out, even though my dress never arrived in time so I had to wear something different. I only got one photo the whole night because I just plain forgot, and the photo I got isn't very good at all, but here it is.


Let's just say these types of photos don't usually work out when someone has really short arms and is trying to take a photo of themselves and someone who is much taller...

So anyway, it was a good night and after dinner Barb and Mike came back to our place, bringing with them what seemed like an entire liquor store. We had fun making up different cocktails but as usual, even with such a large quantity of booze at my disposal, I didn't get drunk.

Nothing else has really been happening. I was rather sick last week with a nasty tummy bug but I seem to have survived. Before soccer on Wednesday we went to Tiho's house so the boys could play Magic. I guess watching a group of guys (most much older than myself) play a card game based on you being a wizard can rub off because I've asked Christian to teach me how to play it. I believe my transformation into full blown nerd is almost complete.

It was a bit of a sad week at work because one of our regular customers died. She was a rather disturbed older lady who was always a pain to serve (man could she berate you on bad handwriting!) but she had had a hard life and was always in a lot of pain. She ended her life herself in the most horribe way imaginable - she set fire to herself but hopefully she has found some peace now.

And the only other news I have is that after seven years together Mike and Julie have broken up. They were always an odd couple and I could never understand the relationship but it seemed to have worked for them to a degree. I was a little shocked when I heard the news but I guess not overly surprised. Julie is apparently heading off down south as she's been appointed as priestess of some strange religion...go figure. Christian says Mike has been a bit moody but he's not sure if it's because of the split or because of the giving-up smoking. With Mike it's sometimes hard to tell. Oh and I'd just like to say :P to Brother Mike for his little comment. When he found out about the split he said to Barb 'Oh, so has Nettie called it off with Christian yet?'.

Mike's hot and all, but he's no Christian.

Ok my loves, that's about it for now. I've promised Boo when my dress arrives I shall get many photos for you all so you have that to look forward to anyway.

Ciao.

A question

Who on here can see the labels I put at the bottom of each post?

Because I can't.

I can see them on everyone else's blogs but for some reason I can't see them when I view my own? Is that the way it's supposed to work? I don't know!

An unexpected visitor

A lady I work with had a little soiree at her house yesterday which ended up being heaps of fun. Her name is Karen and she's an absolute blast to work with. Very very funny and can keep the straightest face I've ever seen. Unless you see the tiny wink she gives you, it's very hard to tell if she's being serious or not. She's also a kiwi and even though she's been here for 27 years now, she still sounds like she's just stepped off the plane. We have loads of fun with her accent, especially when she swears (Oh shut! What the if have I done?)
She lives forever away though so it took a bit of strategic planning for me to get there without driving myself (I was having a few drinks). In the end I managed to get a lift there and back with various other co-workers.

Karen has recently had a spa installed so we were told to bring our bathers and it turned into a spa-ree if you will. Unfortunately for me on Friday Aunt Urma decided to visit me rather unexpectedly. She came with a vengeance and I've spent the last few days in a bit of a pain-killer induced daze. Hurrah for being a woman!

I do however have a few new odd spots to share with you.

Odd Spot #324 : An ostrich egg can make 11.5 omlettes

Odd Spot #80 : A blue whale's heart beats nine times per minute

Odd Spot #70 : A claque refers to a group of people hired to applaud an act or peformer

Odd Spot #134 : There are more people in the world who eat alligators than there are alligators who eat people

Odd Spot #316 : When viewed from above, rainbows appear to be doughnut-shaped

Odd Spot #216 : Someone who has an irrational fear of meat is carnophobic

Odd Spot #216 : Pandas spend approximately 12 hours a day eating bamboo

Odd Spot #277 : Before launching his movie career, Keanu Reeves managed a pasta shop in Toronto, Canada

Odd Spot #197 : Lungs are 100 times easier to blow up than a child's balloon.

Odd Spot #101 : The literal translation of the word 'wonton' is "swallowing a cloud"

Odd Spot #54 : In Pacific Grove, California, it is a misdemeanour to kill a butterfly.

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.