Cruising

It's not even half way through November yet but we're well into the swing of Christmas Parties for the year. I'm attending three work dos this year, one for my current branch, one with my old branch and a generic bank social club charity ball.
On Saturday I went to the first one of the season - a river cruise for my current branch. I managed to convince Christian to attend one of them and I think in the end he was glad he came. Whereas at my old branch everyone is much older than us, the people I work with now are much closer to us in age and so we have more in common.
We had to fight our way down to Barrack St Jetty as there was a festival on in Northbridge, a Justin Timberlake concert plus a Muse concert all happening at once. It's a miracle we managed to find parking within a ten block radius of the jetty!
Anyway, it was a fantastic night and I managed to get lots of photos which, naturally, I'll share with you all, whether you like it or not!

This is Jess and her partner Paul. Jess and I work on the business line together although she's recently been trained up in sales and will soon be leaving the teller's line.

This is Clelie, Rachel and Elaine, the blonde brigade.

This is Laura (on the right) and her partner Leanne. Laura is the third member of the business trio and works out processing the express business deposits. Laura and I get on fabulously and had a wonderful time that night. Last Thursday I cam into work all frantic because I'd had a bad dream that when I met Leanne she didn't like me. It was awful! But Leanne was just gorgeous and apparently likes me (and Christian) lots so I was very relieved! We've already agreed that we'll all get together soon for another night out because we all get on so well.

Oh hurrah, there were Christmas Crackers at the tables and for some reason most people found it entertaining to wear them.
Our table didn't participate...

This is Kristie-Lee who works in sales, her fiancé Lee and our branch manager Di. Both Kristie and Di are such fun, you always end up laughing around them.

This is Heather, my team leader and Kay, our business manager.

Rachel is our old team leader and looks absolutely fabulous now she's left the bank. I envy her, I really do. Mid thirties and retired!!! It's just not fair!

Laura, Leanne and I wanted a Titanic photo but we were all too scared to actually climb up on the front bit (not to mention that we'd probably have been kicked off the boat for doing so) so we settled for this.

They're just the cutest couple!

A photo of Christian actually smiling! I should post the one of him looking positively grumpy but I think I'll stick with the happy ones.
Everyone commented that they love his shirt which you can't really see in this shot. It's got a manga type picture on the front and back and we discovered a lot of manga fans on board that night.

Kristie-Lee grabbed my camera later that night to make sure that Christian and I had a photo together. I tried to tell her I'd (surprisingly) already gotten several but that didn't deter her. (I should mention for those who care that this is the dress I was wearing the other night for those who wanted to know just how low cut it was!)

Christian then took several photos of Kristie-Lee and myself. K-Lee didn't like them much so kept on making Christian take photo after photo until she found one she liked.

After all of that she much preferred the photo that I took of us.

This is Grace, who I'm training at the moment. She's such a lovely lady and is so helpful. Her first day in the branch and she's answering phones, jumping onto the meet-and-greet desk. Such a trooper!

Ok, now he's starting to get annoyed with all the photos...

After a while, I went back inside and Christain stayed outside playing with my camera. I'd wanted to get some pics of the city but we were having trouble with my night mode and all the different settings. But a few of them worked out quite well.
I love this shot.

And this one.

And this is a photo I took at the beginning of the night as we were leaving the jetty. Perth has our own Hollywood sign! How cool is that! I think they only put it up for the Red Bull Air Race and I'm sure they'll take it down soon but I thought it was cool. Now, it would have been really tacky if they'd shoved it up on the hill at King's Park...

We all went out to the pub after the cruise had finished and then headed into Northbridge, hoping to catch the end of the festival. We were too late though as it had already wound up for the night and so we did the nerdiest thing - we stopped off outside of the Northbridge branch and peered in making comparisons to our own branch! Lets just say I don't think I'd like to work in Northbridge as there's no glass partition between the tellers and the customers. Talk about dodgy!

On Sunday it was our four year wedding anniversary and the day got off to an ok start. We slept in, watched a few of our shows and then headed off to soccer. After soccer it was getting rather hot (36C) so I suggested to Christian that we head off to the beach. Now, considering it was our anniversary, I assumed we'd go by ourselves. Christian however invited along Kat, Mike and Mike.
Now, to be fair, I usually invite them everywhere we go and I really enjoy spending time with each of these people, however, I didn't really want them coming along that day. Not just because it was our anniversary (although that was a large part of the reason) but mainly because Kat, Mike and Mike are the last people I want to go to the beach with.
To explain further, let's just say that I don't really like the beach much. I rarely swim and this may be influenced but the fact that every time I try to get out of the water Greenpeace come and try and coax me back in and when I refuse they pour buckets of water over me to keep me moist.
As you may have noticed, I have rather big self confidence issues. I have about enough self esteem to fill a thimble, if that. Now, Kat is one of those absolutely gorgeous people who everyone wants to be like. Her partner Mike is a health fanatic, rides everywhere, six pack, whole kit and kaboodle. Other Mike is rather athletic too and almost as skinny as Christian.

Then there's me.

I was in tears before we'd even left the house and was feeling like shit. Christian couldn't understand what was upsetting me but being both a boy and almost 20 kilos underweight, he was never going to get it.
And so we got to the beach and I sat on a towel and watched everyone frolic in their bikinis and boardshorts, hating myself more and more as the minutes dragged by.
We had a barbie afterwards and I felt even more isolated as the night went on since I can't really participate in conversations about getting high and which elicit drug you'd like to try next.
That's just not me.

And so the night finally came to and end and I got home and went straight to bed, feeling more lonely than I've ever felt in my life.
Not the best way to spend our anniversary night, that's for sure.
And the worst part about the whole thing is that it's entirely my fault.
I just can't let go and be myself. Not everyone is going to love me for who I am but I can't accept the people who do and to be happy with that and be damned to everyone who doesn't. I care way too much about what other people think of me and I let it affect my confidence levels.
I messaged Christian this morning after he'd left for work to apologise for ruining the day and he made me feel a little better when he messaged back with 'Don't worry, we'll have plenty more to get right'.

I just hope that I don't end up ruining them as well.

Neyh

Dunno why I'm really bothering, no one seems to read this anymore. I believe firmly that Facebook killed the blog.

Anyways...

Odd Spot #73 : The harmonica is the world's best-selling instrument.

Odd Spot #209 : Androphobia is the fear of men.

Odd Spot #273 : The Peanuts comic strip was first called Li'l Folks.

Odd Spot #402 : The sound a camel makes is called nuzzling.

Odd Spot #411 : Hard-boiled eggs will spin. Uncooked or soft-boiled eggs will not.

Odd Spot #251 : A person who is scoptophobic has an intense fear of being seen.

Odd Spot #203 : Children born in May are, on average, 2oo grams heavier at birth than children born in any other month.

Chalk and Cheese

Here's a conversation that Christian and I had last night. It kind of documents the randomness of our conversations and the fact that Christian is just in a different class to me.

Me - There's no soccer tonight, you wanna watch something?

Christian - Yeah, I spose.

Me - Ooh, we could watch the Ninja!

Christian - I would rather scrape my eyes down the cheese grater.

Me - I can't believe you don't like Ask a Ninja! I guess we'll have to watch Night of the Living Dorks then.

Later after the movie we're sitting in the study waiting for NCIS and The Unit to copy onto the thumb drive so we can watch them in the lounge room.

Me (randomly) - I'm a Pirate.

Christian - You do know that Pirate and Ninjas are mortal enemies?

Me - So?

Christian - So you can't be both a Pirate and a Ninja!

Me - Why not?

Christian - Because you just can't!

Me - Well I am! I play the Pirate game as a Pirate but on the Pirates vs Ninja application I'm a Ninja. So there!

Christian - That doesn't make any sense! You can't be both.

Me - I'm a Piratey Ninja!

Christian - That's like saying you're a Dockers/Eagles player! It just aint gonna happen!

I guess it'll be one of those never ending debates between us...

Oh and Night of the Living Dorks is quality, absolute quality! I highly recommend it to both Boo and Mouse for their collections ;-)

Missing time and other signs

I think I may have been abducted by aliens on Saturday night.

I've been reading up on it and according to this site, these are some of the signs that you may have been abducted.

Lost time - The hour between 2am and 3am had mysteriously disappeared.

Tapping or humming noises - All night there was a strange beat in my head.

Need to travel - During the course of the night I went to Scarborough, Applecross, Mount Lawley and Lathlane.

Being watched - I was sure that old guy at the bar kept on looking at me...

"Special" - Or is it Speshal?

So, have creatures from other space suddenly become interested in probing my mind (and other parts)???

Or is there a rational explanation for these events?

Let's see...
Daylight savings kicked in so we did lose that hour between 2am and3 am, Christian was designated driver so we picked up and dropped off our mates who live in opposite directions, we had gone to the Velvet Lounge where they have DJ's playing dance music, I was wearing a low cut dress and I'm not the most intelligent person in the world.

Does this explain these odd events???

Nah, I'm still going with the abduction theory ;-)

Testing, testing...

We had our first fertility appointment on Monday at the Concept clinic at King Edward hospital.

It all went as well as could be expected I suppose, although I didn't really know what to expect. I haven't really spoken to anyone who's actually gone through the same thing about what the actual process is.

It turns out that I'm going to be spending a fair amount of time at the clinic over the next few months.
They start off with taking a full medical history and when he asked what conditions I have that require me to see my GP regularly I filled up the whole page! But I'm thankful that all the stuff I have to see a doc about is all pretty much under control and not serious. Christian never sees a doctor and doesn't even have a regular GP so that was a stark contrast!

They ask some pretty personal questions (obviously) but even for someone as open as me, it can be a bit confronting at times. I guess because they reduce it to something so clinical. It can also lead to a few domestics as the doctor was telling us - questions such as 'How long do you last?' and 'Have you ever impregnated anyone before?'. Luckily for us, Christian and I have been together for ever so there were no surprises there.

I'm lucky my boss at work is very understanding and loves me as I'll be taking a lot of time off work and turning up late quite a bit over the next three to possibly six months. I have to go in to the clinic for blood tests several times a month for ovulation tracking, the problem being I have to wait for that time of the month to start before I can figure out when I'll need to go in. It's a bit hard to say 'Oh yes, I have to go in for a day 8 blood test so that'll be the 16th this month, the 12th the month after and then just before Christmas.' If only I was still on the pill! Then I could figure it out. Shame about the whole not getting pregnant side effect! lol

Anyway, so I guess we'll see how it all goes. Our next appointment isn't until May so we'll have lots of time to figure it all out.
I'll leave you with this smashing piece of advice the doc gave us just as we were leaving. It's a real gem.

'Don't stop trying. Some people seem to think that once they've seen us, they'll definitely get pregnant and forget about the whole having sex part. We can only do so much...'

Rollercoaster weekend

I was going to wait and do a post after our fertility appointment later on today to let you guys know how that all went (after two and a half years of hearing about our baby making efforts I think you all deserve to be kept in the loop!) but I need to yak bout some other stuff so I'll maybe do another post later on.

Anyways, so the weekend has officially finished and to tell the truth it was just all over the place. I feel physically and mentally exhausted from it and need another weekend to recover from it!
It started off with Tiho's birthday on Saturday. I kept on waking up through the night on Friday with atrocious allergies so about 3am I got up, took some antihistamines and turned off my alarm before going back to sleep. I usually get up about half six on a Saturday morning so I can head to the gym but I actually slept in till half eight and skipped the gym this weekend.
Biggest mistake ever!
I was just so out of whack, I was running late and just couldn't get organised. I had to get to the shops to pick up some stuff for a picnic lunch with Tiho and also drop my camera off to Barb for a wedding and then be home in time for quarter to 11 to get to Joondalup in time for the party. I got stuck in roadworks on the way home and rang Christian at about 11 to let him know I'd be late, all the while trying to stave off a panic attack. I hate the fact that I can't calm down and accept the fact I'll be ten minutes late and the world won't end but I can't help it. To make it worse, we were giving Mike a lift and he's always late, I knew that so I really didn't need to hurry but still I couldn't calm down.

So, enough about my OCD. Tiho was having a barbie at a park in Joondalup and then going to a laser tag place, Darklite (I think it's called anyway). The weather was supposed to be shit but it actually cleared up a bit and apart from being a bit cold and a few drops of rain, it turned out to be a nice day. We played a bit of cricket and some of the guys kicked the soccer ball around, and it was just generally a nice day. Then we headed over to Darklite and had a heap of fun. We played two 20 minute games, the first just a free for all and then the second we were in four teams. There was this little girl who just kicked everyone's arses in both games, ranked number 1, rather gleeful of the fact and all of about 12 years old!
I don't usually play these type of things as I'm crap at them but I'm really glad I did, it was lots of fun. Just don't tell Christian I said that as I'll never live it down!

That night we were supposed to go out to a CD launch for some of Tiho's friends but that never happened. We'd come home to have a nap but I woke up at almost midnight to find that Christian didn't really want to go and had thought I needed the sleep so he didn't wake me up.
I wasn't actually too happy about that. Firstly I had been planning on doing something this weekend for a while as it's really my last chance to go out and have a few drinks before the fertility appointment. Secondly, if I had known he didn't want to go out, I wouldn't have gone to bed at 5pm. My body clock was all over the place as it was and this just made it worse. I pottered about for maybe an hour and then went back to bed, only to be awake at 5am on the Sunday.

*sigh*

So Sunday morning found me up at my Mum's house. Jo and Darce have moved back in with her (yay, the hills are much closer than Rockingham!) and Barb's kids had stayed the night because of the wedding so it was nice to catch up with them.
Everything else was kind of normal after that until we got to soccer. I have no idea what was wrong with me, but I was sitting there, just feeling a bit down, not chirpy like I usually am and Mike subbed off and was chatting to me. He asked me what was wrong and I almost burst into tears right then. Completely out of the blue.
Kat was playing too and she had also subbed off and came up to me and gave me a hug and that just sent me over the edge so I did burst into tears. I ended up going out and sitting in the car so I wouldn't make a scene for Christian. Kat came too and she asked what was wrong and it was so completely frustrating that I couldn't explain what was wrong.
Doesn't it suck to be a woman at times!
I was upset, I knew I was upset but I just couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. Maybe it's just everything all building up or something. Work's been a bit crazy, I've been completely confused about some other stuff, we've finally got this damn appointment to go to, I was tired and I've also being having some issues dealing with Christian's complete lack of emotion.
That's probably the biggest thing actually.
Barb calls Christian The Iceman and I've always made a bit of a joke about it, he may not show much emotion in front of other people but he hasn't always been like that with me. For the past couple of years though it's being slowly getting worse, maybe it's that comfort zone that guys get into, I dunno, but lately I've been getting the feeling that he just doesn't really give a crap.
He did come out to see what was wrong and I tried to explain all of this to him (a bit hard to do when you can't find the words but I gave it my best shot). I eventually just burst out that I just don't feel like I really have any self worth and that I don't actually serve a purpose in this world.
A little bit morbid coming from me, I must admit.
Christian finally managed to reassure me that he needs me and that I have lots of friends that would miss me terribly if I was to just go away somewhere and never come back and I did start to feel slightly better.

We ended up going out that night with Mike and Kat and Sexy Mike to play some pool. I had a few drinks and actually cheered up quite a lot. It was probably just what I needed, a night out with my mates and to just have a laugh. I even got back a bit into my old flirty mode which always makes you feel good. Well, it does for me anyway.

So I've gotten up today, went to the gym, I've had my blog therapy and I'm ready to face the day. I'm sure our appointment will go well and hopefully my bout of the blues will just be a once off.
I'll keep you posted.
:)

The Panics

I'm going to see The Panics at the end of this month with my friend Laura from work.
They're a Perth band that have been around for a little bit and have just released another album Cruel Guards. Laura had told me about them as she used to work with a couple of the guys and has gone to a few of their shows and I was definitely interested. So I've said I'll go along to their gig and I also went out and bought their album to see what they're like.

I love it!

The CD rocks, I love the music and the film clip for their first single is awesome. Here it is below for anyone who wants to watch it.



So I'm very much looking forward to the end of the month.

Girl Flick

For weeks now I've been trying to get to the movies to see Hairspray, a rather girly flick that I normally wouldn't actually want to see. However much I whinge to Christian that I always see the movies he wants to see and that he never goes to a movie that I've chosen, I must admit that most of the films he takes us to are actually ones I would have picked myself. I do rather prefer the action and fantasy genre, fight scenes and car chases do entertain me.
But I'm a girl (for those of you who haven't noticed) and occasionally I get the urge to watch a chick flick, and when I do I always enjoy them. I could watch Love Actually a hundred times and still like it, Ever After was great, I actually own a copy of The Princess Diaries and after much persuasion I finally watched the Bridget movies and found I really liked them.

So when I saw the preview for Hairspray (I think it was when we were watching The Bourne Ultimatum) I turned to Christian and said 'That's a movie I'd like to see' to which he replied 'You'll never in a hundred years get me to see that'.
Which wasn't news to me.
So I'd made plans with a couple of girls at work to see it but of course that fell through. I'm well known for my ability to make friends with the most unreliable people.
Fortunately for me, Mel isn't one of those unreliable sorts and we went and saw it together tonight after work.

It was fantastic.

I don't even really like musicals but it was really well done and heaps of fun. John Travolta was great in it and I love Christopher Walken so it helps that they were in it.
Apart from being a chick flick it was also (predictably) a fat chick's movie (hey, being one myself I'm allowed to say that out loud). It was all about being loved for who you are and not for what you look like on the outside. And as a fat chick that makes me feel good about myself. I'll never win a beauty pageant or make the cover of Vogue but I'll make a few friends along the way.
My favourite quote from the movie is from one of the songs Queen Latifah sings 'Who wants a twig when you can have the whole tree?'. I'm glad Christian does :)

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you. Christian is currently playing some computer game and isn't interested in my enthusiasm about the movie so I thought since I don't have anything else to post about I'd let you all know.

That's about all. Feel free to carry on with your normal business now :)

Showtime

Okie, it took me a while but I've finally uploaded the photos that I took at the Perth Royal Show.
Once again, as usual, I apologise to Acci in advance for the big photo post ;-)

Ok, so the day didn't get off to a great start. Barb turns up at my house absolutely covered from head to toe in iced-coffee and in a very foul mood. Turns out Mikey had passed her the drink in the car and accidentally squeezed the carton a little too much, covering Barb and her nice white shirt. I had a spare shirt that Barb could wear though so it all got sorted in the end.
It took us a little while to transfer Caleb and Wil into my car along with the mountain of stuff required when taking children out for a full day but we still left my house at about the time we had planned.

Of course, I had completely forgotten that traffic can be a bitch in the morning. Especially through the tunnel.
Why the heck did I go through the tunnel? About half way through, doing 15kms an hour, the thought struck me that there is a much easier, and less congested way to get to Thomas road and that would be the way I go to soccer twice a week. Of course there was nothing I could do about it then but I filed that thought away in my head for the trip home.

So we reached the show grounds and paid ten bucks for some RSL guy to direct me to park on top of the highest curb he could find. I cringed when I saw where he was pointing and then winced when the bottom of my car thunked down on the curb and then glared when he said 'Come on love, just drive up, it's not hard.' I also made some retort about it not being his car so he can damned well wait but I'm not sure if he heard that part...

After we'd unloaded the contents of the car into the double stroller we headed off to get tickets, hoping the rest of the day would kick off to a slightly better start. It's always the way though with the show, it's so busy and packed and stressful that there's bound to be some hiccups.
Mum messaged us saying she wasn't far away and so once we were in the grounds we headed off to the Police Pavilion to get some Lost Children stickers for the kids. It wasn't too long afterwards that Mum, Jo, Darce and Chiara turned up and so we could finally get down to business.

This is Darcie and the boys. Caleb is a little older so he wasn't too bad walking around but the safest thing to do with Wil was keep him strapped in the stroller. He has a very bad habit of just running off (I guess he's at that age) and none of us really wanted to lose him

Chiara, all sunscreened up and ready to go.

Darcie, in her pink cargo pants, ready for action.

After we left the Police Pavilion we got down the really important stuff - kiddie rides!
The first thing the kids went on was the Merry-go-round. It was actually a really nice one, the horses were lovely and decorated and it was really colourful.

Wil really liked the horses when they were just standing still but as soon as it started to move he started screaming.

The whole lead up to the show all Caleb wanted to do was have a pony ride. This was the closest he got but that didn't seem to bother him at all.

Darcie doesn't like riding on the horsies but she was more than happy to go on the big pink bench.

Chiara however loved the horsies.

A close up of one of the horses.

And they're off!

After the Merry-go-round it was onto the bumper boats.
Caleb had fun crashing into other kids.

Chiara on the lookout for her brother. He's behind you!

While most of the kids just randomly floated about, Darcie figured out how to make hers accelerate and so she zoomed around the pool, changing directions and going from one end to the other.

Darce and Chiara after a collision.

Christian's Aunt and Uncle show their Suffolk's at the show and so after the kiddie rides we headed down to say hello. Only Ed was there as Sue was coming down later on for judging but it was nice to see him again.
Their sheep really seemed to like me, I spent ten minutes just scratching the heads of two of them.
This was one of them. He was also very interested in the camera.

We then had a look at some of the other sheep. And we found this one.
Biggest fucking sheep ever!

Not quite what Mother Nature intended, I'm sure.

Fluro sheep!

He he, the drapes match the carpet...

After the sheep, the kids wanted to get some show bags and so we headed down through sideshow alley to get to the show bag stalls on the other side. Fighting through the crowds with a double stroller isn't the easiest thing in the world but we managed it in the end. It didn't help that I was stopping every five seconds to snap away at random crap.
Like this.

Gotta get the treasure, gotta get the treasure, gotta get the treasure, gotta get the treasure...

After we'd loaded the stroller up with show bags we headed into the baby animals pavilion to have a looksie.
Now, this place is always packed with kids, but it wasn't too bad that day. So I managed to get close enough to take a few photos.
Emu chicks! How cute! They were still in their incubator and there were still several eggs still to hatch.

Goat kid. I'm king of the mountian!

I have no idea what the hell this is (Five hugs to anyone who can tell me!) but I really hope it's not a baby. Because it was fucking HUGE! As in taller than me. And if that was a baby, I really don't want to see what mummy looks like!

After the baby animals it was about time for lunch so we made our way down to the arena and managed to snag a place in some shade.
I made sure to get a photo of Mum for Boo and Mouse, although it did kind of surprise her.

Gah, it's a Nettie!

While we were having lunch we watched some stunt drivers do some jumps on motorbikes. I took about ten pics but didn't want to bore you with all of them so here's just one.

We headed off for more kiddie rides and on the way I found this sculpture. It was really cool and just really really random. It was just sitting in a little niche just out of the way...

Some of the skulls had writing on them but I didn't have a chance to see what it said exactly as I had to hurry to catch up with the others.

On the way to the rides we passed these really creepy performers. Everyone was dead still except for the guy in the middle and he would call out these lines of dialogue and one by one each gypsie would change positions and then freeze again.

Don't know why, but they just freaked me out a bit.

While the kids went on more rides I went over the check out the dogs. There must have been judging on at that time though as the pavilion was almost empty.
Apart from these two.

I'm tired and wanna go home!

I passed these weird looking hairy snail things on the way back to Kiddie Land. I'm not really sure what they were meant to be...

The eyes blinked and the mouth would open and snap at people and they left trails of slime behind them. And the people on their backs reminded me of the Specks from Robin Hobb's latest series.

This is quite a crappy photo but it's showing Chiara and Caleb getting strapped into the dragon rollercoaster.

Chiara loved it but Caleb spent the whole ride with his eyes squeezed shut and his head down.

Mum took Wil for a walk around and figured he'd be ok to go on a couple of the rides. So here they are in the helicopter ride.

Say hello Wil!
People seem to have issues figuring out how to focus my camera which can be a good thing as most photos of me tend to be blurry but I can live with that :)
We didn't hang about too much longer after that. Jo and I went down to sideshow alley and went on a couple of rides which was fun. It was kind of a new experience for me in some ways. I never realised just how much of a difference 13 kilos can make! I was thrown around a lot more that before and it's quite a bit scarier when you're loose in the harness!
We also called in at the rice writing stand and I got a pendant with my name on a piece of rice. Jo picked up one for Darcie too because Darce gets upset that you can never get stuff with her name on it.

We headed home and of course we managed to get stuck in peak hour traffic. Hurrah. It took us over an hour to get home and I must say, my clutch foot was killing me!

No matter how much fun you have at the show, it's always good to get home and I was so tired. Although I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't get too sunburnt. A first for me!

And that's our day at the show.