More Fun and Games

OK, here is the second installment of holiday posts as promised.

Hang in there, I've just discovered that I' have somehow managed to double-book my weekend this weekend with one of my high-school friends, Alison, as well as my parents all coming to visit (I thought they were due the following weekend until a couple of hours ago).

It's possible I'll be running around trying to coordinate various plans with various people over the next couple of days, but will try to get on to give the odd update when I can.

In the mean time, enjoy the several posts on holiday adventures!

J.

On an Unrelated matter

CONGRATULATIONS!!! To Karen and Anthony, who are expecting a baby in February!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

So are you doing the calculations and scratching your head? Wondering how my birthday snuck up without me making a big deal of it?

Me too.

Especially when a birthday card rocked up in my mail today.

Afraid it was a month too early.

Easy mistake to make. I totally understand.

Except it was the same person who gave me hell for ringing her a day early to give her best wishes a month ago....

Does this count as quote of the day?

New Discoveries

Oooh...I've just discovered Skype. I may be a bit slow on some of these new fandangled things, but never let it be said that I don't embrace these things once I finally catch on!

So, anyone else have Skype? I've already spoken to Bec tonight, and it's not so much fun on your own....

Hey there

Hi everyone, I'm still alive, but very, very, very tired.



I've been to Canberra, been to a fancy dress party, had a random school-reunion moment, and enjoyed my favourite holiday - the Bank Holiday. I won't bore you by repeating last year's post.

And I had a very busy week last week and I'm very very tired.

And I have a new bed (yay! thanks to the ATO) and I'm far too eager to be in it to think straight enough for a decent post.

I'll try soon, I promise.

J.

The first step is admitting you have a problem

Hello, my name is Jacki, and I'm an addict.

I blame Madeleine. I went along just to keep her company and was determined that I did not need another pair of Birkenstock shoes.

I have 2 pairs already. And they last practically forever. And I don't need another pair.

Maddy really wanted a pair, though. I was happy to take her along to the specialty store so she could make the most of the opportunity during her Sydney visit.

Maddy sorted herself out with a lovely pair. Although she did have a bit of trouble deciding between two that were both very nice.

Once she decided, she insisted on me trying on the other pair. They happened to be in my size.

I wore them out of the store, with my old pair in the box.

I think maybe I need to stay outside the shop next time. Either that or demand a commission from Birkenstock. Do you think they'd pay it in store credit?

They are beautiful, though. And they'll last just about forever. And I'll get a lot of wear out of them.

I can justify this.

Long Weekends

It was a very big, not to mention long, weekend.

I took Friday off to spend time with my friends Jon and Maddy who have been up visiting from Tassie.

We've had a complete ball - we started with some shopping (although not quite the type of shopping you would imagine as Maddy is terrible at that sort) as Jon took a nap and the girls went off to buy me a new mattress for my bed. That's probably a whole nother story.

We had a night at the pub for dinner and drinks on Friday. We went to the art gallery and then to vegetarian Yum Cha and then the aquarium and then home for dinner and board games and even an old-fashioned sing-along with the guy with the guitar at the party until the wee small hours until told to shut it down by the neighbours (usually I'm the crabby neighbour!)

Then we made it to the Rocks markets and headed back to get Jon to the airport, then Maddy and I made some more shopping mischief with a trip to the Birkenstock Shop.

It's Wednesday and I'm still recovering, but what a fantastic weekend! Maddy & Jon are 2 of my favourite people and it was so good to spend some time with them. Cheers to old friends!

WOOHOO!!!

I know you can't actually see me sitting here writing my post. If you could, however, you'd see me with a big grin on my face.

After about a million attempts and different approaches, I finally have an internet connection, at home, on my new laptop (instead of the old one with the dodgy hard drive).

I know it sounds like a small thing, but given the amount of hassles I've had to get to this point, I think I have a right to be excited.

WOOHOO!!!!!!

The Big Day

Today was the big day - my big television debut!!!

OK, that's a bit of a lie. I ended up on local TV news for Burnie, Tasmania, when I was in primary school for being part of a jump rope for heart team and met Fiona Coote. I suppose that was technically my television debut.

And then there was that time when that thing happened and I had quite a lot of TV interviews and such. But that's a whole different post for another day.

But anyway, today was a big day for me and Ronene and Australian television.

It was so weird seeing myself on a show that I have watched on many occasions in the past - Ready Steady Cook.

Before you ask (I know you're going to), you can check out the recipes here. For the record, I was soundly beaten by an outstanding strawberry meringue roulade. I think we did pretty well, though, with
Crumbed goat’s cheese with asparagus, tomato and saffron salsa
Mushroom and goat’s cheese arancini with pesto
Mushroom, asparagus and goat’s cheese risotto and, last but not least;
Upside-down apple and raspberry tart

I had to note that the whole thing somehow looked a bit like a home movie. Not because of any lack of production skill, but just because that's the only medium I'm used to seeing myself on the small screen.

I also noted that I found it pretty cringe-worthy. I think it's even worse when you know the daggy comments are coming. Something on par with seeing yourself telling a dad-joke.

I noticed that I liked my hair better that short. And that it has grown quite a lot since the taping.

So, that's it. All over and done with. Of course, if you watch this space, I'll see what i can do to try and work out how to get some of it online for friends and family. If you want to see it, you may have to pretend to be one or the other!

For those that caught it, hope you enjoyed it. For those that didn't, guess that's lucky for one of us!

J.

p.s. check out the continuity problem at the end. A prize for anyone (other than Ronene, Tresha or Harriet) who can pick it!

Proof

Proof that the universe, in its infinite wisdom (unclear though it may be when you're mired in it) has a way of its own.

If you read the last post, you can probably figure out that I was really annoyed and frustrated and cranky today. I even felt the need to apologise to the guys I've been sitting with for my crankiness as I left this afternoon...helped in part by another visit from the smelly computer guy, who told me he had to take my computer and replace the hard drive...should have it back in the next 2-3 days.

It was pouring with rain and miserable when I left work and I was feeling pretty miserable on the trip home.

Then I arrived home and checked my phone (that I accidentally forgot this morning) and everything changed.

So.....

Good News number 1
Bec had a healthy baby boy - Benjamin Christopher, 4.235kgs and 53cm this afternoon!!!!
congratulations to you and Luke and all your families!! Can't wait to meet him!

Good News number 2
I'm going to be an Aunty again!!!!!!!! Total surprise on this one...my sister Mel is going to have a baby in December, a cousin for the gorgeous Kara. It might have thrown a little spanner in the works for the family Christmas plans, but I don't think anyone's too worried.

And suddenly I'm in a good mood!

And then there was today

Sorry if you're reading these posts through. I know I may have jumped around a bit, chronologically speaking, but I kind of got caught up with publishing a few draft posts and threw in some stuff from today as I thought of it. You don't have to get the order, just accept that's the way it is and we'll all be happy.

As for today, it's been a strange one. Firstly, I've been a little disoriented with PC issues at work for 3 days now have meant that I'm playing musical desks. It's been good in a way - I'm making lots of new friends!

Then this morning our wider business group was called into one of those meetings that all corporate workers know and hate - the RESTRUCTURE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!

This was followed by oodles of rumour and speculation. Another teary meeting as my manager advised us she no longer has a role and a shock to me as I discovered that after only 2 months in the role I've been working towards for the last 18 months, my team is being dissolved and I'm being transferred as a permanent analyst to a product team.

The transfer in itself isn't such a bad thing. I know the team that I'm joining and know and like the new manager I'll be reporting into. It is a little bit limiting, however, in terms of development and advancement (the two key reasons I applied for this job).

So the team and I are all in a bit of shock this evening. I'm generally pretty positive about hings working themselves out, and they probably will, but I'm just going to need a bit of time to process.

Good Luck

Best of Luck Bec and Luke and baby bean - who'd going to be born tomorrow 'cos he's stubborn like his mum!

Hope all goes seamlessly for Baby's first day out in the world.

Happy Birthday Kara!

My gorgeous niece, who turned 2 while I was away.

Congratulations David and Angelika!!!

David and Angelika got engaged yesterday!

Congratulations!!!!

What Jacki did on Hiatus - part 3

I went to the movies to see Shrek 3 (not as good as the first one, but even a second-rate Shrek is better than most movies on the first go)



I had a great dinner with David and Angelika (thanks for the stereo system), who coincidentally have news today! ;-)

I actually managed a bit of quiet time at home, not feeling bad at all about watching a stack of DVDs because it was so miserable outside.

I had a massage on the weekend. That's always a good thing.

I went to a cool (that's "cool" in the nerdy sense of the word) forum to see the authors of a book I'm currently reading. I'm not going to tell you who or what book. Even I know it's too geeky to admit in public.

I've run the usual gauntlet of farewell lunches drinks etc for various people at work either a) moving overseas b) changing roles or c) keeping their role but moving interstate.

So, as you can see, you really haven't missed much...It could even be argued that I've been a little dull.

What Jacki did on Hiatus - part 2

The company I work for has a lot of great social and environmental responsibility programs. One of them that's great is called "Community Day".

For Community Day, all staff get one paid day a year to go out and do volunteer work. Usually it is organised by team and this year my team opted to go out and help clear up storm damage at a children's camp on the outskirts of the City.

So last week I headed off early, printed map in hand, ready to help out. Of course, me being me, I managed to take the scenic route (read:get horrendously lost on the way) and arrived a bit late.

We did manage to get most of the heavy lifting done, but unfortunately the storms that caused the damage were far from over and we were sent home early due to getting rained out.

So I took my sodden, muddy self to visit Bec for the rest of the afternoon - we drank cups of tea and watched ridiculous TV shows on her Pay TV channels!

I probably should feel worse about not being able to put in a full day's work volunteering, but it was nice to be rugged up drinking cups of tea with a good friend instead.

What Jacki did on Hiatus - part 1

I mentioned a weekend away in my last post. Yup, I headed down to the deep south of New South Wales, almost to Bateman's Bay - which is conveniently also close for my sister and cousin to get to from Canberra.

We headed down there on the recent Queen's birthday long weekend. On the down-side there was some pretty hairy weather on the drive down (Jacki: "Is it a problem if I can't actually see the road?" Passengers: "Just follow the car in front with the hazard lights flashing"). I'm a bit of a granny-driver and found it pretty stressful. On the up-side once we got far enough South, we managed to miss the worst of the weather that tore through and made a huge mess of parts of northern NSW.

So 8 of us had a great long weekend, eating and drinking and playing a lot of board games.

From memory we managed at least one game each of....

• Scrabble
• Speed Scrabble
• Scattergories
• Cluedo
• Pictionary
• Balderdash
• Uno
• Backgammon

We cooked up a storm and even managed a long hike along the beach. Good friends (and family) and good times.

These weekends are never long enough.

Howdy

Hi all, if you're reading this then I guess I can assume that you haven't deserted me over the course of my hiatus.

For those of you who have contacted me to check if I'm OK...or not contacted me but wondered anyway, I'm totally fine. The break started with a weekend away and turned into me just deciding to have a little break to make sure that this is still something I want to do.

And the upshot is that it is something I still want to do!

So read on...hopefully I'll manage to give you something worth reading.

J.

Sorry

Short hiatus, I promise. I'll be back soon.

J.

p.s. Can't help saying good luck to Bec - who's due today...hope baby bean comes soon!

THANKS

Big thank-you's to both Dave and Marti.

Thanks to Dave for giving me his sensational stereo components to replace the crappy-arse broken CD player on the crappy power-sucking stereo that I kept from my ex because he owed me money when we broke up (not that I'm bitter)

And thanks to Marti who came over and set the whole gear up for me so that everything is now this amazing home theatre experience...even when I'm just watching NCIS.

You're both legends!!!

p.s. Raffling off tickets to the next movie marathon at my place....