Author: Anne S

Today is day 4 of my working week – and with any luck I’ll be allowed to take Friday off as an optional RDO (rostered day off) … if that’s the case, then I’m officially sitting on the 2/3 mark of my week … if not, I still have 3 days left. Saturday I’m heading off with a lady from work to Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale (about 3 hours drive away from Melbourne) to visit the Annemieke Mien Exhibition. This is exciting for two reasons – 1) I’ve never been to Gippsland before, and 2) Annemieke Mein’s work is absolutely stunning, and it will be fantastic to see it first-hand. I’ll take my camera with me just in case we’re allowed to take photos 🙂 Here are some links to her works: here and here (this is the exhibit I’m going to) 😀

Another quiet night tonight, but I feel really relaxed – on the 9am-5pm shifts the traffic to and from work is horrific … with no traffic it’s a 20 minute drive, but on this shift it can be 1 whole hour – I got so fed up and uptight in the traffic yesterday that I decided to leave the car at home today, and walked to the train station to take the train to work … how wonderful, I arrived at work totally unstressed, and feel the same way after coming home – I think it’s going to be a permanent arrangement on this shift yippee! (It also means I have to get my fat bottom in motion and get a bit of walking in to and from the station, so yet another positive! haha)

Today more stash arrived in my mailbox – my subscription to the Australian Inspirations magazine from Country Bumpkin (actually, my subscription must be due to expire soon hmmm) … this month has a lovely surface stitchery bag on the cover – I probably wouldn’t have the patience to stitch it myself, but it’s absolutely gorgeous! 😀 And not just that today, but my magazine arrived complements of KarenV from the UK, with the Margaret Sherry booklet I wanted – including the 12 days of Christmas charts. But there was an added treat, with some gorgeous Egyptian designs in the magazine as well – a definite added bonus! Thanks again Karen, for helping me out – your blood is worth bottling!! {{huge hugs}}

Now I’m off to do a spot of stitching for an hour before I hit the hay for the night – seeing as I didn’t get chance to get any of the Bordeaux Sampler done last week, I want to get an hour each night for the next 3 nights so I can post a progress piccie on Friday for my SAL with Carol 🙂

BUT it’s not stitching related … it IS related to my OTHER passion, though … welcome to the Annie household three more little treasures – compliments of the Big Brother TV show … from left to right “Outback Duck”, “Darling Duck” and “King Duck” – woohoo!!! haha 😀

It’s only a quick post, as I have a few things to do at home tonight – I am celebrating, though, as today is the first day since Friday (ie 4 days ago) that I haven’t been chewing Nurofen all day – I’ve had a splitting headache since stitching those racing cars, so no blog reading etc being done. I’ve also just received the news today that my favourite person at my old place of work in Auckland is coming here next week for two nights on business (same company), and she’s staying at my place … the spare room looks like a tornado zone, as it’s got my boxes unpacked all over the place – um, time to get it all squared up a bit sooner than I expected … hmmm. It will be wonderful to see her again – and it will be awesome to be able to show her ‘my office’ 🙂

Rightio, off to do a few chores – time to put the laundry etc away before bedtime …

Did I do any stitching yesterday? Nope … nil … nada … zip … zilch! I kept active as long as I could – and as soon as I sat down my eyes drooped big time, so I just kept doing a few things around the place like putting my last load of washing away etc and general tidying around my computer area – I fell into bed early at 7pm, but had a really rough night’s sleep compliments of shocking high winds making a racket … I think tonight is the first night where I’m going to succumb to taking 1/2 a sleeping tablet, as I feel almost dizzy from the lack of sleep (aside from looking like Frankenstein’s bride!). I’m taking the risk tonight in taking a tablet, as I don’t start work until 9am, so it’s OK if I sleep in a bit. Then it’s my two days off (Thu/Fri), before working 7 days straight.

Anyway, I have to put the record straight with my latest spoils … the only things I went ‘off the wagon’ for was my Ebay win from Ashleigh – everything else was from previously … which is what prompted me to get back on the wagon haha. Admittedly, that money could have gone towards a new lounge suite, or my holiday, or a new feline companion, but I really enjoyed spending it that way, and have no guilty feelings this time whatsoever 😀

Talking of which, I think I’ve made a decision to go ahead with the feline companion … I just need to get a few items that are essential first, ie scratching post, litter tray, kitty litter, ping pong balls etc. I’ve also been checking out the RSPCA adoption website, and I absolutely adore these three critters … especially the black and white one, as he’s the spitting image of our last cat Rio 🙂 Second runner-up is the grey tabby, but I really love the look of all three of these … I can’t do anything about it until after we come back from Hong Kong, but I have to admit it would be perfect timing to get one then, as I’ll be at home for about another 1-2 weeks on holiday, so it would be a great chance to get a cat settled in and house trained etc then … I’ll take a trip out to Burwood when we get back, and have a look, I think … mind you, it depends if I still have any money left over, as the cat itself is $110 plus all of the essentials I’ll need. I really need to buy some glasses, which is probably more essential at the moment for me, so we’ll see … but the seed has definitely been set … 🙂
Age: 7 months; Sex: Male (N); Colour: Black Tabby & White
Name: “Molly”; Age: 4 years; Sex: Female (S); Colour: Grey Torti
Age: 4 years; Sex: Female; Colour: Tabby

I may regret it tomorrow, but last night I stayed up to watch the first game of the All Blacks vs Wallabies (ie New Zealand vs Australia in Rugby Union for those of you not in the know) … and I’m pleased to say the ALL BLACKS WON!!! I have to admit to not being a sports fan, but the All Blacks are the only team I follow … I get a ribbing at work for being a Kiwi all the time, and today I intend wearing my All Black scarf and T-shirt just to wind one of the guys up 😉

I have to admit, I love living in Aussie, and the majority of the people I’ve met and dealt with are wonderful people, and I feel at home here … but sometimes the sports commentating here is very one-eyed and rude. I was really shocked to hear a commentator last night, while the camera was on a toddler being held up by its parents covered in All Blacks face paint – the commentator said “look at that poor kid – it’s amazing what parents will do to you these days … it’s unfortunate enough that it’s a New Zealander without doing that to it as well” – now is that really necessary??? I can take a joke as much as the next person, but that’s really inappropriate, and it really got my ire up last night for a short time hmmm. There is a friendly rivalry between the two nations, and a zillion of Kiwi vs Aussie jokes etc, and I can handle that easily … but that public comment made me angry 😦

So partly because of that attitude last night, I was SUPER happy that we trounced the Aussies 32-12 (sorry Aussie pals), and my neighbours got a taste of their own medicine after midnight as I was cheering my team on loudly (they did the same last week or so watching the soccer until the early hours haha). Of course, the game is still not over as such – there are still two games to be played for the Bledisloe Cup … go Kiwis!!! 😉

I nearly wrote “the heat is on” as my title, but that was too close to yesterday’s happy post 😉 The fact is I was getting very organised yesterday and getting my rotation in order, to set up the new few upcoming rotation slots, making sure everything was all kitted up and ready to go … when I spied something at the top of my list … Racing Cars charity block due for mailing 15 July … my little mouse rushed off to the corner of my screen to see the date … aaarghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! So last night I went into total panic mode – today was my final catch-up day for the last 5 blogs outstanding, but they’re going to have to wait a couple of days again now … in fact all blog reading is back on the backburner again for a few days – seeing as I hadn’t started this project yet, and it’s got a LOT of stitching in it (I’ve had to cut a few things out just to get it to fit on the fabric hmmm), so as it is I’m going to be struggling to get this one finished ready for post …

So, with no more ado, I’m off to pick up a needle, as I’m going to try for a full 8-10 hours stitching on it today yikes! Then I have a dragon one due on 15 August, so I’d better start doing some stitching on that too afterwards so I’m not in the same predicament next month!

Here’s my progress for 3 hours yesterday – which is why I’m panicking … this is only about 1/8 of the total stitching for this block, with loads of backstitching (excuse the crappy photo, as it’s not in focus – but I figure there’s no point taking another one, as there’s not much to see yet! LOL). OK, enough yapping … off to my stitching corner I go!

(Updated) Well, I managed to stitch for a solid total of 11 1/2 hours today … and oh boy am I feeling it now! But I managed to get almost one of the cars finished. I wish I took more time to think about the project yesterday – if I was really clever, I would have just used one of the cars, and added a chequered flag border to fill it out … I thought about that when I was about 1/3 through the first car – a bit late by then! Would have made the deadline a lot easier though. Oh well, c’est la vie … here’s my progress to date anyway – I’m back at work tomorrow and not on great stitching hours, so there probably won’t be much progress over the next couple of days. Thanks for your supportive comments … it’s much appreciated 🙂