Category: Home & Family TO BE FIXED

I’m just posting this really quickly at work before I start … I need to let a few people know their birthday gifts arrived a while ago, but it seems no-one has received the thank you emails I sent via the internet mail gateway from work (I presume the firewall prevented it from sending).  Anyway, I was hoping to post a full post complete with piccies of the gifts this last weekend, after popping out briefly in the morning to the ‘local’ shopping centre.  Unfortunately plans didn’t quite work out, and I ended up getting a massive migraine while out, and had to pull the car over on the way home to throw up!  Needless to say, I’ve been cocooned up in bed all weekend not achieving much of anything – I tried to jump online, but it made me feel worse so I gave up!

Anyway, I wanted to let the following people know their gifts have arrived safely – I’ll send proper thank you emails (again) as soon as I can.  I love everything, and feel terrible now I know you didn’t receive my original email, as that was just over 2 weeks ago now!!!

So, thank you to NickiL, CarolS, SharonH, BarbaraCL, and KatrinaJ – I love everything and will post piccies as soon as I can. 

I hope I haven’t missed anyone, but I’m still not feeling 100% today … time will tell whether I end up staying the full day at work today.  I guess I pushed myself a bit hard too early, and I hadn’t gotten over my viral bugs yet!   😦

In better news, though, I’ve managed to finish LHN’s Winter Wonderland and Blueberries on Friday night! 🙂

Rightio, off to work again …

This always happens when I’m not looking forward to something … I had an absolute BLAST tonight!!!  Dinner was scrummy … we went to the Retro Cafe right next door to the State Theatre, where I had lamb shanks, and the others had calamari salads … this was then followed by a Viennese coffee laced with Galliano or Kahlua … finally followed by, without a doubt, the BEST EVER sticky date pudding with caramel sauce … seriously, it is the best we’ve ALL tasted – I’d go back there just for the stick date pudding, it is seriously TO DIE FOR!!!!

The show itself was a real hoot, and when you go in there’s a goodie bag sitting on your chair with props in it for the audience participation … I think my voice will be non-existent when I get up in the morning after yelling out and cheering for Maria, doing wolf whistles at Captain Von Trapp and yelling out “he’s gorgeous!”, then hissing at the Baroness and booing the Nazis … not to mention all the singing we did to every single song (which is helped enormously by having the words to the songs at the bottom of the screen!).  Loads and loads of people got dressed up – I’ve never seen so many nuns in one place … it reminded you of the casino scene in Sister Act!! haha.

CathyB would have felt right at home in her nun’s outfit!! 😉

I must say I’d forgotten just how much I enjoy that movie … which is the legacy my mother will leave with me – I’ve been brought up with musicals all my life, and as long as you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll admit on here that I do enjoy them too! 😉

Anyway, all-in-all it was a tremendously good night out, although it ran a LOT later than we expected, so I got a taxi home to the train station instead of taking the risk of travelling on my own at night ($34 later, but probably worth it for the feeling of security … then again, the train ride might have been quieter, as my taxi driver didn’t shut up the whole way haha – did you know that by calling the train station a “train station” I was actually offending the driver, and I was lectured about it for some considerable time, because it’s anti-Australian … however, I seemed to redeem myself by pronouncing his surname right (“it’s Larkin, without the R”, so pronounced Laykin … brownie points to Anne and no more lectures about offensing his poor Australian ears with my uncouth murdering of his language haha).  I did, however, end up having a bit of a history lesson once he’d settled down … I now know all about the night rider buses and why they were introduced, along with landfills in Sydney, and shown the church that St Peters suburb was named after, not to mention the brickworks that used to make the bricks from the clay landfill, and I learnt about the trams that used to travel between Rockdale and Brighton-le-Sands, which were then replaced by the trolley buses … anything else you want to know about the area, I’m sure I can tell you something new now! teehee.

Another great thing about tonight is that Brenda and Kerrie have booked themselves a night at my place after Easter to come over and stay the night, which will be fun – plus we’re going to go away for a girlie weekend to their holiday home with a group of about 6 girls to watch chick flicks and chill out with a few drinks … I know I’ve said it before, but it’s so lovely to have people here that I know really well.  As much as I miss people from Melbourne (hi Sharon and Tannia especially!!), it’s lovely to have Brenda and Nigel here, and it’s great that I get on so well with Brenda’s best friend Kerrie as well … life is pretty good, all-in-all 🙂

Now I guess I’d better get my A into G and get to bed, as it will soon be time to wake up again for a stitching day again tomorrow … yippee! 😀

OK, now I feel quite disappointed … I just jumped online to work out how to get to the State Theatre in the city, only to find out I’m actually going to a sing-along Sound of Music, not a live show! 😦

One of the guys at work laughed that that’s probably where I was going, but I’d never heard of the sing-along before … people go in dressed as nuns etc (which now explains why Brenda asked if I’d got my Nun’s outfit ready yesterday!!!).  I must say I feel really really disappointed … I was looking forward to seeing a live show, not paying $50 to watch a movie on the big screen with people screaming their lungs out 😦

In my day I have paid on numerous occasions to get dressed up and go to a stage show of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but never in my wildest dreams would I have considered doing this to the Sound of Music … mutter mutter mutter.

Note to self … whenever Brenda invites you to anything, find out what it actually IS before coughing up the money!!  As it is it took me ages to get the details of the show out of her, ie venue etc – I only found out on Thursday afternoon, after having the tickets booked since November … ho-hum … good thing I’m not going to be driving tonight, I think some serious drinking might be in order before the show!!!  I am soooo not in the mood for this now … mind you, that normally means I’ll enjoy myself because I don’t have high expectations for the night! 😉

I have the weekend to myself this weekend, as Lisa headed off to Melbourne in the wee small hours of this morning and won’t be back until Monday … I thought I’d have a lazy start to the day by laying in bed and catching up on a couple of blogs, when I heard the doorbell go and the screen door open … not expecting anyone I threw my dressing gown on and padded out to the front door to see a strange lady standing there with bags in her hands (I say strange because she is an unknown lady, and not because she’s weird at all! haha).  Thinking she’s trying to sell something I am a bit tentative in my greeting … but she announces “hi, I’m Robyn!”.  The penny then dropped as to who this lady was – I was driving her to our stitching day down south … but the only problem is the stitching day is tomorrow, not today!

I felt so sorry for the poor love, but I quickly threw on some clothes and made us a cup of coffee and we shared nibblies over a coffee and talked.  Robyn had the ‘honour’ of being shown all my stitching works in progress and finished items, which always breaks the ice when meeting new people.  We ended up chatting the morning away and Robyn didn’t leave until lunchtime – it was wonderful!  It is always so nice to meet fellow stitchers, and discuss stitching loves in the way of fabrics and designers and just stitching chat in general.  What an unexpected and pleasant way to spend the morning!  And the best thing is we get to do it all over again tomorrow! 🙂

I think I’ll spend the next hour going for a walk up the beach, before having my shower and getting ready to head into the city.  I was hoping to spend the morning finally setting up a CA Wells project for stitching, but having an unexpected stitching visit was way more fun! 😀

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve picked up a needle … I haven’t touched my stitching since finishing the stitching on Karen’s Shepherd’s Roll needleroll, which is soooooo unlike me!  I haven’t had the urge to stitch whatsoever, perhaps because there is still so much clutter to be unpacked and sorted in my bedroom … and I think that’s cluttering my brain.  I also haven’t really felt like blogging, or even reading blogs.  Once I feel more settled and under control with the unpacking I might be ready to tackle some more stitching projects and get back into a routine once again.  The problem is the CA Wells class is in about 8 weeks time and I haven’t even started yikes!  Oh well, no point stressing about it … I might stitch some calico onto the edges of Sailor’s Valentine and take it with me to the stitching day tomorrow, as that could be relatively easy to stitch – either that or take a freebie along … perhaps that should be a priority for me right now instead of sitting at the laptop hmmm …

Rightio, time to pull finger out and get into my stitching stash and kit something up for tomorrow … the walk will have to wait!!  I’m now on a stitching mission … kind of …

Then I’m heading into the city to have dinner with friends Brenda and Kerrie before we see the Sound of Music stage show – it should be a fun night!

I’ve been speaking to ‘my’ mechanic today and I’m off to pick up my car tomorrow … and it seems it’s going to be a relatively painless bill, much to my total amazement and joy (for me relatively painless is under $1,000!)!  Hence the feeling I could cry tears of joy!!! 

Out of all the problems with the car, he’s managed to find that they’re quite ‘minor’ things – the airconditioning flooding the car only turned out to be a blocked drainage tube; the ‘broken’ windows just turned out to be that the idiot who ripped out my alarm system last year hit the ‘child lock’, so the windows were fixed at the push of a button (that gave me a bit of a giggle) … the ‘big’ costs are a reconditioned alternator and a new battery … and he’s replacing my car aerial that got killed in the hail storms before Christmas, plus the dashboard light and hopefully the door remote.  I’ve got my fingers crossed it won’t be too much over say $600, but time will tell tomorrow morning!

I must say it’s a real pleasure having a mechanic that’s not out to stiff you and is truly reliable and trustworthy – even if he is on the other side of town, I’ll definitely be taking my car to him on a regular basis now!

In other news I’ve requested from Dodgey Brothers R Us a copy of the receipt for the extra rental truck expenses, and he’s refused to give it to me … which I now have in writing from him in an email … bless you Mr Dodgey, that’ll come in very handy for when we take it further to claim back those costs!! 😀

And if that all isn’t enough, I’ve also managed to ‘unpublish’ all those future WordPress posts as well, by just clicking on edit timestamp and saving again … so over the next few weeks it’s going to feel like Groundhog Dog with everything you’ve already seen haha.

Still no gift photos to share with you yet, as I need to buy some DVD’s to get rid of some files on my laptop … but I promise you the wait is worth it! 🙂

I’ll try to remember and pick up some DVD’s tomorrow while I’m out picking up my car!  For now, it’s time to head off and unpack another couple of things before bedtime.  Hopefully in another week I’ll have more time to get back into my stitching again.  We’re having a friend come to visit from Melbourne next Tuesday, so we’ve got to get cracking and get the place tidied up … it’s going to be so good having a social event next week and entertaining at home!  That cocktail bar will finally get a hammering … and I will have a Chardonnay drinking buddy here (no-one else I know drinks Chardy … everybody else in Oz seems to be Sauvignon Blanc fans).  I must say that today “life feels good” 😀

Rightio, time for bed so we can get up early tomorrow … hope to be back tomorrow with a fun-filled post of stitching goodies! 🙂