Great big WAVES to pals around the world. We have glorious snow here this morning and it's well below freezing - 23º or -5ºC. My Damned Knee (DK) and I skipped Church this morning and are going to take a nice soak in the tub and contemplate our future.

Have a lovely Sinday! Whoops! I mean SUNday, of course....I think!

MISS RUTH!!! SO NICE OF YOU TO DROP IN WITH THE DK AND ALL! ROFLMAO HAVE A GREAT SINDAY YOURSELF!!! AND SOME FOR YOU TOO!!

HONEY-DIPPED~ SO NICE OF YOU ALSO TO STOP IN AND SAY HI. HOPE YOU COME BACK AGAIN. WE WOULD LOVE TO CHAT WITH YOU. GLAD YOU KNOW WHERE OUR TREEHOUSE IS!! COME AND TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.

SHAD~ AT LEAST SOMEONE KNOWS WHERE WE ARE! ROFLMAO LOVED OUR TALK AND IT ALWAYS LEAVES ME FEELING EVER SO MUCH LIGHTER. WHEN I GOT BACK TO JIMMY HE SAID HE KEPT CALLING CAUSE HE WASN'T GETTING ANY REACTION FROM THE OTHERS! LOL
GOOD NEWS ABOUT CHRIS!! SENDING HER POSITIVE VIBES!!!

HOLLY~ YOUR POST HAD ME GOING THER FOR AWHILE AND LIKE SHAD, I HAD TO RE-READ IT!! ROFLMAO I COULD JUST SEE YOU WITH EVERYONE HANGING ALL OVER YOU AND CRAWLING AROUND ON THE FLOOR AT YOUR FEET!!! LOL HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER. TAKE SOME HOLLY TIME CAUSE YOU KNOW THAT THE HIVES ARE GIVING YOU A WARNING!!!

CEEJAY~ GLAD THE THUMB IS BETTER. I HATE TOES AND FINGERS TO GET HURT. YOU NEVER REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT THEY ARE TILL THEY DO!! ROFL

TEEL~ I THINK I HAVE THE NUMBERS WRONG ON YOUR ADDRESS. THE ONES THAT ARE LIKE OUR ZIP CODES BUT YOU HAVE LETTERS AMONGST THEM. COULD YOU OR SOMEONE SEND ME THEM? THANKS. HOPE THE WEDDING WENT WELL AND YOU HAD A GOOD TIME YOURSELF TOO!

TIG~ I LOVE EEYORE TOO AND THINK ANY CHILD WOULD. NICE RUN!!! HAVE A GREAT TIME AT THE CYCLE RIDE AND HOLD ON TIGHT TO SLIM!!!

I WOKE TO A WINTER WONDERLAND AND EVERYTHING LOOKS SO CLEAN AND BRIGHT!!! VERY DARK OUTSIDE THOUGH. GAVE ME EVEN MORE XMAS SPIRIT! THINK A FEW MORE DECORATIONS ARE IN ORDER. JEN PAINTED THE WINDOWS AGAIN FOR XMAS IN THE LOBBY. I MUST GO DOWN AND LOOK. SHE DOES IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WHEN NO ONE IS AROUND. JUST HER AND RICHIE. I HAVE SOME COOKING TO DO. MAYBE A QUICHE WITH SPINACH AND MUSHROOMS. SO I BETTER GET STARTED. HAPPY SUNDAY AND GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE

PS~ TIG....WE LOOK ALIKE BUT SHAD IS THE BETTER LOOKING ONE! WE NEED TO GET A PICTURE OF THE THUGS STANDING IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE!!!

HAPPY~ IT WAS NICE TO SEE HONEY-DIPPED WASN'T IT!! I LOVE WHEN SOMEONE COMES BY!!

Okay then what does it say about me that I read Holly's post and found it perfectly readable? The spelling whoopsies just added a bit of flare.

I made shortbread cookies with candied cherries in the middle as a defense against a botched batch of cherry/walnut cookies I made from a magazine recipe that were dreadful. They weren't even sweet! So I had to make some GOOD cookies and they look pretty too Yes I ate about five of them with tea last night while watching the Elecktra movie and brooding about why I've never been able to do full body pull ups with one arm or even two arms. Drove me to butter and sugar, my only solace was knowing that Jennifer Garner just had a baby and wasn't doing anything resembling martial arts these days


Mel-quiche how yummy. What kind of scene has Jen done? Penguins? You must tell me, I'm envisioning hills and slidding animal friends. Where did her creativity take her? We decorated our tree last night. White twinkle lights and red silk thread balls. It is about seven feet and with the star just about touches the ceiling Enjoy the snow, December snow is Christmas snow and it is magic. Watch Frosty the Snowman when it comes on if you don't believe me

Holly-Ah, using "the love" to manipulate you will never grow old, got to adore the little dears Yikes, Hives! Must be stress getting you, are your breathing deeply? Looking out the window and just gazing? Taking time to just "Be" in the world and not productive? I'm a master at that stuff

Shad-Stay cool Good to hear you managed to break through the busy signal at Mel's and have a nice natter about stuff. So is this fellow Cris has met a gentleman caller type of guy or just a new acquaintance? I'm sorry the heat is making you feel draggy, not eating dinner will mess with your metabolism. Eat some fruit at least so you will not have a boomerang affect tomorrow or have your blood sugar drop and feel even worse. You are worth taking care of

Happy-I'm glad to hear that whatever is messing with your bones is going to be looked at sharpish and dealt with. So frustrating to have to wait for weeks before appointments, just causes a lot of needless worries. You have a good team on your side down there by all accounts I've read. They will have you dancing in front of Graceland with the tourists in no time.

Tig-hope the ride is wonderful! Cool toy picks, my kids adore anything Winnie the Pooh gang and the Care bears. I'm sure they will be much loved when they find their new owners. Amazing when you look at it and say "I only did three miles", doesn't sound sissy to me

Ceejay-good luck with eating all your vegetables and fruit. Using the food pyramid is supposed to be one of the healthiest ways to approach things, got to get creative with the combining things in salads and stews though. Eating it all raw is tough.

PW-are you busy knitting or something? Where are you and how big is your Christmas tree? Are you celebrating the last chemo visit? Are you buying yourself new lingerie to pamper yourself? Come on, tell me I thought of you the other day when one of the teachers at my daughter's school asked who had knitted her sweater and could she get the pattern. My sister had made it from a little pull over bathinsuit sweater pattern and just lengthened it. Boy is this teacher going to be surprised when she gets the pattern and sees where the original idea came from

Linus-are you awake? Is CJ? Did you get some relief in and do your own thing for a few hours? Start the new year right now and pass the baby to trusted relatives and get back to good again. Baby drain must be plugged

Teel- what are you doing? How did the playing go in the church? Did you have mittens to keep your hands warm in between songs?

Hi Honey-dipped and Ruth
Ho, Ho, Ho to Rose and Linda lurking about somewhere

my god my son can actually sleep more than 4 hours lol
my little sister is in labour so ill come back tomorrow and tell you what time my neice makes her apperance
kirsty

Oh dear Meadow, you only understood because I am quite certain you have experienced in the not too distant past the phenomena of felines and offspring hanging off all your apendages whilst trying sneak a few momernts of adult convo.

I did just "be". I "was". Church was done, friends daughter picked up, house vacuumed and dishes mostly done and I looked around, it was 2 pm and I had no presssing engagements. I snuck off to bed and intended to read but just dozed happily with the kitties for 2 hours.

Linus~ doing a happy dance for you. A sleeping son and a new angel to smell and hug.

Must head off to the store befoe it closes. We need some fresh veg and bananas and poor Clyde needs some food.

Hubby is off a t a friends installing a hybrid furnace that uses hydro, wood and water??? duct work is involved anyhow.

Now there is an exit line if ever I heard one - 'my little sister is in labour so ill come back tomorrow and tell you what time my neice makes her apperance'. Yikes

Holly - I know the proof thing well. I go back to some of my entries and whammo, the mistake hits me straight between the eyes. And just to put the icing on the cake - today I sent out a message to all staff telling them of changes to OnDemands spelling and grammer!!!! Lord help me.

Ruth - how nice of you to drop in. Sending and and a big lick to you and your girls. Hope the knee starts to recover soon. And you meant sinday and all!!

Mel - good as always to speak to you. Forgot verballyto wish you a Meri Kitima, but hey, who's to say I won't ring again. I never know what I am going to do until I do it. If you haven't heard from Teel :magnify: (where the heck is she anyway - surely not still playing violin in church!!) I'll post the postcode anyway.

Meadow - had you been sipping wine or just finished some Kahlua cookies when reading Holly's post? Must admit I found it easier to read after a couple of wines over lunch and post lunch and pre (the non-existent) dinner! That's why I wondered whether she had been on the turps. I well remember getting a birthday card from someone once which I could read absolutely perfectly after a pub crawl and a boozy dinner - but for the life of me couldn't read the next day.

Another week has begun here. I skipped the early session this morning because I simply couldn't get out of bed in time. I have my gear in the car and will call in to the gym on the way home to get the exercise done and dusted for the day. I'm finding this early, early stuff a bit wearisome. Perhaps it is the huge bag that I have to carry through town with my breakfast, lunch and water and clothes and towels etc. and then tote it back again to the station. I think I need a back pack.

So what will this week bring. I need to sit and talk with my Manager about where we go from here. I have things to do but I can't do most of them because the Business Analysts don't have time to vet the stuff already done. Can't move it to the next step or level. I'm thinking of suggesting that maybe I finish here at Christmas and not Jan 6th. Probably cr*pping in my own nest, but there is not going to be any improvement between the Christmas and New year holidays. I shall be here with nothing to do!


Anyway, better go and see who I can bother at the minute.

Hello Miss Ruth, it's nice of you to drop in. Take care of the dk. At least it wasn't your foot.

Mel Thanks a gillion for the list. That was nice of Jen to do the window decorations for Christmas.

Linus-Thumbs up for CJ.That's great that he is sleeping a little longer. Know mommy could use the rest.

Hello to Shad, Happy, Holly, Nae, tig,teel and meadow.

I've finished a 12 hour day I'm ready for bed.

I didn't do to bad on the first day of the new food pyramid. It goes by cups and ounces

Need to put a load of laundry in the dryer and get ready for bed.

Good morning ladies,
A quick drive by for me. We finished our handgun safety course yesterday. It took up both days of the entire weekend which I wasn't too crazy about but now I know how to shoot and safely handle a handgun. I didn't do too badly on the marksman qualification shoot - 98 out of 100 which means I only missed one shot out of the target outline. I told DH I was going to hang the shot up target outside next to the back door with a sign - Beware - this COULD be you if you try to enter this house uninvited

However, that took up most of the weekend and I didn't get much else of anything done including grocery shopping. Today is the team holiday luncheon and I REALLY don't feel like going. It's at a restaurant that we ALWAYS go to for every occasion so it doesn't feel like anything special. It also doesn't feel much like Christmas either which may be part of my reluctance. 3 more weeks here.
Ruth, it is always good to see your smiling face pop in. Welcome you and your "DK" any time! Ceejay so you just make your food selections from the food pyramid and that's it? Simple enough it would seem. Didn't Teel say she was packing up to go stay with her friends again? I'll have to go back in posts and check. Shad, your talk of carrying a huge flopping back all over with you on the train brought back unpleasant memories of working in the city too - large purse, laptop, carry bag, lunch bag, and whatever bags from lunchtime shopping trips or gym trips carried back and forth across town - made me feel I was a pack mule in a former life! Even worse when it's so hot out that you need to run the air conditioning. I'm sure the people at the office will not understand your reluctance to simply sit around, do nothing and bill them for the pleasure instead of your preference to "fish or cut bait" as they say. Hope things work out for you, I know you are not one to sit and twiddle the thumbs. So Linus do you think CJ's tongue problem was causing part of the fuss and now that he can suckle better he's a happy little boy? Sounds like he will soon have a young cousin play pal. Hugs to Holly, Painter and Tig, welcome Honey Dipped. Meadow, I think I've run across that walnut cherry cookie recipe myself. Looked and sounded so delightful, yet the results were : perhaps the recipe was posted by someone who felt we shouldn't be eating cookies in the first place Mel, do tell us about Jen's painting scene - how nice of her to cheer up the place. And I'll bring coffee and a fruit cup if you'll share the quiche - my favorite flavor there.

Ok, time to go feed the cats and get on with the day...

A beautiful day in the neighbourhood. Crisp, clear, cold!!!!!!!!

All the big kids off to school. 2 preschoolers til noon. My big Avon Christmas order goes in today. Follow up calls to make and then send it off. I will do some shovelling at some point for exercise. I am feeling fat. I want to change this.
Hubby seems to be back on track. He got some good rest on the weekend. He spent some time with friends yesterday.


I got some tidying done. I am itching to bake and make scrap books for the my kids and the kids I babysit. I may make some christmas cards too.
I received a gift certificate for a 1/2 hour massage. I called the guy and told him I wanted to use it for hubby. He said, “no way! you will both come ! “ So, tonight at 8 Hubby will go for a 1/2 hour and then come home and then i will go for a 1/2 hour. Of course the fact that a total stranger was compassianate and caring and realized how much a mom needed to be nurtured( his words) made me cry, LOL.
Kids have been awesome all weekend. Gotta love it.
Hockey practise and 4.
Oatmeal and coffee for breaky.

Had this big epiphany about “breaking the cycle”. My kids are very vocal( and physical) about everything as is hubby and well....myself. We are open and communicate( A great deal) whether it is effective or not.
What my son shows on the outside is what i had going on on the inside as a kid but had learned it was wrong to show it, talk about, or even feel it, most definitely by the time I was 7. I would be punished, ignored, put down with sarcasm, told I was worng, unstable, too sensitive.......... So, as busy and hard as our family life can be at times, I can honestly say it is a safe enough and loving enough environment for all of us to be ourselves completely without fear. Imagine the possibilities of growth and love and experience for our kids in this environment!!!!!!!!!

Just in to say hello. The shoulder is hurting to bad to type. Think I must have arthritis.

Oh poor ceejay: Christmas is coming and first the thumb and now the shoulder - which bit comes next?

Happy - I'm glad you finished the course and got a good score on the paper. Here we don't keep handguns in the house and to have a gun of any description one has to be licenced, registered and required to lock the weapon in a secure place and the ammo somewhere else. If it was for protection that scenario would rather defeat the purpose I would have thought. I'm happy enough not having anything like that around the place. Police here carry arms, that's scary enough for me. NZ Police don't go around armed. Don't know that it is that much of a deterrent any more as there are as many holdups and murders over as than there are here per capita no doubt. Maybe the Kiwis are a little more inventive and find weapons in the most unlikely places. Anyway, I'm glad you took a responsible approach and at least worked out how to handle the things.

Holly - itching to bake? Lord no, one has to be a masochist to turn any form of heat on here at the moment. Have a good massage.

Temperatures yesterday were atrocious. The city here got to 33, out west to 39, where I live to 36. That's why there is no way that I will cook much these days. It didn't even cool down overnight here and was 27 when I left the house this morning. I've gone back to gym in the afternoon for the time being. It is just too much effort to drag the bag into town and jostle with the peak hour workers going to work. So the bag stays in the car and I go down to gym after work. Since I am leaving fairly early these days, it isn't too bad in the gym at that time. In fact yesterday was quite quiet. Long may it last.

I've spoken to the manager and suggested I finish at Christmas. She agrees with that okay - thought she would when I suggested the budget overrun might be spared a little. So now I have to get my stuff up to scratch and teach the permanent staff how to use OnDemand. Now I can start to look for something new and work out when I can start. There was something in the online job search on Friday which I should follow up.

That's about it for the day so far. Catch up later.

Thanks for all the warm welcomes! As for my introduction... I'm 22, married with no children, and I live in Japan.

Today it's cold cold cold.... The temperature has dropped to 60 degrees and it makes it so much harder for me to get up and do anything. Lol! I just read Shad's post above. I thought is was cold here! Wow...

Umm that is centrigrade Honey - which makes the temps around the 100F mark. Cold - no way. I sit here in a puddle of sweat.

Are you Japanese or a foreigner living in Japan?

ohhh okay! Duh, I should've noticed that since you are in Aus and it's summer now. Wow, I wish the weather was like that over here! I'm a gaijin--foreigner.