G'day all,

Well the day has come and I am a lady of leisure again

We had a great but exhausting weekend and the last 2 days have been something else again.
Out advanced 4x4 wheel driving was very enjoyable albeit very tiring. We learnt a lot and in time I will post some of the photos we took on the net.

The last 2 days at work have been horrendous , should have known and perhaps not have agreed to help with the unpacking of boxes but alas I made the commitment so coudln't really back out. When I was asked to stay for the rest of the week, I politely refused
I received some chocolates and roses when I left yesterday, so that was nice.

We are in Sydney for another 5 weeks then on to Adelaide/home. DH has 3 weeks holidays and after that who knows, the most likely place is Mumbai (Bombay) but going by past experience, this of course could well change again. I have grown used to the thought of going to Mumbai and even more so now, I was told at work yesterday that I would definetly be able to work in the Australian Consulate in Mumbai. Work has made life in a strange city so much more enjoyable so to know that I can get work in Mumbai is just a great way to get to meet the locals and find out about the places to go etc.
I'll be spending the next 5 weeks writing to our friends and try and organise to catch up with as many as we can during our stay at home.
The Mercedes has been put on hold until we are more certain of our future as to where and how long we will be in what ever place we are send to. DH wanted to buy it now but it would be really silly to have 2 expensive cars sitting in a garage at home.

The housekeeping staff will get a shock today to find me home! At least the place should be cleaned properly

Have a great day/night all.
Cheers
Maria

My detective work is paying off. Have met some lovely cyber friends who are researching the same family tree. May even have found a long lost cousin. I am enjoying the search a lot, even tho' it could be a bit pricey if I have to get all the software, etc. I'm hoping I can get enough help from others that I won't have to do that. (Just a cheapie):

Busy Labor Day here and resting up today. See you tomorrow. Ann

Maria: Cant wait to see the pic of your 4x4 trip! How nice of your work to give you flowers and chocolate. Dont blame you for not staying the rest of the week. Sounds like way to much! Hope you get the housecleaning staff in order today

Ann: Glad your detective work is paying off! And to find a long lost cousin, how cool!

Best get busy. Have a great day all!

All, I think I am going to live! I have so enjoyed the learning of new things in this job, but oh how wonderful it would be to do a job and be recognized as a person who is learning too. My boss just is so snarly because he is learning a lot and is stressed. When I grow up and am boss, I will certainly be one who understands good employers make good employees and snarly employers make timid employees. Oh well, I will live. Anne, hope you don't find any thieves and rogues in your past. Always been a fear of mine if I delve too deeply.
Glenda

G'day all,

I haven't got out of the habit of getting up at 6am and here I am watching the US Open on cable and posting to you guys.

Glenda I am so pleased you are and have enjoyed learning all new things. A little while back you said you were too old to learn new things and I was a bit cross with you because I feel very strongly that none of us are ever too old. Mind you I am too old to put up with crap (am I allowed to say that or will that word be )

Lily I sent work an email thanking everyone individualy, they were a good bunch of people and they were very thankful I stayed the extra 2 days to help them unpack.
I have made a list of things I must do and the uploading of our 4x4 wheel drive photos is about third on the list.
DH is a bit anxious that I write to our friends to let them know that we will have a get together at our home on October 20, I promised him I will do that today.
Of course the webpage I simply MUST get finished. I did a bit yesterday but even having done the course, Dreamweaver is NOT easy, but I will get there.

Ann sounds like you are having fun with your detective work, good for you. How are the eyes?

Hi to everyone else,

Cheers
Maria

Hi Everybody We had our Labour Day weekend here in Canada too. I think the biggest difference between the USA and Canada on this particular holiday is that most of the stores in Canada are closed, and that they are open in the States. My DH was celebrating his 60th birthday on August 31st and he thought he would like to go away for the long weekend, so we drove to one of the towns just across the border. We had a really nice time, and celebrated his birthday there. Our Son and dil are taking us to a stage show this Friday as a birthday treat for DH, so he gets to have another little celebration.
Maria well as the Lady of Leisure, it sounds like you will have more then enough to keep you busy until it is time to go home. I bet you can hardly wait.
Ann do you remember when I was working on my family tree. It sounds like you are having way more fun doing it then I did. It seems to me that I had to do a lot of work to get just the smallest bits of information. I think also it's very difficult when you have ancestors who came to this country with names that the people at imigration could only GUESS how to spell. The other problem I had was that my grandfather was born in the Ukraine but the borders and countries years ago changed so much, that back in his time, the records indicated he was born in Austria. I know of course that he did not live in Austria, as that would have meant that he would have had to have travelled completely through Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary to get to the borders of Austria itself. What had happened was that the western portion of the Ukraine was under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from around the 1700 to about 1918 or 1920, and under Polish rule within that empire and later for a good portion of that time. This is probably way more information then I needed to tell you, but I just wanted you know how hard it was for me to find out anything. LOL Keep working on your family tree, your kids will appreciate it.
After reading about the work you are doing I feel a bit inspired to start working on mine again.

Glenda, nice seeing you again, and hi Lily . Yesterday, Trudy and I worked hard to get a couple of WW bracelets made to give to the other Tea Time gals. We didn't have much time as we wanted to get them finished by the time they arrived for tea. One of the gals didn't make it, but Dee did and she loved hers.
Time for bed. Night all.

Hi all: Just a quick reply. Slavika: Your findings are very interesting, and that gives me hope that i eventually will find more on my fathers line. I found lots on the maternal line, with the help of friends, also,: but there seems to be scant records for my fathers ancestry. I know they came from Wales, and some names appear on the census lists, but can't find a trace of the great grandfather. Oh Oh maybe he was the rogue

Maria: good luck with all your last minute jobs, before you get home.The eyes are doing fine. Had someone tell me this week that I look younger. What a wonderful extra, as well as being able to see better.

Glenda: Just think how proud you can be that you have withstood the snarls. Make the boss a batch of chocolate chip cookies and give them to him when he has been most snarly : Maybe that will soften him up .

Greetings to you all. See you later. Off to exercise. Ann

Ann, good advice, if I baked. I have just come to the conclusion that I don't much care how he acts as long as I am trying my hardest. I have another worry right now. I am waiting the results of the cancer test I took yesterday. Remember last month when the numbers went up and then down? Well, the doc wanted to check in 6 weeks, so here I am doing the white-knuckle thing again. I will know tomorrow afternoon. Say a little prayer for me! Thanks.
Glenda

G'day all,

A rainy, warm day here today. Early this morning I did the grocery shopping and now I have the day to myself and get on with some of those chores.
DH hasn't let got of getting a Mercedes Convertable whilst we are here, as much as I like them, I do think it is an awful lot of money .

Glenda Lots of good vibes from 'down under' , I sincerely hope all will be well when you get your results.

Slavika sounds like you had a nice celebration for your dh's 60th. Any thoughts for him to retire? I really don't want to go too far past 60 (57 now, dh 56), at least put a stop to being away from home the way we are.

Ann I bet you were pleased getting the 'looking younger' compliment

I received the following in an email this morning, I rather liked it and thought I would share

SAND & STONE
A story tells that two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything wrote in the sand:
"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE."
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE."
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?"
The other friend replied: "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
The ‘Lesson’?:
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.
They say:
it takes a minute to find a special person,
an hour to appreciate them,
a day to love them,
but then an entire life to forget them.


I hope you liked it.
Cheers
Maria

Great story Maria. Liked it a lot. Hi everyone. Weigh in tomorrow and hope it will be good. Talk to you tomorrow. Have a good weekend. Ann

Alas... I could of swore I posted earlier in the week. Guess not. Must of had good intentions and work took me away....

Maria: Wish I could get more into Dreamweaver, but I cant download it again. Says I need to register it. I cant pay for something I dont know how to use, even with the great tuts you posted. Fraid I would pay and still not know so I wont. Sounds like you are getting along well with it and it takes alot of practice. I have several programs now that I dont use, so I cant get more.

Slavika: How was the stage show? Sounds fun, and was nice of your son to take you! What did you see? You really did get far back in your history. Im sure the further you go back the harder it is. And with your history Im sure its even harder. You found out alot tho, and its something to keep for the others.

Glenda: So what did you hear? Im sure its good news. I still have you in my prayers.

Ann: Good luck at WI! My fingers are crossed for you! Your gonna do good! Let us know! You are getting so far back n your history. Im sure its very interesting. Keep giving us the scoop. I find it very interesting.

Having people over tomorrow for dinner. Found a new recipe for a desset Im gonna try. Its a Strawberry Cheese Cake Parfait. If its good I will post the recipe. Made with Splenda. Gonna try a new one for Parmesan Bake Potatoes to. Could be disaster coming..... Guests leave as soon as they arrive...
Lilys cooking new things, better go home!
My new things do turn into disasters quite often

Later!

Hi Everybody
I heard from Glenda and the news from her last test was just great so she is doing fine and planning on having a good weekend, without worrying about it anymore.
We had a nice evening with our kids last night at the Casino. I even managed to win a bit of money. I was playing the 25 cent slot machines and won 110 quarters, so that kept me going for awhile, and I even gave a handful of quarters to my dil.
The show was ok. It was a fellow impersonating Tom Jones. He actually was fairly good, but I wish he would have sung more of Tom Jones earlier songs. I don't know why he didn't, because when he sang Deliahla (sp) everybody sure enjoyed it.
I'll be back in a minute.

Hi Everybody Our friends from the lake came to visit so I cut my other post short.
Ann glad you are pleased with the the job they did on your eyes. I would like to have my whole forehead lifted up towards my hairline. I guess as we get older gravity pushes everything DOWN. LOL
Maria I really enjoyed your story too, and passed it on in e-mails to a couple of my friends.
Hi Peggy and Karen what are you two up to? Peggy do you work on your Christmas Snow people year round, and are you still going to make them this year? Lily, so it looks like neither you nor I are going to make it to Maui this year.
At least you and DH are going to go away on a holiday, I'm not sure that we will. I guess if winter becomes just to long we could maybe take a little trip someplace.
Have a nice weekend everybody.

Reporting in down 1.2 this week. Now to keep going down. I just sseem to have a problem with the down/up syndome. Can't seem to just keep going down little by little.

For some reason I am not getting email posts again, so just have to keep checking in.

Lily: I always experiment when we are having guests. Most recipes make more that just the 2 of us will eat, so it is a good time to try things out. Hope all went well.

Glenda: So happy that the white knuckle time is over.

Maria: Time is flying past quickly for you now. I know you can hardly wait to get home for a while. Happy reunions with old friends and just a time to relax, before moving on to the next assignment. I want to know what you did with the box of chocolates? Did you enjoy them all or give them to your deserving DH?:

Slavika: The best part of all the ancestral search is meeting new people who have our family in common. I haven't gone back as far as you did, yet, but will continue. I finally decided to pay the fee for the year for Ancestry.com and take advantage of all they have to offer. My maternal grandmothers' family came from Strasburg, Alsace Lorraine, around 1850, and I haven't gone back further than that as yet. My Maternal grandfathers' family goes way back to England and a branch of that family was connected to Aaron Burr, so there is a rogue, of sorts, but he wasn't a direct line. So I keep looking.

Glad you won a bit. That keeps you going.Florida had a really big lotto this weekend $85million, but it wasn't our lucky day. I guess someone did win, or maybe several someones. No announcement as yet. What to do with all that money Somehow, I think that the problems would outweigh the receipt of the cash. That is what I have read about several of the really big lotto winners.

Hi everyone. Hope you had a great weekend.

Keep your headlights on Wednesday for 9/11, wear red white and blue, and say a prayer or two.

Ann

The deed is done, we bought a Lotus Yellow Mercedes SLK230. I still think it is too much money but DH is very happy realising his dream. We take delivery in 10 days time. Next weekend it is off to Melbourne to see dd and the weekend after that we will be driving it to Canberra to see the 'Floriade' there, an annual flower exhibition which is a supposed 'MUST' visit event.
http://www.floriadeaustralia.com/

Glenda Fantastic news that all is well , I hope you had a great weekend celebrating the good news.

Ann Congratulations on your weight loss, well done. You would have to ask about who ate the chocolates, well we had visitors and it was an ideal time to get rid of them to the visitors!!!

Slavika What a win on the slotmachines, I'd be pretty happy with that.

Lily you are as bad as me, I have quite a bit of software that I just haven't used that is why I am determined to use Dreamweaver, as you know it is quite expensive and I could never justify buying other software again unless I make some use of it!

I have some friends coming for lunch today. I only lost 1/2 lb this week, but I guess it is better than nothing.

Hi to Peggy, Glenda, Karen and Trudy (always a bit dangerous doing that, I am always worried I have missed out someone )

Have a great day/night all
Cheers
Maria