Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Last Check In Before Christmas

Well this will be my last post before Chrismas and possibly the last post of 2011 - can someone please tell me where this year has gone!!!

So in the count down to Christmas:
Presents - DONE
Tree - DONE
Wrapping of said Presents - yeah right LOL - probably Christmas Eve
Buying of the Christmas Food - Friday
Christmas Alcohol - Friday or Saturday

So basically I am done, I have one more day of work left and then I am on holidays till the 6 January - WHOOO HOOOOO.
I have our new air conditioner for those days that are just to hot to go outside, mulitple tv channels,DVDs, books downloaded to my kindle and cross stitch stash so I am pretty sure that my time away from work will be well spent.

Here is some pictures of a couple of ornaments I stitched for the exchanges I was in....
For Lynne in Canada - Exchange at 123mb

Design is from an older issue of JCS Ornament Issue. I have stitched this one a couple of times now and it is one of my favourites.
For Marilynne in Canada - Exchange at Stitchers Circle
Design from this years JCS Ornament Issue.

So to all of you who read my blog or just stumble across it accidentally I would like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday season and I will see you all again in 2012.

Oh and just a follow up from my last post, I am still to watch Upstairs Downstairs, mum arrived safe and sound and the house was cleanish.........

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Feliz Navidad etc etc

This is just a fly by post as I just don't know where the time has gone. Can you believe that it is nearly Christmas. I am going to have to do my usual Christmas shopping blitz and hit the mall with a list and a couple of spare hours on Sunday.......not quite the night before Christmas but pretty close LOL. At least I don't need to buy any Christmas paper as I have a huge stash left over from last year as I went gift bags instead, me wrapping presents is not a pretty sight, have you ever seen an adult get sticky tape stuck in their hair...............

My mum arrives on Friday afternoon and I have but one christmas decoration up and the house is a mess. I did go home with good intentions of doing some cleaning last night but well a recorded episode of Upstairs Downstairs and a glass of wine won the call instead, maybe tonight.

My last day of work before the Christmas break is December 23 and I don't come back until January 9, boy am I looking forward to that break as 2012 is going to be the working year from hell if 2011 is anything to go by!!

I will pop in again next week and let you know how my Christmas shopping went, if my house was clean for when my mum arrived and what happened in the next episode of Upstairs Downstairs so until then..........
And remember


Monday, November 21, 2011

November - The Month That Money Could Fly




November started out like any other month. 30 days, the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. **Christmas**  fast approaching. Each work day you dream about how long it is till your next holiday blah blah blah blah.............

THEN
The car goes in to get the air con regassed as summer is coming and nothing worse than driving around in hell like temperatures, comes out again costing a couple of hundred $$, yep we can live with that, goes back in because the air con is not running cold. Comes out again a week and a half later with a price tag of over $1500 (apparently the air con had a leak, duh don't they check that before regassing!)..............needless to say that "mechanic" will not be seeing us again or any of our friends that we have recommended him to (I wont go into all the tech talk as I really really want you to continue reading)
We don't use scheme water to water our lawns or gardens we have a bore. For the last few months our bore hasn't worked due to a problem with the power pole out the front of the house and the power company continually going "No problemo" - this has not been an issue as we were still getting rain which was enough. Well the weather is warming up and our lawn is starting to look like this..........
 










So we replace the bore (nearly $1000) get it fitted then find out the the switch that turns it off and on does not work..........now the hunt begins for those invisible tradespeople called ELECTRICIANS!! People have heard of them, but they are rarely seen actually on a job doing electrical work. After 2 failed attempts at getting an electrician around to look at the job let alone replace the switch, oh sorry yes one did turn up but failed to turn up on the day he allocated to replace the switch so he got told where to go.........we resort to dragging the local paper out of the recycling bin and ringing every bloody electrican that is listed. Now tell me what does "mobile phone" mean to you - you are contactable or can ring someone back when they leave a bloody message!!!  (INSERT BIG DEEP BREATH)

Finally we get an electrician that says he will come around and look at what we need doing, insert a couple of high fives, hand pumps, happy dances whatever you want as he does turn up and we proceed to give him a list of what we need done............

1.  Hook up the new air conditioner that we have just had installed as previously we spent our summers hanging out like this and fighting the dogs for the fans .....
2. Replace  6 ceiling fans
3. Get the bore working buy installing switch blah blah blah

Can't you tell we were so excited that we added things to the original list!

Well this lovely man turned up on Saturday morning, installed the new switch for the bore and proceeded to install the new fans.. here you would think we would be so deliriously happy with this man well we were but I think he might be bad luck or something............

I was getting ready to go and do the food shopping and opened the freezer door and everything had DEFROSTED!!! Opened the normal section and everything was warm, even my wine which is a crime and can not be tolerated at all!!!! That is unless I drunk red wine, but I don't so there!
The fridge had died, gone to that great white appliance ground in the sky, become landfill fodder (just joking on that, we are actually going to get someone around to collect it they can try and get it going again and onsell as a beer fridge or something useful like that)

So was heading out to tell the other half the fantastic news about the fridge and he comes in and goes "Guess What" but I jump in and tell him my fantastic news about the fridge and he loses it - WOW the dogs took off and hid behind the shed, I think the electrician went back down the bore hole he had just crawled out of and our flatmate skulked out the back door. Because unbenonst (is that a word??) to me the other half was coming in tell me that the bore would still not be working by the end of the day as the wires that went from the switch to the bore had broken somewhere underneath our back yard!!!
So Saturday night was spent digging a trench from one end of our yard to the other so that the electrican can lay some new wiring and hopefully come back one night this week to finish off the job....

But I did get a new fridge (totally new story on the delivery driver that delivered it) it has LED lights inside, door alarms and a quick chill section for my wine, which will probably get a good work out once I get my new supply delivered.

So all in all November has probably cost us around $7000 including the new air conditioner. I have come to the conclusion that Summer hates me as all the above are summer related things to assist with making our life so much nicer during the hot months.... oh and if you know of an electrician, love him, treat him with respect, make him cups of tea or coffee as they are a rare breed............and if you read to the end of this thank you :0)

Friday, November 4, 2011

Back from Holidays

Ahhh, the break away was wonderful. Leaving Perth in the wind and rain and stepping off at the other end after only 2 hours into bright sunshine and warm weather - life doesn't get much better than that.
Opps yes it does.........sitting on the deck at the Novotel Resort, slurping a mojito, looking out over perfect blue seas and in the distance seeing a whale breaching. Now that is close to perfect............or is it??
Well how about driving over to the west side parking the car up, walking over the dunes, looking at the amazing blue water and seeing it swarming with turtles which are only about a meter off the shore (yes it was turtle egg laying time, so turtle porn was going on everywhere but it didn't seem right taking a picture of that so here is a couple of basic snaps of the turtles LOL).......

I would have to say that was the highlight of my holiday, seeing all the turtles but then again you turn round the next bend in the road and HELLOOOOO a super cute site greets you..........
Daddy emu out for a stroll with his babies...I learnt that the female emu lays the eggs and incubates them and once they hatch she is off and it is up to the ole man to raise the chicks. What was really cool was that when they were walking down the road the dad was on the outside of all the chicks and when a car was coming along he herded them onto the verge.

So all in all a great holiday away with one of my besties, visiting family, drinking to much, eating to much and seeing the wonders of nature in nice warm weather...........

Monday, October 24, 2011

In The Words Of Madonna and Sir Cliff





Well its not exactly summer and its only for a week but ciao and see you all when I get back ..........
 


We're all going on a summer holiday
no more working for a week or two.
Fun and laughter on our summer holiday,
no more worries for me or you,
for a week or two.

We're going where the sun shines brightly
we're going where the sea is blue.
we've all seen it on the movies,
now let's see if it's true.

Everybody has a summer holiday
doin' things they always wanted to
So we're going on a summer holiday,
to make our dreams come true
for me and you.
for me and you.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Gee Two Posts In One Week :)

Before I actually do my blog post - GO THE ALL BLACKS!!!



Monday, October 17, 2011

Just Popping In.................

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