Turnaround

How does one go from being snowed under at work for the first half of the week and now having nothing to do?!? Gah, how annoying, they need to learn to space things out a bit more :P

I've been reading through some of my Blog archives. Damn, some of the comments people left still crack me up to this day, and my blogs used to be far more interesting and amusing. I'm getting old and boring! I read this one I wrote about toxic friends, I still have those. Whoops, maybe I should pay more attention to what's right for me.

I'm in such a silly mood today. It's either lack of sleep, looking forward to the weekend, or that Latte was too strong. Maybe all three :D

All I know is I have this pimple on my chin which is about to get it's own postcode!!

Aerosmith was right...

...when they said there's something wrong with the world today.

I know, I know, I wasn't meant to get political in this blog but I've heard some really crazy news stories lately and I just can't help but speak my mind about them (don't worry, they weren't all political).

Firstly, apparently an inquest into September 11 found that both Clinton and Bush are responsible for not preventing this. Supposedly Clinton had three occasions where he could have sent air strikes to take out Osama but called them off when he realised civilians would have been taken out aswell. Err, I'm sorry, but are these the same people who, if he had gone through with this, kicked up a huge stink about all the innocent lives that had been lost? And would it really have prevented September 11? There seems to be an awful lot of contradiction when it comes to politics and it seems that no matter what people do, they just can't win.

On the home front, now Mark Latham wants to remove our troops from Iraq. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some flag-bearing Liberal supporter, and in recent times I have lost a little respect for our PM, but this just doesn't seem like the right thing to do at all. I can't see what it will achieve. It won't make us any less of a target, it won't help international relations, especially since he said even if an elected Iraqi government asks our troops to stay he'd still bring them back. I just can't see the sense in this, but that's just me.

Finally, and this is a really sad news story. When we lived in Plympton Park I often went for walks around the neighbourhood. I had this set path, and it always took me past this house that had a huge Red Kangaroo living there. There's a high fence, and a Rottweiler, and apparently they had the kangaroo for some 13 years after having rescued it. So, just how fucked up are people when someone is willing to go to the effort of jumping the fence, somehow subduing the dog and getting it into the back yard and logging the gate, all for the sole purpose of killing this kangaroo by bashing its head in. What is wrong with people?!?

The world is seriously crazy.

No time to blog!

Well, when it rains, it pours! For a while I had very little to do at work and this week I am completely snowed under. Off the top of my head I can think of 6 things I am juggling at the moment and so I haven't even had time to update this blog for a while. I'm doing it now as I know I won't get a proper lunch break today so I may as well take some time out and do this.

On top of all that I've been feeling really run down lately and so this morning I slept in and didn't do any exercise, so am feeling a bit guilty about that. Also last night was the first night in, well, as long as I can remember back that I went to bed before 11pm. I don't know whether I'm coming down with something or whether my body's just saying 'give me a break'.

Finding rest at home isn't always easy because of my annoying neighbours. All Monday night they were screaming at each other, felt like I was living with my parents again and hearing them argue all the time! It's sucky when you're trying to clear your mind by doing yoga and all you can hear is the F word. Ah well, can't be helped I guess.

The weekend was quiet but involved late nights. I have a feeling this weekend will too, as we have a LAN to go to, and I haven't been to one for so long I think I'm going to have fun regardless of what we play. Although admittedly I'm not looking forward to 30 laps of a racing game. Methinks I'll either total my car early on or be about 10 laps behind. :D

Well, I guess I'd better get back to it *sigh*

God Bless Caffeine!

I very rarely drink coffee but this morning I really needed a Latte. Luckily this small town isn't so small that you can't find a good coffee shop around the place, and so I went and treated myself one. It's oh so yummy! Perhaps if I went to bed early like I plan to do every night but then never actually do, I wouldn't need a caffeine hit so bad right now, but meh, you get that.

I'm leaving work early today to head to Adelaide a bit earlier. It's getting darker earlier now and I don't like driving at night, especially such a long distance. I just worked out that I only have 5 hours to go, minus my lunch break! Just as well, because I really have very little to do today. All the data for the River has been entered and I'm just waiting for the Murray Bridge office to get back to me on a couple of issues. Once that's done I can print off and send the hundreds of letters out, but I doubt that will get started today. So there's work for me to do, I'm just waiting for the go-ahead. I've also taught myself GIS over the last couple of days and only have one lot of exercises left to do. Plus all the Development Applications are processed. So I'm left with blogging, reading websites and walking around the office chatting to people.

This weekend is probably going to be a bit of a quiet one. Good old IB have a war on tonight so I might finally get to dust off my Medic pack and do a little online gaming for the first time in around 2 months! On Saturday I was supposed to go to the Clipsal 500 with Dad but since he has a sore foot we won't be going. Not to worry, we go every year and missing one year won't be so bad. So I'll probably be watching that on the tv Saturday and Sunday. But the weekend weather looks like it'll be gorgeous so would be worth going out somewhere. We'll see what happens, it's nice to have nothing planned for once and you can just take the days as they come.

Hmm, not much else exciting to report really. Except my neighbour is annoying, but you already knew that.

Hope everyone has a great weekend :)

Hick Town

I like to think that Berri is up with the times and isn't really a country town in the traditional sense, but sometimes I'm reminded that it still is regional and sometimes a bit backward.

For example, when in a changing room of a store a couple of weeks ago I heard two women talking in the next booth. When one said "I dunno, $16 for a skirt is still a bit rich" I almost wanted to scream "You stupid woman, you'd never find a skirt that cheap in the city!". The fact that a town can have no traffic lights whatsoever also reminds me.

But when I read the story in the Murray Pioneer the other day about how the Riverland's first adult shop would be opening tomorrow in Renmark and how the owner is expecting backlash, I wondered just how backward this town is. Surely people here have sex! Sorry to be so blunt but truly, I hate censorship of any kind and the thought that it's such a big deal if an adult store opens in the region is really unusual to me. It's an adult shop anyway, it's still illegal for them to sell to minors, and if adults wish to purchase things, who cares? I've never been in one myself (and can't really picture walking into this one with the possibility of running into someone I might know) but I don't see the problem.

Damn Hick Town!

Holiday!

I don't normally like to post political things in here because it's not that type of blog but for once I agree 100% with what Alexander Downer and even that god-awful Alan Jones have said in regards to our troops being in Iraq and what that means for us in terms of being a target for terrorists. But that's all I'm going to say about that.

In much happier news, I got my holidays signed off by my boss yesterday and in my delight booked my plane ticket to Townsville for late June, yay!!! I can't wait :)

Ofcourse, there is always something to ruin my mood and this time it's my mother. I'm not sure if she's more annoyed at me for going alone, or at Ivan for not coming with me. Grr, I'm an adult for goodness' sake and what on earth is she worried about? I knew this would be my parents' reaction and so I should've taken Ivan's advice when he suggested I don't even tell them I'm going because it's not their concern anyway. Ah well, too late for that now.

But, yay!!

Home time yet?

The damn Murray Bridge office still hasn't sent me the work I have to finish off so it's been another quiet day. Which isn't bad, considering the weekend was rather hectic.

Mum and Dad arrived on Friday at around 4pm so I left work early to go home and spend time with them. We went and had dinner at the golf club which was really nice. It was a really nice day outside so we sat out on the patio and had our dinner. We played the pokies for a little while, went home and stayed up chatting until 11pm (which for my parents is a late night). It was so wonderful to just sit and talk with them, we never really get a chance to do that so it was good. Mostly the conversation centred around Maria and how she was still quite depressed about things.

On Saturday Mum and I went and did my washing and did some grocery shopping and then by the time we got home Maria and Grandma had arrived for the day. After they relaxed for a bit we went clothes shopping and I actually managed to find about 8 outfits. That never happens! And although the scales tell me I haven't lost any weight yet (grr!) I think I may have lost some centimetres as I've dropped a dress size, w00t! We went home and had a late lunch, then I coloured Maria's hair. While we had some time to ourselves she was telling me that she'd started talking to a new guy. I don't know whether this is good or bad, she needs to get over Nick but this is rather fast and I'm afraid she'll latch onto this new guy even if he is a total loser. She hadn't told Mum and Dad yet, so I dunno, maybe it's nothing.

Before I knew where the time had gone, Maria and Grandma headed home and Mum, Dad and I had a quiet night in just watching the football. The Sunday was quite hectic as we really wanted to go and check out Renmark, so we were up and out the door quite early. We spent some time driving around the town which was so lovely, it's a really beautiful town. It is slightly busier than Berri in that it has one set of traffic lights as opposed to the zero we have! We checked out the riverbank then headed to a Greek festival that was on. That was pretty ordinary though, so we weren't there long before we headed back to Berri. On the way we also stopped into the Big Orange (excitement plus) and Bredl's Reptile Park. That was pretty cool as anyone that knows me knows I love reptiles, but it was quite interesting. There were other animals there too. Kangaroos, Emus, Deer, Goats, Geese, all of which pretty much had this open terrain. The Wedge-Tailed Eagles were my favourite animal in their rather large enclosure. All the reptiles had beautiful setups. But then you see the monkeys which were in these small enclosures looking really unhappy. Was quite sad, but interesting to see where the keeper's real priorities lie!

Mum and Dad left at around 2pm and I then breathed a sigh of relief. It was great to have them stay, I had a wonderful time, but after a while their fussing gets rather annoying.

Even though I spoke to Ivan last night on the phone, I still missed him like mad without seeing him for the weekend and am feeling rather homesick today.

That's about it really.

Bad days

I was going to write and say how it seemed everyone had a bad day yesterday but after waking up this morning and hearing about the terrorist attack in Spain, it seems we should all be thankful for our lives. The little problems we face each day are nothing compared to what's going on in the world lately. Really scary times.

Warped sense of humour

I don't know why I found this classified funny, but I did. Spotted it today.

Date Placed: 11/3/2004
Wanted: Stolen motor vehicle returned, please
Pale yellow XF Falcon stn wagon, UZL 411 stolen Tues 9 March. Has (or had!) built-in chrome roof rack, sun visor,drivers side weathershield,towbar,UHF aerial. ANY information leading to the return of vehicle and contents would be gratefully appreciated

This makes me look busy!

Oh man, the last couple of days at work have been so quiet and I have next to nothing to do right now, so am killing some time and making myself look busy by doing this blog. My boss is in Adelaide, another lady who gives me things to do is sick, and the Murray Bridge office haven't sent me the data they said they would, so I am sitting here emailing and reading the paper online. This job at least isn't stressful.

Well the weekend came and went so fast again, I can't believe we're a week into March! I'm not sure how effective my day with Maria was in terms of her cheering up. We went and had lunch at Brighton then went to Marion for some retail therapy, we spent heaps of time talking and I tried my best to drum it into her that she should be grateful this is over, that she can use this opportunity to find someone else, etc. But I don't know. It's been 3 weeks since it happened and she still can't talk about anything else nor can she stop crying for a day. But we did have a nice day together, and she bought herself some things which hopefully cheer her up.

In other news I'm planning a trip to Townsville just after my birthday in June to party with Sammo and Para since I didn't get to last year for their birthdays and I am so excited about it! I just need to save some money for it, but I've started doing that and am restricting some of my spending. Ivan and I also want to finally start saving for a house and that's my top priority but hopefully I get to do both :)

The fitness thing is still going well. Each morning I want to go back to sleep but I make myself get up and work out. On the weekend I got a Yoga DVD and book so now after work I go home and do that before dinner. Yoga is bloody hard, I am so inflexible, but I'll keep at it. And then I also get on the bike for a while as I'm watching tv shows after dinner. I hope the phrase "working my ass off" will apply in this case.

Time for a random rambling. I want the Queer Eye guys to come and make me over, buy me new furniture and some cool clothes.

Good news or bad?

Well my sister and her fiancee have broken up again, and I don't know whether I should be happy or not. From past blog entries you'll notice I don't like the guy, but she's so heartbroken that I feel so bad for her. She's the type of person who gives 100% of herself to people she loves and will do anything for them, will look past their flaws and therefore leaves nothing for herself. This makes her a beautiful person but unfortunately a target for people who will take advantage of that and then cast her aside, leaving her utterly heartbroken.

I think in the long run, this is for the best, but I know that this will take Maria some years to get over. She really doesn't deserve people like this, and I hope she finds someone who will treat her the way she should be treated soon. She gets herself depressed because some of her friends are married with kids already, but not everyone is. But she lets this get to her.

I feel so bad for her and I fear that she will go back to him again and end up here again in a few months time. I hope she doesn't go back. The worst part is that she blames herself, like she wasn't good enough or something. Truth is she tried to help the guy as much as she could and should not feel like she is at fault.

I think the worst thing out of all of this is that even after being engaged to someone it's almost as if he feels no sadness at all. At all. Apparently they broke up just after Valentine's Day although I didn't find out until the weekend. And already hes "advertised" himself in the paper twice. I hope the advert read the truth, being something like 36 year old male who lives with his mother seeks female to walk all over. I don't drive, will never get you a drink, I won't even wash my own clothes. I will be disinterested at any special family event, may even fall asleep on the sofa. I'll be a fat slob but have a go at you any chance I get for the way you look, and will dump you if you cut your hair too short. Guaranteed to treat you like shit!

I harbour a few ill feelings towards him, can you tell?

Headache from hell

I don't know if it's these early mornings, exercising too much, eating some crazy food or this weather that won't make up its mind, but my head is aching. Has been there for the last day or two and won't go away!

This morning when the alarm went off I almost fell back to sleep, thinking I'd just work out another day, but then talked myself out of that idea, reminding myself that it hasn't even been a week yet. And a girl from work who lives across the road and I have been going for walks every so often, so that's been good too. Tonight I'm going grocery shopping and buying actual good food so I'm not snacking on all sorts of things. We'll see how things go. Thanks to those that have supported me so far :)

Weekend was good, went too fast as usual. Work's been busy now, and maybe that's helped my headache along too. Who knows. But I probably shouldn't have written a blog when I'm so unfocussed.

I don't know what to make of my next door neighbour. He is married with a child but is always coming over just to see how I am. I am pretty sure it's innocent, I think he just worries about me because I'm on my own. Last night I could have sworn I was talking to my mother the way he was asking if I'd eaten dinner and had some vegetables. But occasionally I just get this shiver of creepiness. Probably doesn't help I watch CSI and get all scared.

I'd better go. This rambling has become the most random I think it's ever been.