Who Goes House Hunting During a Flood?

Us, that's who! And, to clarify, it wasn't actually flooding when we went out yesterday, it was more like really annoying constant rain that turned into some major flooding today. The good news is that we didn't find a house we loved, BUT we did find an area that we love so at least that's narrowed it down somewhat. The downside however (and granted, it's only a very small downside) is that the area is about 40mins away from where I'm currently living - but at least it's not half a planet away!!

I slept horribly last night. My back was aching in the worst possible way, but apparently that's because my body resembled that of a pretzel, which D found highly amusing but didn't think to wake me up so I could change positions. But it's all good anyway - we both kept waking up every hour or so with the sheets of rain barraging against our bedroom window, and of course, the roof. We got 5" of rain last night. And my Nanna informs me that my Aunt and Uncle, who live up in Bundaberg, are also getting some impressive rain and flooding. Good times!

I also learned that my sister collapsed this morning, about half an hour before I got out of bed. As I neared the top of the stairs, the ambulance was already outside, and Mum and Steve were searching for umbrellas to take her downstairs and into the ambulance - and then they were all off to the hospital. It looks like she'll be having another transfusion.

When it rains, it pours. And floods.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Today is an interesting day for me - a push/pull of emotion in a way. Today is the exes birthday and marks 5 months since I left him; but also marks 5 gloriously happy months I've spent with D.

I got to thinking about my past, and everyone in it, and while I regret some of the friendships I've let go, I've come to ask myself some questions. I know I did what I did for the right reasons. I've read and reread logged conversations I've had with people over my actions, my decisions and am still very happy with the way I chose to handle them.

The ex has a habit of torching things from previous relationships: photos, clothes, papers, etc. Anything that reminds him of a former relationship/love. Anything painful. He claims it's theraputic and cleansing, though I have my own opinion about that. But to each their own. So, while I know of this habit, and even though he promised me he would never burn anything of mine, I know this to be a lie. I know he has, because that's the type of person he is. Anything that was mine, is now ash. It shouldn't bother me, but it does. It hurts to know the time we spent together meant nothing to him. That shouldn't bother me either, and yet it does. Why is this? Why does it hurt to know that any memories we had built together, he could just destroy without thought? What does that say about him?

I have many precious memories of him and I together that I look back on fondly. I have pictures, though not many, that I would never get rid of, or burn. I have gifts, letters, cards, jewellery. If I was to do what he has done, and burn everything he has ever given me, burn anything his Mother or his family has ever given me, what would that then say about me? And also, has anyone else done this? Is it as theraputic as I've been told it is?

Dreaming: Assassin!

So I dreamt last night I was an assassin (my lifelong aspiration). It was awesome, except that I didn't actually get to kill anyone, and thus failed my mission. What was impressive was how I planned on doing it.

Evidently I was in a shopping mall in the beginning, and then a department store. I was surrounded by a bunch of bimbos, and these were the ladies I had to kill. I had planned to use a flame-throwing device and just burn them into the ground, and this device would be a simple bottle of perfume and a match. Well, apparently the bimbos weren't that stupid, because I couldn't kill them. Everytime I went to strike the match to get the flame going (as I was running, you see) the match died or fizzled out and I couldn't get the damn thing to work.

So I spent the rest of the dream running and hiding, and climbing down into cellars, and chasing boys asking them, "Do you have a match?" And then right at the end of the dream, I was walking up a hill, on a bike path, with 2 boys - one riding his bike, the other pushing his bike - and one of them grinned at me and said, "Why push your bike when you can ride it?"

Journey: Don't Stop Believin'

Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere

A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on

Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Street light people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night

Working hard to get my fill,
Everybody wants a thrill
Payin' anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

Don't stop believin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Street light people

via Lyrics on Demand

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

I watched that movie last night. I can't tell you how boring it was, or how disappointed I was in it, or that I fell asleep for the last 15 minutes of the movie. I'd had such hopes for it, too. I really like Angelina Jolie, but this was just . . . sad.

The high points during the whole flick was when, as D and I snuggled together on the floor, he kept asking, "Can we get an oven like that one, baby?" As in, an oven that reshapes itself and throws up a VERY impressive knife and gun storage unit. My reply, was of course, "Yes." I mean, who wouldn't want something like that in their kitchen? And then he asked me if we could get a machine gun like one of the many Brad Pitt wielded in the movie. Again I replied, "Yes!" Because again, who wouldn't want one of those machine guns?

On a brighter note, I have a doctor's appointment on July 8th. Even though my ladies are getting ALOT better and not nearly as itchy, it's probably not a bad thing to get them poked and prodded, just in case.

Itch Update

Don't worry my pretties, it's nothing to fret over. I will clarify that, while I do draw blood, it's not gushing and more like little specs here and there. The fluid is more clear than anything, and I did buy an antiseptic gel yesterday that I've been using. It contains a topical anaesthesia that stops the itching and makes the ladies feel sort of numb but I did check with the pharmacist and he assured me that it was perfectly okay to use.

I am going to head to the doctor in a couple of weeks, however, but I know it's nothing bad. It's not the detergent, though I have stopped using the body wash I was using for the last few weeks, thinking that might have been it.

I will let you know what I find out when I get to the doctor, but I'm not too concerned. I really don't think it's anything terrible.

Lazy Sundays

You know it's cold when Mum puts up curtains in every doorway imaginable to keep the warmth from the heater, in one room. It's almost as if the cold wind, perma-hard nipples and seeing your breath puff out when you're in the kitchen, isn't enough. Once the curtains are up, it's officially cold, and she finally admits that heat is a good thing. So, as you can well imagine, we now have the heater going. And, I'm sure, as you can also well imagine, I totally miss central heating.

In other news, I'm still suffering itchies on my girls. And my eyelids, though the eyelid itchies seem to be disappearing in favour of itchie cheekbones. I'm beginning to feel like I'm losing the war, here. The cocoa butter has been working, however it was SO FREAKING COLD last night, that I woke myself up a couple of times scratching uncontrollably. And then once when I woke up it was to put more cocoa butter on them. It's painful to keep itching - I can see I'm drawing blood, but dammit, the relief . . . the relief!

I've never actually woken myself up before because of itching, so I was still half asleep when I attempted to put the butter on my skin. Because of this, a great glob of it ended up on my nightshirt, which I then had to try and get off the shirt and back onto the flesh, without waking up D in the process.

But it was 4am, and not only was I itching myself into a fit, I also had to go pee. I wasn't as annoyed this time around as I was before - I think I'm getting used to it now - and it turns out he was already awake, having coughed himself out of sleep, and launching himself into a long and somewhat painful sounding, coughing fit. His sinuses are playing up, and it seems that he may have gotten the dreaded Cold, so Mum and I went down to the shops this afternoon to buy some essentials: cold medicine and soup. He's back in bed now, sleeping, after having taken one of the giant horsepills.

And that's about it. It's cold outside and warm inside, and I'm off to watch Spanglish.

Dum de Dum dum DUUUUM!

Not too much has been going on this week - the weather has been (mostly) beautiful outside; sunny and fairly warm except for when the wind blows and then you can feel your teeth rattle. Well, I can, anyway.

I developed an Itch about 2 weeks ago now, and it still hasn't gone away. It's not what would be considered The Itch that is usually innuendoed with a yeast infection, in fact it's not caused from anything like that. My current Itch dilemma is that which belong to MY GIRLS and OMFG I've been going insane itching them to death. To the point of having drawn blood. BLOOD! ON MY GIRLS!

So. I attempted to put tea tree on them. That didn't help. I put aloe vera on them. That didn't help. I put pawpaw ointment on them. That didn't help. I even did some weird naked ritual where I invoked some rabid voodoo priest and sold my soul to him, if he would just take away the itch, but that didn't work, and so didn't help either. So as you can imagine, I've been scratching myself into oblivion for a rather long period of time.

Until yesterday. Yesterday I went shopping. All kinds of shopping, really. Food, clothes and knick-knacks. And butter. But not just any butter, oh no. No boys and girls, I found and bought COCOA BUTTER, which has been the be-all end-all of everything for pregnant women for centuries. I figured if it could help THEM out, as horomonal and unbalanced as THEY are, then surely . . . SURELY it could help me. Ooh and it did. It has! It stopped the maddening itches, people! I don't know what it is in this godlike cream (actually I do, I read the ingredients) but it's worked wonders on my girls and they're much much happier now that my long nails aren't raking them apart. They are, sad to say, still bloody sore though. I suppose that will heal in time, once they're positive I won't be scratching their little pointed heads off.

Also, I've been baking lots of cookies lately! And we bought a cake mix yesterday which hopefully we'll get around to making in the next couple of days. I might have to do it tonight if I'm feeling in a chocolatey mood.

Oh, also, I tried out Guildwars and I have to say it still pretty well sucks ass. Hated it during the quick 15mins I had in beta, and hate it now. Good thing I didn't run out and waste any money on it.

I am considering running out and wasting more money with Sony though, to get back into playing Everquest. I ended up reuniting with some old friends I used to play with (until there was some trouble caused and I ended up having to walk away - again) and am now seriously reconsidering going back to play with them. Some of them currently play WoW, but mostly I just miss EQ. Ah Voweless Knight - SAVE ME!

Celebrity Dreaming

Ok, so remember the dream I had about Nick & Jessica? I had another one last night about them too.

D and I were at Sizzlers, and I had just whispered to him that the food cost us $30 (for some reason I was really shocked at that price) and then out of nowhere, Nick and Jessica appeared AGAIN along with a bunch of other noname people. It was all very weird and odd, but unlike the last dream, Jessica and I did not make out. They were just in the dream.

And if that's not bad enough, the other night I dreamt about bloody Britney Spears. Good christ. Apparently she and I were very good friends, and she lived in a trailer but her husband wasn't the piece of trash Federline that we all know. Instead, he was some other guy - short and dumpy with a really big nose, but she was all gushy over him. She didn't even look like she does now - she was a much younger version of herself and not tarted up in makeup. Very weird.

So today I looked up celebrities on Dream Moods and the meaning doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense to me:

To see a celebrity in your dream, represents your beliefs and understanding about him or her. Something in you waking life has triggered these similar beliefs and feelings. It is not uncommon that your obsession with a certain celebrity may carry over onto your dream world. Celebrities are often seen as heroes and all that is mighty. Also consider any puns within the name.

To dream that you are good friends with a celebrity, represents your idealized version of someone you know in your life. Perhaps you hope that a real-life friend can act more like a particular celebrity. Consider the qualities that you see in this celebrity and how you want your friends to have those qualities.

What the hell does that mean?! Neither Nick, Jessica OR Britney could be considered any type of a "hero" for me, and I certainly have no understanding about anything with any of them. I'm also not OBSESSED with any of them. I suppose it's possible my dreams don't actually mean anything at all; they could be JUST DREAMS.

Meme in Threes

Knicked from Trinity:

Three things I didn't know this time last week:
1. I'd have another dream about Nick and Jessica
2. I'd be learning to knit
3. Supernanny is actually a pretty neat show

Three things I still don't know:
1. Where I'll be living permanently
2. What I'm going to name my daughters
3. Whether I'll get kittens or ferrets first

Three things I'm thankful for:
1. All of my wonderful friends and family
2. The indescribable happiness within my life
3. All the little "just because" things that are done for me

Three things I could do without:
1. All the cookies I've been making the past week
2. The constant itchies I've been having
3. Getting up in the middle of the night to go pee

Three things I'm afraid of:
1. Throwing up
2. Clowns
3. Porcelain dolls

Three little luxuries I allow myself:
1. Iced chocolate milk
2. Getting my hair done
3. Weekly massage

Three things I'd like to do this year:
1. Spend 2 weeks in the Whitsundays
2. Go sapphire fossicking
3. Buy my car

New Hobby

I've picked up a new hobby - one both fun AND productive! I've entered the wonderful world of knitting. Granted, I pretty well suck at the moment, and I've only done a few plain rows of the thing I'll be making, but I've really enjoyed it. Also, I'm not sure WHAT I'm knitting at the moment; I'm thinking it'll end up being a blanket by the end of it. Or a scarf. But probably a blanket. You can never have too many blankets.

Nearby Beach

Taken June 5th, 2005.

This beach is just 2 minutes from where I live, and was taken in the early afternoon. A little too cold to go swimming, but it was absolutely lovely to walk along.

Envy

I envy people who remember to bring their cameras with them where-ever they go. I envy those people who go out for lunch at a rather trendy healthy cafe and take pictures of what they eat, then come home and blog about it. I envy all of those people who have children and take them to the park or watch them get mauled by the family gerbil or something.

When I go to lunch at a trendy little healthy cafe and sit outside under the dark clouds and feel the cold breeze shred through my sweater and into my skin, and I heartily suck down a huge glass of Iced Chocolate while waiting for the INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS meal of avocado, chicken, cream cheese and cranberries on a thick toasted pita-like-but-not-pita bread (with side salad), I wish that I remembered to bring my camera so I could take a photo of it, and then blog about it later.

Annoyed

I can't buy anything from QVC anymore because they don't ship to Australia and I haven't found anything comparable to them here. GRR!

A Tarantula Downpour

I once worked with a woman who was a little bit...uneducated. She was my boss, and as much as I love pointing out grammatical errors and misspellings, I was rather reticent to do it with her because she was my boss. Whenever it poured rain, she would call it a "tarantula downpour" rather than a TORRENTIAL downpour, because she didn't know the correct word. She would also say "natha" instead of nada, and "down pack" instead of down pat among alot of other things.

This does have a point to my story. About half an hour ago we experienced a very sudden TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR that lasted a good 5 minutes. I was in the loo (my favourite place of late it seems) when it started, Tia was in her room and D was in the bedroom; all of a sudden I hear him squeal, "Oh SHIT!" followed by the sound of him barrelling down the stairs and out the back door. It seems we had washing on the line!


Before the Rain

The guys next door were then exclaiming something about a mini-tornado so I fled the bathroom just as Tia fled her bedroom; we crashed midway in the hall and then ran out onto the front balcony only to crash again up against the side of the railing, all in the hopes of seeing this little tornado. Unfortunately it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and we didn't get to see it.

The rain, however, was incredibly beautiful and the three of us stood out there watching it come down until it stopped. I live for these moments.


After the Rain

e's Big Day Out

Sounds like a nifty movie title. I think it might be, however "e's" would be replaced with the correct name or word. Or something, I don't really know. I'm tired and it's not even 830p yet.

On a side note, I have a really bad habit of not putting the colon in between the numerals when I type the time out. 830pm vs 8:30pm you see.

I'm really very tired today. It might have a lot to do with the fact that I woke up around 7am bursting at the seams with needing to go to the loo. I am supremely lazy and refuse to get up in the middle of the night to make a run out there, since it involves walking through a fairly cold kitchen, and an insanely cold tiled hallway. Anyway so after doing the deed, I decided I'd go back to bed, even though I had an appointment at Centrelink at 1030am today.

Snuggling next to the warm body beside me, I drifted back into sleep, only to jolt awake 50 minutes later and decide I should really get out of bed FOR REAL this time. Nevermind that again, a trip to the loo was necessary. It was then I wondered how much fluid I actually had inside me, since I couldn't recall drinking a whole lot yesterday. (I still don't have any idea why I had to go twice in the space of an hour)

I plodded upstairs and sat down on the chair, wondering how Mum's dog was faring. We had a bit of a scare with him recently; we went down to the beach a few days ago, and he was snuffling around in the sand, licking and actually eating it. We stopped him, of course, and an hour or so later, headed home. She fed the dogs as normal, and about an hour after they'd eaten, Kyto got decidedly sick and was constantly vomiting - mostly sand. We figured his poor little tummy couldn't handle so much salt intake (and it was ALOT) so we made sure he had plenty of water to drink. He spent the whole night moping (think Eeyore) and walking around as though his tummy was in knots and causing him excruciating pain.

The following day he didn't seem to get any better, though he was still throwing up sand, but he was walking around a lot more, keeping his nose to the ground for the most part, and trying to sleep standing up. It was evident that he couldn't lay down because his tummy hurt so bad. And so it was that yesterday, after not being any better, Mum took him down to the Vet and had him checked out.

Turns out he was diagnosed with pancreatitis and it was so severe, that had she left it any later to bring him in, he would have died. They doped him up on morphine and gave him antibiotics, telling Mum that he would need to stay overnight, and possibly for as much as 3 days.

Today he's doing WORLDS better, and we were allowed to bring him home for the night, but he has to go back to the Vet tomorrow, probably for more testing to make sure he's doing well, and for another round of antibiotics. Mum was told today that she couldn't give him any food or water though, so having dinner was a traumatic experience - poor puppy sat there with big sad eyes, wanting what we were eating.

So, as I was sitting at the kitchen table this morning, my sister came out and we started chatting. Around 9am Mum got up, and around 930am I decided to have a shower. By the time I'd gotten out, dried off and gotten dressed, she'd jumped in, and I had JUST finished brushing my hair when it was announced we had 10mins to get to Centrelink (which is a 15min drive away). Needless to say, I was a little bit late. Thankfully so were they.

My meeting with them went very well. I was approved for Newstart and begin collecting that next week. It's not much, but at least it's something and I'll be able to buy food and start paying down some creditcards we've been living on for the past month.

After that we headed over to the Mall and had brunch - I was fairly well starved by that point - before coming home again. The afternoon flew by, and after a driving lesson for D (learning to drive on the opposite side of the road IS NOT easy), Mum drove out to pick up Kyto from the Vet and brought him home.

I've found a new love for making lists, so I'm about to sit down and start writing one out of all the neat, nifty and "girlie" things I'll be able to buy when I start getting some money. (Hear that Snidgie? GIRLIE THINGS!)

"Am I Black or White..."

Who sang that line? =p


I've been playing Black and White for the past two days, after finally being able to install and patch it successfully. Actually, I couldn't patch it, so my brother ended up installing and patching on his computer and then we copied over all the files onto my system. While I just love this game, I CANNOT WAIT until B&W2 is released.

I haven't played WoW in like forever, and haven't really missed it. I'm sure not upset about having the fees taken out every three months, that's for sure. While it's a good game, it's just not giving me the warm fuzzies that Everquest did for the 4 years I was brainwashed by Sony into playing it.

Garth and D have been playing GuildWars and both seem to really enjoy it. As an added bonus, there is no monthly fee to pay to play. I'm thinking about playing on Garth's computer to decide if I really like it or not, and want to spend $40 on it. At least it'll give me something to play online if I decide I need to have MORE social interaction other than the constant barrage of people surrounding me, that I have now. Besides which, the character creation is SUPERIOR to either Everquest OR WoW. Your characters are just soooooo evilly beautiful. Anyone else playing?

Updates & Additions

* Updated and linked my Flickr badge
* Added Archives again
* Added Misc category

Whispered Songs

My brother sits right next to me at the computer desk (I'm sharing his) and he is currently playing guildwars and whispering song lyrics (rather than singing them aloud) from the music blaring in his headphones. This is what I hear:

"Signs fetish.. du-nah fetish..."

Which I am sure aren't real words or even real sentences. I'm like 100% postive I'm not hearing him correctly. Then there's the nasal chorus of:

"Drop the bodies on the floor..."

Or something similar. All I can say is that my brother listens to some weird ass music.

Train to the City

We headed into the city today, specifically to the Immigration Building so D could get his passport stamped, stating he's on a "working holiday visa" so he can get work whenever he feels like it. I was really surprised it didn't take very long - roughly 5mins actually - and then we were out the door again and on our way down to the Post Square and Anzac Park for lunch. It was such a lovely day, and having lunch in the park surrounded by Ibis and Pigeons was absolutely wonderful.

Afterward, we headed down to the Queen Street Mall, which has changed ALOT since I was there last. It's nowhere near as pretty as I remembered it - so many people, and so much litter! It was really disappointing actually, and I wondered how the people of Brisbane could let it go so badly. Is it so hard to pick up after yourself?

The train ride up was a little over an hour, so I didn't squirm in boredom too much, and we ended up spending most of the ride home, quoting Napoleon Dynamite. I think we provided much entertainment to the guy sitting opposite us, who seemed to be choking back laughter to the point that his face was turning pink and he had tears trickling out of his eyes.

Oh, and to the people of LA: According to One Guy sitting on the train today, starting from next year, you won't be allowed to drive on the streets unless your car is ELECTRIC. Yes, that's right - all cars in LA beginning next year, will be electric and their engines will automatically "turn off" at all red lights and intersections, so as to avoid collisions. Apparently. You can well imagine the laughter I was choking back during his entire diatribe to the poor kiwi kid sitting next to him.

Just think; if I hadn't gone up to the city today via train, I would have missed out on so much. Good times.

...num-chuck skillz...

I have my interview with the local headhunter today. In precisely 45mins. I've showered, a very brisk shower I might add since nobody thought to turn on the hot water, and instead we've been running on solar power on a very OVERCAST day.

My ride (ie: Mummeh) was supposed to be home from her galavanting around town around 2pm (almost 1 hour ago) and she's still not home. I don't so much care that she isn't here to take me to the headhunter (cause she said she would and all) but I do so much care that she nicked off with my cig maker thingy and I've been going nuts since she left. Not to worry, I've more than made up for it by eating.

=
Oh and if you haven't seen Napolean Dynamite, I highly recommend it. I laughed my ass off the first time I saw it, and then again 100 times more the second time I saw it. It's absolutely the best worst movie I've ever seen and in about 3 more days, I will totally OWN it.