Just Another Manic Thursday...

I guess we're pretty lucky where we live. A few days ago there was a raging bushfire about 15 mins (in both directions) from where we live, but we didn't get touched. Then yesterday there was a sever thunderstorm warning in effect for SE Queensland, and while the bordering town got slammed with hail, we did not. In fact, we got nothing. Brisbane got hit hard apparently, and a few towns out west did as well. The hail storm passed by my house with a wink and a wave, as though it knew it had taken an extra week to get our internet installed and it wasn't going to do anything to mess that up.

THANK YOU Mother Nature. You are the best and most wonderful Mother ever. Thank you for sparing all of our computer equipment, and our house, and our cars, and our back lawn that desperately needs a torrential downpour of rain for 10 mins, and most of all thank you for not spearing our nearest exchange with a bolt of lightning that would have invariably caused our internet to snuff. Thank you.

Today I'm installing WoW on D's laptop for him while he's at work, because I love him so much. That and I'm mostly bored shitless lately. I don't like Black and White 2 at all, or possibly it's the fact that my system dogs it hardcore and I'm kind of sick of playing The Sims 2, even though Nightlife kicks ass and one of my guys has a vamp lover.

Yesterday I read My Sweet Audrina and that brings me up to date with the bunches of Virginia Andrews books I own - Flowers in the Attic series and the Heaven series - so now I'm at a loss for reading material. I think I will have to go on a spending spree at Amazon and buy up some books so I'll have something to read, because god knows I'm not paying $25 for a lousy paperback novel. (Australia, your taxes SUCK ASS and why the hell do we have an IMPORT TAX ON BOOKS?!)

If I had oodles of money I would convince Mamala to come up here and we could go on a spending spree, but since I have basically no money, I can't very well justify that. And I'm out of milk which means tonight I'll send D to the store to pick some up on his way home from work.

And speaking of my beloved, he's being offered sponsorship into the country by the company he's working for. Hooray! I'm not sure when they're getting all the paperwork signed and done, but he's got his 3mth contract renewed, which is perfect since that means it will expire in February - right about the time our screaming bundle of joy comes along. Too fabulous.

"WE HAVE ADSL!" he screams.

Finally. Almost a solid week late, but we have it. I would have jumped for joy had I not been in the middle of installing Black and White 2. Immediately after installing, I set about replying to the scores of email I had while in the "Internet Drought" and once half the day was gone, I loaded up B&W2 for play.

I'm so happy we have internet back - how I missed you, internet!

I had been keeping an offline blog which I have just put online, and also did a bit of a revamp of the site. The header image isn't appearing yet, but the rest of it works and that's all that I'm going to worry about right now.

I have finally caught up on my blog reading - wow many of you have been super busy - and am now a trifle exhausted. That might be because it was a little bit warm today as well, and I haven't eaten as well as I should have (mostly junk foods) and I have a sore throat which probably means that I'm coming down with something again. Joy!

But nothing's going to keep me down today. I HAVE INTERNET!

I Can’t Get Over How Lazy People Are

(Otherwise Entitled: A General Rant About Australia and it’s Occupants, Caused by my Enraged Hormones)

I’m still without internet, and now I’m just more than annoyed. When we signed up last week, we were informed on the signup page that it could take up to 21 days to get connected. I was agape over that – surely this country isn’t THAT backward that it takes so long to get an ADSL line up and running!

My brother assured me that when he had his connection at Mum’s house, it only took a week to get hooked in. Satisfied, and my faith restored in the non-backwardness of Australia, I was happy to wait a week. After all, it did take only a week for my ADSL line back in Connecticut, to get hooked up and ready to go. I don’t think that’s particularly unreasonable.

We were given an order/reference number on our ADSL order, and every couple of days, D would check the status from work. On Monday the status gave an ETA of the 6th, that the phone company was informed and they would be implementing our service by that date. Our lines were checked and we are indeed able to receive an ADSL line; all we were waiting on was the phone company to shift into gear, and go do it.

We’re still waiting today. My brother called up in the internet provider we’re going through, and they did a quick check to see what was going on. It seems that Telstra (the most ass backward phone company EVER) still haven’t gotten around to connecting the line. And, since we are going through an independent provider, it’s out of their hands now. Apparently we can’t even call Telstra on it either, and find out when the hell they’re going to get moving on FLIPPING THE SWITCH because we are not going through them directly.

Oh yes, I’m more than annoyed now. Even more so because I missed the wedding of two very dear friends of mine today! They got married in Vegas, and they were doing a live broadcast for everyone who was interested in watching. I swear, it’s days like this that I really, really miss America and wonder why the hell I’m living here now.

It’s not just Telstra though. I’m so fed up with the general laziness of Australians and Australian companies. D had to wait THREE MONTHS to get his laptop fixed, and he only needed his ram stick replaced! Three months of constantly calling Toshiba Australia, three months of being pushed around, three months of them telling him he had to call someone else, ad nauseum. It’s ridiculous. On top of that, we informed our real estate agent LAST WEEK that there are many things around this house that need fixing. She said she was going to contact the owner (who happens to be Middle Eastern of all races) and the building company. Do you think anything has been fixed? Do you think anyone has contacted us regarding it – including our oh-so-wonderful real estate agent? No, why would they? If we ignore it, they’ll go away.

Honestly, so many companies, so many people we have dealt with over here so far, have left such a bad taste in our mouths. Is it so freaking hard to get up off your flat, lazy asses and FIX things that need fixing? Yes Australia is a wonderful country in and of itself. The people are friendly for the most part, even though in my opinion the ladies over here could be a little less uncouth, and the weather is generally beautiful even when it’s pushing 40 degrees and my feet swell to the size of balloons. If you can overlook the fact that they’re just so lazy then this is a great place to be. It’s one thing to be laidback and slow, it’s something completely different to take it the ultimate extreme and turn it into pure laziness.

All countries have their ups and downs, this I know. It’s just a matter of choosing the lesser of the evils – much like in the last US elections – and stick with it. I’m just rapidly losing interest here; there’s so much I can’t stand and the laziness is a huge factor. The monopolizing ranks high up there too. Oh, and the unemployment system; what a joke THAT is. Don’t get me started on the outrageous taxes either, not that Canada is any better.

Bah. End Rant.

I Never Thought I Was This Addicted

Still no ADSL service yet. We put the order in last Wednesday. I realize I’m impatient, but it’s been six days already and I NEED to get connected again. I feel so out of the loop and lost! Particularly in regards to the baby – I’m subscribed to 2 newsletters that I get each week and they give me updates on the baby’s growth and what she’s doing (because other than the nudging and occasional pinching I have no idea).

We did have an interesting day yesterday, the parasite and I. It seems she’s invented a new game to play while in the womb, all warm and snuggled like a bug in a rug. (Incidentally, I had a bug incident this afternoon, read down) Lately when I’ve felt the urge to pee, I can normally get away with holding it for awhile – sometimes up to an hour or more, though I try not to do this even though I have to for the ultrasounds, but I digress – but yesterday I could not. No, try as I might, as soon as I felt like I had to go, believe me, I HAD TO GO because the little parasite was prodding my bladder!

Now, I know you’re probably thinking that I’m paranoid and that the fetus I’m carrying wouldn’t necessarily do that to me. But what you don’t know, is that she is my daughter, so yes. Yes she would. And she did. Numerous times. Prod, prod, prod on my bladder, pushing with all her might. If I strained hard enough, I could swear I heard her giggling over it. The game even had a title: Let’s See If I Can Make Mommy Wet Herself While She’s Running to the Bathroom.

Do you know I’m not supposed to run, child? Especially on tiled flooring? With slippers on? Oh I’m sure you know, because you can hear your Father when he talks to me, and you can hear your Nanna when she talks to me, and yes you can even hear Dr. Raam when HE talks to me and tells me what I shouldn’t be doing while I’m CARRYING YOU.

Anyway, having said that, onto my bug incident. Actually, it’s not so much a bug incident as it was a SPIDER incident. Though nothing nearly as upsetting as the Spider Incident in Arizona thank god. (I wasn’t pregnant then, and could leap a mile in the air if I had to – it’s not so easy now)

I was outside relaxing on my back patio, bare feet on the cobblestoned ground, when my gaze just happened to fall upon this dirty great beast. Why O Lord? Why me? WHY CONSTANTLY ME?! It sat there, in the grass, mocking me with it’s eight hairy legs and it’s gazillions of eyes. It was huge, 50c piece huge (including leg span, which I now realize ISN’T huge but I was freaking out at the time, remember) and I sucked in a great gasp of air, thus creating a minor vacuum in the immediate vicinity for all of 5 seconds. In a THRICE! I was up off that chair and clinging from the patio roof. And its eyes followed me. I KNOW they did. But I was unable to remain clinging to the patio roof, because as you’ll recall, I am not the graceful, lithe creature I once was. Now I have a giant growth in my stomache somewhere between my ribcage and bladder, and when gravity gets you, there’s just no stopping it. After thundering to the earth, I stood up and ran inside to get the spray. And then I came back out and sprayed the bitch. HAHA CHARLOTTE! I was victorious as the spider tried in vain to scamper away – and in my victorious cowardice, I jumped back inside and shut the screen door quickly so as to stop any unwanted intrusion.

No, I don’t know what kind of spider this was. I know it’s not a huntsman because I’ve never seen this spider before. Hairy and brown, similar to a huntsman, but with light and dark grey, and black stripes on its body. I shudder to think it might still be out there, NOT dead and nowhere close to it. Perhaps like the Spider That Could Not Be Drowned, this one is impervious to Mortein-brand poisonous gas and I will have to squash it with someone’s shoe. (Not my shoe, you understand, I’m not walking around with spider innards on my sole – heehee get it? Soul? Bah)

God I miss the internet.

I Really Thought Furnishing a House Would Be Lots of Fun

But, I was wrong. We spent Saturday afternoon in Domayne Furniture, looking through their giant warehouse of stuff before settling on a lovely 3 seater and matching 2.5 seater couch suite. And then we decided on a 6 seater dining suite, and after all of that (and believe me it took FOREVER), Garth and D headed into a back room to fill out all the paperwork to get it financed. 2 years interest free, 0 money down or 4 years interest free, 1/3 deposit down. We chose the 2 year period, which we can have paid off fairly easily.

The sales guy we had was an absolute prick though. He was very rude, very obnoxious and it pissed me off we were stuck giving him the commission he made off our sale. When I asked him when it’ll be delivered, the following conversation ensued:

Him: Four weeks.

Me: Can you give me a date?

Him: It’s roughly four weeks.

Me: From today? When you put the order in? When does the order go in?

Him: (sighs in agitation) It’s about four weeks, alright? It comes up from Sydney and we don’t know when it’s getting here until the day before.

Me: (just as agitated, if not moreso) Well I need a date. SOMEBODY has to be at the house and I have Dr. appointments all through the month (indicating to my stomache showing I’m plainly pregnant) and I need at LEAST a weeks notice.

Him: (glaring at me) Well give us a call in three weeks. We should know by then.

If Garth hadn’t wanted this set so bad, I would have screamed abuse at him, told him where he could put his truckload of furniture, cancelled the order and stormed out. I’m just not able to portray the kind of asshole this guy is. He wasn’t even interested in helping us from the start, but we had already waited HALF AN HOUR for someone to come and help us, and he was – unfortunately – the first sales guy we spotted.

Anyhow, so now we have some nice shit coming next month. I just cannot believe it takes them a month to get stuff in!! Somehow I feel like I was conned or something, I don’t know. Anyone else dealt with Domayne Furniture?

In other news, I’ve been feeling the baby move a lot this weekend which I’m happy about. I hadn’t been feeling her as regularly for the past 2 weeks and I’d been getting worried, but then during the ultrasound we had last week, she was moving all OVER the place and I wasn’t feeling it, so I’m very happy she’s back to being rather active and buoyant and I can feel her again. Little bit stronger than butterfly wings, and mouse tumbles – more like nudges now in my lower abdomen.

I have a hospital appointment on Wednesday afternoon and get to chat with a Dr. about the ultrasound results, which I have yet to pick up. From this point on, I get to alternate between a hospital Dr. and my regular Dr. until the baby is born. That’s going to make life fun. ;)

Saturday night we went to Mum’s for dinner and while I wish I could say the food was good, it sucked hardcore. We made a lasagne with one of those dinner kits you can buy, and OMG it was salty. Just bloody awful. I don’t recommend those San Remo Lasagne Kits. But, the company was exceptional and unfortunately the evening flew by way too quickly and all too soon we were on the road to come home. (Honestly it sucks being an hour from her, but at least it’s better than being half a world away)

Sunday saw us at the Hyperdome shopping center because we had to pick up yet MORE shit for the house. I am SO SICK of shopping for house related stuff. It’s just not fun!! Or maybe I’m not doing it right or something. But anyway, my feet were killing me after we’d been walking around for 3 hours, and my ankles were swelling up. Thankfully by that point we were done and were going home, but my poor feet! They burned and tingled for ages before the swelling went down.

But it looks as though we have now gotten 90% of the stuff one needs to buy when one is furnishing a new home. And all I can say is thank god for Garth cause without his third on everything, we wouldn’t have nearly as much this soon.

I hope when I finally get to go baby shopping to furnish the baby’s room, it’s not going to be nearly as harrowing an experience.

When You Find Out Things Aren’t What They Seem…

Well today was a day of surprises! We had to take back some paperwork to the landlord regarding our new house, fill out some other paperwork to have our rent automatically taken out of the bank account each week, go to the Big Ultrasound and then do a quick bit of shopping and changing of bank account types.

Everything went along nice and smoothly, including stopping at the acupuncturists this morning so D could meet him and have an impromptu interview/overview of his condition. Bottom line, D’s ailments can be cured. And so can mine. Huzzah!

We then headed back down the coast so I could have my ultrasound, which I ended up arriving 20mins early for. Then they made me wait an additional 20mins before they took me in, so there I was sitting on the seat and squirming up a storm. But then, in we went and were immediately greeted by the NICEST sonographer I’ve ever dealt with. She let us ask questions, she talked to us, she told us exactly what she was doing as she was doing it.

And then we got a gender check. And we are not having a boy. We’re having a little girl!!! I was gaping unbelievably at the screen, wondering how that happened because I was SO SURE we were having a little boy. She’s roughly 15cm in length, has a good strong heartbeat of 143 beats per minute, has 2 arms, 2 hands, 8 fingers and 2 thumbs, 2 legs, 2 feet and 10 toes. Her head circumference is 4.7cm, and her feet are 4.3cm long. (She has the most adorable little feet!) Her heart is pumping blood normally, all her arteries are fine and dandy; all her organs are functioning normally and the placenta is up where it should be, and happily doing it’s job. And our daughter was moving around A LOT! I didn’t feel most of the kicks though, but man she was moving. We could not believe we were actually watching our child on screen, especially when she did a full body stretch and we were able to watch it as it happened!

We headed to Mum’s house afterward, my sister was jumping up and down begging us to tell her what the gender was (apparently there was a bet going on). So, when I suddenly blurted out, “It’s a girl.” My sister screamed, my Mum started laughing in disbelief, and D and I were grinning like maniacs.

Even though we were both slightly disappointed to find out our Shaun had become a Shauna, we’re both so stoked and can’t wait until she’s here with us.

Photos will come as soon as I can get them scanned.

We’re All Moved In and Dear God Do We Need Furniture!

Saturday night was the first night we spent in our new house, and it was so strange being that it was so quiet. Our house is so huge and right now, quite devoid of furniture so everything echoes. The main entrance way, kitchen/dining room, and all of the halls are white tile; the lounge room and all the bedrooms are carpeted however that does little to block the echoes from the adjoining rooms. It is a gorgeous house though, and the layout is an open concept, and very family oriented.

We had friends helping us move on Saturday, and we had to rent out a 3 tonne truck in order to bring everything up. We stopped by a couple of stores to pick up the new furniture we'd bought (a fridge, a washing machine and a bed for D and I) before bringing it to the house and unloading it. In my ongoing efforts to remain as frugal as possible for now, I had decided against buying an ensemble bed (box spring and mattress) because we had 2 single bed frames that I thought would suit a double bed quite well. I was quite wrong.

It turns out that 2 single bed frames are far too big to comfortably house a double mattress. It seems I should have bought a queen mattress, or even a king mattress! Anyway, so after placing the double upon the single frames, and realized that it was far too small, D suggested it wouldn't be so bad if we shifted the mattress over to one side (nevermind that the other side was half the single frame uncovered) and we could sleep that way. It wasn't so bad for me to lay down, being that he was giving me the side of the mattress that was comfortably resting against the full single spring frame, but D's side of the mattress was laying right ontop of where the 2 single frames joined! Obviously that was an uncomfortable arrangement so I, in my infinite wisdom, suggested scrapping the frames and laying the mattress on the floor. I paid no attention to both D and Garth who kept saying things like, "You're pregnant, you can't get up off the mattress properly." and "How are you going to get up in the middle of the night?" (To which my answering was, "I'll crawl to the bathroom.") Luckily I don't have too much of a problem getting in and out of the bed on the floor, but we did decide yesterday that we were going to buy the base of the bed (the box spring) sometime this week and have it delivered.

D took one of the single frames back into the garage and the other one was made into a makeshift couch until the time comes when we can afford a second-hand one, or one is given to us. I spent most of the afternoon on this makeshift couch because after spending 4 hours wandering around the nearest Mall buying up necessities, my feet were quite swollen, and I was ordered to rest for the day. This order by both boys, and Mum (who I called because I was freaking out a little bit).

So now, after the long shopping spree yesterday, we are significantly more broke than when we first started, but neither the pantry nor the fridge look as sad or as empty. We may not have furniture, but we sure as hell have food!

It's so weird being in a giant house with nobody to talk to. We don't have internet yet which would help ALOT in passing the time, and we also don't have a phone line; not that it would matter too much since I have D's cellphone with me and will have it until we get another phone, or until we get the phone line installed. I have no idea when that will be - I have to call the phone company today and make an appointment. Thankfully we have electricity.

I woke up this morning with cramps in the lower left side of my stomache - so bad they were in the beginning that I could barely walk without grimacing in pain. I'm not sure what those were about, but I think it might have been because I may have pulled a muscle sometime yesterday while trying to close the double glass doors in the dining room, that lead out onto the back patio. They weren't put in properly so they're very hard to try and close and lock. That's just one of the problems we have to list for the landlord to get fixed.

It seems there's alot that needs to get fixed and noted, so I'm hoping this house doesn't prove to be a bother. I got the feeling our landlord was quite tired of us constantly calling her BEFORE we even got the house (sometimes she was "out of the office" or "on the phone" or "with clients") when we'd ring, so if she thought we were pains in the ass then, wait until she sees how much of a pain in the ass we'll be about getting all this stuff fixed.

There are some design flaws which can't be fixed unfortunately. The bathroom doors swing wide open and smash right into the towel racks which are on the same wall as the bathroom door, directly BEHIND it. The shower door in the ensuite swings open and wide enough to smash into the vanity cabinet which was placed RIGHT NEXT to it. These are just some of the stupid things done that can't be UNdone. And there's a long list of things we're not allowed to do - for example, we're not allowed to alter the gardens in any way without getting the owners permission. We're also not allowed to hang anything on the walls without permission. I ask you, how is one supposed to make this place feel like a home when one isn't allowed to do anything "homey" like? The pessimist side of me is so happy we're only leasing for 6 months.