I actually made an effort and went to work today. Go Cha! I woke up early to head to the office to meet the 4th year university student I am supervising. Luckily I checked my mobile phone messages because she was sick. So I went to the office to cancel our home visits for the day. This meant that I had a free morning. That is always good. I was rather productive and wrote another long overdue report. Then I went to a meeting I wasn't planning to go to - oh well. Another long meeting in the afternoon helped me become even tireder. Is that a word....tireder? It looks wrong to me. I climbed some steps today. There were only about 10-15 of them and I got tired when I was at the top. Still must be a bit weak from my flu. Or am I too unfit? They are promoting "Find 30" this week. That's the advertising campaign which asks you to find 30 minutes of excerise in the day. I am going to have to put off my finding 30 for a while - or I'll be losing 30. However, the adverts are saying that we Aussies watch too much telly and the average Aussie watches 3 hours a day. I AM an average Aussie and I'm a bit worried about that. So I either have to watch less or find 30 when I watch. I can do that (watch and walk). I will try to get back into my walking on the treadmill while I watch telly. Yay! I am so excited about that ;) And my friend and I will start walking around Lake Monger now that spring is almost here.

Another day of bludging. I woke up feeling head-achey and clogged up so I satyed home again. This time I had a good sleep in bed. It's very boring staying at home when you're sick - almost appreciate having to go to work. However, with all this being sick I have had to reschedule appointments and so I am very busy over the next few days. I only just had holidays and feel like I could do with some more. Time for more bludging!

Still flu-ey today. I went to work this morning and stayed in my office doing mundane jobs like putting files together, responding to emails, writing reports and laminating stuff. Then after lunch my head was feeling woozier and I was beginning to get a headache so I went home early to bludge on the couch and rest. How exciting was my day?!?

I feel as if I should write a little something as I have had many avid readers providing me with book suggestions and asking me how my birthday was. I gotta say that I have a long list of books to seek out now and I had a pretty great birthday. But I won't be writing too much tonight because I am sick with the flu and feel a little groggy. I have definitely got a lot to write when I am feeling better! Til then...

Blah it's Monday. Love weekends, love my work, love weekends better!!! That about sums it up. Mic is out at tennis. His tennis group has reconvened after several months, maybe even a year. He goes out with his journo buddies to play sport. Fancy that eh, he works doing sport, he chats with them all about sport and when they get together socially, the PLAY SPORT! Oh well, one of us should I guess :-) What will I do? Time to head off to bed and re read Harry Potter book 4. I really ought to find a new author or new books to read. I have a library across the street and I still haven't joined in 11 months of living here. Mic joined within weeks. How much of a dedicated reader am I? I am a stickler for things of old though - I like my old books. I like my Enid Blytons on my bookshelf. If I need a good read, I know I can always find one on my bookshelf. Sometimes going to the library is a waste of time... but if you know a good author then PLEEEEASE let me know. I really should branch out into something new. Or you might find me reciting bits from Noddy when we next talk to each other. Tee hee hee!

It's been an amazing week. Back to work and real life but still buzzing from the fab week in Melbourne. I feel a lot more focussed now - I know what I want to do and I know that those things in my life that aren't on track, well I don't need to worry about them cause I am focussing on God. He's got it all under control and He's my source of strength. I can't do life without Him. I've certainly tried. For a while I was gonna just talk in this blog about life in general, and not mention much about God cause I didn't want to offend anyone who might read this. But I figured that God is a big part of my life and I can't hide or be ashamed of Him. If I believe in God then I need to say it out loud. I don't know if I'm making sense or writing the right words to do justice to how I feel... it's all hard to explain. Anyway, I think God is cool, He's my Saviour and if you wanna know more about that then you know how to contact me :) Cause I reckon it'd be cool if you know Him too. I am pretty tired right now and waiting for my man to come home. We haven't seen much of each other this weekend. I was looking after Jaydria from 10am to 1am last night and then Mic has been at football today. I've just been sitting on the couch all afternoon watching Foxtel movies. Strange movies too - well at least the "A.I." one was. I've never watched such a bizarre movie before in my life. Did anyone else think so?

Now it's hard to know where to start with an entry all about my trip to Melbourne. I had such a fabulous time and so much cool stuff happened that I don't want to miss any of it out. It's likely to make this a long entry but at least I'll have a memory of a very very cool trip. Let's start with the uncool part...... FLYING over there. We left at 12.40am which means that to get any sort of sleep that night I had to do it on the plane. And being Virgin Blue (cause it was a cheaper flight) they had very uncomfortable vinyl seats that hardly tipped back. So I dozed for about 2 hours and that was my sleep for the whole night. Not to worry though, I was so excited about being in Melbourne I didn't really mind being tired. When we arrived we took a hire car to our accommodatio which was in the Central Business District, the heart of the city. However, as check out time was 10am for those people staying in our unit, and we had arrived at 7.30am, we couldn't get into our rooms. We were lucky to have friends there already and we woke them up so we could dump our luggage and oursleves in their room for the morning. After some breakfast and discussions about toilets all over the world, Debbie (from my church) and I decided to go off on a trek round the city. Did I tell you that it's a beautiful city with lots of old buildings. Apparently Perth has knocked down most of it's old buildings. Melbourne had so many and it also had lots of old churches. Oh so cool to look at! We almost got lost but found an information booth and redirected oursleves to the right way home. On our trek we found some cool shops, in particular a children's bookstore where I found a Spot book that I'd been wanting to buy for 5 years but couldn't find it in Perth. In the afternoon, Debbie and I braved the tram system to find our way to Victoria Garden shopping centre. We had no idea how to get there but after asking people and walking lots and finding the right tram eventually we got there. I was most proud. Trams are very cool but they drive in the middle of most Melbourne streets and as a result the road rules are rather different. I am glad I didn't have to drive anywhere!! We finally got into our rooms after 2pm as there was quite a mix up. At night we had a dinner that Julie prepared - each night we took turns to cook, so that night we had kebabs, rice and stirfry veges. Then we headed off to the church for the first opening night rally. It was excellent. Great music, great singers, great speaker who was so inspiring and very good at keeping the audience attention. I could tell the conference was gonna be good!! We went to bed just after 11pm and it was good to sleeeeeeeeeeep! The next day we headed to the church for a 9am start. The morning started with 2 keynote speakers and then 2 electives in the afternoon. The first guy talked about "preparing your table" and he had 2 tables up on stage with a nice meal and a yucky meal. The memorable part of that visual demonstration was that the kid from the audience who sat at the yucky food table, really ate the raw red meat. Ew! He wasn't supposed to do that. Still the speaker managed to get his message across that we need to be prepared to do our ministry with kids. I enjoyed the electives in the afternoon too. One was on object lessons, so I learnt some cool tricks and the second was on our different learning styles. And to top the afternoon off, Debbie and I walked down the famous Bridge Road. Lots of factory outlets and specialty shops with savings. I also walked the rest of Bridge Road on Friday afternoon. That was when I managed to find a black 3/4 length duffle coat for $50. A bargain. My only dilemma was figuring out if I could get it on the plane. Thursday night rally was also tremendously inspiring. I went out for prayer that night and had some great words prayed over me. It was all very encouraging. The whole conference was brilliant and I got so much out of it I am glad I have notes to read back on and Julie bought the tapes. They are tapes you could just keep on listening to and you would always get something from them. On Saturday I had the day to myself. Joel and Joyce went out of the city for the whole day and Debbie and Julie flew back to Perth. So my plan was to buy a ticket to the football and do some shopping, go to the football and then have tea at home and veg. I evetually bought my ticket at the biggest Myer store I have seen in my life. Although there aren't all that many Myers stores I have seen in my life. This one spanned two blocks and went up 5 levels. When I headed away from Myer I ended up at the Queen Victoria markets and they were huge too. They must have covered 2-3 blocks and there were stalls that went up and down about 11 times (A through to K) and then there were more stalls for fruit/veg, meats and food delicacies. I was awestruck! I think they must have been 10 times bigger than the Freo E shed markets. And then one of the bigger highlights of my trip has to be the football. I found the right tram to get there and went to find my seat. It was in the southern stand on the 4th level (top level) at the MCG. Ooooooh the MCG is amazing! As I sat in my seat I almost felt like crying as I was so awed by the enormity of the place. The view was spekky and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Brisbane beat Collingwood, hearing the roar of the crowd of 62, 000 people, talking with the spectators on either side of me (Meburnians are very friendly) and freezing my butt off. Ok so it was extremely cold but my jacket did serve me well. I still have my butt. I must have talked to Mic about 5 times that day cause I was so excited about what I was experiencing. That night I toddled home, tram again, and planned to enjoy the spaghetti bolegnaise I had cooked the night before. However, the hotel people thought we were checking out that day and they had thrown my food away. So I had to leave the hotel and go find some pizza. I was slightly miffed about that. And then I settled in for a night of reading, eating and watching bad movies on telly. My last day in Melbourne was visiting a church about 20 minutes out of the city. It was a church with 3000 people. We visited the kids program where I saw about 200 kids having the time of their lives learning about God, singing and worshipping Him. It was the coolest thing to see. I also cried then too. I've never seen so many kids enjoying church so much. It is certainly my goal to make our children's ministry that cool! Obviously with God's help. After church we visited the famous Ramsey street which it the set for some of the outside house shots for Neighbours (which is one of our long running Australian soaps). I have some photos to prove it. It's not called Ramsey street for real and they don't publicise it too much because the real neighbours don't like tourists hanging out there all the time. I was impressed to be there though. And the last few hours in Melbourne, we shopped and had lunch. Then it was a mad rush to get to the airport and fly home. It's great to be home but I would absolutely LOVE to go to Melbourne again. Maybe for kids conference next year????

I've just come back from the international airport where we all said goodbye to Rene and Casper. We all had tears in our eyes - hope they have a safe trip and I'll be cherishing the memories of their holiday down under in Oz. Somehow I'm gonna get to Holland one day. I would love to meet the other relatives and see my Dad's homeland. And if anything else, I have a record to beat. My Dad took over 100 photos of the Dom Toren - maybe I can take more???? Tee hee hee. I am more than excited about the trip to Melbourne. I picked up the conference program from my church. There will be some very cool keynote speakers and lots of great electives to take in the afternoons. Things like "20 great games" "making balloon creatures" "cartooning" "kids worship" and lots more. And the church we'll be at is just a walk away from the greatest shopping street known to Melbourne - well one of them. It has factory outlets and loads of great places to eat. I can't wait! And the conference will be a blast! Just wait til I come back and you'll hear all about it.

I am going to Melbourne! I am going to Melbourne! I am going to Melbourne! I am going to Melbourne! Do I sound excited? Well I am. I have never been there before. I leave midnight tonight and then have 3 days of conference and 2 days to explore and shop! I hope I get to see enough cause I'm not likely to go again for some time. I just went to the shops to get a slightly bigger suitcase to allow for shopping items. Unfortunately I also went into Target and found some great sales on winter stock. Don't you hate that? When you plan to spend as little as possible and there in front of you is shoppers heaven. Good thing I don't go to shops often or we'd be eating baked beans on toast every night. Kidding! Today is also a sad day because Casper and Rene are leaving to go back to Holland. It will be a loooong time before we see them again. I will miss them a lot and it's been so good to have the opportunity to meet them and get to know them. I am so glad we have email so we can all stay in touch. Who knows, maybe there will be some exciting cash win in the family and we'll all go to Holland some time soon. Wouldn't that be a bonus???

Well it's time I wrote a little more than usual. I am home tonight preparing for a long stint in front of the telly - my usual behaviour if I am not out and about. I was supposed to be joining rellies at the indoor climbing gym but piked because I didn't have a car until Mic got home. We are down to one car this week because Mic's car decided to die on the freeway on Sunday afternoon. It's rather interesting to be stranded on the freeway in the emergency lane. The traffic was fairly loud and steady for a Sunday arvo - we were right in the city too. So while I waited for Mic's Dad to tow us home I played a game on Mic's palm pilot. Mic decided to take photos of the city as you don't get chances to take photos that close while on the freeway. Eventually we were towed home. This week I have been the carless one - Mic driving me to work and I've had to get lifts home. It's been difficult to get back into work these past few days. I know I'll get back into it soon but taking next week off to go to Melbourne will also disrupt the flow. Next week i am going to a conference in Melbourne for kids ministry in church. My very fist one and my first time in Melbourne. Let's hope it's a fun one.

As I am back at work there seems to be nothing of interest for me to write about. I am sure I'll think of something soon. I'm in a "can't be bothered" phase. So until then, this blog may be a bit drab and certainly won't be updated often (as you're used to anyway). If you have any ideas about what I should write about or have any words of motivation then please let me know.

I lied about going to work on Monday. I am actually going today. I caught a stomach bug either from food I ate or hanging out with Jay when she was sick last Saturday. Whatever. It was no fun having very bad cramps and having to go to the loo all day. I won't expand on that any further. So now I go to work....

Wow I have a lot to catch up on. What a big day Saturday was and I didn't even do very much except look after Jaydria almost all day. Jay's Mum was surprising Jay's Dad for his 40th. She bought him a boat as a surprise and took him in a stretch limo with other friends to have lunch by the river where the boat was docked. How cool! Then while they were out of the house, other friends came to decorate for a surprise birthday party. I took Jay out of the house so they could set everything up. Jay and I went to my house for a short while. We were having dinners guests so I had to prepare some food as I would be getting home late. The we went to Scarborough beach and parked so we were overlooking the sea. It was a lovely sunny day and Jay and I sat in the car for an hour or so - I read a book and Jay just enjoyed herself. I took Jay home at 5.30pm and the party at her house was in full swing. I left at 7pm and went home to entertain one of Mic's jouro mates and his wife. We had a nice quiet evening watching old video clips and chatting. Then today was the Dockers football match against the Adelaide Crows. Mic got us some free tickets so we could take Casper and Rene. I had such a great time - the atmosphere was wonderful, the game was close and Rene and Casper had a good time. They are so used to football (soccer) in Holland that Aussie rules was a whole new game for them. Tim and I explained the rules we knew (not many) and we had a ball. We even had the good old Aussie meat pie during half time. Tomorrow is back to work for me - the honeymoon holiday is OVER. So sad!

I had forgotten how beautiful John Forrest National Park is. When I was a teen my brother, another friend of mine and me used to hike up along the railway track and go swimming in the rocky pools. Yesterday Dad, Casper, Rene and I hiked along the track and we stopped at 2 beautiful waterfalls which were flowing well because of the recent rain. It was gorgeous and I could just imagine taking a book along to read by the falls and basking in the sun. Luckily we also saw lots of Aussie animals as we had another BBQ picnic. Mum met us up there and we saw kangaroos hopping through the picnic area, kookaburras, bullants, parrots and cool flora too. What a glorious day!

Just so you know I did find a sound file that slightly resembles a sinister person sneaking away. I had a lot of fun putting together a CD for our drama video tonight. We just got through 3 episodes of a 9 episode series. It was a lot of fun and we also made a lot of bloopers. The zoo was a fab day yesterday. I got there early and was in time to see lots of people lining up to go in for the day. It was jampacked with little kiddies on their school holidays - yay - NOT! While I waited for Mum, Dad, Rene and Casper (because they missed the train) I read my latest Patricia Cornwell novel. I love reading about fornesic pathology and solving serial killer murder cases. How gruesome is that? But oh so cool. And then we trekked around the zoo for several hours, saw lots of animals, got very sore feet and drove home. That's the short version. The longer version is that we started off looking at the reptiles and Australian wetlands. The snake part is very well set up now. I just loved the anaconda which reminded me of Harry Potter when he let the snake out on his trip to the zoo. The crocodile also looks very big in his enclosure. He is all alone because he has killed the last two females who have been put in with him. Dad says it was a case of "love at first bite" Ha Ha Ha. After the wetlands, which I find boring because birds don't do much for me (no offence to bird lovers out there), we went to see the Aussie animals - you know, the roos, the koalas, the emu, the dingo, wombat, numbat etc. And then we had lunch. It was pretty smelly sitting in the picnic area. The animal smell which was often wafting by - didn't put me off my food though! Following lunch we saw the rainforest, the tigers and then the elephants. The elephants had trainers riding them and making them do tricks which was pretty cool to watch. Our next few stops were the ultra smelly otters, the bears (or bear I should say cause we only saw one) and the orangutans. Of course it was time for ice cream at that stage and being a "Peters" icecream van, Rene and Casper took some photos because that is their last name. By then my feet were killing me but we soldiered on and went to the mini monkey cages, the nocturnal house and the african savannah. Woo Hoo, then it was time to sit and relax with a drink while Dad, Rene and Casper checked out more birds (birds are boring I reckon). We drove Mum, Dad and Rene to a bus stop so they could get home and then Casper came home with me. We got Snow Dogs out on DVD and played more Crash Bandicoot. Casper got up to 28% and he had only 2 levels to complete, then this morning when we loaded the game his saved game was GONE. Uh oh - he must have saved it wrong last night. What a bummer! Not to worry, he's so good it won't take him long to get back where he was... if he gets back here to play it before he leaves for Holland. Today Casper and I went swimming. How brave am I? It's freezing in Perth at the moment and I choose to go swimming. Weirdo! Well ok it was at the heated pool at Bayswater Waves AND it was chilly when we got out of the pool. I was surprised that the water was warm enough for me to get in in the first place - I am usually not a keen swimmer. We had cool fun riding the waves, splashing each other (LOTS), going down the slides and talking under water. Where am I getting all this energy from? After the pool we picked Oma and Opa up to take them to Mum and Dad's place for lunch. The highlights for me were stealing the cherry ripe block of chocolate and eating 2 rows before giving it back, testing Dad's hypothesis that the Morning Fresh dishwashing detergent makes the soft drinks bubbles froth up more when you pour the drink in the glass (and it's true, we tested a non morning fresh washed glass against the morning fresh washed glass). And Casper calling me his big sister was also a pretty cool highlight. He is certainly like a little brother.

I have been searching all over the web for a sound file that relates to someone sneaking up on someone or sneaking away. Do you remember the old evil character who was hiding in the background while the hero was unawares in the foreground? Then you would hear the villain tip toeing away to the sneaky music. I can't find what I want and I'm sure it's gotta exist somewhere. I need it for the video drama we are doing for our kids church program. Today was very quiet and saw me trekking around Ellenbrook and Beechboro to drop off items to various friends. Then I met some work colleagues for lunch, just across the road from our house and then I went shopping. Baaaaaaaaaaaad move - well not really. I intended to get some devil's horns but couldn't find them either! So I got a scary face mask in a 2 buck shop, and that will suffice. My big shop of the day was at Susan Grae. They had a whole back wall on special - 70% 50% 30% off. Well I couldn't resist could I? Now I have a great reversible jacket, a jumper, some tracky dacks and a nice pale blue longsleeved knitted shirt. Yay! Tomorrow I will be invading the zoo! What a holiday - bowling, go karting, wild life park, underwater world, lego show, perth mint, sci tech, the zoo, kings park, dinners, lunches and shopping. I could do with holidays like this more often! However, it does blow the budget just a tad and I've been lucky enough to have people pay for me for most things....

My hands are freezing. Mic says today is the coldest July day on record in the last 21 years. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! No wonder I woke up and decided to put an another long sleeved shirt underneath my already long woollen shirt. It's been a wonderful few days. We had a lovely sunshiny day yesterday and I got to enjoy the aussie bush while I watched my brother and sis in law race their bikes down hill. It was fun to use the digi camera to try and take some shots of the guys goin over the rocks on their bikes. Sometimes I got bikes in the shot but a lot of times I got nothing cause I shot it too soon or too late. When I did get someone in the shot I sometimes missed the head. However, by the time I got Kim and Stef I managed to get the shot right. Whew! We also went up to Kings Park. Casper came in my car so we went to Macca's for lunch. We tried to steal each other's fries and generally act like silly kids. And when we got to the park I introduced Casper to rolling down the grassy hills (like a sausage roll, not forward rolls). I'm sure he has tried this in the snow and he certainly needed to burn some energy so we had fun rolling. Yes...I rolled too! Imagine a 27 year old woman rolling down a grassy hill - did I look silly? Well yes I did but you gotta try it some time - it was FUN!!! Casper came home to sleepover at our house. He was itching to have a long stint of playing Crash Bandicoot on the X Box. He did very well too and has done 20% of the game in just a few hours. We also watched Toy Story 2 on DVD. Casper seemed to enjoy it as much as I always do. There are some classic lines from Star Wars and other movies. The night before we had watched Monsters Inc with the rest of the family. I LOOOOOOOVE that movie too. This morning we set off to Hillary's Boat Harbour. Casper and I got there early so we wandered around the shops and splashed each other when we came to puddles. I really am re living my childhood, or continuing to live it as some would say. When Mum and Dad arrived I had to leave to go and meet some friends for lunch. One of my friends who used to work with me was visiting from New Zealand. I met them at my work. Unfortunately in my enthusiasm when I saw Penny in her car, I jumped out to greet her and locked my keys in the car! Doh! I had to ring Mic to bring the spare set. Still, we had a nice catch up over lunch and play with Penny's cute little 17 month old girl Abbey. Then I returned to Hillary's to go to AQWA. Awesome! We took some cool pics of Casper and Tim touching stuff in the touch pool and enjoyed the underwater tunnel - although I was miffed that the moving travellator was not in working order. Ripped off! Tonight it's a quiet night in with just Mic n me. And tomorrow I have the whole day to bludge. Yay!

Oh and by the way - I didn't eat the corned silverside for breakfast yesterday. I had an egg on toast - good girl eh?

Friday morning I spent at the church, getting stuff prepared for the coming term. Then I headed over to Malaga markets for a quick squizz. I found some Richmond football stuff for Mic or his brother for a pressie - a mouse mat and a pin up board that were fairly cheap. Probably cause Richmond are a loser football team. No matter - I will still barrack for them, that is is I ever watch any footy. I joined Mum, Dad, Rene and Casper at Oma and Opa's house for a light lunch while Dad did some shopping for Oma. I managed to get Casper out of the house for a short walk to the Chemist to get Oma's prescription. He was keen to keep playing his Gameboy. Then we all went bowling. As predicted, I did very very badly. In the first game I came last - Casper beat me! However, I improved in the second game and even got one strike which put me in third place. Of course Dad and Rene did fairly well. Rene and I got some cool pictures with our digi cameras. In the evening I had dinner at Mum and Dad's (Unlce John was there too) and had fun annoying Casper like a big sister would.... well we had fun anyway. He liked playing his Linkin Park and Eminem CD's while I tried to sing children's playschool songs to him. We also did some dancing and they sand lots of Dutch football songs for us. Casper also let me play his Gameboy briefly - quite addictive actually. Today I have just looked after Jaydria and am now home relaxing. The sun is out for a change so I am hoping to get some washing hung out. We have a VERY large pile of clothes to wash. Mum, Dad, Casper and Rene have been in Freo today. I don't get out that way very often and I wish I could have gone with them but if I have to choose things that I will go to then the ones I am least likely to do are things like the Perth Mint and the wildlife park so I am glad I got to go to them. Freo I can do any day. Although it would have been cool to see the Maritime museum. I hope they enjoy it.

Bet you can never guess what I want for breakfast? We have corned silverside and creamy potatoes in our fridge and that's exactly what I want. There are 2 things holding me back at the moment: 1) It is not a traditionally favoured kind of breakfast and 2) Mic is eating his proper breakfast in the kitchen right now and he will not approve of my desire to go outside the realms of normal breakfast eating. What a dilemma? Maybe I'll wait til he leaves the kitchen.... I have showered and feel fresh now - I can face the world. I am going to head into our church office and prepare some stuff for our kids church program next term. Only 2 weeks away and I should have done more by now but I have been a little distracted by the rellies. Who wants to do work when you can go out have have fun being a tourist? PORRIDGE? TOAST? EGG? COCO POPS? CONRFLAKES? OR...... SILVERSIDE AND POTATO..... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Yes I am weird.

We have just returned from the quiz night. Our table ended up tieing for first place so we had a tiebreaker 5 questions which we lost!!!! Our table was destined to lose I think. I haven't been to such a high tech quiz before. They had an electronic scoreboard and each table had a box with multi choice buttons to push for each question. Sometimes I think multi choice is easy peasy but as usual I am fooled and there were some tricky ones. I really didn't know many answers at all. I had seven tickets in the raffle. Karl Langdon (ex Eagles player) was selling the tickets. They called the raffle tickets millions of times and our table of about 10 people (all with lots of tickets) only got 2 prizes. I managed to pick up one of the prizes and I picked out a Perth Glory backpack for Casper. There really wasn't anything exciting to choose - just lots of football, soccer and other sponsor type stuff. Our main aim was to beat the other table of media guys and we did manage that so we're all good.

My feet huuuuuuuuuuurt. I have walked all over Perth but it was worth it. We started off at the Perth Mint. I have lived in Perth for 18 years and this was the first time I have been there. We watched a man pour 200 ounces (6kg) of gold and make it in a gold bar. When he first took it out of the kiln it was about 1200 degrees. It took about 10 seconds for it to become solid bar and then he put it into a vat of water and it was cool enough to touch. How goovy! It was also impressive to hear about how much gold they have cleaned out of the vats, off the ceiling and out of the pouring containers. While Mum, Dad, Rene and Casper went on the tour, Uncle John and I wandered around ourselves. I paid for a gold plated coin for Casper with his name engraved on it. He seemed pretty impressed with it and it was only later that I discovered that he collects coins and stuff. After the Mint we headed into the city for lunch, detouring just slightly to buy more souvenirs for rellies in Holland. Following lunch we went to see the Lego show in Myers. It was pretty cool but there were too many kids running around everywhere. Way too many! (no offense to those of you who have kids - you know I love 'em). I took some photos of Dad with a Darth Vader lego statue and Casper with R2D2. Then it was time for SciTech. At first I thought it wasn't very good but eventually after having a good look it became apparent that there was some very cool stuff to have a go at. Casper and I talked on some phones that showed you the person you were talking to - and we decided it was fun to sqeal to make the other person's ear hurt, blow rasperries an call each other names in Dutch and English. There was also a very cool tunnel that you walked into and looked at some twirling lights for 10 seconds. Then you had to walk across a bridge and the effect of the lights made you feel like you were falling over even though the bridge stayed still. Now I am just relaxing before I head out with Mic to a quiz night for the football media guild. Go brains!

Whew. I am body tired but not mind tired. I have spent the whole day preparing for the evening meal and it went so fast. I quite like getting meals prepared. I went to the shops and bought some stuff for our meal plus some other things of course. And then the rest of the day I made a sponge cake and iced it so it looked like a vegemite jar. I also made garlic bread, potato au gratin, and crumbed chicken. How can that take all day? The rest of the time was spent on cleaning the floors, making our bed, cleaning dishes, vacuuming and watching a little telly in between. So I had 9 people for dinner. Technically it was 8 because Mic was hidden in his study doing work. After dinner Casper played Crash Bandicoot on our X-box. In under 2 hours he had completed 9% of the game. I have played it over several days and I have only done 5% and Mic has also played it much more than me and he's done 12%. What does that say about the computer skills of a 12 year old boy? Well done Casper! Rene tried some Tim Tams tonight for the first time. As predicted he did enjoy them. My brother Tim has already suggested that they are tried with a hot drink and sucking the drink through each bitten end. I am also a big believer in this technique. Now that I have experienced the soggy melting Tim Tam (many a time I can tell you) I don't find them nearly as nice by themselves. Not everyone likes that method though so I am happy both ways (happier when they are melting in your mouth).

Today I am staying home to clean and cook dinner. Tonight we have the rellies come to our house. Yesterday we had a fabulous day at Whiteman Park. I haven't been there in several years and it has improved immensely. Dad, Casper, rene and myself went by ourselves because Mum and Aunty Joy needed to go to the doctors. While we were at the park we rode on the bumpy old train, observed a science show for the kids on school holidays and attracted lots of port lincoln parrots near us with chips and took photos of them. We even got some sitting on Dad's head and shoulder - very tame, as long as we had food to entice them. Aunty Joy and Mum joined us at the park for a yummy sausage sizzle for lunch and then headed over to the wildlife park which is now situated in the Whiteman Park park. We saw some white kangaroos and got to pat them up close. Our digi cameras and regular cameras were working over time. It was cool to see lots of Aussie wildlife up close and fun for Rene and Casper. We did find out when we left that we COULD have patted the wombats and koalas but we didn't know that til we were leaving!! Aunty Joy used a wheelchair to get around the park since she had recently had an operation on her legs. We had some fun pushing her around and several times she was sitting at the fence looking at animals and she tipped forward so that she was stuck against the fence. And other times she would take off by herself and then we had a runaway wheelchair on our hands as she coasted down the hills. What a hilarious day! I haven't seen a Tasmanian Devil up close before and the ones we saw were so much like the one you see on the Loony Tune cartoon. They make the same sound and walk around in circles. Funny creatures. I stayed at Mum and Dad's for dinner. Aunty Joy made some delicious pumpkin soup and a lovely biscuit mint slice. Casper, Tim and I played on the play station. We were like little kids fighting over whose turn it was. At one stage, Tim and I had to tickle Casper to get the controls off him. Casper isn't so shy now and his English is better than I had thought so we were getting on like big brother and sister with him. He was being the cheeky younger brother of course! After dinner we played Truth or Dare Jenga. What a laugh that was! The aim is to remove a block from a tower without letting the tower fall down on your turn. And as you remove a block you need to do what it says. I kept getting the blocks that said "what do you want most in the world" or "which personality to you look like". Aunty Joy had to smell my socks. When you pull a white block you can ask anyone else to do something for you. SO Dad asked me to get him a cup of tea, Mum asked Casper to kiss her foot! and Casper asked Mum (in perfect English) to go and shoot his Dad with the toy rocket. That was funny too. It took Mum forever to get down the hallway to Rene's room because she was laughing so hard! So all in all I had a good laugh yesterday. Today is for boring stuff like mopping the floors - I wonder if I will write about that later on????

I don't know how to start this entry so I'm just gonna begin as that is often the best way. Yesterday ended up being quite a fun day. It was lovely to sleep in til 8am and then lounge around in my PJ's watching old 80's movies on Foxtel. Oh and having a cooked breakfast was cool too, even though it didn't taste as good as I wanted it to. I can work on that though. It felt like a Saturday but it was Monday and I hardly thought about work at all. Yay. I headed over to Mum and Dad's house around 10am 'cause there wasn't much else to do here except clean the house or watch Mic doing work on his computer. At Mum's house I watched Mum and Aunty Joy do ironing and chat to their sister Jan on the phone. That pretty much took up my morning. In the afternoon we had a quick lunch of chicken soup - soup is not my fav so I had a smidgeon and then opted for nutella on bread. Poor Casper didn't seem to be enjoying his soup either (it had a very strong salty taste) so I saved him from eating it all (he probably would have, being such a polite boy) and he also chose the nutella option. Hvaen't met a kid yet who doesn't love nutella! Tim, Dad, Rene, Casper and I then went to a go-kart place in Belmont. I was the photographer and the boys did the driving. It was pretty cool fun - yes even if I was a wuss and didn't have a go myself. Personally it's a bit too much money to spend on 10 minutes of zipping arpund a track (that's my excuse Stef!) We took a detour home and came down the Zig Zag. Always a pretty spot to see the city and lots of gorgeous bushland. Casper decided to try and tell us some jokes with Rene translating Dutch to English. We also told some of our terrible jokes too but some of them lost the humour in the translation. You need to know the words in English well to think that they might be remotely funny. However, the one about "why did the koala fall out of the tree?" is always a classic for me..... "because it was dead". Yeah it's bad I know. At Mum and Dad's we then kicked the soccer ball around in the park next door. Tim and I reminisced that we hadn't played in that park since we were kids. Oh we are so old aren't we? With all this extra energy I am exerting, kicking soccer balls and racing down steps, I may even lose some weight. Yeah right? And the finale for the day was heading over to Jimmy Dean's for dinner and hanging out at Kim n Steff's house for profiteroles (periferoles as Mum would say) and a great game of Point Blank on the playstation. I love shoot em up games. Probably 'cause you can still do all right with very little skill (just point and shoot lots) but if you want to do really well, then you have to practice a little bit more. It's also a game that anyone can join in and play and not feel stupid having a go. I was pleased that Mum and Dad had a go.

I have been teasing Rene that I would make Vegemite soup for him and Casper. Rene thought I was serious at first but I set him straight and said I had made it up as a joke. I knew he'd had a bad experience with putting too much vegemite on his bread once. Until now I thought there was no such thing as vegemite soup. However, as with all things unknown, I put it to the google test. And what do you know I have found a soup recipe with vegemite in it. There are several, but this one seems to have vegemite as a major ingredient. So I am sharing it with you all - dare to make it if you will. Warming Winter Soup 7 cups water 11/2 tablespoons Vegemite 1/2 cup long grain rice 1 onion, peeled and diced 1 carrot, peeled and diced 1 cup sliced celery 1 can 400g red kidney beans drained and rinsed 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley Black pepper 1. Boil water and vegemite, add rice and cook until tender. Add onion, carrot and celery; simmer 30 minutes. 2. Add kidney beans, parsley and seasoning. Re-heat, stirring occasionally. Serve with crusty wholemeal bread rolls as a hearty lunch. Makes 4 servings. So do you think you would eat that????

It was very pleasant to be able to sleep in this morning. I headed off at about 9.15am to look after Jaydria up the hill. We had a fairly quiet time, although Jay got a little distressed at one stage and quite clearly wanted to go out in the car for a drive. I think she must get bored staying in the house and she usually goes for a bus drive to school everyday so on weekends she probably expects the same. We drove past our rental property in High Wycombe which we used to live in 5 years ago and basically did a 30 minute drive to calm Jadria's nerves. On the way home we picked up some potato gems to have for lunch and then I spent the rest of the afternoon watching 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' on video as there wasn't much else to do. I went to Mum and Dad's house when I finished at Jaydria's. Rene, Casper, Mum, Dad, Tim and I all went up to Mundaring Weir for a look. It was windy and cold but very fresh and beautiful up there. I challenged Casper to a race down the steps (oh so many steps) and of course he won, being the young spritely 12 year old. I honestly felt like I was going to fall flat on my face once I had built up some momentum so I slowed down and graciously allowed Casper to win. That's my story anyway :-) When we got home to Mum and Dad's, Casper started to play the Playstation. He was playing Crash Bandicoot Team Racing on a setting so that it spoke in Dutch. I spent my time reading a Dutch dictionary of phrases so that I could tell Casper that his game playing was 'terrible' or 'very good'. My translations into Dutch weren't all that good but it was fun.

Well I can let you all know now that we surprised my Dad well and truly. Rene was supposed to be coming from Holland today at 3pm according to my Dad, but little did he know that Rene had contacted me and asked if I could pick him up at the airport on Dad's birthday which was yesterday. So when Dad got home from his parent interviews last night he got a great surprise. Casper and Rene came out from behind the passage door as well all yelled Happy Birthday. He really enjoyed his surprise and also got some very cool pressies from his kids at school and all the way from Holland. In particular I was impressed with a book that Rene had bought which was called "The cow who fell into the canal". You see I remember this book quite well from my childhood. We used to own it and we used to watch thepresenters read it on Playschool. I hadn't seen it in a long time. We tasted some absolutely devine chocolate. And Casper gave me lessons in all the colour anmes in Dutch. He could already tell me their English names so it was my turn to do some learning! And then for some strange reason Stef and I started doing a Dutch crossword puzzle in Casper's puzzlebook. It ended up being a team effort to fill it out because even if we managed to translate the clues we couldn't think of another word in Dutch! Stef did quite well cause she knows German. I just guessed everything - badly! Today is my last day at work - I am so looking forward to the next two weeks. Rene and Casper have a sparkle in their eyes and I can tell it's going to be a lot of fun in the next few weeks. I am also looking forward to showing them around Perth - our beautiful city. It's been raining lots though so I hope we have a few nie days of lovely Perth weather. Rene and Casper would already be used to having lots of rain. But then again our dams could do with the rain too.

I feel like some heavy sympathy so I'll go all out and let you know that I feel so tired my eyes are going to fall out of my head and my head hurts with a bad headache...oh and my neck and back hurts too. Everybody say "awwwwww". I had a fun start to the day with a playgroup. We only had one child turn up but he's such a cutie it was all worthwhile. Who could resist a little 18 month old with blonde hair and blue eyes and the cutest facial expressions you ever saw???? The afteroon was spent in front of a computer for training. Yey! I alson went to see Mic's Mum in hospital. She will be getting out tomorrow. And she is very much looking forward to that. This evening will be and early bedtime. But not before having my yummy roast dinner and watching Big Brother nominations. Yes I am sad. Yes I watch Big Brother.

This morning we had our kids church kids participating in the big church for National Prayerworx day. Kids across Australia, in 120 of our Apostolic churches, were involved in celebrating prayer. Our kids learnt a song (Captain Biblesword, adapted from the Wiggles) and the Lord's prayer in sign language. We also showed a DVD of interviews that we did with the kids - we asked them what they thought prayer was etc. Being one of the main leaders I was MC for our bit of the morning service. And for some strange reason I always feel very nervous about getting up in front of the church crowd. Today I was praying hard that I wouldn't sound nervous and..... I didn't! That feels so good. I don't mind the jitters in the stomach as long as my voice sounds normal when I speak. I must be getting in lots of practice. Cause as we all know pratcie makes perfect. After church we had a yummy sausage sizzle and then I dropped into a friend's place to catch up before I headed off to a clothes party. The clothes party was for Postie's fashions. As is typical with those sorts of clothing parties, the clothes were very expensive. I understand that they are well made and Australian - I even liked a lot of them BUT I can't bring myself to buy the clothes at their full prices. For example - a skivvy costs $45 or some trousers cost $75. However, you'll be shocked to learn that I did actually buy something. They must know that people like me are at these sort of events. They had a bargain basket. Everything in the basket was $30. So I find a nice maroon wrap around skirt which thankfully was in my size. Pretty chuffed with that. Mic is out working at the footy right now. I am heating up the loungeroom and about to watch a DVD. I have borrowed "Coyote Ugly" and "Erin Brokovich". I love the music on "Coyote Ugly" and Adam Garcia is a cutie! The first time I saw him was when I got "Coyote Ugly" out on video and the same night I also got out "Bootmen", which he also stars in. I didn't realise he was in the both and thoroughly enjoyed his dancing and acting. He's also in "Riding in cars with boys". I think I am sounding a lot like my Grandma when I talk about the movies I know and who acted in them. She was rather good at that!

What a busy day I had yesterday. All fun of course. In the morning I went up the hill to spend time with Jaydria (the girl I do respite with most Saturdays). Because it was a rainy day we lounged around the house for most of the time. We had a quick drive down the hill so I could buy some food for the party I was going to that night and get some Sea Shanty's to go with our mash potato and veges for lunch. I started to re read HP again. It amazes me how I don't mind re reading it so sooner after reading it the first time. I can't think of many other books like that. When I left Jaydria's I had to go to the shops to get a birthday present for my friend whose party I was going to. You wouldn't believe how many 50% off, reduced stock signs I had to ignore. It was terribly difficult for me! At home I had about an hour to get ready and that included chopping up vegetables starting with C for my dip plate. We all had to bring something starting with the first letter of our name. And we also had to dress up with a rainbow theme. So I tied lots of colourful ribbons to my jumper and put my hair up with lots of ribbons too. Looked pretty cool if I do say so myself. And the rest of the evening I ate, talked, danced, watched people juggle Astro Jacks and Fire. Wow!

I started writing this blog earlier this evening and then lost the whole thing. I am quite annoyed cause I had written a masterpiece of course. It's terrible when you have to recreate something. Just doesn't feel right at all. Oh well, here goes.... I did say that I was quite excited about my upcoming holidays and the fact that my 3rd cousin Rene and his son Casper were coming soon. We'll be doing lots of fun tourist stuff. And during that time I intend to think as little about work as possible. Yeah right! I also said that I finished my HP book and thought it was pretty good. I won't elaborate much more though because some people have yet to read it. I still want to read it again because the first time through I was reading to find out who died. This time round I will read it at a more leisurely pace and soak ij those fantastic descriptions that J K Rowling is so famous for. Last night I went to a celebration for the 10 year anniversary of the Disability Act. There were lots of people at the function and lots of them were my big bosses from DSC. The Minister for disability services was there and a few other famous names. The best part of the evening was hearing about the pioneers in the disability field. 9 people were awarded recognition for their efforts in making things better for people with disabilities. I was honoured to be there and hear their stories. What great people! Did you know that in the late 1930's, people with disabilities were vacated from institutions so that there were beds available for war casualties. Because of this, it was discovered that people with disabilities were able to contribute to society and do stuff. From then on there was a move to include people with disabilities into society and to help them learn skills. One such person rallied to remove children with disabilities from the old Claremont Hospital where they had been locked away with people with mental problems. Conditions for people living there were not good. It was amazing to hear the stories of the people in the room last night. Some of them have been working tirelessly for over 50 years to help people with disabilities have better lives. I was proud to be there in their presence. After the function, which also had some rather good food, I went to visit my Mum in law in hospital. She was looking a whole lot better. Still coughing and still tired. The docs are keeping her there for a good week to make sure she recovers fully. Good timing for her - cause she won't need to unpack as many boxes, having just moved house.

On Monday afternoon we had a visit from Mic's Mum and Dad. They were dropping off their old freezer and coffee table for us. Mic's Mum was extremely chesty sounding and I know Mic had taken her to the doctor's for xrays earlier that day. The doc had decided that hospitalisation wasn't necessary as long as Mum rested like she was in hospital. But when I saw Mic's Mum, I was in doubt of his decision. Later that night, Mic's Dad called to say that he was following Mum in the ambulance to the hospital. She is now on an IV, oxygen and cortisone and she has pneumonia! I hope she gets heaps of rest and gets well soon. She's such a cool mum in law - love her to bits. At our Tuesday prayer group at work we prayed for Mum amongst other things. It is such a cool group and we are getting so blessed from it. Thanks God for helping us finally get together and meet regularly! I still can't believe that we are meeting. What a support and what encouragement in the workplace. God rocks! Work has been great - except for the dilemma of trying to find staff for a position that will be vacant soon. I am very much looking forward to holidays after next week. And it's a cold, wet night. Another classic time for reading and snuggling into bed. I didn't get to read my HP book yesterday so tonight's the night. I'm 2/3 the way through.

It was so hard to get out of bed this morning. I'm not a morning person in winter. It's dark, it's cold and bed is so welcoming and comfortable. I had less trouble getting up in summer cause it was too bright and it was too hot. Roll on summer I say! I was only at work for a short time. I decided to go to my home visit and then come home to relx. I have some flexi time up my sleeve or if I have any strong urges I could do work from home. That's not my style though. The little girl I just saw was so much fun to work with. She's pretty clever and picks things up really quickly. I am mainly working on her speech sounds. She is putting 3-4 words together but she is impossible to understand cause she drops most of the sounds off or substitutes them with the ones she can say really well. So for example, if she was to say "I want to play with the playdough" she would say "I doh day didda daydo". She's learning the /p/ and /w/ sounds in small words cause she doesn't use them much and they are easy to start with. Gotta love the challenge. It seems that Mic is out at the moment. He must have been out and been in already cause I discovered lots of pasties and pies on the benchtop. Uh oh - he's been shopping!

I managed to find a little time yesterday to start reading my new Harry Potter book. I have read in the paper that some people lined up at 3.30am to get their books. I much preferred my method of sauntering into the store at 10.30am and finding loads of copies there for me to buy at a much cheaper price. And the book so far is as exciting as I expected it to be (exciting the whole way through). On one hand I want to put off reading it so that it lasts me a long time and on the other hand I just want to read it fast and find out what happens...the biggest question is "who dies?" Last night we took dinner over to Mic's parents house. They have just moved south of the river. Sara and Bil had been painting there all day. I felt bad that I hadn't helped out with the painting so I tried to make myself useful by giving some back and foot massages. I'm sure if I'd been painting all day that I nice back rub would help ease the sore muscles a little. The house is looking better with cream rather than green walls. This afternoon I have a pork roast to cook (mmmmmmmmmmm!!) and a book to read. My Mum is coming over for tea later and to do some scrapbooking. And it a rainy overcast day so it's definitely nice weather for snuggling up and reading in bed. Yay!

What a cool Saturday morning I have just had. I went to the ladies breakfast at church where we had all sorts of breakfast options. I'm not a big fan of breakfast during the week but I love cooked breakfast on weekends. Today I had hash browns, fried egg, sausages, bacon, toast and yoghurt. It was like going to Miss Maud's for a buffet. Following the breaky we had a fashion show. Lots of fun watching friends walk the catwalk to the tunes of Abba. I'm glad no one fell off the stage! And on my way home I dropped into Big W to see if they had any of the much awaited Harry Potter books. I was hoping Big W would have a decent price on them. And yes they did. Half the retail price insome of the bookstores. Now I just need to find time to read it. Very excited! I might write more later....

We have just spent the evening at a lovely dinner for Tabor Bible College. We have been attending them for a few years now because Mic's dad has been strongly involved in the running of the college, initially as principal up until a few years ago. The dinner is also a fundraiser - you get to the dinner for free but they have an auction and donation slips to raise money for the college. It's always a very nice meal and a chance to meet and talk to new people. And I always enjoy hearing the students speak - it's inspriring to hear how God has touched their lives and how much they get out of going to college. In the auction a few years ago we bought a painting done by Arthur Hamblin. It hangs in our living room and we love it to bits. Tonight we didn't expect to buy anything at the auction, but we did - boy oh boy we did! A very cool framed set of coins representing each Olympic games ever held starting with the first one in Athens 1896 and the last one in Sydney 2000. We also got a lovely white gold cross with diamonds on it and a Mitsubishi rally jacket and a Patricia Cornwell book. Not a bad shop for the night eh? I wonder what else the weekend will bring?

Another one of those 20+ question thingies.... 1. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? Usually around 6.30am but i I don't get up until 7ish. Depends when I should get to work. It's always 1 hour before that. 2. IF YOU COULD EAT LUNCH WITH ONE FAMOUS PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE? I'd be too nervous to eat with a famous person. Maybe Jamie Olliver or Aristos so they could cook FOR me! 3. GOLD OR SILVER ? No preference. 4. WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU SAW AT THE CINEMA? How to lose a guy in 10 days with my ma. 5. FAVOURITE TV SHOW? Changing Rooms (UK version) on Foxtel or Whose Line is it Anyway? 6. WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST? toast or cereal if I have any at all - breakfast is so boring. I prefer eating it on weekends - cooked breaky! 7.WHO WOULD YOU HATE TO BE LEFT IN A ROOM WITH? whining kids, a smelly person 8. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE? yes but it's an effort 9. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? People who live what they believe, God's word (The Bible), some of my close friends, chocolate :-) 10. WHAT'S YOUR MIDDLE NAME? Elizabeth 11. BEACH, CITY, OR COUNTRY? City long term, country for a stint, beach hardly ever although I do appreciate it's beauty. 12.SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer 13. YUM? Almost everything - you should know me by now. Ok here's a list: mashed potato, chocolate, prawns, spaghetti trendi from our local work cafe, garlic bread, pizza, carbonara, roast dinner, dips with crackers, tim tams dipped in hot chocolate.... 14. BUTTERED, PLAIN, OR SALTED POPCORN? buttered......ahhhhhhhhhhhhh 15. FAVOURITE CAR? whatever as long as it gets me where I need to go and has some way to play music with colling for summer and heating for winter! 16. FAVOURITE SANDWICH FILLING? curried egg or tuna and mayonaise if I'm making it from home, but if it was Subway type shop made stuff then I'd go for satay chicken. 17. FAVOURITE TYPE OF MUSIC All sorts eg. country, pop, classical, acapella 19. WHAT CHARACTERISTIC DO YOU DESPISE? thinking and acting like you know everything 20. FAVOURITE FLOWER? fresias - love the smell 21. IF YOU HAD A BIG WIN IN THE LOTTERY, HOW LONG WOULD YOU WAIT TO TELL PEOPLE? Never go in it to win it. 22. DO YOU WEAR PYJAMAS? Sure do - wearing my flannies right now. 23. WHAT COLOUR ARE YOUR EYES? grey/blue 24. HOW MANY KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING? About 7 25. WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO RETIRE? In the country somewhere I'd say. Near a river. 26. CAN YOU JUGGLE? No - too uncoordinated. 27. FAVOURITE DAY OF THE WEEK? Friday cause it's just before the lovely weekend. 28. RED OR WHITE WINE? None. I was given a bottle for presentation I did recently and I will most certainly try that out in some cooking. Should be yummy in a casserole you think? 29. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY? Quiet dinner. Who can remember? Birthdays are so much more fun when you are little. Maybe one day soon I'll have a Macca's birthday party or some kind of kids celebration just to make it FUN! 30. DO YOU CARRY A DONOR CARD? No 31. SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT THE PERSON THAT SENT THIS TO YOU Loads of fun, deserted me at work, has a great English accent, great sense of humour and write soooooo much which is cool cause I love getting long emails or letters. So there you go. Another useful quiz which tells you mostly nothing about me.

I am just sitting down at the computer to read a few bits and bobs before I head off to bed. I can hear the dulcet tones of Mic's computer...well actually he's playing his MP3's....Dixie Chicks, Weird Al, and all sorts. It's a bit of a ritual for him to play through his favourites. While I sit here I am of course eating. And what better to eat than lollies. I currently have some lolly teeth in my mouth. I haven't done that in a while. Since I was a kid you suggest? Well no..... I have to admit that the last time I did the lolly teeth look was in a team meeting at work. The other speech pathologist and I were putting them in and then making each other laugh. We're nuts I know!! It's not a respectable look but it was fun. Mic bought the lollies yesterday. There are strawberries and cream, licorice all sorts, milk bottles, pineapples, snakes, musk sticks, jelly babies. I've eaten a lot of those ones but the ones that are left are looking to be the bananas. They're ok but there's something just "not good enough" about them. Mmmmmmm lollies.

Well this weekend went by rather fast. I am snuggled up in my cow print flannel PJ's almost ready to go to bed but I have got myself interested in looking up DVD sites on the web. There are so many I want to buy and of course, most of them are children's ones. You know, like The Muppet Movies, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Shrek, Aladdin, and other Disney titles. And the adult versions I am interested in....The Great Escape, Grease and Singin in the Rain. Oh so cool movies. Last night my friend and I got out some "chick flicks" and we ate Tim Tams galore. Yum oh yum. Church today was exciting. It was the first day in our new building. So the kids church was also in a new room. Well it was new for us. We had loads of room, we had a microphone and we had FUN! When you have a mic in your hand you have the kids attention a whole lot more! Time for some more DVD searching. See you later in the week.

Yes yes I know it's been a while. You gotta believe me when I say it has really been one of those weeks. Once Monday started it just got worse until it peaked on Wednesday and since then has been a little more relaxing. It hasn't been anything to dramatic. Just work stuff. I had a lot of pressure at work this week but it's all good and it will all work out for the best - I hope! Just to recap.... On Sunday, I went to the movies with my Ma. We watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days". Nice and cheap too at $3.50 each. I enjoyed the movie - particularly appreciated Matthew McConaughey's very nice upper body when he had his shirt off. Mum and I also visited the Midland Military markets. We found a great store that sold all sorts of scrapbook supplies. If I had any money I would have gone wild. Mum enjoyed herself. We had a late snack of chinese food and waffles and then I headed over to Oma and Opa's house for a visit. I was intending to stay about an hour and then go home for tea. However, when I arrived, Oma mentioned that Opa had been looking forward to some Fish n Chips and would I like to go and get it for them and join them. I was feeling VERY full but couldn't let them down. As I drove home that night I was the fullest I ever felt in a long time. This week at work has been interview week. I haven't had time to scratch myself. It's pretty intense when you have to interview. Seems it's all sorted now - I just have to write up the report but it's been a week of late nights at work. Let's hope this weekend is a chance to relax!

I think I need to rave a bit about my gorgeous cat Brer. We got her in February after our last cat Royce was run over. He was beautiful too and we knew we'd miss him lots so we got a new kitten fairly quickly. She is an endless source of entertainment for us. This is what she likes doing most of all.... She often goes to sleep on Mic's desk, and usually on his arm so he can't type. This morning he couldn't find his ug boots until he kicked under his desk and discovered that Brer had dragged them underneath the desk. Last night I had fun getting her to leap up high on the bed and catch an elastic band. She is the cleverest cat I know and so so so cute! I had a naming competition at work. In the end we were going to call her Miata which is the foreign name for Mic's MX5 but then we settled on Brer. I think it suits her a lot. And it's much better than Crusher which is what Mic was keen to call her. I'm off to read on my hammock. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

Yay for the weekend. I'm about to head off and look after Jay up the hill. Our aim for the day is for me to do some work work, hopefully read lots more of my riveting Francine Rivers book and we will definitely be heading down the hill for our usual lunch trip. Today it'll be Macca's cause I am collecting the Muppet characters. So far I have Miss Piggy, Rowlf, Gonzo and Beaker. I have been to 4 different MacDonald's stores and they don't seem to have any different ones yet. Come on Macca's!

Apologies for the American spelling of "favorite" in my last blog!

I found this quiz in my email inbox. You've probably seen them a hundred times. So instead of sending it out to you all I am just going to answer it here and now. I've seen other people do this in their journals and thought it was a much better idea than inflicting it on everyone else. WHERE ARE YOU? At the computer writing this of course. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU SPOKE TO? My husband Mic. I was telling him about my day today and how I hope I'll enjoy my holidays coming up in a few weeks because things are tense at work. WHAT'S THE WEATHER LIKE? Dull grey skies, possible rain but it's lovely winter weather for flannie PJ's and snuggling under the doona with......a good book. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATRE??? I think it was Ned Kelly. Say no more. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW??? Redeeming love. Another amazing Francine Rivers novel. FAVORITE BOARD GAME??? I love word games so Scrabble, Tri Bond, Upwords, Taboo are all big favourites. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?? Don't buy them myself but I like to catch up with the worldy gossip in the New Idea or Women's Weekly every now and then. FAVOURITE SMELLS?? Cut grass, fresh bread, rain, garlic cooking in the oven, fried onions, lavender......this list goes on forever! COMFORT FOOD?? Chocolate without a doubt. FAVORITE SOUNDS?? Brer playing around the house except when it's 6am! WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?? Hurting other people when you don't mean to. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE-UP IN THE MORNING Can I sleep in any longer? Then what will I wear? FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?? Macca's cause I'm collecting the Muppet characters. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY.? I'd go on a huge holiday and travel the world. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?? Can't talk about Mic that way. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?? Cooooooooooool! WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?? 1976 Toyota Corolla. Bought it for $750 and it lasted til I started working and got yellow stickered one day on Wanneroo Rd when the police were looking for their quotas. FAVORITE DRINK Coke or choc milk FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD? Finish a lot of things, spend more time with friends. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?? Yep. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?? I like red. HOW MANY DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS HAVE YOU LIVED IN?? Derby, Geraldton and Perth - 3 FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH??? Cricket or a little football, but not much. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED?? Brer's toys and feathers from our doona. TOILET PAPER/PAPER TOWEL-OVER OR UNDER?? Over as that's the way Mic likes it uh huh uh huh. So what do you think?????

Here is my beautiful kitten named Brer. Right now I can hear her playing with something on the tiles in the kitchen. She's our cleverest cat so far. She can play fetch like a dog and she catches elastic hair bands in her paws. How cute she is!

I could say it's just so great to be back at work after a 4 day weekend. Well it is in a way, but I certainly did enjoy the time off and wouldn't mind it all over again. I do love my work though. Today we had to say farewell to our team social worker. She is going to another government job for a 15 month secondment. There seem to be so many people leaving at the moment. While I am happy for them and the great changes they look forward to, I am also sad cause I am losing friends and good work colleagues. We had a lunch today. It was at the lovely Jane Brook Estate. A wonderful little winery in the Swan Valley. I had not been there before. The gorgeous red leaves on the trees could be seen from the windows. There were large wine barrels decorating the room. We sat on big wooden bench seats and we ate beautiful broccoli, cauliflower and blue cheese soup followed by platters of olives, salad, cold meats, pesto, dips and warm bread. I've just been snuggling in a warm blanket on the couch. A great way to end a cold rainy day. I omitted the fact that I also had milk and biscuits while I sat snuggled in the blanket on the couch! You could have guessed that I had some food though.

How many times can you watch the sword fighting scene in "The Princess Bride" ???? Ask my young nephew. I think we've seen it about 15 times today. He would watch it, then rewind it, and watch it again and again. Finally this arvo I aksed him if I could please see the rest of the movie cause I have to leave tomorrow. He graciously accepted and I was allowed to see the rest of my beloved movie. I guess if I can cope with watching that sword figting scene over and over then it must be a pretty cool movie. Did I tell you it has so many classic lines? And a cute hunky hero named Westley. I think I called him Wesley yesterday. Please note the "t" in his name. Even better! We all went to church today. I love going to Bunbury church cause I get to catch up with old youth group friends. We used to hang out at youth camps over 10 years ago. We're all married and having kids now - makes me feel old. I have lots of great memories of hanging out with Bunbury youth and seeing the church grow and the building change. It's a pretty big church now and they are celebrating 70 years soon. My pastor was at Bunbury church so that was cool. I missed his sermon last week when I was in children's church. He preached it again this week. A very powerful message on getting a vision. He talked about how our altitude will determine our view and our view will determine out vision. Basically we need to get up nice and high to see the big picture or otherwise we won't see the real picture and our vision will be distorted. I wonder if that makes sense to you when you didn't hear the whole message? Just believe me when I say it was profound stuff. After church we had lunch at the Hog's Breath Cafe. We're back to my famous food topic of course. I had a yummy crispy chicken and ranch burger with the classic hogsbreath curly fries. And Sara and I shared a banana split. We should have gone for the rocky road mousse cake. The rest of the afternoon I have felt so sleepy but have managed to stay awake. Matty and I wrestled and had a swordfight and ate chocolate coated peanut MM's. What a good way to spend Sunday arvo. I will drive back to Perth tomorrow. It's time to get back to my hubby and cook him some decent meals. He is totally capable of fending for himself but I'm sure he hasn't worried about his meals too much. It is the weekend after all, so football would have been on his mind most of the time. Poor old Tiges lost again. I don't think my tipping has gone well at all.

I had another lazy day today. In the past when I have stayed with my rellies I have been awoken at about 7am when my niece and nephew were trying to be quiet and not wake Aunty Cha. They would come into my room and look to see if I was awake. Once they even tried to open my eyes. As they've grown older they've learnt not to come in the room, but I could always hear them when they got up cause they had trouble keeping their voices down. It's an inherited gene from my husband's side of the family. However, today I woke at 8am and couldn't hear them at all. They were quiet as mice. Right now I can smelly the yummy garlic smell coming from the pork roast we'll be eating tonight. I seem to mention food often - you'll notice I'm a bit of a food fan! Anyway, after a leisurely breakfast, we played shops with my niece and watched the very wonderful classic movie "The Princess Bride" with my nephew. He is a great fan of sword fights and loves the fencing scenes in this particular movie. I just love the great one liners and of course the hunky blonde hero "my Wesley". For lunch we had a sausage sizzle and then headed into town for a quick browse at the shops. Sara returned some stuff and bought a gorgeous winter coat at 20% off. I almost wish I had bought one but I did enough spending yesterday. Hopefully something as good as that coat will come along when I can buy one. My nephew had his soccer game after that. We watched him play. How cute to see 5-8 year olds running around and kicking a soccer ball. Matt especially enjoyed hanging off the goal posts when he was goalie and the ball was mostly up the other end at his team's goal posts. Matt's team won 3 - 0. It was cool to hear the coach of the losing team praise every member and tell them that it didn't matter cause they showed so much courage and did they have fun???? Yes! I had tears in my eyes listening to him. What true sportsmanship. I hope it stays with them! I think I'll go and smell the roast some more.

Don't let me go to Bunbury too often cause I always endup spending money. I guess it's because I don't go to shops when I'm working and I usually do too much on weekends to go and check out if there are any specials. Today I found some cool peasant tops at Target which were on a clearance special as it's end of season. And then I just went crazy in Big W cause they always have cool cheap stuff. I really enjoyed having a lazy day today. My first stop was dropping my niece and nephew at school. After that I hit the shops. Then I joined my sis in law for a quick Subway lunch. We couldn't find a park close enough that wasn't too wet to sit in so we sat on a limestone wall in the wind. Yummy Subway though. After lunch I decided to see if my friend who's leaving for the UK tomorrow was still down in Bunbury (as her Mum lives here). I rang her mobile and she happened to be shopping in Centrepoint Bunbury. So I joined her and it was great to be able to spend a little time with her before she leaves and give her a big farewell hug. Then I picked up my sis in law, picked up the kids and we headed home to get swimming gear. The kids has swimming lessons. We sat and watched them and read women's magazines. What a relaxing arvo. When their Dad arrived to join them for a swim after their lessons, my sis in law and I headed off to get some much needed chocolate and take away dinner. For the first time I had a chilli dog and it was yummo. Have I told you that I lo0ve 4 day weekends?

I've been watching a marathon of Friends episodes and couldn't stop watching but then I had to change the DVD So I lost momentum. A few months ago Mic bought me series 1-5 of the Friends series. I particularly like the earlier episodes and have had lots of good laughs. I'm hanging out for the episode where they eventually find out about Chandler and Monica - I never realised how long they drew that out. Must be about 8 episodes before everyone discovers they are an item. Anyway, if you love Friends too then feel free to come on over and watch them - I'll watch them over and over. You all know how much of a TV head I can be?? Tomorrow I head down to Bunbury. Someone asked me what there is to do in Bunbury....no offence Sez but I had to say not a lot. Well unless you have family there of course. You could go shopping, but then I could do that in Perth. So I said that Bunbury really is the gateway to the Southwest. You go to Bunbury to get to other places OR you go to Bunbury to spend time with your most excellent rellies. Anyway, the TV is calling me. Here I come Friends...

Watched an interesting DVD last night. We went to the video store and rented "One Hour Photo" with Robin Williams in it. It was supposed to be a thriller but if I wasn't scared then it wasn't much of a thriller if you ask me. However, I do think ole Robby played his part well and he certainly did deviate from his usual comedian like characters. See what you think for yourself. I'm hanging out for Thursday night. I have taken Friday as time of in lieu so I get a 4 day weekend. I will be travelling down to Bunbury for the weekend. It's always fun staying with my sis(ter in law) and the kids. We have loads of fun and I usually feel like I'm away on holiday even though it's a short 2 hour trip away. SO much better now we live right on top of the freeway (not literally of course) cause now it cuts half an hour off my trip down south. Feeling a bit overloaded at work. I have so many things to think about and no time to do them in. Does that sound unusual???? The biggest thing for me right now is interviewing for a locum position. It's something that takes up a lot of time and is stressful for everyone involved. Let's hope the process doesn't draw out too long and I can fit it in somewhere into my busy schedule! I'm off to home group tonight. I have been planning to go for some time but I'm pretty good at finding an excuse to not go. You know... too tired, headache, busy day, need to rest etc. Well to avoid that I told the people running it that I would go for sure. That way I'm more likely to follow through cause I'd have to ring and say I'm not going for a good reason. So tonight we are meeting and having icecream at Hillary's Boat Harbour. I should go more often eh?

Apparently my little blogspot has been missed by you all. I am sorry I have been slack. I'm quite good at starting off things with fervour and then slacking off after a time. I need deadlines and agreements to make sure I stay on task. Give me any sort of flexibility with task deadlines and I will take it. So my diary blog has been quite empty. But I am back. Thanks to those people who reminded me that my blog existed and that there were actually people reading it other than myself. What can I tell you since I have been away? Well the exciting thing for me at work last week was a little get together with several colleagues before we started work. There are several of us who are Christians and we often encourage and support each other with prayers and kind words. We decided it would be cool to get together and pray but we never got around to it until last week. I must say you feel mighty chuffed and supported at work when you can get together and pray about the tough stuff you are going through. 3 of us gathered in my office and we had 10 minutes of prayer. I recommend it. After all - prayer is just chatting to God. And starting off your day that way is very positive and sets your mind on good things. I'm trying to remember what I've been up to lately but nothing except last night comes to mind. I bet it doesn't amaze you to know that I can usually only remember what I did the day before. Everything else is blank. When I get to work on Mondays and people ask me how my weekend was I will often say "um...I think it was good" cause all I can remember is Sunday. Makes you wonder what I get up to doesn't it? So last night I went to the Eagles and Richmond footy game. Bare in mind that I have paid little attention to footy in the last few years because it has been my husband's work to watch all and any footy on telly, listen to it on radio and talk about it on the phone any hour of the day to his journo friends. As a result I have been pretty much avoiding footy. Just paying a little attention to know who's winning and who's losing. Last night was the first full game I've watched in years. IT was fun to be in the crowd of 40,000 people. It was also brave of me to sit amongst Eagles supporters with my Richmond windcheater on. I even surprised myself and yelled "Carn the Tiges" and "Matty rules" despite the glaring looks I got. It sure was fun. THere was even a fight in the crowd that got quite messy. Afterwards, my sis (ter in law), brother in law and I went out for dinner at the lovely cafe near our house. We had yummy Italian food and cause we were there late we got served quickly which was good cause I was starving. So without getting to longwinded, I'll leave it now but will endeavour to write a little more often. Now that I've said I will, I'll just have to live up to my word eh? However, notice that I did not promise!

Today I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30am with the intention of having enough time to read my Bible and have breakfast. It didn't happen cause I think I did everything too slowly. I had to meet a new employee at work for inducting her into the workplace. Once I got started ti wasn't too bad but I can honestly say I've never had a weekend so jam packed of things and then felt so tired. It was a fun weekend though. After I met the new employee I spent a bit of time fiddling around with emails, mail outs for invitations to a group we'll be running, and following up on things on my to do list. And during that I had a call from reception to ask me to chat to a guy who was arriving for a workshop that we weren't holding. Unfortunately the poor man had travelled an hour and a half to our Joondalup office on the train from Bentley. The workshop he was meant to be at was in Myaree. Very bad case of miscommunication. Wasn't much I could do except say sorry he got it wrong. I also had a home visit today. It was for a 3 year old girl who is doing pretty well with stringing words together but you can't understand her very well cause she gets most of the sounds wrong. Most of her words start with d, n, or t. She's fun to play with - lots of character! We practiced lots of sounds by posting pictures into a bird puppet's mouth, reading a specially made book of sounds, and making things with playdough that represented different sounds. SOunds like I just play all day right? It does look that way! This evening will be fun - pizza and videos with my long time primary school friend. We have been mates since year 6 when we first moved to Perth from Geraldton. She is my longest running friend. She's about to head off to travel round Australia for a few moths so we are catching up before she goes away. Pizza and videos are always a nice way to end a day and especially nice way to catch up with old friends.

I can't believe how unbelievably tired I am. I think having a half a cold doesn't help much. I say half a cold cause it's only half my nose that's dripping like tap. Yuck. Pretty soon I am going to have a raw nose from using tissues so often. This was a jam packed weekend. Friday night I went to a work friend's house for tea and a video night. We planned that late Friday afternoon. Her fiance was having a big LAN party (I think that's what it's called). Where all the mates get together at one house and they hook up all their computers and play games against one another. She didn't fell like joining them (funnily enough) and decided to ask me over for vids. I picked out "Iris" which was about an author who loses her mind to dementia. Quite a sad and depressing movie about ageing. My friend didn't mind it though, which is a good thing cause I felt bad for picking it. She made the most delicious chicken and asparagus risotto (I love that word asparagus - especially the way another good friend of mine pronounces it... you know who you are). We also ate Tim Tams the way Tim Tams should be consumed. For those who haven't tried it and are willing to take on a challenge (well worth it), you bit each end off the Tim Tam and then with a hot drink of coffee or milo you suck the liquid through the Tim Tam and then put it in your mouth. I can't begin to describe how yummy melted Tim Tams are in your mouth. However, some people think that it's a disgusting thing to do. I say try it first! My Saturday was spent doing a million and one things. Firstly I drove up the hill to look after the girl I do respite with. Then driving to the other side of Perth to Melville where I attended a Mother's Day luncheon at my mother in law's church. I had to leave early from that so I could get back home and change for the wedding. The one I've been nattering about all week. Of course it was a lovely wedding - when I eventually found the right church. Yes, I did wander up to the wrong church and realise that the guests didn't look at all familiar. I had to ask a stranger who she was there to see. I quickly realised I was at the wrong place. My wedding was across the road in a well hidden church on school grounds. In between the wedding and reception I went back to an old friend's house. We studied at Uni together and don't catch up very often. I played soccer and frisbee with her 2 year old son and looked at the house they are building. The reception was yummalicious (I like to invent new words associated with food) with light snacks followed by entree of spicy Mexican chicken fillets and a main of Red Emporer on Foxton potato rissole. And the view of the river and the Perth city lights was spectacular. Today was also a big big day with our children's program starting up again for the term. I was the main leader so I had to get to church early to set up and photocopy lots of activities on the VERY slow photocopier. The program has changed a little this term to accommodate the renovating of our room. We had lots of activity stations with video scripting, making puppets, creating a song and making boardgames as options. Most kids did pretty well at the things they chose. I had one group of older boys doing word sleuths. Their idea of fun was to find all the words they could that were not on the list of words to find. So they wrote down words like "loser" and thought it was a funny way to do the puzzle. All I have to say to that is....boys!!! After church I went up the hill for some more respite. We just sat around watching Friends DVD's and travelled to the shops to pick up some food for dinner this evening. And the last part of my weekend has been entertaining my parents and my brother and his wife. It was Mother's Day and Mum came for dinner. I didn't give myself much time to prepare so we had a quick meal of crumbed chicken fillets with potato bake and veges followed by apple crumble and cream. I didn't feel like I was much of a host cause I was feeling so tired but it was a lovely evening and cause my bro's wife has an interest in Big Brother I even got to watch some of the eviction tonight. My brother and Mic weren't too keen so they retreated to the study for a music discussion. It was good to catch up with everyone. Life gets so busy that weeks pass really quickly before I see my family sometimes. I am looking forward to next weekend - my only plans so far are to babysit Saturday night and I am not on children's church roster. Yay for a quiet weekend!

This afternoon I left work earlier than usual to go and get a wedding present for the big wedding on Saturday. For most weddings I have attended of late I have been sharing the present cost with others. And have had the luxury of someone else getting the pressie. This time it was up to me, and no sharing. I headed to Myers and David Jones to get the gift registry. Leaving it late left me with about 15 things to choose from. I did try to get a game from Myer but they had sold out. So I ended up heading to Big W for wrapping paper and to see if they had the game which they did. But when I rang Myer to tell them I was going to get the game so they could take it off the registry, the number was wrong! So I changed my mind and bought something else from House. They even gift wrapped it for me with spekky gold ribbon and all. We have just had a BBQ for dinner. We had T Bone steaks marinaded in Terryaki. You'd think T Bones were yummo but these ones haven't been particularly nice. However, the fried bread and sausages were delish.

Today I took my time getting to work. Doesn't happen very often and it felt very good to do so. My plan was to head into the shops near work to buy a small luggage case trolley for carrying toys to home visits at work. A lot of my work involves visiting families homes for providing therapy. I have found that using a toy box and separate trolley has been murderous on my back. After 5 years of working and carrying boxes full of toys, the luggage trolley in one is the way to go. Today, K Mart had a special on their luggage so I got a nice small one. It means I'll have to be careful in selecting toys to take out of the office. While I was out shopping, I also had to buy a little make up and a top to wear to the wedding next week. Normally I settle for my same old same old dresses. Today I did something out of the ordinary and bought a top that was not on special and was not at a second hand clothing store. It's a very nice top too. That must be expected when you spend a little more than usual. And then, when it comes to make up... if you know me you'll know that I hardly wear the stuff. I'm going to try though . I had know idea what was the right thing to buy and it was so expensive. Let's hope it's a good investment. I was also pretty productive once I got to work today. I managed to contact several families to make appointment times, I finished writing the newsletter and photocopied all 160 of them (that's more complicated than it sounds), had several conversations via phone about planning a group with my team and had a visit from the director general. The director liked my fake flowerpot which sits on top of my computer. The other cool thing that I did today was to read my Bible using a new daily journal called "Soul Food". I bought it from church yesterday after the big plug they gave it. It was a bit like a TV ad - "buy one today, we only have a limited number, or you'll miss out". I couldn't resist. Every day there is a chapter to read and then you select one verse that jumps out at you and you write what it means and how it applies to you. Then you write a prayer about it. The bottom of each page says "How will I be different today because of what I have just read?" I didn't think I'd find something in the passage I read today. But hey I did. Cool. A great way to start the day.

Had a pretty quiet day today. Started with church this morning. We've been building additions to our church. It's all pretty exciting too, because the building we are currently in will become the room for our older children's group which I lead. We are all excited about having a much much much larger room to run riot in. One of the kids said today that they couldn't wait but it would be a pity cause the adults won't hear us when we yell and bang against the walls. The room the we used to be in was getting tight with 25 kids each week. If any of them took their shoes off it also got really smelly. And spending time in their during the 40 degree days of summer was awful. I went for a quick trip to the Malaga markets after church. I wanted to see if I could find a nice top or dress to wear to the wedding I'll be going to next weekend. I saw a few nice things but alas they were all too small for me. The rest of the afternoon I was looking after a girl up the hill. Her parents and siblings went out for the afternoon to have some respite. We mooched around the house - Jay spent time in her room and on the couch, she was feeling pretty mellow after a late night. I spent time making newsletter templates on the laptop. Then we headed down the hill to my Mum and Dad's. I thought it'd be nice to take Mum and go buy some icecream at Macca's. Apparently Macca's had to refill their icecream machine so our icecreams were yummy but they were a bit runny. Had a big chat to Mum about their home renovation plans. Mum and Dad went to IKEA and eventually found some cabinets for their kitchen that they liked. Mum has also finally purchased some paint for the bathroom which has been in the makeover process for a good 18 months. I love to watch home renovation shows but I'm glad I don't have to actually do it myself. I know it'd be quote hard to decide on right colours and so forth. Lucky Mum and Dad eh?

I have just come home from a wild Hens Night out. We started the evening at my friend's house for cocktails. However, on arrival we were whisked up to the spare room and told to choose a wig. Seems I have a thing for wearing wigs at Hens nights lately. This time I had to choose something completely different from my own hair so I got a long, red, crimped hair style with no fringe. I think it was a very Ozzie Osborne hairstyle. So every girl had a wig. And after drinks we headed into the Olive Tree restaurant on a big bright green bus. We drove into King's Park which was rather pretty with the view of the city lights and all. Restaurant food was yummo. I had carbonara for entree, grilled snapper for mains and profiteroles for dessert. Delish! At about 11pm we were heading out the door and a rather rowdy drunk Englishman decided to join us and almost do a strip show. I'm very glad he didn't! I sat next to a girl who new friends of mine from work. She was at the same Hens night and wedding I was at a few weeks ago. Wow! Now I'm tired as - again. So it's off to bed. Catcha tomorrow.

After all that effort in trying to blog every day. I missed yesterday didn't I? I came home rather tired yesterday. I spent the last 2 evenings reading an enthralling book by Francine Rivers. She is a Christian non fiction writer. I have read a few of her books lately and they have really spoken to me. The first book was about a modern day marriage and then there was also a diary of a young woman who was a frontier woman in America during the 1800's. Both woman discovered God and that He is Lord. Sometimes I read these books and at the end of them I will say to myself "gee that was a nice story", but with this one God talked to me about how He is there for me and He is listening to me and He can help me in areas of my life that I am struggling in. So from staying up late 2 nights in a row, to read a different book about broken families and how God can restore them, I was tired and did not write yesterday. Who wanted to know that long story???? Now if you're wondering about yesterday.... Had a good session of supervision with my line manager. Had to miss supervision a lot lately so it was good to finally spend time and get through lots of issues. We also went through some feedback questionnaires that I gave to the staff I supervise. Their feedback was fairly positive but gave me some ideas on areas to work on in our department. Today we spent the whole day doing a self study package in "Alternative and Augmentative Communication" or the better way to say that mouthful is AAC. I enjoyed getting together with all the other Speech Pathologists who work for our organisation. There were about 12 of us. Lost of new faces too. It was a good way to learn and actually read some stuff in that area because we usually don't have time to do that at work. Had some cool fun playing with some software on the computer where you write a word and it automatically found a picture that was a symbol for that word. SO you ended up with a word and the associated symbol above it on the page. Once you finished the sentence and pressed enter there was the option of the computer saying the sentence back with synthesised speech. Lots of applications for a program like that where I work. Might have to look into purchasing it at some stage. We are sadly lacking in the AAC department although I did put in some orders recently and am awaiting about $3,500 worth of AAC stuff. Expensive equipment it is - but oh so much fun to play with....and of course of great benefit to those who can't or aren't yet talking! Tomorrow is respite with my friend up the hill and a Hen's night for a Uni friend of mine. So there will definitely be stories to tell about that!

It's time for another blog. I just love that word...BLOG. What do you think? Anyway, lets fill you all in on what I got up to today. To start with I got up and was eager to blog before I went to work. But it wouldn't have been very interesting for you cause all I'd done was sleep and then woken up to have a shower. So here I am late at night with more interesting things to tell you. For example: I went to a meeting this morning where we were finalising a package for all staff to use as a manual about service delivery at the place I work. I didn't say much during the meeting but listened a lot to other' peoples strong opinions, yawned (Cause I was tired, not bored) and ate a lolly. Prior to the meeting I had to find parking. Parking is a huge hassle in West Perth. Most staff have to park in 2 hour zones and then move their cars all day. Luckily, I found a space where I could parallel park. I love parallel parking and just squeezed into the spot with just the slightest bump to the car behind me. Following my ever so exciting meeting I drove up the freeway to my usual workplace and got there in time for checking emails and having lunch. Lunch is always fun cause I get to catch up with other staff that I don't see so often. Most of my mates work on other teams. One of them is pregnant - which is very exciting. The rest of my office day I spent creating the newsletter we send out each term. That's a lot of fun except that I am using Microsoft Word to create it and it'd be much better to use a proper newsletter program such as Publisher. Oh well. My friend Liz and I went walking at 5.30pm. We have been meeting once a week to walk around Lake Monger. It's always so beautiful to see the sun setting and the city lights reflecting on the water. Especially since it's heading into winter now and it's getting darker sooner. It felt like a really long walk this evening. It's been taking us about 40 minutes and I've been feeling it in my legs so I'm hoping it's effective exercise. The other day I went on the scales and realised I had actually lost 2 kg. That was a surprise. I'm a bit too scared to check again cause I'm likely to have gained it back and more with all the eating I've been doing of late. Can't go past CC's, Tim Tams, Easter chocolate, pizza and coke! The remainder of this evening I have been watching telly and reading some articles in preparation for all day training on Friday. And what will tomorrow bring? More excitement with all the meetings I have with people. But I'm sure I can find something to tell you about my beautiful cat Brer or the lovely cuisine I cook in the evening. Stay tuned.