blog overhaul

Hi all.. I have been playing with wordpress and quite like it. Therefore I have relocated my blog to my own domain. It is still being tweaked and some things went a bit screwy on the import so I am fixing those but otherwise it is still as it was. I will be updating over there from now on.

Here.

I haven't been in for a while. I've not known what to say as we had some sad news last week. It's not my story to tell, but that of my best friend. Suffice to say, I've tried to do whatever I can to help. I wish I could do more and I hate that I can't just drop by for a kindly visit or to be of practical assistance. Why hasn't someone invented molecular transportation .. or translocation.. or whatever?!
I'm struggling to deal with it even as an outsider. I can't put my finger on it exactly. I guess I feel like I don't deserve to have the depth of emotion I'm experiencing because I'm an outsider. Gah! DOes that even make sense? Well, I don't know and I frequently send my brain on feedback loops just thinking about it.

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Onto more trivial events.

I didn't get that job I went for.
They left a message on Wednesday which got me all excited, then finally called again on Thursday to say...


NO!?


Who gets a 'no' phone call? Jebus. They could have sent me a letter rather than make me deal with the rejection on the phone.

I did get feedback though. Elizabeth said they decided to hire someone with more arts focus. She said she noticed my resume had listed experience in radio and she was hoping I'd bring it up in the interview but I didn't make that connection.

I must remember that mind-reading interview technique for next time.

I was pretty disappointed about it then but I've moved on.

On the TTC front we didn't try very hard last month. I didn't temp as I just wanted a break from it. I've started back up again but have found the new thermometer I have is giving wildly bizarre graphs compared to the old one. So I'm temping with both as a test and will see what I come out with at the end. According to Psychic Cousin I am due to get pregnant next month or the month after. Perhaps that's why I've been in CBF mode.

I'm still visiting the naturopath regularly. I enjoy chatting with him as it's a bit like cheap counselling. Last time we spoke he told me to replay scenarios in my head from when I've achieved something I wanted. Aparently it reprogrammes the brain into believing I can indeed achieve things. I try to do this as some form of meditation but I've ended up just dozing off.

I've had the urge to make another garden bed but I have still got loads of space in the existing one. I should continue with that before I start another.

The weekend

A while ago a tomato seed germinated in amongst my geraniums. I thought the seedling might have been something useful rather than a weed so I let it grow. I'm glad I did. Here's my first tomato! I forget which variety it is but it's a roma-looking cherry tomato. I'll have to go through my seed packets and see what it might be.



Mosaic class was good on Saturday. I've increased my repertoire of tile cuts. Here's the first piece I did. A photo frame. The teacher was great. She used to be a policy analyst and wound up in mosaic as a full-time artist. She didn't plan it apparently, just landed there somehow.



Here's the next piece I did. A trivet for the kitchen.





Fraser had a good time with Nana and Pop. They took him to the park and he went down the slides and ran himself out. He had a 2.5 hour nap!!

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This morning I had my job interview. It was with a panel of 3 women. The position is an administration assistant to the Regional Arts Development Officer. She spends most of the week on the road going around the district. The admin assistant mans the office 2 days a week taking calls from members, photocopying, filing and just generally helping the RADO.
I think the interview went well. I should find out next week.

All is right with the world...

ThE West Wing is back on TV. ABC bought it and have started screening it from Series 4. So we've gone back aways but that's fine. I love watching it now with subtitles. We didn't have that luxury before. The dialogue is so quick sometimes that it's easy to miss crucial bits.

TAFE was fine. They've restructured the course and we are now provided with b&w film to take around the campus. The current project is to capture life at TAFE and choice shots will doubt be used in promotional literature. Nonetheless the pressure is off for taking rolls of filsm out of class time. Not to mention the expense of $10 per roll every week.

I have my job interview on Sunday. Bindy has coached me on an appropriate weakness to talk about should that horrid question be asked. I'm sure I will have to iron something to wear. Yay for laziness! The ironing board has been up since I hemmed Fraser's curtains.

Savanna and Fraser had a play-date down here yesterday. I love that they enjoy playing together. I even did half a page of scrapbooking with Jane inspiring me. Finally got out all the gear Mum gave me for Christmas '04. I'm trying to get Fraser's pictorial life story in order. I half video tapes around the place, photos, digital photos, partly filled out baby books. Thank god for my recording everything here because I can search back for all the info missing in the books and fill it out.

Sydney tonight and tomorrow. Looking forward to some uninterrupted conversation with Keda. I am also pining for the baby shower weekend coming up in a month's time as I will be child-free for a whole overnight stay. W00p! Nothing against my little shadow. I love him dearly and just thinking of him now makes me teary (WTF?!) but my Lord, a whole weekend is precious gold.

Ebay sales are going well. Some don't sell but that's life. I have several finishing today. Will be posting off on Monday.

Well that's it from me. Have a lovely weekend.

Sell! Sell! Sell!

I have been Ebaying like a demon. I'm going through my stockpile of 90s indie records and listing them for auction. Any that don't sell I will take up to Red Eye records in Sydney and trade them for something more practical. I'm just tired of having stuff hanging around that isn't used or appreciated anymore. I'm not interested in the reminder of my early 20s that I squandered on being normal.
Flog it all, I say!

Chops seems to be here to stay. We left the gate open since last Wednesday and even though she's gone out a few times, she keeps coming back. Maybe she's happy being a pet. In any case, she must have got the hint becuase i haven't heard her bleating in the early hours since then.

TAFE goes back tomorrow. I've only taken 2 rolls of film in the break so the teacher won't be too impressed, I bet.

In other artistic news, I have a mosaic workshop to go to on Saturday with Miss K and it inspired me to go through all my mosaic books. I've had a creative brainwave to do some mosaic wall art for the bare brick wall outside our bedroom on the verandah. It will have chooks on it. I'ev done a rough sketch and will keep it aside until I source the materials to do it. I'll have to figure out how one securely attaches such a thing to the wall.

w00p!

Not even one hour after I finished posting my last entry I got a call for an interview for that arts admin job. The interview is on Sunday 26th Feb. Wish me luck.

herbal help

I had an enormous post ready to go about the appointment with the naturopath last Friday but my browser crashed and I couldn't be assed writing it all out again until now.

The appointment went well. I felt like I made a real connection with this guy. He asked lots of questions, looked at my eyes, asked more questions. Do you get headaches? Do you feel tired at any times through the day? Usual stuff.

So after all that he says 'without intending to sound mean, I'm really glad you're NOT pregnant right now'. Apparently, my body is sapped of energy and needs rest and recuperation. Focus on that for 3 months. With all the talking we did I realised that I had a very hectic 12 months after Fraser was born. We had the dramas we had with his feeding and screaming, then Matt's work dramas and me going back to full time work, then we moved. So I was on the go the whole time and now my body has given up in the hopes of my mind recognising that it needs to slow down as well. I am in a slump.

Stephen (the naturopath) also advised me on how and when to eat through the day so I don't have my mid-afternoon faze-out. If I keep my blood sugar levels on track that will level out my moods and hormones. I'm on St Johns Wort 3 times a day and 4 valerian tabs before bed to help me sleep more effectively.
I've been told to give myself permission to have guilt-free rest time, do the bare minimum for the next few months and put off thinking about all the non-critical stuff that's been bothering me - such as landscaping, patios and lawns. All those are to be reassessed on the 1st of May. Which is good as we just don't have the money to chuck at those things right now. When I think about how if things had gone to my original plan I would have a newborn right now, I am glad that things didn't go that way. I still feel like I'm getting older and the gap between Fraser and #2 is getting wider and wider and that sucks. But there's not much I can do about that, so I need to stop thinking about it.

Stephen asked me what my long term intentions were should pregnancy be difficult to attain. I said that I was pretty definite about not going the injectibles, IVF, adoption route. Que sera, sera. At some point in the timeline we'll just make the decision to get on with our lives as is.

In the meantime I'm looking for part-time work. I've applied for an administration role, a retail job and some sort of sales or assistant role at the newspaper. The last two jobs i notced after the cut-off date but applied anyway so I'm not holding my breath there. The admin role really looks good but I've heard lots of people have applied so yeh, not too confident. Ahh well. I'll just have to keep trying.
I'm also re-reading my '1994 What Colour is Your Parachute' to try and find out where I should be heading for finding a new career path.

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Last Thursday I saw a snake. It's the first time I've seen one in the almost-12 months that we've lived here. It was a brown snake and it was right up at the [closed] back door. I called my neighbour and asked them what the recommended course of action is when we spot a snake. She sent Tony over with the shotgun. He had a poke around but by the time he'd got here the snake had slithered off somewhere. I'm just glad we were indoors at the time.

It's that time of year when the snakes come out to eat and fatten up for winter hibernation.

Twooooo!

Happy 2nd Birthday Fraser!

We had a great day today. We put on a little party for Fraser's birthday. I made him a Bob the BUilder cake, and we had blue and yellow streamers and little balloons.



I'm not sure that he really understands that it's his birthday but he certainly understands presents. He loves his IKEA train set ("chooo-chooo"), and he also got some duplo, a mega-blocks helicopter, some clothes and pyjamas, amongst other bits and pieces. We gave him a red wagon and a tea set. Fraser was pretty impressed with those too.
He had a great time playing with cousin Savanna and friends Amy & Luke.

In other news.. I saw this tiny frog on the kitchen window sill the other day.