being grown up

a box of candle making supplies i ordered arrived this morning. every time i get a package and can't find the scissors (or they just aren't within arms reach of where i put the box down) i grab a pen to stab open the tape on the box. i was never allowed to do this growing up (if i ever got caught i'd be in trouble). my mom always told me that i'd wreck the pen by doing it (pens were often precious in our house, they often dissappeared into that weird black hole where they met up with lost socks and random other household items). i think 90% of packages that i've received since i moved out of home over 11 years ago have been opened with pens-- and i've never broken one yet!

the outside world

now that we leave the front door open so much wombat spends a lot of time in the hallway watching the world outside

freudian slip(?) and mispronounced words

the poor news woman on sbs made a pretty horrible slip tonite (she caught herself right before she finished the word and corrected herself but it was kinda funny-- and a bit horrible at the same time). she was talking about an australian soldier who died and that the corpse was being transported somewhere except it came out as carcass instead of corpse.

a kid at work has organic sultanas (raisins) in his lunch some days. he's very proud of them and a few weeks ago he went up to one of the teachers and said "guess what. i have mechanic sultanas in my lunch!" (instead of organic). she found it pretty funny and instead of correcting him she told him to go tell someone else. now every time we see the little box of sultanas somebody always goes up to him and asks "what kind of sultanas do you have?" nobody ever corrects him though (its our little bit of amusement during part of the day when its usually pretty chaotic. this kid also mispronounces some other words (or just uses a completely wrong word). like one day when his clams were up (glands). he's a funny kid. we probably should start correcting him though otherwise he could end up one of those people that go thru life saying things like libarry and chimley (not so funny when your doing it at 50 or older) and talking about all the 'mechanic' produce at he gets from the shops.

a little taste of home

we went to the discount wine place up the road to stock up on some wine (the bottles are only cheap if you get a half dozen-- but you can mix the half dozen). they had a new (well since the last time we went there probably 8 or 10 months ago) beer fridge at the front of the shop. as we were paying for the wine zac pointed out the labatts. on the bottom shelf they had single beers for sale. there was a labatts!! i had to get it cuz it tastes like home (although last time we were there i didn't have 1 labatts or kokanee because i fell in love with all the little microbrews around vancouver and victoria). when i went to pay for it the guy told me that i should try a different beer (some german on or something that i'd never heard of) because the labatts was expensive. zac just kept trying to explain to him that i was canadian, that's why i wanted it (and i'm sure its 50 cents cheaper than the other place in st kilda that sells them-- and a million other import beers from all over the world). i'm excited i can get one for a treat so close to home! basically zac used the analogy of that's like buying a vb for $4 in canada (this coming from the guy who payed $5 for a can of tecate last weekend because it was a mexican themed bar so he wanted a mexican beer-- i'm sure we paid less than a dollar for those in san diego).
anyway, it was my little taste of canada for the weekend. 8)

out with the old, in with the new

i was pretty happy last nite when we realized australia was gonna have a new prime minister. he's not my first choice (if i could actually vote-- another year or so before i can become a citizen) but i'm sure its gonna be a huge step up from howard. there was a lot of celebrating around our neighbourhood last nite (and i'm sure around most of the country).

more weather

i'm home sick again (this time my head is filled with whatever it fills with when you're congested). i've taken stuff for it but psuedophedrine causes me to sleep (and they put it all non-drowsy stuff cuz its supposed to keep you alert and awake). i slept for 3 hrs and now i just feel all groggy but its too hot and windy to sleep (and i can't shut the windows or i'll suffocate).
look at that wind "chill" (the bottom line):

its almost 39C!!! we're completely out of fruit so i can't make myself some nice smoothies today 8(
i'm ready for a break from all this heat (tomorrow is forcasted for a low of 15C-- yea!!-- and a high of 19C. it'll probably be horrible for my cold (a lot of people get sick in spring and autumn here because of the quick weather changes and your body doesn't know what to do).

i'm gonna go check on the soy ice cream i saw in the freezer-- hopefully there's more than 2 spoonfuls left cuz i think that's what i'll be dining on most of today-- great nutrients for a cold 8). maybe zac will get home early and bring some fruit. or maybe i'll feel less groggy later and be able to walk the 90 sec to 7-11 to find some nice cold treats. or maybe the cool change will just come early and i'll be able to cook some soup or something......

its gonna be hot

we're still a couple weeks away from the official start of summer but already its getting a bit too hot. its worse during the nite when it doesn't cool down (especially when there's no breeze to even blow thru the open windows). tonite its only supposed to get down to 23C (i degree cooler than it is now). the main reason i decided not to call into work sick today (i called in sick friday cuz i couldn't talk or swallow my throat hurt so bad. today my extremely sore throat turned into a cold) was because work has air conditioning (and as of last thursday not just in the 2 rooms the kids are in but also in all the offices so even my tea break is nice now). i'm hoping the forecasts are right and tomorrow at some point a cool change is supposed to come in and then we'll be back to normal mildly cool nites and warm to hot days. now i'm gonna go wet the dog down (again) and search for my amazing cool pack my mom got me (it looks a bit like a small scarf and its filled with those beads that absorb water-- soak it in water for a few min then wrap it around your neck. keeps you a bit cool for ages).

the moon

this picture was taken thru zac's telescope with our slr camera. i got bored last nite and decided to pull out his telescope that hasn't been used in several years. i managed to find the moon pretty quickly (only cuz i'd been playing around with denise's new telescope in paynesville and all my o.e. knowledge of telescopes came back to me). i could have got a clearer shot if i'd put the camera on a tri-pod but i couldn't be bothered to do any more set up last nite. maybe when the moon is full next weekend i'll set it all up again and use a tri-pod for the camera.

wombi!

she's cool (and sunsmart):

her many sleeping positions (these were taken at 2 different times the same nite. both times she was dead to the world-- except the stretching picture but she went right back to dead when the stretch finished):

looks really uncomfortable but i've caught her in this position several other times when i didn't take photos and she sleeps for ages like that.

it's here!

mango season has arrived!! and since zac works right by one of the markets he can bring home lots of delicious and cheap mangos (so far this is the only one i've seen but he keeps telling me about all the ones he has for lunch at work).

are people really this stupid?

i was just cleaning out my "my pictures" folder and i came across this, which i'm pretty sure i saved from some blog earlier this year to show zac. you might have to double click the photo to read it.

happy 7/11!!

today being 7/11 in australia it was 7/11 day. you go in there and say "happy 7/11 day" to the employee behind the counter and you get a free little slurpee. the one above is mine minus the part i drank on the 2 min walk home plus a little bit of tequila and contreau (mmmmm.....slurpee margarita).

relaxing in paynesville

since i my work decided to close for monday since tuesday was cup day (gotta love a day off for a horse race) i went down to paynesville to see denise's new place for the extra long weekend. zac couldn't get monday off so he stayed back with the doglet.
unfortunately the weather didn't co-operate much so saturday and sunday it rained most of the day and nite and was really windy/stormy. we mostly sat around having extended happy hours and visiting. it finally started to clear up on monday so monday afternoon we went out on zac's uncle's boat. apparently i was the skipper (according to my coffee mug):

the view of the boat docks as we headed away (and the impending storm rising in the distance:
lots of swans out on the lake:

unfortunately the storm we thought was a ways off hit us while we were out. it got fairly choppy and rainy for a bit but then cleared up so we motored down the canals to look at all the amazing homes.
the news around melbourne kept saying that gippsland was flooded. gippsland is a pretty massive area. paynesville was NOT flooded from the storms (although there were some large puddles/wetlands formed fields around town and a few buildings did have some water damage-- nothing like a few months ago though). i think it was more south gippsland that flooded. now that we're back in melbourne its been great weather-- nice and sunny and mildly warm.