another good reason for coffee

apparently caffeine may be linked to reduced incidence of skin cancer. that's exciting. i almost always start my day with a "soup bowl" of coffee (the mugs in australia are generally little-- zac and i found these great big mugs at a $2 shop when we first moved into this house). i usually do a 1/2 caff. coffee in mine though since it fits 2 standard coffee cups (1 scoop regular coffee and 1 scoop decaf-- unless i'm really needing a caffeine hit). unfortunately zac's doctor told him to give up coffee completely for a while to see if it helps his weird heart palpitations that the doctors don't seem to know what it is. i think that may help since when he says he has 2-4 cups a day he means 2-4 REALLY STRONG cups that probably contain the caffeine equivalent to 4-8 regular coffees. maybe he'll have to start rubbing caffeinated sunscreen on him if scientists decide that's a beneficial product to make. future beaches will no longer smell like coconut sunscreen-- everyone will smell like coffee 8)

another idiot

i almost got hit by a car on my way to work this morning. if it hadn't been for the car in front of him almost cutting me off and causing me to slow down (i was only going about 20km/h to start with) he would have got me. both cars (the one that kind of cut me off by stopping half way thru the intersection and then continuing on and the one that would have hit me) were both from some landscaping company and had trailers attached. the first car stopped at the stop sign (my street had no stop sign, they were crossing thru from a side street) and then started thru. he stopped half way thru the intersection (maybe to keep his trailer from falling off while it went over the bluestone at the start of the intersection) and that's when i slowed realizing he was gonna still be in the way when i got there. as he finished crossing the intersection i started going again then realized that the car behind it wasn't stopping for the stop sign at all but following the first car. he wasn't even looking my direction AT ALL. i stopped in the intersection just before i was in front of his car's path. he continued and as he got beside me (now on the far side of the intersection he was crossing) he looked and saw me. then he yelled at me! he yelled (quite loudly thru closed car windows) for me to get off the road!!! i was a little shaken up after having him only a couple dozen cms from hitting me and then yelling at me like i was in the wrong. a block later a car stopped and motioned for me to go thru an intersection where the car had the right of way but he stopped for me anyway. that reminded me that not all drivers are idiots (just like not all cyclists are idiots like some drivers think) but the drivers who aren't paying attention are quite scary when cycling.

big fat greek wedding

we celebrated the weekend of our 1 year anniversary by going to a wedding (our actual anniversary fell on monday this year).
zac and wombat before the wedding (no, wombat didn't come, zac just ran her in the park right before we left):

the "just married" happy couple:

it was a greek orthodox ceremony

the bridal party (minus the groomsman who must have got cut off the photo) doing a greek dance:

there was lots of greek dancing.

a bit shaky (i didn't have a tripod) picture of the city from a bridge over the yarra (we did a lot of walking to eventually get public transport home-- not fun in heels):

relatively cold

since that horrible saturday it's been "cold" here. i've worn long sleeves every day and yesterday i was FREEZING riding into work at 8am with 3 (thin-ish) layers on. my morning co-worker actually put on her winter jacket that she keeps at work while she sat outside watching the children on the verandah (the only outside play area we have until the end of the month or so). i'm sure this cold weather has helped firefighters. the winds also have been southerly since the cool change came in which is good it's stayed in one direction because it helps firefighters etc. keep the fires from spreading (although i think there are still a couple fires not under control).

fun4paws

i spotted this on another blog and thought i'd post it too. i wish we could take in one but our little beast wouldn't like a housemate of the 4 legged variety.

Fun4Paws - Dog respite care for bush fire victims needed

Fun4Paws is currently offering emergency respite care to the animals
affected by the bush fires, however there are many more animals than we have
carers.

There are large numbers of owners with nowhere to place their dogs. If you
are able to offer a place to a dog in your home, please contact myself of
Lynne Fitzsimmons and we will coordinate.

Luke - 0415 104 044 contact@fun4paws.com.au Lynne - 0428 844 810 or
lynne@fun4paws.com.au

If you are interested please let us know when your home would be available
(dates) and if you have any other pets for us to consider when placing.

Dog Listeners Australia wide have pledged $1000.00 the assist in the costs
of food, petrol etc. so we hope that all costs of looking after a dog will
be covered.

Please assist us by forwarding this email on to all of your contacts so that
together we can help the hundreds of dogs in need of temporary homes.

chatting

apparently i've taken up sleep talking. i'm pretty sure i've never done it before recently (i've had enough roommates that i'm sure someone would have heard something and said something to me). i've woken myself up doing it a few times in the past couple months. mostly its with this sort of re-occurring dream (which almost feels like an hallucination because until the last time i had the dream i always thought it was real and my eyes were open because in the dream its the exact view that i would see at nite with my eyes open in bed). in this dream a person, or monster or giant spider or basketball team (it's always different) comes into the bedroom thru the doorway and starts to step up onto the bed and walk over top of me to the other side of the bed. this is when i start yelling for them to stop. the last time i had the dream it happened just as zac was coming home from a late nite jam session with his band. i woke up to my yelling and realized i was sitting up in bed and the hall light was on (that's when i realized it hadn't been real because it was dark in the dream).
during one of the really hot nites a couple weeks ago zac woke up to me calling wombat (who was fast asleep somewhere in the house). he just told me to leave her cuz she was fine. i woke up to that and then fell back asleep (after reaching over the edge of the bed to grab what i thought was some magical "cool pillow"-- i woke up in the moring cuddling the dog's furry bed mat. not so cool but warm and stinky).
when we went to bed last nite i mentioned to zac that i was surprised didn't hear wombat get up in the middle of the nite the nite before (when zac's alarm went off we heard wombat jump off the couch and come into the bedroom. usually if she gets up during the nite she wakes me up doing her full body shake that she always does when standing up). zac said that i did hear her because i was talking to her (this was the first i knew about this). apparently wombat was sitting next to the bed staring at me and i was talking really loudly to her and making very little sense in what i was saying. that woke zac up. i woke up to zac crawling out of bed and saying something. at the time i figured he was telling me he had to go to the bathroom (and i couldn't figure out why he was telling me that in the middle of the nite). he was actually asking the dog if she wanted to go to bed or outside. she wanted out so zac let her out and then settled her back in her bed.
kinda funny that i'm doing this now. zac tends to sleep talk (especially when he's stressed). it always wakes me up and i just try talking back to him (its pretty entertaining). that usually ends up waking him up and then he gets annoyed that i woke him up (i just tell him he woke me up talking first). soon we'll probably start having conversations in our sleep (i've actually had 2 friends do this a few times when a bunch of us shared a room at camp one summer. me and another girl had insomnia and were usually awake when this happened. we would then try to join in and see if they were awake. they were definitely sleeping).

fires

the bush fires here have been horrible (as any person in australia would know and even some friends and family back home have contacted me after hearing about them on the news). its horrible seeing the number of deaths increasing every time i turn on the tv or computer (every time i log into yahoo i get the news briefs and at least 3/4 if not all the headlines are bushfire related). so many people have lost everything: home, family, friends, pets....
a lot of wildlife has also been killed or injured by the fires too
(photo taken by russell vickery/herald sun)
anyone wanting to make a donation can do so thru the red cross (as well as thru many other organizations)
for wildlife and pets/livestock donations can be made to the rspca or wildlife victoria

46.4

the temperature should never get that hot. unless its in an oven. i think the cool change is just starting to blow in now!!!! we had to go to zac's 2nd cousin's first birthday way out in the eastern suburbs. we only stayed a couple hours it was just way too hot (and windy). the a/c doesn't work properly when it gets that hot and with a lot of people inside it just got humid. outside was hot. and windy. i walked out with a plate of salad and 2 minutes later a grey/black cylinder of ash from the tip of a cigarette was lying on top of my salad. nobody right near me was even smoking. we may go over to zac's sister's in a bit for a swim (after we spend a bit of time soaking the dog down)
edited to add:
i went to the age went to the age website and was greeted with this large picture:
after scanning to see if there were any articles about fires near the outer eastern suburbs (the sky was very smoky out there) i went back to the weather graph website and saw this:
IT'S HERE!!!! THE COOL CHANGE!

little gaget

i happened to come across these measuring spoons while getting some friend's wedding gift. i LOVE these spoons. i've been looking for a new set for months (half our last set is missing and they're all off their ring so i can never find the one i need anyway). my only criteria in finding a new set was that they had to have both metric and imperial (apparently that's generally too much to ask). my favourite part about this set is they're magetic! they all stick together at the center and make a nice neat stack and don't get lost. it's also great that the 1/2 tsp and 1/2 tbsp are green (easy to spot without flipping through them all). the narrow end is supposed to be for easy use in narrow containers but i just like that it has 2 ends so if i measure a liquid and later need the same measurement for dry it's nice and easy (just use the other end). funny that one simple little kitchen utensil makes things so much easier. now i gotta see if they make a measuring cup set like this......

auntumn-y

(image from the age website. taken by craig abraham)
not sure what suburb the photo is from but it is exactly what my ride to work looks like. kinda scary cuz it's not autumn. all the non-native maple and other deciduous trees are dropping all their leaves (the street i ride down was completely cleaned by a street cleaner less than 2 days ago too and it looks just like the above street again the leaves are falling so fast). the heat wave got to them. we haven't had rain in at least a couple weeks but i'm sure even when it rains these trees don't get enough water because their roots are mostly under pavement. their only hope is a burst pipe under the pavement.

not ready

last nite was the first time we've seen temps below 20C in over a week. the days have been nice and warm (but kinda humid-- and our suburb didn't get to see any of the rain that did fall). the next couple days are looking similar but then saturday is now forecast for 43C. it's way too soon to reach those temps again. at least its only gonna be 1 day not 4 (or 7 like adelaide had)-- the next day goes back to 25C. it might change our plans slightly though. we're supposed to go to zac's second cousin's 1st birthday in early afternoon. we may have to wait until a bit later for the dog's sake or just go for a couple hours. we'll have to see how fast the house heats up.

pure exhaustion

26 kids (all of whom have only had 1 other day of kinder with us, a day where they came with only 12 others), no yard to use because it's being completely redeveloped (and because they couldn't work in the extreme heat all last week the workers are a week behind), several tears (although i was surprised there weren't more tears), lots of kids wondering around lost and not sure what to do at points (or not following instructions on what they should be doing), lots of cleaning up very large messes (i'm sure i packed every block away at least twice today), hearing my name being called out in a whiny tone over and over and over again (mostly the same 1 child but a few others did it at points too). i think i need to go to bed (less than 13 hours before i have to start at it all over again).
it'll be good when they all get the kinder routine down and make some new friends.