on the same page

yesterday was the most horrible day at work. it wasn't really anything big (mostly) but a lot of repeated little things (several difficult children that were at their worst), an issue between some staff, a photographer trying to get children's photos (even on the best day that's gonna be somewhat disruptive but on a bad day.....). i pretty much ran out of the building at the end of the day (10 minutes after i was supposed to because of issues). i got home and poured a nice big glass of wine (i learned that white wine doesn't seem to go off after it's opened-- i had a bottle of white in the fridge that when i pulled it out i realized it was opened and i hadn't touched it for a month or so. it smelled good and tasted good). that relaxed me a bit. then when zac got home we went for a his belated birthday dinner which was really good (lots of tamarind "fish" at white lotus).
today when i got in to work, me and my morning co-worked debriefed. we both had left work yesterday feeling the day was horribly stressful. when my afternoon co-worker came in we also talked about it (and i assured her that so far today had been really nice and i was feeling much better about work). even though we all agreed that the day was HORRIBLE yesterday it was oddly comforting to know our whole team felt it. we (me and my afternoon co-worker) both feel really bad for our other co-worker from yesterday who doesn't work today. even though she had today as a break from kinder she doesn't get to see how nice and quite thursdays can be (especially after the most horrible wednesday ever).

flower girl

this morning one of the children asked my co-worker where her friend was. my co-worker explained that she wouldn't be here the rest of the week because she was off to a wedding where she was going to get dressed up and be a flower girl. the girl walked off to a group of friends and said "guess what! krista won't be here today because she's going to be dressed up as a flower and go to a flower wedding!" i can just imagine the image the girl has got in her head about what it means to be a "flower girl" (and apparently watching 2 flowers wed). i think she'll be slightly disappointed at the photos her friend will bring next week of her dressed up just in a pretty dress, possibly holding some flowers.

news?

the picture below is a screen view of the top news stories according to yahoo (the homepage when i log into my email). check out the second one up from the bottom:that's news?

save the human

good little video about why people need to consider veganism

i've been doing pretty good with going vegan lately. work is my biggest issue. i'm always hungry on my tea break and if there is food in the kitchen it's generally cakes, biscuits or crackers and cheese or something (although there's been some dried fruit and nuts this week which is nice but we have to make sure we are careful with the nuts because of children with nut allergies). i need to remember to bring my own vegan snacks in (one of my co-workers is also vegan but is also gluten free so i'll have to get some gluten free flour to make us some special treats).

random moment

we were watching the latest episode of the office and my mind started to wander for a second. it was just as dwight and michael were walking down the street. i think michael was trying to figure out what dwight was thinking about. michael asked dwight "are you thinking about nachos?" I WAS THINKING ABOUT NACHOS (dwight wasn't though). it was really weird. i don't think zac really believes me when i told him that i was thinking of nachos. right before that scene i'd noticed the beer can and mexican imported chilli beer bottle on the table from the other nite. it made me think about how we are going to a mexican bar later this afternoon for zac's birthday. i started thinking nachos (without cheese) might be good when we get there. that's when michael asked the question.
weird.

rain (and other stuff)

the video is pretty horrible quality (this is why it's good to NOT walk while filming) but its one of the best sounds in the world-- only since i've moved away from vancouver-- so make sure the volume is up)

the rainbow resulting from the storm:

(the green pole is part of our neighbour's lovely new trampoline which they put right against the fence so every time they're on it-- parents included-- they see our whole yard and into our bathroom)
the sky after the storm:

nothing to do with the storm but this morning i heard the fire from a hot air balloon (they seem to go kind of close to us early each morning but you usually can't hear the sound unless you listen for it). i walked outside and it was almost over our house:

golden plains (and the greenest grass ever)

i was hoping some of our friends would upload some photos i could steal borrow but so far there's nothing (we didn't take the slr and our compact one isn't working well enough to bother taking along). i did manage to find a couple flickr shots from the aunty meredith photostream of the camping area (as seen from the top of the meredith eye-- ferris wheel) and the amphitheatre: (both photos by Mia Mala McDonald)
it was a good festival weekend though. the only rain we saw was a bit of drizzle for about 5 minutes just before we arrived at the gates. it was FREEZING at nite though (i think it got to 5C on sunday nite). fortunately i prepared for the cold nites and had gloves and a beanie and LOTS of layers (was still pretty cold sitting at the campsite after the sun went down but the amphitheatre was ok). the days weren't too hot (only 22C) which was good but the sun was quite warm when it actually came out. there were a lot of good bands playing (including a couple i'd never heard of but i was glad we were hanging around the amphitheatre and heard them): mogwai, black mountain, the drones, my disco, bridezilla, old crow medicine machine, luluc, you am i.....
the amphitheatre was covered in the thickest, greenest grass i think i've seen since the last time we were in canada. it was amazing. so soft and good for sitting in. it was looking pretty trampled and dirty by the end of the weekend but it was still there and mostly alive. of course the camping areas were EXTREMELY dry and dusty but i'm sure the rain we'd had over the week before the festival probably cut down the dust a bit from what it could have been.
it was a good weekend though. good bands. good friends. good weather. lots of fun.

in with a bang

autumn has definitely hit melbourne (other than tuesday's 32C). i wore socks and shoes for the first time in almost 2 months today (if i could have made it thru the long weekend it would have been 2 months). i even went thru 2 pairs of socks because it rained on 3 of 4 trips between work and home so i changed my wet socks at lunch only to get the next pair wet on the ride back to work. at least i had all my gortex gear on so other than wet feet (i didn't want to wear my gortex hiking boots to work) i was warm and dry. the rain has been nice though. very much needed (the grass in all the parks is still bright yellow though) and it's helped with the remaining fires around the state too. snow even fell in the mountains!!

dying of laughter

funniest thing i've seen all week:

beach

we went down to barwon heads for the weekend to celebrate our first anniversary. i found this really cute little dog friendly cottage for us. it was perfect other than 2 yappy jack russells next door. fortunately wombat was having an amazing dog weekend and pretty much ignored them other than a couple times where she was sniffing around the fence line (which was just bamboo and so the dogs could see each other anywhere the vines didn't cover) and the dogs came up to the fence and yapped away at her. she growled and barked back (understandably) so we had to drag her away and then she was fine (no obsessive trying to go back to the fence and be aggressive). it did mean we couldn't just let her roam the perfect little backyard without supervision though.



sleeping on the patio area:

sitting at the front door watching the world go by (exhausted from the beach):

13th beach area (where wombat got to play fetch):

playing fetch:

sandy nose:

wombat had a great weekend with her dog behaviour. first she showed us how well she could ignore the yappy dogs (and the other growly dog behind us that was growling when the yappers went crazy at it). then she did well with all the dogs at the nude beach (we take her there cuz the beach is usually deserted. this time there were LOTS of people and dogs there). we tried to make her go swimming there (zac went in and i went up to my knees-- the water was FREEZING!) but she wouldn't go in more than her toes. we even ran into a dog her size on the trail coming back up and she did very well (we did put her into a corner and surrounded her while the 2 guys with the other dog almost carried their curious big dog past).
the next day we took her for a big walk to the main strip in barwon heads (the house was about 2km from there). we ended up actually walking down the entire main strip with her (when we were there for our wedding last year we kept saying how there was no way she could do that because of the amount of dogs on the strip). she did very well (although she did get a lot of stares because of her muzzle but she was well behaved and didn't do any crazy gowling or jumping/lunging at other dogs). we had lunch at the place we had our wedding reception with wombat (it's now just a take-away place on weekends and the rest of the property is a used furniture shop) and walked along the beach with her. we drove her up to 13th beach area and found an area free of dogs where we think she's allowed off lead (?) and had a big game of fetch. in the early evening we took her for a walk in the trails by the oval near our holiday house. before we left on sunday we even got to have coffee at a cafe on the strip with wombat at our feet (although zac commented that she did seem more freaked out about being with us in the fenced in cafe courtyard than locked in the car byherself). poor dog came home exhausted (i was a bit tired too but we turned around right after we arrived home and walked up to the sydney rd st party for the next several hours).