a good day

The day started out fairly normal with my weekly trip to the chiropractor to get put back together, followed by a walk. After I got back I gave Steve a ring and arranged to go over to his place before work to give my nephew (now 5 weeks old) his blue cotton sun hat, and to go with Steve to see the guy who did all his tatts, to give him my design and arrange to get it done. Riley looks absolutely adorable in his floppy hat, and at this stage I am getting the tatt done on Thursday, inbetween helping Chris move and work (what? me over-schedule myself? never!). Steve was upset that he won't be able to go with me as he's working, but at least I'll be able to drop in to see Chris (my sister in law, not the boy) and Riley afterwards.

I went straight to work from the tattoo place for a busy, but mostly pleasant, shift, and on the way home from work stopped for petrol, which I got for 95.9! yes, you read that right. 95.9 cents, including the discount voucher, I can't remember the last time I paid under $1, probably at least a year ago. So all in all a fairly good day. Now I just have to keep myself awake until its time to pick the boy up from work.

Spotlight

Reading: Blood Rites by Jim Butcher, book six of the Dresden Files. Fantasy/ mystery/ crime series about Harry Dresden, a professional wizard and private investigator. This is necessary reading for anyone who's into the whole 'monsters are real and exist right under our noses' vibe. Very well written and witty, this is the kind of series that will have people wondering what you're grinning at.

Watching: Currently working my way through season 5 of Buffy. Up to my least favourite story arc at the moment and coming up on what, for me, is one of the the worst episodes ever, for my own personal reasons, not because its a bad episode. I will persevere however.

Anticipating: Getting my tattoo, and going to the Evanescence convert and Killing Heidi at the zoo for my birthday.

Putting off: Putting the clean washing away

For Lunch: Pizza! Yep. gluten, yeast, egg and dairy free pizza. What was in it you ask? soy cheese, ham and pineapple topping, and I'm not sure what the base was made out of, but it came out pretty good.

For Dinner: Ah, one of life's great questions, to which I'm sure there is a great answer. I'll find out what it is in a few hours.

My cat likes to hide in boxes

The cat from Berlin played the violin


but my cat likes to hide in boxes


The cat from Spain flew an aeroplane


but my cat likes to hide in boxes


The cat from France likes to sing and dance


but my cat likes to hide in boxes

So goes one of my favourite children's books, aptly titled 'my cat likes to hide in boxes', which as a child I could recite word for word. I can't remember what the cats from Brazil, Norway and all the other countries liked to do now. Mum?


Sumi is proudly upholding the cat tradition of finding pleasure in the simple things in life. She was therefore quite amenable to the idea of Chris moving in, as long as the process involved plenty of boxes. The other item Sumi takes great pleasure in is bags, both canvas and the forbidden plastic. She is not above stealing a shopping bag from the table to this end, in fact taking it as being her Bast given right, and, as long as it isn't plastic, is generally indulged.

Perhaps this obsession with bags and boxes dates back to her R.S.P.C.A days where her life revolved around trying to convince some kind soul to take her and her offspring home. Suki naturally loves bags and boxes as well, but not quite to the same extent as her mother, and this, combined with her tendency to be distracted by the camera, leads to Sumi being the queen of the photo opportunity.

[added later] Sumi has claimed the box in the first photo as her own. It now lives in the laundry.

Keeping myself awake

Well here I am on my fortnightly all-nighter, should be interesting trying to stay awake given that I'm already tired. I slept in til 10.30 today and tried to have an afternoon nap but failed miserably. Being an insomniac might generally be helpful in getting through an all nighter but unfortunately it doesn't help one to prepare for them.

Active night shifts are generally fairly uneventful, they consist of a couple of hours housework (which is best spaced out over the course of the night), hourly checks on the clients, and from 6am onwards assisting clients with getting ready for day placements. This leaves a fair bit of free time, which I generally spend watching dvd's or reading, and occasionally when I feel like I'm about to fall asleep, doing random things like jogging up and down the hallway. Up until a few weeks ago I was having fortnightly Buffy marathons, as I find short familiar story lines are best for when I'm trying to stay awake, but since Chris has gotten into Buffy and we are watching it together I can't do that unless I want to watch them twice, so I've tonight I've brought 'The Producers', 'As Good as it Gets', 'The Castle' and the second Carl Barron dvd. I won't watch all of them but I always bring more than I need in case I change my mind.

Change of subject, since I haven't been blogging regularly I guess I should sum up whats been happening lately, on the off chance that anyone other than mum and the boy check this. If you do, leave a comment, even if only to say hello! I'd post more often if I knew people were checking.

The main thing happening in my life at the moment is that Chris has moved in, or is in the process of doing so at least... Still has a fair bit of stuff at his old place as he has to rent a trailer, not to mention a car with a tow bar, to move some of it. The small stuff has been coming in dribs and drabs over the last week or so. Its going well, really enjoying having him around. My house mate is looking for another place but is happy to have another person to share the rent in the meantime, she's actually been quite pleasant to be around lately. Chris and I haven't decided whether or not to get someone else in once she moves. Tonight will be his first night staying at my place without me being there... wonder if it'll feel weird? He finishes work at midnight and has to train it back (also for the first time). Should get a call from him once he's on the train.

The other news is I have finalised my tatt design and my brother is going with me to see the guy who did his soon... more on that to come.

Speaking of my brother, my nephew Riley is now a month old, and cute as can be. I'll post photo's the next time I'm using from my own computer.

Well I guess thats enough for now, until next time!

Nadie

MeMe: 6 weird things about me

tagged by mum

• All my novels are arranged in alphabetical order by author, and have been for as long as I've had enough to warrant having a bookcase (since I was about 8 I think). Non-Fiction is arranged by genre. DVD's and CD's are also in alphabetical order. This is genetic, my mum has always done it, and her dad was a librarian. Mum takes it to the extreme of having multiple bookcases devoted to different genres. When we lived together it was not unusual to get a phone call from her at the book store asking me to go to the 2nd fantasy bookcase and look under such and such author to see what she was missing in a set. To me it makes perfect sense to arrange my books this way, I have enough of them that to not have some kind of system seems silly, otherwise how would I find what I want? Once you organise one collection in this way (books), it is a natural progression to do it with others. Yet people continue to find it amusing that I alphabetize stuff, so I put it forward as being a weird trait of mine. You be the judge.
• I carry on conversations with animals, including voicing what I believe must be going through their heads.
  
• If I am transporting a teddy bear or similar, I will avoid covering its face, especially with plastic, as it could suffocate.
• I count how far into something I am and work out what percentage is left, for example I am up to page x so I am halfway through the book. I was annoyed when I replaced my old dvd player because you could switch the display on it from how many minutes had elapsed to how many left. No other player I've seen has had that function. If there were more people like me around, that would be a standard feature.
• I sing in the shower, especially if I know I'm home alone. Gotta love those bathroom acoustics. I also sing in the car, or wherever else I happen to be.
  
• I am disturbingly like my mum in all my eccentricities, except possibly the shower one. Haven't caught her at that, but I know she sings everywhere else.
  

I don't know 6 people with blogs who haven't already done this so I'm just gonna tag Nat, and Chris and anyone else who feels like it can put theirs as a comment

We Have Normality

Well, its all over, the Chrissy decorations are away for another year. They would have been down yesterday if not for the fact that it was about 35C and humid, and it's just not worth wrestling a 6' tree in that kind of heat just for the sake of having it away on the right day.

The fur squad are rather disgruntled about the whole deal, they were very enthusiastic about the ritual taking of the ornaments from the tree, but were decidedly miffed when said ornaments wound up in a box and the lid went on. There was the last ditch chewing of the tree as it went into the box, and even an attempted stowing away, and of course the swiping of the last ball ornament and playing four-paw soccer from one end of the (admittedly small) house to the other and back again until it was confiscated.

I have faith that I have not seen the last of the ornaments, I am sure there are several lying hidden around the house waiting to be found. The tree looked quite sad in the end, with its strings of silver beads half pulled off and gaps in the decorations. I lost count of the number of ornaments the girls appropriated, mainly because as soon as they managed to get them off the tree they would get them as far away as they could, making a tally difficult. They love batting the balls around the place, but they were quick to discover that the real fun lay in the cheap little fake pressies and drum kits, I kept wondering why I was finding little cubes of styrofoam, and what looked like silver chocolate wrappers around the house, and then I saw one of them at it. Suki would single out a pressie ornament to take from the tree, take it into the next room, and proceed to unwrap it! It must have been so disappointing for her that they all contained the same thing, but she is nothing if not persistent. They have also disassembled a number of little drum kits. This is why you should always give pets a Christmas present, if you don't, they'll pick their own! I imagine that I will be throwing out lots of stray ornament bits over the next few days.

Despite the number of disassembled ornaments, I discovered today that my collection has reached critical mass: what fitted in one box last year, is now flowing over into several. I don't begrudge the girls the ornaments they took, as they limited themselves to the cheap 'my first Christmas' stuff, which was really just filler anyway, and from the look of how much I've acquired since the tree went up, wouldn't have made it out next year anyway.