All good things must end

Daylight savings is nearing its end *snif*. It was still dark yesterday morning when the 7am staff came on, and I was driving into the sunrise on the way to work this morning at 7.45. I only have a couple of early starts a fortnight so the difference between one and the next is fairly obvious. I also noticed that my yard was in shadow by 5.30pm yesterday. Being the total summer bunny that I am, this does not thrill me. I love it being light til 9pm in summer, Though I'd settle for 8. Ok, 7? No such luck. We are nearing the days of darkness for another year. How depressing. I don't know how places without daylight savings cope with it. How sad to live in darkness by 6.30 year round. Still, I guess its a matter of what you're used to.

On a happier note, Tomorrow marks the start of my first long weekend (in a public holiday sense) in three years. The only public holidays I've taken off in the time I've been working for Yooralla have been New Years Eve's. Not that I wouldn't work on monday if a shift was available. It just happens to fall on my day off and other people got in first. So what am I doing to mark this momentous occasion you ask? Haven't the foggiest. I was going to go camping with some of the guys, but life interveened on their side, so I am down to my usual waiting to see whats happening. I'll be catching up with people, just not going away. I also have Easter Monday free, but at least I'm working Easter Friday. I have however managed to pick up the saturday and sunday active nights for the weekend after easter, Which is most profitable, being 22 hours all up of the active night rates over the top of the weekend rates, including 13 hours on the Sunday split between the two shifts. I'll be buggered afterwards, but I have until Tuesday afternoon to recover so should be ok. I want to see how I go with consecutive active nights incase the chance to pick them up regularly ever comes up.


til next time, xo

Here we are again

Yep, its time for my fortnightly all night shift. I've been here for an hour 15 mins, the last 15 of which was spent checking out mum's blog, but I've already done most of the housework, plus the monthly paperwork. Apart from the hourly checks, there's maybe half an hours work left, which I'm saving til around 3-4am when I tend to get the figits. I'm hopeful that I should get through this shift pretty well, since in addition to sleeping in til 11am (after going to sleep around 2 or 3am), I actually managed to get a couple of hours broken sleep this afternoon. It's pretty much unheard of for me to be able to have an afternoon nap, I take ages to fall asleep. Testament to how run down I am that I could today.

Its been a fairly uneventful week since my last post, mostly spent working. Had a massage and chiro yesterday, so I'm a bit tender across the shoulders, but thats about it. Probably undid most of the good it did me by going home and cleaning up the place ready for an inspection today, then going to work and doing more damage, but oh well, hopefully still did some good.

Don't really have anything else to say so might see if I can find something to do. I'm feeling a bit restless now, don't feel like sitting down.

til next time,

Nadie xox

Those random moments

Last night ended up in a very different place to where it started out.

I had no idea at the start of the day what was happening, Nat was planning on coming round, and I was waiting on various other people to get back to me. It could easily have wound up being a quiet night in front of the tv. In the evening before Nat came over I had to drop something off at Fi's that had been left at the boys place, which was cleaned out yesterday and the keys returned. I hadn't seen Fi in over a month, so naturally I stayed a while to catch up, find out what she was doing that night, etc. She and Ross had already decided to catch up that night, so they both came round to my place.

We were all planning on making it a fairly early night. That was the plan. Then around 10.30 Fi got a phone call and found out one of her old friends was back in Ballarat and having a birthday party. We wanted to go but being fairly inebriated by that stage didn't think we had a way to get there. Wrong. Larissa, the only one of us who hadn't been drinking, and also the only one who didn't actually know the Ballarat boys, decided that an impromptu road trip sounded like an excellent idea, so at 11pm Fi, Ross and I piled into her car, and off we went! The actual party was a bit of an anti-climax, as it was after midnight by the time we got there, and the guy whose party it was crashed not long after we got there, but the road trip was fun, we got to catch up with a few people and meet some new ones, and a good time was had by all. We left Ballarat just after 3.30am, and got back home just after 5am.

Its been so long since we've done something totally random like this, it was great to just pack up and go on the spur of the moment. Last night was especially good since I hadn't seen Fi in a while, and we used to do random stuff on a weekly basis. It was great to get back to that, and I think we all really needed it.

my gorgeous nephew

goat trials and hiking trails

Went up the Kokoda walk in the Dandenong Ranges National park with Larissa today. I only got halfway before I felt lightheaded and had to turn back, but I think now that I know what to expect I'll get to the top next time. It was the forth time Larissa had been up, she only made it a quarter of the way up her first time, and made it to the top on her third attempt. The walk, also known as the 1000 steps, is a tribute to the Kokoda trail, and is supposed to give you an idea of the trial our soldiers went through. I'm not unfit, but I get short of breath, and therefore lightheaded, easily, probably because I had asthma as a child. Just as well I don't smoke.

Yesterday and Friday evening was spent up at mums, Chris and I had a nice dinner at the Five Flags hotel with mum and Dave on Friday night, and had a pleasant day relaxing on Saturday, which included a hike next door to meet the new billy goat, and to say hello to the does and super-cute kids. The neighbors gave me a 2litre bottle of fresh goat milk to try, as a lot of people with dairy allergies can tolerate goats milk. I had it in a cuppa yesterday and on my cereal this morning and am now having a banana thickshake. I'm still not sure whether I'm reacting to it or not, I feel a bit off at the moment but then I often do. I have that many allergies that I'll often feel like I've reacted to something without knowing what it is, so the only way to be sure is to have my allergies retested, which I have been given a referral for. When I get it done I'm going to have the dairy allergy tested more thoroughly to see if its only the lactose that I have a problem with.

Damn that Murphy!

Bloody typical isnt it? Mum spent most of last week, when I didn't have a spare minute, nagging me about updating my blog. This week I've been posting everyday, so naturally her internet is on the fritz. Ah well. Chris and I are going up there on Saturday so hopefully we'll be able to sort it out then. Once its fixed she's just going to have to wade through everything she's missed.

Anyway here I am on my fortnightly active night shift. It's been a hot muggy day (and week) and the air con at work is broken AGAIN. I sent off a maintenance request for it yesterday and was hoping they'd have fixed it today but no such luck, they're coming tomorrow. Ah well at least its cooled down outside. Better here than at home anyway, my room takes forever to cool down after a hot spell, although the flip side of that is that its going to be fun trying to sleep during the day tomorrow.

I'm pretty much just killing time on here waiting for my boy to call me after work. He finishes at midnight and has to train it home, so I intend to provide a distraction from the monotony of the walk home from the station (totally altruistic I assure you). I don't want to get all the housekeeping over and done with in one hit as I've found I tend to get the figits around 4am, plus for my backs sake I'm better off spacing things out. I've done a bit already so now it's break time for a while. I've brought some dvd's as usual to help pass the time but for now its computerising. Tonights dvd's are 'looking for Alibrandi', 'Lilo and Stitch', 'Strictly Ballroom' and 'Bridget Jones's Diary'. I'll only watch 2 of them but I like to have a selection, because frequently the movies that look good at 9.30pm when I pack for the night are not what looks good at 3am. Think I'll start off with Alibrandi cos I havn't watched that in a while, then one of the more mindless funny ones in the wee hours of the morning. I never bring movies that require any measure of brain power on an active, cos by the time I'm ready to watch them its pretty much 'fire bad, tree pretty'.

Ahhh nice cool breeze coming through the window now... lovely!

Going to go potter round for a bit now, see what needs doing.

til next time, xo

The great bat migration

On sunday night Chris and I decided to try out one of the local hotels for dinner, and then hit the pokies for a bit until it stopped raining. Just as we were about to call it quits I scored a $30 win, probably my biggest til date mainly due to the fact that I very rarely play pokies and never use more than my spare change.

When we got home I noticed a couple of bats flying overhead. Most of my friends don't raise an eyebrow at them but we never got bats where I grew up (a mere 10minute drive from where I live now) so I tend to notice them. Anyway its fairly common to see them where I live now, but I've never seen more than one or prehaps two at a time, so when I saw two more fly over I started paying attention. Over the next few minutes at least 30 bats flew over, probably more than 50, all coming from the same direction. I don't know if they had been flushed out of some gardens or something, I live too far out for them to be from the botanical gardens, which regularly give the resident bat population their marching (flying?) orders. I didn't realise how big those beggers are, I've only ever seen them from a distance but some of them were flying pretty low right over us and they had a fairly impressive wingspan. Anyway to sum up it was pretty cool, wish I'd thought to grab my camera.

Bats, possums, cicadas... its amazing the difference 10minutes drive makes to the animal and bug population... weird considering I used to live further out from the city, you'd think out towards the Dandeenongs would have more wildlife. I actually saw an owl sitting on the phone wires over the driveway a week or so ago, never seen one in suburbia before. Shame that he flew off before I could get the camera, he was really cute.

til next time xo

I've decided to stay

Between not being able to blog at work, and non-members not being able to comment, I've decided not to move my blog after all. Still keeping that account, but just to keep in touch with friends

anyway the only thing I blogged about in myspace was the week in review, so heres a copy of that post:

Well, this is the first time I've actually had a chance to sit and type all week, so here's an update on whats bin going on...

My birthday celebrations kicked off last Saturday (10th) with the Evanescence concert. It was absolutly fantastic. Lead singer Amy Lee is every bit as incredible live as recorded, she has the most amazing voice, and also played piano, which was interesting when combined with bass that would jump start a flat liner. The songs were a great combination of ballads and rock, and they played pretty much the entire current album along with a few hits from 'fallen', such as 'tourniquet', 'going under', and of course, 'bring me to life'. The crowd was interesting, pretty much an anything goes kinda deal, with a smattering of goths and emo's (who I am not grouping together here, I know they are most definetly not the same deal), alongside the jeans and t-shirt crowd and the dressed up.

Sunday we went to the zoo, which was great fun, even though in the end most of my friends couldn't make it. The twighlight concert kinda sucked tho, in part because the sound system was decidedly crappy, but also because killing heidi just don't seem to be very good live.

On Monday (my actual birthday), I went up to mum's (Castlemaine) for the dayand we went to Dalesford together. We went to this cool little bakery that does all organic yeast-free stuff for lunch and I actually got a birthday cake for the first time in years... and it actually tasted GOOD! Then we went shopping for a pressie from my brother, and ended up getting a gorgeous hand-bag. Mum paid for my tatt and also got me an anklet, and Chris got me gorgeous red leather stilettos (not high ones, just a couple of inches if that). I also got a customised photo album from Nat that we're going to fill together, fluffy cuffs(!), cash and a JB giftcard.

Tuesday I met up with my oldest friend who I haven't seen in probably 10years, so that was interesting catching up. I've known this guy since before I can remember, so it was great to see him again, and we'll be sure not to go so long til the next time we see each other.

Wednesday was Valantines day. Chris and I were thinking of going for a day trip to sorrento or something, but in the end it was too hot and we couldn't be bothered. We both feel that it's just a hallmark holiday anyway and I'd rather do nice stuff on a random day, but I got a rose and a teddy and we went out for a nice dinner.

The rest of the week was pretty much just spent working, except for last night when Nat and I went to Cass and Daves for a game night. Haven't seen them in ages so that was great, got home just before 2am.

Anyway I'm sure I've missed stuff but that at least covers the good stuff, will probably add photos at some stage.

til next time!

dilemma

Well I know I said I was moving, but I can't access myspace from work. I'm not sure if its to do with security settings or if the site is just down, guess I'll check back and see if its consistently out. Anyway I'm really not sold on myspace yet, I got an account with them so that I could view a friends private blog, and then thought since I had a few friends over there might as well move so that it was easier to keep track of each others blogs. There are a few pros and cons to moving my blog, the main one is I'm not sure if people without a myspace account can leave comments, also there's the whole no work access thing, and then there's the simple fact of myspace being annoying with ads and things. Blogger is easier to use, and does everything I want it to, but myspace allows you to do more. Guess I'll wait and see how it goes, can't keep jumping between the two.

Moving on...

my blog is moving to myspace http://www.myspace.com/absolutnadie

Updates

Well, my tatt is now 5 days old and seems to be healing well, no sign of peeling yet. It was sensitive on the second day, giving me a twinge every now and then when I walked, especially when I first started walking after having my feet up for a while, but other than that hasn't really given me any problems. I've accidently knocked it a couple of times but it doesn't seem to have been damaged thankfully.

In other news, Chris has a cold which I seem to be coming down with, I'm a bit snuffly and my throat is hurting a bit. With my allergies that could be a coincidence but given that I have a big weekend coming up I'm not taking any chances and have been taking eaze-a-colds since Chris came down with it. They are just herbal stuff to boost the immune system so they can't do any damage if I'm not sick. I'm going to see how I'm feeling tomorrow and if I'm at all sick then I'm going to take my wed active night shift off, cos that could really leave me run down and give any lurgies a chance to take hold.

The other not so good news is that a small chip on my windscreen has turned into a massive crack, so I have been calling around windscreen repair places for quotes today and have a guy coming to my work tomorrow to repair it. Given that I want to go visit mum next week it really couldn't wait. I can get away with 10minute drives to work and back but there is no way I'm going on country highways with a cracked windscreen.

Ta daa!

Yep, I went through with it! [pause to allow anyone who fell off their chairs to pick themselves back up again] The tattoo artist had to change it slightly to get the detail to show, like spacing out the horns more and widening the cut under the wing, but other than that this is pretty much as I designed it.
This photo was taken 3 hours after getting it done, when I changed the bandage (ok, glad-wrap) for the first time. I have to change it again in the morning, and then it can come off tomorrow evening, and then for the next 10 days I need to rub cream into it regularly and avoid soaking it (so no baths or swimming).

The whole process was a lot less painful than I'd anticipated, apart from the occasional little pinch it didn't really hurt, although it was bleeding when it was finished. It stings a little like a very mild burn occasionally, and was tender when I washed it before changing the bandage, but I can't feel it at all now that its wrapped up again. I was also expecting it to look more icky at this stage, red or bruised or something. Maybe that will come out later. The skin around it was a bit pink when it was fresh, but it went down really quickly.

After we left the tattoo place, Chris and I went to visit Christina and Riley, who slept through most of the visit and was wearing the blue and white top that his nannie made for him. He woke up in time for a cuddle and had a bit of a whinge but cheered up in time to say a proper goodbye.

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.

There and back again

I just got back from mum's last night. Chris and I had a nice relaxing time up there, on Thursday his parents and sister came up, we had a lovely lunch together with my mum at one of the cafes in Castlemaine, Then Chris and I took his mum to see the hotel that they used to film the exterior shots for Blue Heelers at, before heading back to mums to see the Christmas decorations. It was a very quick tour of the house due to his mum's cat allergies, then we all moved outside for a cuppa and chat before they left to go back to Melbourne. They have now gone back to Townsville.

On Friday Chris and I went to see the latest Bond movie at the Castlemaine Theatre Royal, which is this gorgeous old theatre that has been running since the 1850's. It still has a stage and hosts live concerts and shows as well as movies, with cinema seating up on the balcony and tables and chairs downstairs for those who want to wine and dine. Admittedly the screen size is less than ideal for those who have grown accustomed to cinemaxx style movie theatres, but the place definitely has its charm. After the movie we went for a short wander through town and had a coffee before heading back to mums. That night we went to the Five Flags Hotel for open mike night. The entertainment was somewhat varied, and included mum and her belly dance teacher getting up for a couple of dances. The food was good and the drinks kept coming, so one can't complain.

Saturday was mum's birthday, so the three of us headed over to her friend Robyn's for afternoon tea. It was a very pleasant afternoon, Robyn's place is beautiful, and has spectacular views. The food was wonderful too, especially given that my allergies are not easy to cater to. I even had cake specially for me for the first time in ages. Mum and family friend Maz discovered a cafe in one of the neighboring towns that caters specifically to special diets, and Maz apparently insisted on buying me a couple of little cakes. The one I tried yesterday was carob and walnut, and was very moist and rich. I actually struggled to finish it because I'm not used to that kind of thing anymore, but it was very yum. After we left Robyn's we headed back to mum's for dinner, and then off home.

Today got off to a spectacular start with me burning my wrist trying to get the bread out of the bread machine. The burn was sufficiently bad to send me to the chemist for advice on dressings, but I will live. The burn is 6cm long (going by the dressing length which only just covers it) and about 3cm at it widest point, and puffed up very nicely. As I am prone to scarring I will be taking very good care of it.

The day has improved since then, I walked up to The Glen for a bit of grocery shopping. It is about 2km each way but preferable to finding parking on a Sunday 8 days before Christmas (yes, it is that soon), and besides, it is a nice day for a walk. On return I made lunch for Chris and I, and went to pick him up from work for his lunch break. Lord help me, I've gone all domestic. Bah. Anyway, usually we would eat out but we have been doing that far too much lately and both need to start watching the money. Besides, on a Sunday the only options are pub meals which, while good, are pricey around here, or going somewhere in Chaddy, which this close to Christmas would take most of his lunch hour to find parking. So little ol' me made ham, salad and (for him) cheese rolls and (for me) mountain bread wraps, and dutifully picked him up and took him back to his place. My Nonna would be proud. Those Italian make-sure-your-man-is-fed-a-proper-homemade-meal-at-all-costs genes must be coming through. I'd better watch out, next time I might find myself *gasp* cooking for him. Well actually I do cook, but cooking specially to take it to his work is very different than cooking when he's here, or taking leftovers, mind you the main reason for making something cold was that we hadn't decided where we would go to eat it.

Sorted

Well my house mate and I have sat down and had a good chat, sorted our issues out. She apologised profusely for her behaviour last week and admitted that she had been avoiding me since then out of embarrassment. She also said that she had been thinking about the whole smoking thing from my perspective and realises that her smoking in her room is to me what someone else smoking pot in her house would be to her, not to mention the reaction if the landlord or real estate agent found out. She has assured me that it will not happen again. We have also sorted out the housework. We figured out that she really hates doing bathrooms, while my most hated task is vacuuming because it puts my back out. Wish we'd figured that out sooner! We now each have our own tasks to do once a week, and have agreed to clean up mess in the kitchen as we make it. Hopefully this will work now, of course only time will tell. She is still planning on moving out early next year, and will give me notice as soon as she knows when, but as long as this plan works we are fine.