tickets, money, passport!!!!!

well i posted the touch and go 'straight to..... number one' video clip this morning so i guess there's not much counting left... tomorrow's the day...

the house is spotless, the ironing is finished, the last of the washing is on the clothes horse and it should dry before i head off in the morning... it'll look like a display home once again...

i ended up making a last minute call to the medical centre to go and grab a letter from the doctor just to clear myself of any possible problems of a slapelle corby nature whilst overseas.....

i'm proud of my minimalist packing, i was conscious of the bag weighing 100kgs empty, but luckily it was just under 5kgs whilst empty..... my current approximate bag weight is around 12kg so that gives around an extra 10kgs space, should i manage to collect some goodies during my time in portugal...

so i am a bit excited about heading off - finally get to ride a few A380's - i've admired them from afar for many years but now i finally get to experience flying inside one, that's pretty exciting...

the only slight kick in the guts about it all was the phone call to mum tonight... i know she's just being careful and wanting things to go smoothly, but when she basically tries to shove me into a closet again, it makes things a bit hard on me.....

i am well aware that i'm going to be questioned as to why i'm single and not married - it's portugal, it's a given, i've grown up realising that the pinnacle goal of a portuguese person's lifespan is to marry your childhood sweetheart who you met at a mighty 4 years old (or some such)....

obviously by now if that were the case, there would be a skank in my bed every night by the name of kylie..... thank god that is not the case since she has married a cross dresser by the name of glenn... but that's another story for another blog spot lol

so back to the point, i have already given good responses in the past to people as to why i wasn't married off or seeing anyone, and so i think i could manage to do it for a bit longer still, i wasn't about to go out of my way to out myself to every possible person at every possible opportunity...

i told her that i understand it's because i would be an embarrassment to dad, and she tried to knock it down saying it wasn't the case.... i wasn't getting shitty, i was just making the point that i understand how dad thinks and so i know what he'd be like if it did come up, and he would most likely be embarrassed... it's not my problem and i really don't care...

it just annoys me that it always has to come up as a disclaimer for anything that goes on..... that along with anything else "oh don't say xyz to dad just in case of abc happening" etc etc

i know she wants to avoid conflict, and so do i, but it really is at the expense of my brain power....

so then it just makes me think that maybe this would be the last time i try to make effort to visit family over there... i dunno....

it's things like that which make me think that i wished i wasn't a guy who is gay....

but it's not the case so i just have to (once again) get over it...

and that's one of the reasons why i was happy to stay on my current dosage of meds until after the trip at least cause the last thing i would need right now is to be overseas, closeting myself (which i was already going to muzzle anyway), dealing with strangers in a strange land and also coming down from meds.....

it was really good to see people at work and talk about my trip and get lovely wishes for my trip, that's the sort of thing that makes me feel like i have family at work - and i like that feeling

i have my short list of things to do, things to buy for people, postcards to send, and i thought at first that i might have to deal with it asap after getting there just so i got things done and out of the way, but i really have nothing else to do apart from be a passenger for a couple of weeks, so i should just not worry about the timing of things and do things as the opportunity arises....

i think my roaming mobile is going to be ok, just been hard to test it properly being in ballan as the reception is almost non-existent.....

and the newly laid bed sheets were heaven last night - so much so i actually said to teddy that maybe i would just stay snuggled in bed for 3 weeks lol

the house is sprayed, fingers crossed it kills some nasty creepy crawlies while i'm gone.....

might play a few games and wander off to bed soon, i am actually tired so i might just be able to get to sleep without too much hassle of anxiousness.....

bon voyage.......!

the day of cleaning......

damn, what a great day!

house is absolutely spotless!

used a few cleaning products i hadn't used before, viva shower wipes and bam shower cleaner - wow these things work like magic!

finished all my chores, plus extras not on the list, around about 6.30pm

• vacccuummmeedd
• mopped floors
• washed bed sheets and quilt cover
• washed mattress protector and pillow protectors
• cleaned both bathrooms and toilets
• put down flanno sheets on the bed (mmm looking forward to bed tonight!)
• stoked the fireplace for the next time i use it
• chopped some pine for kindling to let it dry in the garage while i'm away
• planted my succulent (from oak flats) that i had growing in a glass from a new cutting
• trimmed back a heap of the herbs out on the front porch area and watered everything - should be nice with new shoots when i get home
• cleaned the kitchen bench tops

i took a room by room approach so that made it a bit easier to deal with by breaking it down to smaller segments

it's incredibly windy tonight though, hopefully there isn't rain with it otherwise it may stain the clean windows lol

i have a small pile of ironing but might leave it until tomorrow night as i'll do one last load of washing during tonight

i'll send the dishwasher on it's merry way during the night too...

so tomorrow is dentist day... get my moulds done of my teeth for my new splint apparatus thingo... i'm hoping it might mean i can get the wire taken out from behind my bottom teeth since i'll have a mould of my teeth to wear every night to keep them straight and aligned... i'll see what they say...

then i'll head in to work and say bye byes to the team and get an european charger with usb connection, and get a new door knob for the tv cabinet....

will have to get my script filled - thankfully i found a new pack of my anti-reflux tablets, so that will be money i don't have to spend :-)

and i'm loving the fact that i was throwing loose change in the bottom of the centre console in the truck - i completely forgot about doing that and found about 15 bucks in there!! nice addition to the money box :-)

my house looks wonderful! :-) i'm so pleased with my efforts :-)

sunday evening.......

i love murphy brown

i just wish they did release the whole series on dvd and not just the first season...

i'm watching it again as my lead up to the trip, a nice gap filler before cracking into frasier on my return home...

finished washing the windows this afternoon, damn they look good :-)

but most importantly, i got to finish work for 3 weeks yipee! :-)

i'll head in on tuesday to say bye byes to my team and get a last couple of bits i've been meaning to buy...

so i'm going to have a nice lazy evening tonight and hopefully have a great rest tonight before waking up tomorrow and launching into the cleaning frenzy.....

looks like the blog post i did at work from my phone worked alright so i'll be prepared for whilst i'm away...

i had a couple of guys i know visit the store today and one of them patted my belly and commented that my weight gaining exercise appears to be working, so that was a lovely thing to hear :-)

neighbour bear is up to speed with looking after the girls for me, i told him to also take home any eggs, strawberries and tomatoes that were available as i wouldn't be here to eat any of it.....

finished more of the left over food in the fridge today... might end up having takeaway dinner the next two nights but will try to keep it down to just tuesday night to save money.....

and i didn't get an email from the trains this week telling me i got the boot, so i can only assume i'm in the list for the next lot of assessments which is good news.....

fingers crossed!

just call me sadie......

damn i love to clean almost as much as i love to sing lol

washed all the windows and the fly screens and it's made such an amazing difference...

now if there are any birds crashing into my windows from now on i'll accept the accusation of how clean my windows are :-)

today was sure busy at work... that's the nice thing about finishing at 2.30pm... i can escape the mad rush to avoid going a bit crazy myself lol

one more day of work before holidays time... nice feeling...

so washing the windows crossed another chore off the list... monday will be top to bottom cleaning day, vaccuummmmminnnnggg, mopping, change bed sheets and quilt cover, do the rest of what laundry needs doing, ironing etc

caught up on the yummy non fish food from yesterday, eddie's stir fry chicken noodles were yummy and it was nice to have a bit of the chorizo i grilled along with a couple of snags.... and plenty of salad leftover, i reckon the chooks might get a big feed on tuesday lol

i'm thinking i might have takeaway for dinner on tuesday, just to finish off without having to do the dishes...

then wednesday finish packing and spray the chemicals everywhere to kill all the bugs in and around the house...

maybe try to fit in a bit of wood chopping too.... set up the fireplace so if i need to heat up the house on my return i just need to flick a match and let it roar... have a snooze on the floor in front of the fire :-) that's a great feeling!

distracted with kath and kim so i might leave it at that for now lol

merry easter bunny hoppity day.....

happy easter weekend!

sitting here by the embers of the fireplace resting up after an eventful day at home...

jake stayed over last night which was lovely and then today i had alex, melton and ballarat pauls, and eddie (big excitement at this point!)

also finally got my roaming sim card to make some sort of contact with a device other than my own, so that's finally in order and ready to go for next week...

so the pre-trip goodbyes have started tonight with those who showed up today...

melton paul has been good enough to agree to offer me a ride to the airport on wednesday...

so the goodbyes are starting to make me feel a bit sad, but at the same time it's started to make things become a bit more real that the trip is literally days away

it was so good to see eddie, it's been so long and a cuddle from him always makes me feel good, he a great big fella and has a great heart, i'm lucky to have him as a friend...

wow there was lots of food today.... i'm stuffed, it was almost like a christmas dinner thing, so much to eat and lots of laughs

ballarat paul came down on the train and walked along the train tracks in the rain then jumped the back fence lol suppose that was an easy way to remember how to get here hehehe

so 2 work days left... hope i can manage the first couple of hours each morning on my own until vin starts, especially if it is as busy as they are expecting it to be...

pretty tired after today's happenings so i may just get into bed early, i'm not exactly feeling like dinner is required lol

and the girls had a great day out in and out of the rainy periods, wandering the yard putting on a little show for us all to watch them every now and then... i'll miss em too

at the end of the day i'm only going for 2 weeks, but i think it's the distance from home that makes it seem like it's a great big deal.....

time's a tickin'

yay i got my replacement roaming sim card today...

boo it's still not working properly, though it's doing better than the first one...

yay the irish help desk dude has referred me to level 2 support to escalate my problem

boo they said they would call soon after as they had just started their shift for the day...

so whilst i'm waiting i may as well tap out my daily rant...

holy cow! work was flat out today... was out in the timber yard for most of the day which meant i had lots of fun playing with timber on the saw, driving forklift around moving things here and there and brings things down and back up again for customers etc

i can understand that the weekend will be busy, but given saturday's top temperature in ballarat is only expected to be 14° (woo hoo!!!!) - i think it might keep people from making the mass pilgrimage for retail therapy after a day of everything closed for good friday...

so the big wig wankers turned up today... another last minute caffuffle about things from management before these fat dudes wandered the store picking on little bits of bullshit - as expected!!! complete useless waste of time - also as expected!!!

so 2 more work days before annual leave begins... and whilst i thought i might not see some of the guys after today, i said i'd make another visit on tuesday after i get my teeth moulds taken for the splint, as i will have to drive into town since trains will be on trackworks for the week for RRL works.....

will shave the head tonight and trim up the beard in prep for the trip (once the irish dude rings back to sort the sim card), then tidy the house up a bit for tomorrow's little lunch gathering....

no dead mice in the garage today thankfully... hopefully it was just the one mouse making all the racket in the roof and walls...

picked a bunch of tomatoes to make salad tomorrow as part of lunch - damn birds have been eating at the almost ripe bigger tomatoes (buggers) - but i'm more worried about the heap of strawberries that are growing.... although they will most likely ripen after i head overseas anyway so no great loss.....

tick tock goes the clock and i will continue to await my phone call......

facebookin, workin and eatin!

by this time next week, i'll be flying somewhere over SA or NT..... bit exciting... but still subdued excitement... i'll be excited on wednesday morning when i'm on the way to the airport lol

took someone off my facebook today... just sorta had enough of the ranting of politics and their partner... just not interesting to me... i figured that if i was rolling my eyes at almost every posting i saw of theirs, it probably wasn't worth me having them there and i was just disrespecting them by leaving them on my list...

today was annoying at work...

this great big song and dance for the last week about some big wankers coming to visit the store... as i predicted, they didn't turn up... but realistically, all the little nit picking wasn't going to make a difference, because:

• a) they wouldn't even notice those little things
• b) if they did notice it would have been cause they would struggle to find a problem with the store
• c) even if we did these things, and they were the sort of people who 'noticed' the small things, they would've just told us about other small things anyway so they wouldn't be able to be happy enough as it was

apparently they're coming tomorrow, but who knows... at the end of the day, if the place was a mess, it would be an accurate reflection on a current working business that they need to see anyway...

if people just carried on doing their jobs and keeping things neat and tidy regularly, then there wouldn't need to be this big fiasco of running round like lunatics in a padded cell in the lead up to the visiting ghosts......

i bought a phone cover this afternoon, so i might start carrying my phone in my pocket again at work, feel a bit safer cause the pocket i use is next to my knee and i am always leaning against things putting pressure on them against objects and products so i wouldn't want to apply such pressure to a brand spankin new phone at this point...

and the post parcel for the old phone arrived today so i'll drop it off in the morning on way to work to try and speed the process of the payment, but with the long weekend, i won't see it until after i get back from portugal - bit of a saving for later on i suppose lol

bought a couple of things for the little lunch at my place on friday... i got my crumbed fish... i'll pick some tomatoes after work tomorrow to make up a salad....

sliced a few potatoes tonight to make some chips and the fryer is ready to go and my guts are acting like the chooks when they are hungry (yes the little cells in my guts are running laps up and down the fenceline of my stomach awaiting the arrival of food lol)

nothing in particular...

8 day left...

today i realised my roster wasn't quite what i expected, so i'm not working on easter monday (bugger, no extra money)

so at this stage i'm thinking i might not even bother taking my credit card for backup as i won't have any funds available on it lol

i guess duty free will be out of the question - if i'm lucky i might try to save up for a cheap bottle of vodka but that's about it...

my frasier appointment was another short meeting, just a checkup to make sure things are going alright... check to ensure the lower dosage of meds is going ok

he asked if i was happy to stay on the same dosage and i said yeah cause i don't want to muck things up while i'm overseas.... had a giggle about that hehehe

but if it wasn't for that i'm thinking he might've been happy to drop them altogether which would be awesome...

but it's all ok i'm happy to continue on as is - gives me a bit of satisfaction in knowing that he's open to the likely possibility of me coming off meds altogether :-)

meanwhile my roaming sim card still aint working... i got an email overnight saying they'd send me a replacement and asked for my mailing address... i called them up just now - they are based over in the UK (irish accent on this bloke.... yum....) and he says to me "oh it will arrive definitely before you head overseas - either friday or monday"

i stopped short of slapping my forehead as it would've caused dramatic injury or a coma from the hard impact.....

"friday and monday are public holidays because of the easter weekend (dickhead)"

so he says "oh well in that case, you should get it by thursday, if not then tuesday at the latest"

uh huh we'll see lol

i'll just ring em back on tuesday and abuse em if it's not here by then lol

in the interim i'll just keep planning my big cleaning session for monday instead of tuesday, and tidy everything up that day, then all that should leave is spraying the chemicals around the house to kill all the bugs and spiders while i'm away....

thanks for the compliment, but it's a bit hard to swallow...

i was talking with my manager in the lunch room this morning about the weekend...

talked about the bears lunch thingo yesterday afternoon....

he wanted to know if everyone had a beard and all looked the same which was a good giggle...

i told him how i claimed the seat at the end of the table next to andrew cause it was near the exit and next to someone i knew... he asked me if i went and "put myself out there" with the other blokes... i said no that i couldn't do anything like that, just too scary...

then i told him about the "who's this delicious man?" comment... he asked how i take that sort of comment...

maybe it's just me, i dunno, but i really find it difficult to hear comments like that aimed at me... i don't know whether it is corny or tacky, or if it's just inappropriate or just makes me feel uncomfortable... all i know is, when i hear comments like that directed at me, i don't feel the best...

i've always been pretty bad at accepting 'compliments'...

i can appreciate the people saying nice things to me, but i will never understand what it is they are seeing, but i've always said that it's not for me to see and/or/nor understand it...

when i look at myself, i just see a skinny hairy guy with a beard who wants to look like a bear, but doesn't, and probably won't cause i'm not sustaining a lifestyle to grow into one (into the ideal of what a bear is/means to me - big, solid, hairy everywhere, decent bushy beard, very strong etc etc)

i've learned that you cannot control your thoughts, they are going to come and go as they see fit, you need to learn to just accept them for what they are - just thoughts..... so in that sense, i've learned to accept that when i look at myself, that's all i'm going to think, so it's neither here nor there...

i had this whole big spiel worked out in my head about typing out this blog but it's going a bit askew i think...

i guess the main point is... thanks for your kind words, i appreciate it, i don't understand it, and i probably won't ever understand it, but it's not my problem all the same..... and sometimes being very very direct in your compliments is possibly one of the quickest ways to see me run a world record 100 metres sprint in the opposing direction of yourself.....

and that's just the way it is with me...

oh no wait, i've remembered part of what i was gonna type...

i sometimes wonder whether the attraction people have towards me is whether they are just wanting to find out who i actually am, like i'm mysterious to them cause i don't talk much at all in public.... similarly i think that maybe i'm just another 'conquest' because i may seem out of reach to some... and that once the conquest is achieved, the mystery disappears and they soon realise there really is nothing more to me...

let's be honest, we've probably all been there at least once in our lives... get the un-gettable and then get over it a few minutes later and throw them aside to move on to the next exciting thing or person...

that's one of the reasons i wanted to move up to ballan, to be away from the gayness of some city things... it's just too much for me to deal with, and i tend to think that most city queens will just baulk at the thought of where i live - i still remember the dinner i was at for my Sir's birthday some years ago when i decided i was going to build a house (in bacchus marsh at that point), and he wanted me to tell his friends about it cause he was excited for me - and to see some of those city queens look at me weird and say things like "bacchus marsh? what zone is that?" with puzzled looks on their faces..... they were the icing on the cake for me to move out here, just to not have to deal with all that very much...

i'm rambling now, but it is my blog so i can keep crappering on if i want to lol

but i'm hungry now...

tales of the socially inept....

boy am i glad to be home again.....

the afternoon was a bit difficult in other ways, ways i wasn't quite expecting...

picked up ballarat paul from work... had some lovely compliments from nicole about my attire which was nice of her - she's a stunner so it's a bit of an ego boost for me (there ya go nicole hehehe)

so off we trodded to the pub where the bears were finishing up their lunching antics

mark gave me a couple of big squeezy hugs which was very nice of him - he's good at those - so good that in fact he's cracked a few ribs in his time.....

there was a vacant seat next to andrew at the end of the table closest to the exit, so i figured that was a perfect spot for me to sit - he's was sitting next to ian and i knew him too, so it was a bit of a comfort to sit near a couple of friends...

still found it a bit awkward though, i still struggle to make eye contact for longer than 0.0005 seconds with another person - i just can't do it...

as they started to say their goodbyes, one guy walked up and said "who's this delicious man?" at me... so that again made things a bit awkward for me... guess it's the incredibly shy part of me that reigns supreme in that situation...

once the last of the bears left for home, it was just me, paul and a couple who were down from maryborough... they had another couple of drinks whilst chatting about various things - stuff in america, canada, where paul grew up, where these guys had travelled to, classical music, gardening etc

it was quite interesting to listen to it... i really had not much to say about anything - by this stage i think i was just starting to shut down and not be able to cope with it... paul talked about kicking on to another wine bar in town and i said i might go for a drink, but i later said i needed to get home to attend to a few more things so i'd be able to drop them there and that was about it...

after this point, one of the couple started to just stare at me for the remainder of the conversation..... if it wasn't bad enough that i normally had issues making eye contact with someone, it certainly made it intensely difficult having someone staring at me for a good 10 minutes or so...

as we stood up to head off, i let the others walk ahead, but this guy sorta hung back a bit while i was putting on my jacket and asked if everything was ok with me? (whilst looking directly into my eyes.....)

i just said that i was fine and everything was ok... i thought about talking about how i find it difficult to deal with people in social situations, but thought against it when i realised i had boxes in my back seat so thought that was a good opportunity to dart out and clear a space for them to sit in the back seat lol

after i dropped them off, i drove away to head home - and that's when i realised i had been holding a tight gut from the tension i was feeling - almost like i'd been holding my breath for about an hour..... i let it go and started to breathe normally once again and told myself it was ok cause it was all over and i was safe alone in my truck again lol

i'm trying hard not to think about the impending trip to portugal, but if i'm real about it - i am going to struggle with the amount of people i'm going to be dealing with in a rather short time...

and my roaming global sim card still isn't working yet, so i'm going to have to chase it up this week cause i need to be able to access facebook and blogging while i'm away as my escape mechanism from the real world around me lol

red curry was nice but i should've put a chilli in it... there wasn't much kick at all - though the drake kaffir lime leaves were beautiful in it :-)

now i might have a cup of tea and some cookies to finish off the weekend... don't think much of the washing will be dry yet so i'll deal with it tomorrow after work.....

i still love music

"scraped the paper off the wall, i put down carpet in the hall"

"i don't dream, cause i don't sleep, moon is hanging, like your hat"

"took your paintings off the wall, that one of me that you call doll"

"i don't wanna think of you no more, except for in between the sun and moon"

"packed up and moved out after all, bull dozed the house and watched it fall, that blessed sight i still recall"

"it don't hurt like it did, it hurts worse, who do i kid?"

{insert fucking awesome guitar solo to finish}

i love this song so much

i can relate to it so much having experienced something similar about 7 years ago...

sometimes when you try to get on with your life, even trying to clean the slate and start again can't take away what it was before...

this is one of those songs that will always represent that time in my life...

it certainly explains why the cd was in one of the difficult to find places....

whilst it can bring back all the history of trouble and pain, i can look at it from a different point of view.

i can listen to the song in a more objective way and that's nice - it gives me power in knowing that i went through all that and i've grown so much since then...

so the song changes from being a representation of what i experienced and went through, to something that makes me stand tall and stand up to anyone and anything that tries to get in my way and obscure my judgements and throw brick walls in my way...

at the end of the day, bricks are just cladding, the structure of a house is all in the stud work...

i am stud framing material - so bricks are just the cladding in front of my face...

the bricks can fall but my framing will always be there holding up the roof over my life

so this is another example of what music does for me

it makes me feel, and feel alive

in case you didn't realise, i have a new phone :-)

got my new phone today yay!!!!

and i've already sold the old phone to that mazuma mobile place - 60 bucks will come in handy :-)

so the new one is charging up and i'm very excited to start playing with it and seeing what the new features are etc etc and hopefully no longer have to reformat the damn thing every couple of months :-)

which means now i can think about finalising the travel insurance as the one i think i'll purchase let's me provide a serial number for the new phone in case something happens to it while i'm overseas.....

so i am blogging for a moment to pass the time while the new one charges up, then i'll make some dinner to pass more time, otherwise if i don't have dinner now, i'll probably skip it altogether in excitement hahaha :-)

my left hand is not feeling so good today after yesterday's wood chopping antics.... the muscles in my palm are quite sore, so i think i may have strained them when pushing and pulling on the fence wires etc...

so i bailed on the catch up i was meant to have tonight in the city, i wouldn't have been much fun anyway with a knackered hand and my mind on a new piece of technology at home hehehe

so the weekend has started and i'm looking forward to it.....

got a few chores to do around the house, i'll clean the oven out and the rangehood most likely as well i think...

then the bear's lunch thingo is actually sunday, not tomorrow.... so i'll suck it up and tag along with ballarat paul... he said to me this afternoon he would score a date for me LOL i said "yeah bullshit!"

i'll let the girls have a bit of a roam around the yard tomorrow while i'm pottering around... hopefully there's a new grubbies they can find and munch on after all this rain..... they'll love that :-)

i have a new phone.... so i might go now and make dinner so it's closer to play time LOL

allan of the jungle - watch out for that tree.....

so i've got this beautiful big tree in my front yard... looks eerily creepy at dusk/evening/night time... i love it!

i guess yesterday or during the night last night, a branch comes down after all the wet weather we've had this week

and you KNOW i LOVE the rain, it's been so good seeing the water everywhere for a few days in a row - and still more to come :-)

so this afternoon i get home from work ready to start cutting it up, prepared to do it manually with a hand saw....

what's this? no handsaw?

checked in every possible location, thrice....

i guess a hack saw will have to suffice for now....

and then neighbour bear comes over to see what's going on and was a bit surprised to see the branch that came down, and leaning incredibly heavily on the wire fence (with about 4 lines of barbed wire in it, mind you)

he suggests one of the neighbours in the court, for me to go and ask to have a lend of their chainsaw and someone to use it for me.... or a circular saw might help...

so i get my circular saw and an extension lead.... that helped to clear all the smaller branches (after taking out about 80% of the smaller ones via hack saw anyway lol)

and then the tough task of dealing with the massive main trunk of the branch (would've easily been about 300mm at it's thickest, if not more)

so i then pull out an axe and a log splitter.... gave the middle bit (that was sticking forwards into my yard - bit of an angled/banana shaped branch) a bit of attention...

too bad i didn't have a shitty day at work otherwise i might've been able to get through it like that as stress relief!!! hahaha

so i keep hacking away with the axe and the log splitter, make a decent dent about a third of the way into the guts of it..... then i try an alternative method...

instead of trying to hack the whole thing into pieces (as i really would've needed a chainsaw), i decide to take away the rest of the small bits on my side of the fence...

then - i navigate, incredibly slowly and carefully through the barbed wires (summer thin work pants with crotch vents did not make this an easy or comfortable task....) to the other side....

then with hack saw once again in hand, i cut away at the smaller branches on the trees on the neighbour's side of the fence, that were holding up the main branch from the fallen bit of my tree.....

eventually it started to fall further to the ground....

after a couple more careful navigations through the barbed wires (*gasp* take it slow! don't rip your balls off!) i manage to heave the branch onto the neighbour's side of the fence so it was no longer placing any pressure on the fence wires....

so that's how it'll stay for quite some time (i imagine), until such a time as i am able to chop up the rest of it and use it for the fire place next year in winter :-)

moral of the story - as much as a tree can be attractive, when looking at blocks of land to purchase, just be prepared for the awkward removal of fallen branches in barbed wires!!!

phew....

showered and tidy and now waiting for a mate to come and take me out for a steakhouse dinner, his shout thankfully :-) i think i've worked up an appetite after an hour hacking at trees lol

kick in the guts lol

at this stage, i'm not going to be driving trains... i'll get an email next week if i've been dropped altogether, otherwise i will be called up later in the year to attend future assessment centre things...

the dentist appointment was nice, got a great review from the general dentist, only a bit of a clean up around the wire retainer behind my bottom teeth, apart from that he was quite pleased, everything clean and healthy...

then the specialist dentist came in to discuss the splint situation... about 1400 bucks... i really have no choice cause in the long run it's going to be cheaper to get the splint now rather than pay 100 bucks a month for nasal patches... it covers the splint and an unlimited amount of visits to the dentist when it's solely in relation to the splint... so it's yet another investment in my body...

i guess if i do get that 720 bucks from alutech, that can pay half of it... and hopefully health insurance will help me out a bit too.... but for now i think i'm going to have to beg mum and dad (yet again) to get them to lend me money to pay for it... *sigh*

so i'm feeling like a victim again tonight....

the general dentist wanted to know what my secret was to having such great teeth - i just said it must be because the universe had other ailments to give me so it felt i didn't need to have any cavities, fillings etc etc - he had a good laugh at that......

so i feel a bit back to square one with things....

bills to pay and a bit of inability to pay them without assistance, but it may not be all that bad, i'll just have to continue pushing through the pain and praying to whoever will listen to me up there, that there is some bigger grand plan that has a big reward at the end of all the hard work i do...

just hoping it gets here sooner rather than later lol

2 weeks to flying on a big plane...

6 months until my fixed rate ends on the mortgage

new mobile phone arriving in the next week (hopefully)

"keep the focus on the rising sun, what a golden day"

living the good life

i had some interesting sounds coming from inside the area where the rangehood flue would be located in the kitchen....

as such i got some rat poison packs after work today and threw a couple in the roof cavity and place a couple others in the kitchen, laundry and garage... that should hopefully take care of them :-) here's hoping anyway lol

wow the rain has been glorious today, pretty much non stop all day long, not too heavy, not too light, just a steady stream from the gods in the sky - truly wonderful stuff :-)

i had gav come and hang out in the doors area this morning, that was really good, even if it was short... i get from him, more so than some others, someone who comes across as a genuine carer, a really good all round bloke, and that's what i love about him, you can have a laugh, joke around, but at the other end of the scale, you can really knuckle down and get heaps of shit done... he's reliable - i think that's the term i'm searching for..

i gave amanda her dozen eggs that she paid in advance for, so the girls out the back can relax for a while now hehehe

although black let out a bit of excitement when i walked out there tonight after i got home - as if she thought i had forgotten about them (well, her mainly lol), so threw them some feed before retreating inside for the night...

bought my global roaming sim card thingo today, now i just need my new phone to string it all together... my phone has done it's usual "running out of space, system may run slowly" message after a couple of months, and no matter how much i try to clear things off it, nothing changes unless i reset it completely back to the factory settings - hence why i've had to do that about half a dozen times in the last 8-10 months or so...

so ballarat paul has managed to convince me to tag along with him on saturday afternoon to a bear's lunch thing that's happening in ballarat..... he finishes work at 3pm so it'll be towards the end of it, so i should survive the proceedings fairly well... not being there for the whole event means i won't have to worry about sitting at a table, taking my glasses off (so everyone is blurry) and avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone, and avoiding getting into any possible religious, political or sexually preferential conversations....

so now i've already had some dinner and not much else to do, i might have some more banana cake with a cuppa hot camomile tea with honey, and mellow out for the evening.... sounds pretty good to me

the only thing better would be having tomorrow off work, as i would most likely then run a good hot bath and sit in it with the lights out, maybe light 1 candle, and watch the outside darkness as it is interspersed with quick flashes of lights from the trains as they zoom past, along with the changing glow of red and green from the nearby signal for ballarat bound trains.....

great day :-) and getting closer to the trip :-)

day off work today - lovely!

dinner is smelling awesome, but still at least an hour to go.... tummy is grumbling for attention but he's just gonna have to wait!!!

so it's 2 weeks until the last day of work before going to portugal... that's a nice countdown milestone...

so i started making my lists... one for chores to be done before leaving, and another for things to pack... i'll start working on the chores this weekend if the weather is good, i'd like to wash the windows....

so i got a great phone call from someone i used to work with in relation to my claim i sent through from working at alutech (the one i sent a couple weeks ago) - he said he went to the creditors meeting today and by the sounds of what was spoken about, my name came up a few times and he thinks i might get my money! that would be awesome if i got paid!!! it's money i can put straight on the credit card and almost pay it off again :-) fingers crossed!!!

the council came today and chopped down all the overgrown grass on the side of the road where the creek runs down - nice of them to do it in time for the fire season (not!)

so this week i'm looking forward to the dentist appointment on wednesday to sort out whether a splint will be in order for my sleep apnea... and then thursday catching up with a friend for dinner at the steakhouse YUMMM.....

then friday evening i think i'm going to catch up with a mate who's house sitting in melbourne for a couple of months...

then the weekend off yay!

i got all the washing pretty much sorted today, ironing done... just a few towels needing to dry for a bit longer...

i'm hoping jake comes to visit this week to help me check on the chookies and make sure tails doesn't have any mites on her with all the feathers she's shedding... and also help construct some form of flue brush to clean the flue pipe using the old gutter hedgehog things i have sitting in a pile doing nothing..... and then he can spot me on the ladder while i go up and shove the thing down the flue to get rid of any last traces of nests so i can use the wood heater efficiently :-)

i'd really love to use it more this season and spend some nights snuggled up to sleep in front of it to keep warm, that would be lovely! :-)

i better go have my daily pills to give my guts something to munch on before i send down slow cooked beef and onion gravy with potatoes thingo....

thought i had a lot more excitement to type about but i got a call from powercor wanting feedback about my streetlight fix request from a few weeks ago during the blackout when andrew was here.... so i think i forgot what it was about lol

just a shorty.....

yay, early finish from work again... means extra time to myself at home to get some chores done

first load of washing is almost done and the weather is beautiful and sunny, few clouds here and there and a nice breeze, should help the washing dry mostly before the sun sets...

not sure what to do for dinner just yet.... got time yet...

have to change the water in the girl's bucket for some clean fresh stuff....

was a fair bit harder to get out of bed this morning, i just wanted to stay in snuggled up and keep snoozing....

i wonder if/and/when i might hear back about the train driver job... be nice to find something out before i head overseas lol just so i know one way or another as to what the current status/result is...

not much else at the moment... i think i'm going good today, that's a pleasant feeling :-)

started watching kath and kim dvds last night, always get a good giggle from those...

i wish murphy brown got released all on dvds and not just the first season... i'd love to see all of those...

early starts, end daylight savings, cleaning and spa baths.... oh my!

another great day at work today which is nice...

and finishing at 2.30pm makes it even nicer!

and even nicer still, with daylight savings ending tonight, i really finished at 1.30pm lol

but on a serious note, i am sad about the end of daylight savings... i thoroughly enjoy the extra hour of daylight... but it's part and parcel of the calendar and seasons... i'll get a couple more weeks of long days in portugal later this month, so that will be a nice teaser...

getting up at 5am wasn't nearly as difficult as i thought it might have been...

i think the old part of my brain kicked in from when i used to work 3x12 hour days a week where i used to get up at 3am... i actually miss those days.... but not, at the same time.... if that makes sense...

same as anything in life really, always pro's and con's...

looking at the countdown widget on my phone and it's down to 18 days until i head overseas... so it's getting a bit closer and i'm slowly starting to get a bit excited about it...

i'm thinking maybe this week i'll start to tackle a few things on my list of chores to complete before i go away... and knuckle down next weekend, thorough cleaning, wash the thick dust off all the windows, see if i remember to get some spray cleaner to give the oven a good washing since i haven't done it yet... i guess after almost 3 years it's probably due for it lol it's not as dirty as you'd might think for having not done it in this oven before...

i should wash/clean the rangehood and filters, hopefully without slicing a finger on the aluminium frame edges this time....

cracked another dinner plate this morning, i think i should start saving for a new decent set... these plates, as much as i have liked them (one of the rare things i liked from ikea), are about 10 years old now... so i guess all the use they've had over the years has started to wear them down a bit...

so i'm going to test myself and see if i can live off what foodages i have between now and going overseas, to try and continue minimal spending to pay off some bills in the interim.... tonight i've got a chicken schnitzel (just a small one) and will do some scrambled eggs and try a tin of chilli baked beans i have had sitting there for a while, and still have some tomatoes in the fridge from what i chopped up last night.... maybe another batch of chippies in the fryer.....

my left foot is hurting a bit - when i stretch the toes forward, the top part of the foot (instep bit) hurts a bit, like i've done a muscle in there or something..... might think about running a hot bath and soaking my body for a while one day soon when it's nice and cold outside :-)

mmm hot bath.... maybe i should use the spa function at some point too... paid for it so i might as well try to use it lol more than just the once lol

tapping the keys of the desktop computer after getting lots of stuff sorted :-)

let's try and do a blog at the keyboard of the desktop instead of the laptop on the couch... see if anything different comes up...

so i had THE BEST night sleep in a long time! slept through from midnight to 6.30am, and then back to bed to sleep through until 11am!

and i've been very productive today...

• got new packet of meds
• bought chook feed
• cancelled union membership
• got quotes on travel insurance
• paid a bit of electricity bill
• sorted some paperwork
• booked an appointment with a dentist in ballarat to discuss possibility of another splint to use in place of patches to tackle the apnea...

so now i'm looking to bake a banana cake.... yum...

i seem to do good productive things when i've slept most of the day away lol

actually now i think of it, there was a bit of a strange dream last night...

walking up what seemed like the back streets of oak flats (where the street is actually just a grassed road - there's a couple of grass lanes in oak flats and a couple of rocky 4wd type lanes around nob hill too), actually turned out to be a site parallel street to geelong road in west footscray, in which the grassed lanes were former road alignments that were not constructed....

i was walking up this side street to an old pub where an election was happening (for god know's what), and your vote actually was taken just by having a conversation with someone (who looked a bit like old druid getafix) at the counter at the front of the room...

after which i left the building and walked along side the service lane and found a couple of disused aluminium screen doors that i picked up and contemplated using them on my front door (since i don't have one), but one was too wide and the other too narrow so that was the end of that...

it wasn't quite as distressing as some other dreams i've had in recent times...

i think it's helped that i started sleeping on a different pillow, i think maybe my usual pillow has passed it use by time frame.....

poor tails seems to be malting even more now lol poor girl.... i hope she grows some new feathers soon! it's getting colder by the day (thankfully lol)

working this weekend and starting off at 7am now instead of 9am, which means i can't get train on saturdays but that's ok cause i get to finish at 2.30pm....

just be interesting to see how i go with the alarm on an hour earlier than normal....

oh that's right - the saddest day of the year is sunday - end of daylight savings.... at least it's balanced at 6 months now, not like 5 months many many years ago... and certainly not 7 months like in 2000 thanks to the sydney olympics lol (what a busy and interesting time that was for me!)

food on the fried brain...

another relatively busy day at work again today...

as such my brain is a little bit fried!

mmm fried.... now i'm hungry...

tails is still losing bum feathers, poor girl... especially now it's getting cooler at night, she might extra cold... maybe i should give her a blanky to warm up hehehe

wasn't as tired driving home this afternoon, but having a fried brain meant that i was a bit of a zombie on the road... when i drove past the first ballan exit, i actually 'woke up' and had to look back to see if i had missed my turn.... and then i thought i had only reached the wallace exit.... and then i looked ahead and saw the servo, so realised i was almost home....

then vin called me to check up on something at work for a customer, and i was very glad of that cause it really woke my brain up to stay alert for the rest of the trip home, albeit 5 minutes worth...

good lord... just reading over the main subjects up to now: fried - chicken - servo - all signs are pointing to KFC at the servo for dinner LOL

nah i'm sure i took out some chicken snags from the freezer last night so i'll have those...

but i have an abundance of eggs again so i'll try to make something with those tonight, or maybe tomorrow i'll do some biscuits/cookies again, use some more of the slabs of butter i got a while ago for baking anything...

i have bananas in the freezer, so maybe banana cake is in order.....

i think i need to make dinner now, i'm very hungry and my guts are complaining at me...

dating and banking.... they really are similar concepts in my life LOL (how sad lol)

busy, busy day today

love em that way, running around, doing multiple things, getting shit sorted out and organised - that's me to a tee, i'm in my element when i can sort things out and get things organised....

so i've been paid overnight but i haven't looked at my bank account... i try to avoid it as much as possible these days...

it sorta reminds me of my best mate who used to (dunno, maybe he still does today!) do the same thing... never wanted to see his bank balance, always asked me to check cause he really didn't want to be depressed by it lol

used to think he was being quite silly about it all... and ridiculous...

funny thing is, i completely understand it now... for me, it's one of those 'ignorance is bliss' moments...

i don't want to see what little i have, cause it's sad to see it that way... but also, it's one of those things, if i know what's there, it'll probably get spent a lot quicker than if i didn't know it was there to begin with.....

and then there's the whole dating thing... just made me wonder today about whether it's better to know what to expect, or what the rules are, or if it's best to be ignorant about it and just go along with it and see how things pan out.....

for me, personally, i don't think i could say i've ever been on a proper 'date' - but then, what is a 'proper date'? is there a guide on it? or is it up to the interpretations of those being involved in the date...

tell a lie actually, i think with my last partner, i had a couple of 'dates' - catch up for dinner, drinks at the pub etc....

i guess i quite enjoy that part of connecting with people, i.e. catching up for food or drinks.... well food mainly.... and more food....

that's probably where my stale mate is at the moment with socialising with people as well - trying to define what is a social catch up, what is a date, what is more than a date etc etc so it becomes easier just to shut off from all of it so i don't have to worry about any rules, or any other person's feelings etc... bit selfish really isn't it? but i need the practise cause i've always been thinking of others before myself for almost all my life.....

i suppose in that way, it's similar to my thoughts on my own bank account... blocking out the thoughts of what's in there so i don't have to worry about what it's lacking or what i should be buying...

wow, did you think i could pull a similarity between feelings on dates and bank accounts?

i really didn't think i could lol

things with 'ies' at the end of them....

wow all those tomatoes i've had inside ripening up look fantastic all chopped up ready for eating *licks lips*

sliced up some potatoes too so i can have some chippies with dinner.... which will also be some sort of deep fry arrangement, most likely of dim sims and spring rolls lol

another hot day today, not bad for the first day of april, about 31°...

speaking of which i better go turn the calendar up one month...

which means daylight savings will end on sunday morning, very sad news... although the chickens might appreciate it being more daylight when i'm due to head off for work so they can run their laps up and down the chook fence to indicate i must feed them before i leave home for the day lol

bloody kids, they always think of themselves first don't they?? hehehe

productive day at work sorting out countless piles of doors for top stock... nice to have them all organised and in one spot at last...

still nothing received from the train driver job... i still live in hope that i was good enough to continue with their testings... just was hoping i might be able to jump all their hurdles before i went overseas...

about 3 weeks to go now.... have started thinking up my lists to organise before i depart...

• cut hair and trim beard 1 week prior to leaving
• clean house properly day before leaving
• list of things to pack
• list of medication scripts to fill to take along (anti-crazies, anti-refluxies, anti-mistermeanies, and maybe some fishie oilies)
• prepare to spray the living crappers out of the house for bugs and spiders to kill them all and protect the house for the winter ahead...
• figure out bills and what i might need to be prepared for... just telstracom i think...
• perhaps buy a bag each of chook feed (lay pellets and free range mix)
• and perhaps figure out which bag to actually take with me.... i think my decent sized bag might weigh 10kgs to start with LOL

all in good time.....

but the deep fryer is ready for chippies so i better go start on dinny din dins....

quack!