Daily Life – Page 13 – helenthura.com

March 29, 2009

Sunday again

Yet again it is a Sunday morning and I am on the deck with the laptop. Thinking back to the week it has been and thinking ahead for the coming week. Another week at work, we have been trying some new processes, paring our working hours back to a more reasonable 37.5 (what we have been doing has been excessive). I’m trying to balance my life out again. I’ve been really slack in the cooking department. I need to start walking to work again or getting a bike so I can cycle.

Monday night at SES was spent doing knots. That is one thing that I am grateful for my years as Guide as I have no problem what so ever with them.

Wednesday night, I decided at the last minute to head out to the Troubie to catch Coby Grant, Rhiannon Hart and Georgia Potter. I’m glad I did. Coby Grant was a very nice discovery and of course it was great to finally catch a set from Rhiannon Hart as I have read a bit about her in the street press over the times. Georgia Potter, well really there is nothing to say there, a great set as one would expect and the perfect music to get you through the rest of the week.

Friday at work, we made hot dogs as one of the interviewers was shifting to a promotions job downstairs. Was really great to see everyone pitching in to help make the hot dogs and generally taking some time out of the day to have lunch. Friday night I had a great night. The Red Eyes, Dubmarine and The Cool Calm Collective were playing at the Step Inn. I took no camera, no handbag, just me. I missed the first half of the Cool Calm set which is life but I would have loved to have caught it. I spent the entire night dancing and feeling really free. More free than I have felt at concert in a long time. It was a great night out.

Yesterday I got up a *little* later than I normally do on a Saturday. A trip to the markets at Kelvin Grove picked me up some fruit and veg for the week along with a hot chocolate and a mini “pizza” for breakfast. I look forward to the KG markets each week as that is here I can get the best hot chocolate in Brisbane. I think the stall is run by the Blackstar Coffee people. They offer a white, milk and dark hot chocolate but each week they have different flavourings. This week they had white with lime, straight dairy milk and dark with peppermint. The previous week they had white with rosewater. I have had the white chocolate the last two weeks and oh my they are soo good. I’m hoping they have the dark with orange or the white with lavender next week.

I had a very leisurely read of the paper and then took some assorted photos. I tried to start read Far from the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy but gave up. I love how he describes the scenes but I just couldn’t get into it.

This morning, I did some weeding in the garden, some more planning for my upcoming trip to Melbourne (I’m going from April 7 to April 12). Can’t wait. I had so much fun when I went to Melbourne in 2007. If you have any suggestions for must visit places, please leave a comment.

Now it is about time to start organising my self to head to my parents and then onwards to the Farm to see Granddad.

March 22, 2009

Sunday

Well, Mum should now be firmly on the ground in South Africa, she flew out on Friday for about month away in Southern Africa (i.e. not just South Africa). She is going to have a wonderful time but it will be strange not been able to pick up the phone and call her when I feel like it. Things are starting to settle down at work which is nice. Last week I switched from looking after the medical side of the applications for all the Navy and Air Force full time general entry candidates to now looking after the Army full time general entry candidates. It means that I am looking after a larger number of candidates and am now faced with enlistments every Monday as opposed to three times a month like I used to have.

I went to see Two Fists, One Heart yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed, especially the strong WA music presence in the soundtrack. With a broad brush it had some similarities to Two Hands, in terms of fighting, cars, bouncers and the not the girl ordinarily expected girl as the romantic interest. I would definitely recommend checking it out. Parts made me laugh and parts made me sigh.

This morning I gave the kitchen an autumn clean, top to bottom, I scrubbed, wiped and shined. This photo was taken two weeks or so ago but it gives you a fair idea of what the kitchen looks like.

I also did the seemingly weekly clean of my room; vacuuming, dusting and tidying. I don’t believe I have shared a picture of what my current room looks like. It is small but I do quite like having everything at an arm’s reach.

Talking of my room, that reminds me, I must share the incident that happened earlier this week. I was getting ready for bed, I had closed the deck door, turned off the lights, started the dishwasher and gone to clean my teeth. As I was brushing my teeth, I heard a tumble. I thought something had dislodged in the dishwasher and thought nothing much of it. I finished cleaning my teeth, looked at the dishwasher and it was fine. Then as I stepped into my room, I saw that some of the things from my bookcase had fallen onto the floor, as I looked up I came face to face with a Possum sitting on top of my bookcase. I was slightly shocked to say the least. Possums on the roof, possums on the power lines or possums in the back yard are fine. A possum on my bookcase is another matter. As you can see from the above picture, my room is narrow and there is only one way in and one way out. As I entered the room further the possum jumped and I ducked, it landed on my bed and scattered up to the desk. I started yelling at it to get out of the my room. Johnno hearing my yelling came to investigate and we managed to get the possum out of my room and into the kitchen, then with some fancy footwork the deck door was opened and the possum was let free. As the light was turned on in the kitchen and I walked back into my room, I discovered something the possum had urinated all over my room; the carpet, my bed, the wall, my desk, my laptop etc. Cleaning up possum urine is not pleasant. It is a tick slightly gelatinous liquid and cleaning it off the laptop is not at all fun. Normally I close my laptop when I switch it off at night. That night though for some strange reason I had left it open… if only I had closed it. Now that that story is off my chest…

Something that would surprise most people would be that I actually scapbooked today! I know! It has been a good handful of months since I last did something but the other week, I packed up a fair amount of stuff from my old room and brought it over here. In the picture below you can see the little chest of Ikea drawers that I have covered. They hold my computer cables in one little drawer and then in the others scrapbookig goodies.

It is now just gone 10pm and means it is time to retire to bed with a book and prepare for tomorrow been Monday.

March 13, 2009

movies, baking and a brass monkey

It is a Friday night, and I have just come home from the movies. I have quite literally walked in the door, picked up my laptop and gone back out onto the deck and I am not going to move till I have written at least one recent adventure.

What day, week, fortnight, whatever it has been. Work is of course still work and hopefully in the coming the weeks the stress, the issues and the hours will start to settle down. Next week will mark the turning of a new leaf at work with staff changes and I am cautiously looking forward to it.

Yesterday at work it was the birthday of one of my â€œWork Mumsâ€ and to celebrate I made the Orange and Almond cake made famous by Claudia Roden (photos/recipe of course to follow). We had planned to have it for morning tea but one thing of course leads to another and before we knew it was just before three and the cake had not been cut. A mimed Happy Birthday was sung and then there was cake. I was really quite happy with how it turned out. It does take a little time in the prepping of the oranges but oh it was good.

Today was of course a Friday and it was even Black Friday, it was also a day where we had 29 candidates in for assessment which makes it a very big day. To fill our stomachs, a morning tea buffet was arranged which was a very fitting end to both the week and a booster shot for the day. I made these little Persian rosewater and cardamom rice biscuits which went down a treat (of course as above photos/recipe to follow).

I went to see Easy Virtue tonight and oh it was a tragic delight. Oh the costume design was just glorious and the music and the wit, I did adore the wit. On Wednesday night I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You which was a pleasant reprise from the week. It was a good laugh, which also had some sad/true/real bits in it as well. Two movies in a week is quite bold but through Optus Tickets I have a $8 movie pass for Birch CC till the end of the month and I plan on seeing a few more movies between now and then, especially as a ticket normally costs me $15 something!

Last weekend I had quite a pleasant Sunday, Windsor Brass was playing what was advertised as Jazz, Swing and Show Tunes at Gregory Park in Milton. I arrived a little early and picked up a turkey/cranberry roll, an apple scroll and a ginger beer. I found a patch of grass in the shade and enjoyed what turned out to be an afternoon of show tunes with no jazz or swing. I had been very looking forward to the jazz/swing but the show tunes sufficed.

An older couple enjoying the music

The Band

And a little video! Windsor Brass, play some James Bond

Finally I adored these rainbow pencil bollards at one of the entrances to the park, how cool are they?

Tomorrow I have a Risk Management course alllll day with SES which should be at least interesting.

March 4, 2009

The deck

The last five weeks have been incredibly crazy for me. We changed contract holders at work and that meant for my section a new manager and two new admins, which has meant a lot of training from myself and the other girl who stayed on. It has been hard and there are times when I just want to erect a divider round my desk and close my self off my the rest of the world and get my work done. The reality of that is that I have been working long hours. Which is why this blog has been lacking. Most days I get home from work, have a bite to eat, have a little chill out and then fall asleep waiting for it to repeat all over again the next day. In saying all that though, I still love the outcome of my job and just wish there was more time

A week after the contract changed, I moved house. I am still in the same suburb but moved a few streets over to a house that is owned by a friend of Karl’s. My room is the smallest room I have ever lived in but I love it. For the first time since moving out of home, all my boxes are unpacked and that feels great! Everything has a place and I have also gotten rid of a lot of crap which is great. One of the things or probably the thing I love most about this house and one of the things that sold me on moving in was the deck. I iron on the deck, I eat my meals on the deck, I relax on the deck, I create on the deck. The deck is good. I am currently sitting at the dining table (the deck is the dining room) with my laptop, listening to the bats screech in the trees, the whistles from the basketball stadium across the park and the trains that crescendo and decrescendo past. If I get home and it is still light or on the weekends, I often kick back on the sofa on the lounge and read a book or do some crochet.

On the weekend I went to a BBQ which was organised by one of the ladies I started SES with all those months ago as we are no longer “newbies” but real members. A perfect excuse to make cupcakes 🙂 and SES cupcakes is what I made. Vanilla buttercake for the cake and then fondant icing with lollies on top.

Of course, I decorated the cakes on the deck and here is a photo of my set-up.

It’s just after 9pm and I can feel my eyes starting to close so I am going to curl up in bed with my book and wait for it all to repeat itself tomorrow 😀

A youtube link to close the post – Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy. I thought this was good.

February 20, 2009

Christmas Day 08

Oh what a day that was.
There was rain, sword fighting, food, laughs, food, turf adventures, swimming, french cricket, food, water fights, lots of photo taking and generally just a fun day.

Matthew and the girls came in my car for the trip to The Farm and oh what at trip that was. Seven odd weeks later, I still think of that trip with a smile on my face.

As has always been done, you take a selection of your Christmas presents to The Farm. Matthew took his gas mask and the girls took their SuperSoakers. The journey was spent with the gas mask rotating between the three of them and scaring/getting a laugh out of other cars as we drove past. It was classic.

The Christmas Table.
Even before I started suggesting “Christmas at The Farm 08” I had wanted to have a meal on a long table with a white table cloth out on the turf or under the pecan nut trees. This Christmas I had that long table with white tablecloths.

Another thing I had been thinking about for a long time was having my glass hurricane vase, filled with glass baubles filled with beads. Christmas Day, saw the girls and I sitting on the floor of the garage filling the baubles and trying not to spill too many beads on the floor! Once they were filled though they looked gorgeous!

One of my other ideas was a large stack of pinecones on Mum’s 21st platter. Al and Ash collected the pine cones for me a couple of days before Christmas but come Christmas Day, I left the platter at Mum’s. Instead the girls had fun wrapping the pinecones with ribbons etc

After morning tea, it was time for the Christmas Tree. There were a few silly gifts given between families as well as the regular gifts intra-family. One of those silly gifts was from Karl and I. When we were in K-Mart getting presents for the girls we saw these foam swords and went “sweet” We bought the four that Chermside had in stock and then when I went to Toowong, I emptied their shelves and got another eight – one for all the grandkids and two extras in case of damages or if partners/wives/the girls wanted swords as well. The foam swords ruled the day.

Once the sword fights waned. It was time for French Cricket. For Christmas, Matthew and I gave the girls a Kanga Cricket bat and ball as they had loved playing French Cricket with us. We only gave them the ball on Christmas Eve and had planned on putting the bat with their stockings for Christmas morning, however I forgot to put the bat out so I wrapped it and took it to The Farm. But! I left the ball at home, so we used a tennis ball. We used to play a LOT of French Cricket at The Farm when we were younger. I don’t remember Grandad playing it when we were younger but Grandmum always did.

French Cricket with eighteen odd players is one hell of a game. When one of the boys got in, they would field out so they could slog it and then get in nice and close when it was one of the girls. It was all fine till James slugged the ball into the sweet potatoes… We only had one ball. That was a good sign though that it was time to start getting lunch organised.

The table was re-set, the BBQ was lit and the snags were been turned and then it started to rain. Luckily, it comes in pretty handy to have a large shed round the corner and with plenty of people it is easy to just move the entire set-up.

Aunty Susan and her girls (and Ian) had made the bon-bons for Christmas Lunch. Inside each of them was a gorgeous beaded Christmas ornament, a scratchie and the other usual goodies

After lunch we had a Turf Tour with Max

The girls were total posers and had a great time posing for photos of each other sword fighting on the turf.

When the Turf Tour was over, we retired to the front lawn to prepare ourselves for dessert. For some this meant more sword fighting

comparing hair length

or just having their photo taken

Dessert was a treasure trove of yummy food.
Trifle from Erica! Plum Pudding from me! Pavlova from Lisa! mmm so much dessert.

With our stomachs filled with sweet treats, a realisation came upon that the light was not going to last much longer and we had not yet taken the family photos!

All the family minus James who had gone visting

We know how to fight

With the fall of darkness, Iceland, Mum and Pabbi returned to Brisbane. The Howie kids, Karl, Matthew and I moved onto The Block where the Williams were staying to chill out in the pool. We had a lot of fun making whirlpools (walking in single file round the edge of the pool as fast as you can) and hypothesising why it is that some people get more pruney than others in the water.

Christmas Day was the highlight of what was an incredible Christmas season and I am looking forward to the next big family Christmas when or wherever that might be.

You can see Mum’s photos from the day here – Mum’s Christmas Photos and the rest of my photos here – My Christmas Day photos

February 15, 2009February 15, 2009

Coomera Falls

Friday night, after a day and a half of rain, I received a call from Mum inviting me to go waterfall hunting the next day. Most people who reads this most likely a) know Mum or are Mum or b) know enough about Mum to know that she has a thing for waterfalls. It was lightly raining when Mum picked me up from my house yesterday morning and it continued to rain all the way to Binna Burra/Lamington National Park. As we drove up the range we hit a large bank of low flying clouds which made the place look so mystical. There is not many things as beautiful as watching the sun try to shine through a cloud filled eucalypt forest. The straight, tall trunks of the eucalypt standing tall.

As we drove further up the range to Lamington we came out above the clouds. In the car park whilst we were kitting up, we met a lovely couple from Boulder, Colorado. Louisa and David came up to us in the car park and said to us, you look like experienced bush walkers, how do you remove leeches? After Mum demonstrating how to get leeches off and a little bit of a talk, we invited them along on our waterfall hunt. They were great walking partners as they are both scientists and liked stopping to look at all these strange and wonderful Australian rainforest curiosities.

The curiosities included jelly fungi, what we believe were bio-luminescent fungi (they glow in the dark), walking stick palms, little finch like birds, a Christmas Orchid in full bloom, a cluster of earth stars, a massive puff ball, trees with foam coming out the bark, a perfect land snail shell, lots and lots of strangling fig fruits on the rainforest floor and of course one of the highlights a Lamington Blue Spiny Crayfish.

Christmas Orchid

Lichen

Fern

Fungi

The falls were incredible, there was soo much water gushing over the lip. Yarrabilgong Falls were just as spectacular, the water was actually spurting over the lip and going out a metre or two before falling. From the Coomera Falls lookout we actually continued up the track to the next creek crossing where we saw a few more waterfalls coming into the creek and the Coomera Creek was just gushing with water.

Mum had a great time exploring more with her camera (she got a Canon G10 about two weeks ago and is loving it :)) and I am looking forward to seeing some of the photos she took. We ended the day with drinks and cake in the tea house before parting and heading back to Brisbane. Louisa and David, fly home today to a very different climate from what they have had the last few weeks.

Leeches of all sizes were out in force yesterday, I lost count of how many I picked off before they started sucking my blood but I did end up with eight of the suckers going undiscovered. I now have an itchy leg that I am doing my best not to rub as I haven’t gone to the chemist yet to pick up some Telfast.

The rest of the photos are here – Coomera Falls Photos