Archive for September, 2009

One could be forgiven for thinking Armageddon had come to our city this week.  A huge dust storm cast Brisbane in a weird orange glow and coated everything with a layer of red.  The dust apparently came from western New South Wales.  Here’s a picture of what our street usually looks like (on a Thursday – bin day!)…

And this is what it looked like all day during the dust storm…

Apparently there’s another one coming tomorrow.  I was driving along this morning under blue skies, but above the horizon in the distance I could see a definite line of the dust haze which is probably the encroaching dust storm.

Bribie Island aka 'Bribery' Island

Maddy is going to Bribie Island with her uncle Dave this weekend, and is all excited. She said to Ben “Ben! I need a suitcase to take to Bribery Island!”

So he gave her a knapsack to take to ‘Bribery’ Island, and she began to look through her drawers in her bedroom for clothes to take.

“Hmmm…” she said to herself, “Some of these clothes I got years ago but they still fit because I’m so small… I’ll take that as a compliment to myself!”

No thanks

My life is so boring and every day is much like the other, to the extent where I open my eyes in the morning and think to myself  ‘Groundhog Day!’  But Groundhog Day really took a turn for the worse last night.  I’d been up playing online poker in the hope that I’d push myself over the one million chip mark.  I’d had to hold my eyes open with matchsticks for the last two hours as each time my chip count was just short of the million target I’d set myself before I went to bed.  Finally, at 2am I made it past a million, and promptly closed my laptop and staggered into bed.

Our bedroom resembled a homeless shelter – Brenna, Maddy and the two dogs were all sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor in our room after hearing a scary story earlier.  Bobbie was the only one to wake as I crept into the room – it was quite cute – Banjo had his leg over Bobbie as though he was cuddling him like a teddy bear.

I crawled into bed, turned off the lamp, struggled with my usual insomnia despite being bone weary, and eventually started to drift off to sleep.  I was awoken by a strange sound, and my foggy mind tried to make sense of the sound which I can’t even begin to describe.  I finally realised it was the damn dog vomiting.  I sprang up, switched on the lamp, to find Bobbie vomiting on the floor.  Brenna woke up and cleaned it up, and we all went back to bed.  I couldn’t sleep though so fetched my laptop and spent another couple of hours working.

So, finally, around 5am, I decided I’d better get at least a couple hours sleep, and closed the laptop up.  I lay there  for a half hour or so before I started drifting off – only to hear the vomiting noise from hell again.  Didn’t this just happen?! Springing into action, this time it was Banjo – a much bigger dog so potentially a much bigger mess.  He vomited next to my side of the bed (I spotted grass and a big stone in his puke – what on earth does that dog eat!), and Maddy’s carpet copped another lot.

Groundhog day – two lots of dropping off to sleep, two lots of vomiting just as I’d finally  fallen asleep.  The dogs are perfectly fine now – I don’t know what had gotten into them.

I just spent the evening making a new template for Maddy’s blog. She chose the picture and I built the template around it. I think it turned out pretty cute. I really enjoyed doing it – I’d love to do some more and work on a portfolio and perhaps do this for a living.

I spent the day uploading old travel pics and making pages here. I found an old disk I’d saved my photos on from a trip to the UK in 2003, and there’s some nice ones on there. The disk is very scratched though so I thought I’d better upload and save them somewhere, so you can see them here in the June/July 2003 archives. I’m not quite finished yet (I took hundreds of pics!) but hopefully I’ll get the rest of them saved here in the next couple of days.

OMG what a pallaver! We bought Banjo a special lead thing which goes over the muzzle and is supposed to control his head – he hated it. Between Ben and I, it took us ten minutes of wrestling with Banjo just to get the thing on. Ben took Banjo up and down the alleyway next to our house, and Banjo struggled with the muzzle the entire time. He managed to pull it off a number of times, and refused to budge. Ben tried to drag on the lead and the whole thing, much to Banjo’s happiness, came right off. Banjo was able to twist his head around and tried to chew on the straps which came from the muzzle part – doubt if they’re going to last long.

So I got my exercise just trying to put the stupid thing on the dog. I’m not sure what the next stage will be. Just thinking about it is exhausting!

It’s Saturday morning, the kids are at their dad’s place. I had a sleep in, and woke up at 9am. I lay in bed thinking about my life. I’ve fallen into such a rut. I’m overweight, uninspired; I feel as though I’m me living inside someone else’s body. Every day is the same…some time ago I lost ‘me’, my excitement for life. I’ve been spending years just trying to get through each day, and spending alot of it asleep to pass the hours.

So I was lying there today thinking this has got to stop, and the only one who’s going to do it is me. So I’m off to the shops to buy a dog harness and I’m going to take the dog for a walk. See that cartoon picture of the dog up there in the top of this website? That’s supposed to be Banjo, our black labrador. Well, picture him at least twice that big compared to me. He’s huge and very strong. The plan had been to take him for walks for me to get fit again. I only took him out once – he pulled me down the driveway like I was on skis. I managed to pull him back inside and haven’t dared take him out walking since. The neighbourhood here is not conducive to dog walking – there are too many dogs out on the streets that have escaped from their yards. Dogs in Australia don’t seem to be all that well socialised. As soon as they see another dog they think it’s an invitation to fight. Walking along with your dog on a leash is all fine and well until you come across a stray pit bull who wants to eat your pooch for lunch. It’s pretty scary. Banjo is huge, but a big old softie. I have no idea how he’d go if another dog had a go at him.

Anyway, I’m off to buy him a harness because apparently big dogs are easier to control with them. Then I’m going to take him for a walk. This may be the last post I ever make hehe…

In an effort to sharpen up my writing skills, I’ve decided to try and do at least one of these writing prompts from this site regularly.  I’m pretty tired and brain dead so I chose one that was fairly easy and didn’t require much brain power. Here’s  my quick attempt at one tonight:

You’re at a U2 concert when you receive a text from a friend that says, “You’ll never believe what just happened to me!” In the form of a text chat, find out what happened to your friend.

Well, I started writing this in texting language but texting language really pisses me off, so I’m writing it properly.

LYNNE:  You’ll never guess what happened!

ME: What?

LYNNE:  Guess!

ME: These texts cost me money & you said I won’t guess anyway.  What is it?

LYNNE: Guess who I saw on the way to the ladies?

ME:  Argh!  Just tell me!!!

LYNNE:  Larry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ME:  Larry who?

LYNNE:  erk you are so uncool – Larry Mullen – the cute drummer.

ME: from u2?

LYNNE: yessssss!!!!!! OMG he’s gorgeous!

ME:  I prefer Bono.  What was he doing?

LYNNE:  umm… actually, he had tools with him & started to unblock a loo.

ME: what?

LYNNE:  I dunno…Maybe times are tough?  Second job?

ME: U2 don’t need to unblock toilets for a living.  You sure it was Larren Mullen?

LYNNE: His mate called him Larry.

ME: There’s more than 1 Larry in this world you know.

LYNNE:  But what’s the chances of there being another one at a U2 concert?

ME:  You are so blonde.

There’s a book fair on this week at school, and I gave Maddy two $10 notes to take as she’s got her eye on a special notebook and pencils for sale there. She told me that they’re only allowed to take $10 at a time, so I suggested she leave one $10 note at home and bring it the next day. This is the conversation that followed:

Maddy: No, I’ll keep it in my wallet.

Me: I wouldn’t do that – someone might try to steal it.

Maddy: No, I’m not worried about that. They won’t.

Me: Well, it’s happened before, kids taking money out of other people’s wallets.

Maddy: They won’t steal it from mine – it’s got a peace sign on it.

Me: Erm, what’s that got to do with anything? That won’t stop them.

Maddy: Ohhh, yes it will Mum, believe me.

Me: How will a peace sign stop people from stealing money out of your wallet?

Maddy: Because people are afraid of it.

Me: What?!

Maddy: Peace signs scare people.

Me: What do you mean ‘peace signs scare people’???!!!

Maddy: People are afraid of it.

Me: But why do you think that?

Maddy: There was a kid at school who had a hat with a peace sign on it. Another kid came up, took one look at it, and ran away scared.

Me: Riiiiight……

Maddy: So my money will be safe in my wallet.

Me: O—-kay then…

MADDY: “Did you know that there are two places on your body, that if you get shot there, you will die instantly?”

BEN: “Where, Maddy?”

MADDY: “Your head & your neck – you will die instantly if you get shot there.”

BEN: “Not necessarily, I’ve heard of people who’ve been shot in the head or the neck and survived.”

MADDY: “No, Ben. (humouring his ignorance!) That’s just what you see in movies – in real life if you get shot in the head or the neck, you will always die instantly….(thinks for a moment)…unless you can get to a hospital.”