Thankful Thursday

Thursday 31 May 2012 - Tonight after work, I met up with my good friend Mark. I had not seen him or talked to him for quite a while. I feel like I have made a breakthrough, and am thrilled about it.

I fell for Mark's friend last year. Long story short, it didn't go so well for me and I was fairly devastated. Since then, whenever I saw or heard from Mark, I would then think of the other one, and would feel down for days afterwards. Even though some time has gone by, and I am feeling more positive (most of the time), I still felt hesitant to see or contact Mark, with that mental & emotional link ongoing. Unfair on him, but his friendship has not failed me, and tonight, I was very happy to see him again. We had a brief but lovely catchup, and I feel good that we re-connected. Small steps.

I feel so grateful for all my friends. Moreso with a couple of white wines in me (now), but also when I'm sober! I would be a wreck without them watching out for me, and always being there for me.

Also tonight, my nephew Mitchell is being confirmed in the Catholic Church in Sydney. Thursday night is a random night for a Confirmation, but I suppose they have to work around the Bishop's busy timetable... My brother Sean, Mitch's godfather, has flown down to be his sponsor tonight. Bless little Mitchy, such a lovely boy. Not so little any more, but still totally loveable.

Amazing Race Australia Episode 1

Wednesday 30 May 2012 - I loved the first season of this show last year, and have been looking forward to the new season. Here is my synopsis of the first episode tonight.

Impressive open shot of Grant Bowler standing on top of the Watsons Bay Lighthouse

Meeting the teams:

Shane & Andrew - Melbourne cops seem ok, blokey, cheery

Michelle & Jo – Cheerleading twins - great job description – also air hosties. Of course.

Sticky & Sam - flatmates - Sticky has no left arm – they seem like good mates

James & Sarah - on/off partners – wow – plastic surgery much?

Adam and Dane – indigenous cousins – they reckon they’ll never get lost!

Sue & Teresa – Geraldton hairdressers - Teresa boss – hippies with a “positive energy & vibe”

Ross & Tarryn - father & daughter – fit – competitive dad?

Lucy & Emilia – schoolteachers, sisters, Italian

Kym & Donna - engaged Brisbane couple - like 2 bits of lego. “We’re old, we don’t need more friends”

Joseph & Grace - brother & sister – know it all superior bloke; she seems a bit dumb

Paul & Steve workmates accountant & tradie “step aside or get stepped on” – super competitive

Starting the race at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, I think?

Car Puzzle – had to collect their car, only going straight forward or backward, other cars in the way. Cooperation required with other teams

Cops ahead – but need to not jinx themselves by saying that being cops helps them out...

Sarah – heels are really practical

Paul is a wannabe alpha-male (aka dick). “I can predict the pathway we could go through”. Out first

Adam & Dane - nice attitude, helping other team, so it will come back to them later.

Bimbos “we’re brainy, fit... not just pretty faces”. And their car’s out straight away!

Sticky & Sam. Yeah, don’t worry about the bimbos, whether they’re from Sydney or not. Going the wrong way to the airport, across the Harbour Bridge...

Sue & Teresa - Aura cleansing spray!? “Get the good vibes going on” – okay.

Plastic Sarah is annoying her on/off partner already...

Italian sisters providing a bit of light comic relief.

They all seem quite excited about going to Manila...?

At the airport:

Travelex man’s instructions – had to use subtitles! Heh. Bimbos and Alpha males are there first.

Meanwhile, Hippies still at car puzzle – last

Sticky & Sam made it after heading to North Sydney

Hippies are a little less chilled in the traffic

All made it onto the one flight to Philippines

Manila:

All trying to get taxis – Twins headed “Upstairs in our bright pink tshirts – we stopped the traffic” – bimbos admitting they use their stereotype to get ahead, irritating – there always have to be bimbos

Dick Paul is a “forward thinker, doesn’t want any other forward thinkers to compete with” – that is, the bimbos, who beat them to a cab.

Cheerleaders 1^st to the challenge – eating 8 balut: fertilised duck eggs? Sooo can’t blame them for not wanting to do it – disgusting! No fricking way. “Texture not taste. Mind over matter didn’t help”

Father/daughter team Ross & Tarryn did well

Kim & Donna – of course, she’s allergic to eggs. I’d use that excuse too. He had to eat the lot

Alphas – Paul “being half Filipino, I knew what it was, but I’d never tried it” – they competed with each other to eat faster, ended up first to leave. Steve “This is what we’re going to do the whole race, the WHOLE race” Really? Talking yourself up after the first challenge...

Brother/sister team Joseph & Grace – she had no problem, eating 5 eggs to his 3

HAHA – Adam & Dane, the indigenous cousins – Adam starts dry-wretching, because he “can eat witchety grubs, but not this”

Sticky & Sam got stuck in a cab, ran out of money, in wrong place? No - lucky that. They cruise through the eating

Lucy of the Italian sisters – gagging big time, Twins still stru

Twins still struggling, sympathy spewing

Hippy Teresa crying, hoping the universe will forgive them for eating poor almost formed ducklings

Sticky & Sam wanted to travel to the next place with Botox Sarah and on/off James, as they had no money left. James & B.S. wouldn’t lend sticky any money, and jumped into a cab. B.S.- “We’re not there to butter people’s buns!” He felt a bit bad though

Cheerleaders were first, now last

Sticky & Sam got on a free bus – and got there before James & Botox, most excellent

Twins still eating – man in the crowd, shouting out “Go Super Twins Go”! Hmmph.

Detour – Pig/Jig - catch 4 oily pigs or learn and perform dance:

Donna is a Kiwi, it’s a bit annoying to listen to her – she’s an aerobics instructor, so the dance just seemed obvious to her

Paul & Steve greased up to catch 2 pigs each

Dane like a pro catching his 1^st piggy

Aerobics instructor Kiwi then thought the dance would take too long, so they swapped to Pigs

Paul is a dirty player, running into Adam on purpose to get to his pig. Donna good with getting pig,

Sticky & Sam – how will Sticky catch a pig with only one arm? He did good! They got theirs quickly

Tarryn & Ross doing okay

Bro & Sis – Grace  not very graceful, dragging herself & her pig to the gate

Emilia & Lucy doing okay

Cops did good – afterwards, one said it was right up their alley, 2 cops going for 2 pigs – was that a paying-out-on-cops joke?

Cheerleaders decided to do dances as they are professional cheerleaders - “tits and teeth” stuffed it up! Switched to pigs! Twins – Michelle? too precious to pick up pig, then instructed the other one on how to do it.

Hippies dancing – the dance judges are very harsh

James & Botox Sarah last – sucked in – chasing pigs in little skirt, did she take off her heels? Good on her for getting down & dirty though

Building a raft to go across the bay to the pit stop:

Alphas and Cousins first to start

“Unfortunately I wasn’t too helpful with the actual labour work” – Paul the Alpha – their raft then fell apart in water

Adam & Dane did good with raft, putting them in the lead

Kym & Jo confident with their raft, didn’t laugh at Alphas, nice of them

Hippies got out the aura spray, and did the dance correctly, yay. But coming last

Kym & donna 2^nd into the water, Steve & Sticky at same time

Adam & Dane’s raft started breaking apart, they had to go back to the beach, after they’d almost made it to the end

Tarryn & Ross next

Paul & Steve in the water, overtaken as they fell apart again – back on the beach, staring at the raft, Paul not even helping to take it apart to start again – Frig, he wanted to take a penalty! Steve willing to keep trying, was getting cranky – good to see he can stand up for himself against Paul

Team 1 - Ross & Tarryn. Nice one! He is 55 years old. First salvage pass – gain an additional 1 hour head start, or they can save the last team from elimination, gaining an ally for later.

2 - Donna & Kym
3 – James & Sarah!

4 - Hippies went from last to 4^th – excellent raft building

5 – Sticky and Sam – great rowing, one-armed man! Like this team

6 - Joseph & Grace

7 - Twins

8 - Cops

9 - Adam and Dane – yay!

10 Bugger – Paul & Steve, after getting help building the raft

11 Lucy & Emilia, also after help building the raft, but being overtaken by the Alphas. They think they’ve been eliminated.

Ross & Tarryn appear – I predict they will take the 1 hour head start

Tarryn looks very serious. Oh BLESS! They are saving the Italian sisters. I like Ross & Tarryn for doing that. Grant got a little choked up too. I don’t think Emilia & Lucy will last many more legs though, unfortunately.

I also reckon Ross & Tarryn would not have saved the Alpha males if they had come last...

A most excellent first episode!

A Eurovision Experience

Sunday 27 May 2012 - Tonight was my first Eurovision Party. My friend Kylie invited Debbie and I over to hers for an evening of Euro-Pop and Euro-Power-Ballads (mainly), and way too much food - fondue, bruschetta, cheeses, meats, breads, petit fours (slices from French Twist!)

I had never really gone out of my way to watch the Eurovision Song Contest, but apparently it is a major event in European homes, and it seems that quite a few Aussies also have parties to watch and judge each European country's chosen song that (ahem) best represents them. All the European countries that had entries (42 in total, I think) then vote for the best act, awarding their favourites 12, then 10, then 8,7,6, etc down to 1 point, and the country with the most points is the winner. Some very interesting choices. I started out very cynical that I would even like any of the acts, but by act 4, I was pretty enthralled! As were the girls, who had been there, done that in previous years.

Fascinating viewing

My list of favourites (given the 26 fairly random acts):

• Lithuania - Donny Montell - good looker, started out wearing a very sparkly blindfold (the song was Love Is Blind or similar - get it? blind?) which he eventually whipped off and then did some rather surprising, Michael Jackson-inspired moves
• Russia - 6 lovely little old babushka ladies, apparently singing about baking and dancing - quite catchy and fun!
• Cyprus - half decent Europop, very danceable
• Italy - their version of Amy Winehouse, complete with 3 backup singers, good song
• Norway - very good looking boy, who would appeal to the gay male and straight female demographics, very tight jeans over lovely muscly legs - umm, I think the song was okay too
• Denmark - my favourite, a song called Should Have Known Better - very non-typical Eurovision song - read: not cheesy, no wind machines, the female lead singer played her own guitar and the band and the song were just overall pretty good
• Malta - boy bandy, with fancy footwork!
• Ireland - the identical blond twins known as Jedward - I had misjudged these kids the 2 times I saw them on the Graham Norton Show, because they seemed like annoying male bimbos and they have freaky standup hair - their song Waterline was really good! I liked it and would even happily listen to it again

Now, the interesting thing is just how different the European musical tastes are compared to ours. The Russian ladies came 2nd to a fairly ordinary (in my opinion) Swedish act, which beat them by something like 113 points, so far and away, it was the most popular song. Then in 3rd was Serbia, a man who sang a below-average power ballad - for a while, I was worried that he would actually win, or the hosts, Azerbaijan - whose song was fairly bad too, but lots of countries looked to be sucking up to them by giving them their votes. 

The ones who did well (other than Sweden and Russia) were the ones we really didn't like. The Albanian that I think came in about 5th, was this screeching Medusa woman, with dreadies wrapped up on top of her head and with one coiling down across her decolletage - fully creepy and a bad song, but the voters seemed to quite like it - go figure!

Of my list after Russia, the next best was Italy who came about 9th, Cyprus about 13th, Lithuania 15th, Ireland 18th, Malta 20th. Denmark was about 3rd last, and the looker from Norway was last! Interesting how the Europeans seemed to be voting for the songs (or countries) they liked, rather than basing it on looks the way we often tend to do in Australia... there's a thought!

On another topic, on Saturday night, Kim and I had a bottle of white at her place, then went to the Bowery Bar for Natalie's birthday. It was a really nice bar, and about a dozen of us had cocktails and chatted for a few hours. I took off about 11ish when the others went in search of somewhere to go dancing. It was a good night out. 

Collingwood had their 6th win in a row on Friday night against the Adelaide Crows. So happy and proud of the boys - interstate, sold out game with a crowd mostly against them, undermanned due to soooo many injured players being out, new kids in the team, Adelaide being 2nd on the ladder with only one loss so far. So much against them, and they still came through. I'd love to see just what they could do with their full team!! Love it. 

And Wests Tigers won the rugby league against North Queensland Cowboys at Campbelltown today for their 5th win in a row. It's a bonus on weekends when my teams win. All good. 

Bring on the new week. I can say that this May has been a pretty good month in my personal life. Let's work out the rest as it happens. 

A Weekend Most Wonderful

Tuesday 22 May 2012 - Wow, time really does fly. I didn't realise it had been so long since I updated this page, apologies to those who hold their breath in anticipation of the next fascinating read! Yep, sarcasm works for me.

Last week was fairly busy work-wise, yoga Monday night, catching up on current Game of Thrones episodes on the other nights and football Friday night. A good weekend will often begin with Wests winning the league and Collingwood winning the AFL. This happened last Friday night, with Wests beating the Auckland Warriors and Collingwood beating... GEELONG! Extra good news, especially since Geelong flogged them in the Grand Final last year. Ah, sweet revenge.

On Saturday, I flew with my friends Debbie and Kylie, to Sydney with the fantastic Virgin Australia (sarcasm again - they had cancelled our morning flight to Newcastle, but they changed us to the Sydney flight, meaning we had to drive about 3 hours to Newcastle...) In Sydney we picked up a maroon Nissan Tiida, met up with Kylie's friend Wendy, and made our way to the Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley.

Once we checked into our 3 bedroom apartment, we headed straight to the wineries - Tamburlaine was where I bought a very nice verdehlo, before we then went to Audrey Wilkinson's (Trivia - Audrey was a man with a girl's name). This is where we met Kim from Sydney, another friend of Kylie. Audrey's wines were not "to my liking", but the building and views from there were lovely - here is an example:

Gundog Estate is one of my favourites - lovely people working there, and a really comfy setting for tastings. At New Years, I bought a rose (wine not the flower) from there, and this time I believe I got a "wild semillon" and a "Hunter shiraz". These are being flown to Brissy, along with 4 of Debbie's bottles. Trivia - the "gundog" at this property is named Karl Marx - heh. The winemaker's name is Matt Burton - he was serving our wine and chatting to us, a very friendly fellow - another Trivia Alert - his parents used to own Wandin Estate which was named after Wandin Valley, the town from A Country Practice, of which they were the producers! I find degrees of separation from famous or celebrity people a bit exciting anyway. [Ahem, an example - see previous post on my Nathan Buckley encounter!!] Okay, Gundog Estate winetasting photo:

Blurry pic by Matt the winemaker, not Matt the photographer

Soon after we got back to the Crowne Plaza, the rest of the group arrived from Sydney - Lenore, my friend and ex-team leader from Infinity Holidays, her friend and colleague, Natalie; also Sandra, our ex-Brissy and now Hobart-dwelling friend, and their friend Adam. They had another apartment next door to ours. Nine funsters in total. The clan from next door went to The Brewery (?) a nearby pub, for dinner, while we had yummy Thai chicken curry, thanks to our Cessnock Coles stockup in the afternoon, and also thanks to Kim & Kylie our chefs... no photos of dinner though.

Sunday morning dawned, clear, blue skies and crisp - perfect for a day in the vineyards. Boarding our bus, we got our lovely purple wristband and headed past the Allendale Winery to Tatler Wines. We got there around 10:45am, a teeny bit early for me to start drinking full glasses, so I used my "tasting token" to try some semillon frizzante - a nice beginning - and then a slurp of sauv blanc, while sitting in the sun, overlooking the vines and listening to a band playing easy-like-Sunday-morning musak.

After about 45 minutes at Tatler, we hopped on the bus and went to Gartelmann Hunter Estate, where most of us had an early lunch, using our first "meal token". I had pretty good barramundi and rice and green leafy stuff, and Lenny, Nat & I bought a very nice Gartelmann Rose (imagine the accent over the 'e' there, as I have no idea how to type it in) to drink with lunch. Here we all are:

We then stopped at Emma's Cottage Vineyard, but only stayed about 20 minutes due to our not liking the wines and it also started raining while we were there. It was a very cute cottage on a small property next to a cemetery (added atmosphere?), but it soon became time to move on.

Next was Sandalyn Wilderness Estate. I think this is my favourite Hunter winery - when I went there at New Year, the people were lovely, they had good wines, yummy oils and vinegars, and a gorgeous old golden labrador that shuffles around letting people pat him/her - a really welcoming atmosphere. This day was just fantastic. No sign of the dog, but - they had a band called Phonic, playing under a big tent, and Len, Nat & I consumed quite a few bottles of Sandalyn Verdelho between us. I had my 2nd main (we had 2 meal vouchers, not to be wasted!) which was a lamb shank and yummy mashed potato, and then used my dessert voucher on some kind of whisky-chocolate brownie with cream, which was pretty delicious. Dancing ensued (check the sexy suit on Borat in the background):

After about an hour, 4 of the group moved on to Wandin Estate, but I saw no need to go elsewhere when the going was so good at Sandalyn. Deb, Wendy, Lenore, Nat & I danced up a storm to some really good music (it seemed that way at the time anyway!) Here are the girls teaching English girl Nat how to dance properly to some random AC/DC song:

I had such a fantastic day, and weekend. Meeting great new people, catching up with great friends, all of us having fun and without a care in the world for a day or 2. On Monday it was a slightly less carefree story, feeling a bit sore & sorry, but it was so worth it for the time I had with these wonderful people in a wonderful part of Australia.

Around the grounds:

Monday morning serenity - Hope Estate

Grateful for good times!

A Smashing Saturday

Saturday 12 May 2012 - Tonight I can safely say, I am the happiest I have been all year.
This morning, I got to the Stamford Plaza in Brisbane for my work conference. As I walked into the foyer, who do I see but Nathan Buckley, beloved former Collingwood captain and now coach. He was talking to another man, and when he sensed me gawking at him, he turned around, and I said "HULLO!" all excitedly... 
NB: "Uh, hello".
Me: "I'm a fan"
NB: "Oh, great"
Me: "So, are you going to beat Brisbane tonight?"
NB: Laughing - "Well, that's why we're here, that's the aim"
Me: "Well you didn't last time you played up here"
NB: "Oh, when was that, back in 2010..."
Me: "Yep, I think it was about by about 8 points, and it was heartbreaking" (yeah, dramatic)
NB: "Yeah, we don't really have a great record playing in Brisbane"
Me: "Well, it looks like a good team tonight. It's good that you're not resting any of the big players"
NB: "No, only Jols and Daisy"
Me: "Well it will be a good crowd tonight, the Gabba gets the best crowds for games against Collingwood, we pop up everywhere" (meaning Pies fans are everywhere)  "... by the way, I'm not stalking you [!] - I'm here for my work conference".
NB: "Oh, who for"
Me: "Flight Centre. But I got out of the function tonight so I could go to the game"
NB: "Oh, so you're going to start feeling sick at about 4 o'clock?"
Me: (something like) "Oh no, they already know I'm going...well, it was really good to meet you! Good luck tonight"
NB: "Thanks, see you"

Now that was fairly banal and non-interesting to anybody but me, and maybe a few other Collingwood fans. But it was the highlight of my day, and it was ridiculous just how excited I was. Random good, exciting things that happen in my life!


The conference was actually really good, mostly relevant to my work, and we learned about the history, challenges, changes and the different Flight Centre business. Good stuff. Oh, and face-painting.


Tonight, I went to see Collingwood play the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba. It was a fantastic game, and even though I was on edge for most of it, waiting for the Lions to do a big 8 goal spree and beat us, my team won by 116-58, that is double the Lions' score. There were 27,926 people at the game, and I reckon about 20,000 would have been Pies' fans... at a Lions' home game. Wonderful! Highlights for me were Travis Cloke kicking a goal in the first minute or so; the Dane Swan goals (2 in about 2 minutes and almost a 3rd shortly after that); seeing Alan Didak back for his 1st game after injury, and his great goal; Tyson Goldsack's 3 goals; Cameron Woods and Heath Shaw goals; Harry, Ben Reid, Maxwell, Sidebottom etc etc.


Oh, and Jonathan Brown missing a couple of sitters for Brisbane. The huge Collingwood army booing loudly to distract him may possibly have been a factor there. The only downer of the game for me, was poor Nathan Brown hobbling off, after hurting his knee or leg when Harry landed on him while they both tried for the ball heading towards J.B. Nathan Brown has been so incredibly unlucky with injury. I think this was only about his 3rd game back since recovering from his last injury, and he has been playing so well, and was doing an amazing job defending against big J.B. Really feel for him, and hope it is not as bad as it looked. Ben Reid did a pretty good job on J.B. from then on though, which was appreciated by me!


I. Loved. this game. And when the final siren went, the crowd cheered, we sang Good Old Collingwood Forever, and the players came over and clapped for their fans before they headed off. I am currently the happiest I have been all year. Without doubt. It doesn't really take much. 

Saw my cousin's wife, Kylie, and her son Declan, happy after the game

Declan and I - and part of the Pies flag 

Thursday Tidings

Thursday 10 May 2012 - On Tuesday night, Debbie, Kim & I saw Kaiser Chiefs at the Hifi West End, and they were great. We had a really top viewing position and the crowd was a good size, really well-behaved and having fun. The lead singer is quite the showman - or showoff... very entertaining and as lead singers tend to do, had the audience wrapped around his little finger. I knew most of the songs, and they did a really good mix of old and new. I liked the drummer too - as cool as someone with a bowl haircut can possibly be, and very talented.

I was tempted to try taking a photo on my phone as we were so close, but it would have turned out similar to my "Supermoon over East Ballina" effort from my last post. Videos and photos taken at concerts just never turn out very good, sound-wise or visually, so I don't know why people bother. I like to take a "mental" picture of the experience and try to remember it all that way - I am very arty and deep, I know.

However, for all the people taking photos etc at the show, I can't find any on google images (maybe on Youtube?), so I got a poster image instead - I liked all 3 bands that night - a rare occurrence -  but couldn't work out the name of the first band (Loon Lake? silly name, but they were very good), so this will remind me if I ever need to remember them again:



On Wednesday, I found myself in JB Hifi to use my birthday gift card from Kimmy, to purchase Game of Thrones Season 1. JB also have 20% off all DVDs till 13th May (so I hope to get back there soon to get Offspring Series 2). Love that store!! Wednesday night I watched some of the bonus bits, and so now I know so much more about the families and characters, and the making of the series. Love bonus bits too!! Debbie came over later to watch for the first time, and I found so much that I had missed, by starting to watch it all for the 2nd time. Great show.

Today was Tina's birthday so we had afternoon tea at work today. If she happens to be reading this - which I know she sometimes does - Happy Birthday Tina! Another Taurean in our area, but she is different to me, she is easy-going and always pleasant and nice! But, like me, hard-working and with good attention to detail (talking myself up, heh).

Saturday is our work conference at the Stamford Plaza. Not much to say about that really.

Till next time then!!

Supermoon Sunday

Monday 7 May 2012 - Did you see how big & beautiful the so-called "Supermoon" was on Sunday? Check out this view of it over my parents' neighbours' roof in East Ballina:

Superb photography from my phone-camera! Bwahahaaa!

... and compare it with, say, this view of the moon over Rio (found on Google Images):

It was actually quite impressive from my viewpoint, it just didn't come out that way when captured on mobile phone... surprisingly!

I had a nice, quiet, relaxed week in Ballina, and drove back to Brisbane today. 

On Friday and Saturday, Mum and Dad stayed at Jupiters on the Gold Coast, where they saw a show on Friday night, and watched Wests Tigers beat Gold Coast Titans (just) on Saturday. Over that time, I got my eyebrows waxed and lashes tinted by a family friend who used to be my beautician when I lived in Ballina all those years ago, and who now has a shop at Lennox Head. Friday night, I watched the replay (once I knew the result - far less tense viewing) of Collingwood beating the Western Bulldogs in the AFL, till about 1:30am. Then, after sleeping in till 10am on Saturday and stuffing around for a while, I saw The Avengers with my friend Angela, at Ballina Fair Cinema. 

TOP movie. The Avengers are Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk...umm, Scarlett Johannson and Jeremy Renner... all fighting against Thor's evil brother Loki and his army of creepy, alien/demon-type creatures, who are trying to take over the earth. I think. I had a teeny bit of trouble following the rhyme and reason of the plot, and was a little irritated by the inevitable boys clashing with each other and fighting about who was the best hero/whose d**k was the biggest (not literally). Of course, once that was out of the way, and they all banded nobly together, and once The Hulk finally appeared - he was unreal! - the action and special effects and fight scenes were pretty spectacular. 

I have really liked Joss Whedon since he did Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, and I think he is quite a genius. He directed and co-wrote this movie, and it is a great example of his on-going brilliance. In my humble opinion. His touches of humour are pure "Buffy", and I love it. Funniest scene involves The Hulk and Loki -  our audience was chuckling at that for a while afterwards.  I thoroughly enjoyed The Avengers, and rate it a 9 outta 10. 

Back to work tomorrow - Queensland had Labour Day today, so an extra day tacked onto my week off, bonus. Tomorrow night, Kim, Debbie and I are seeing Kaiser Chiefs at Hi-Fi, West End. I saw them a couple of years ago at the V Festival on the Gold Coast, and they were great, really entertaining. I'm looking forward to seeing them in a smaller venue. 

Happy Birthday, Me

Wednesday 2 May 2012 - I have had a lovely quiet day with my parents in Ballina today. They bought me an iPod Nano which I love, and I also got some great "lounging" pjs, a fancy eye mask and some other goodies from my sister Donna. Sean and Sam's present is waiting for me to collect when I next see them. More presents, yeah!
Today Mum, Dad & I had lunch at Westower Tavern. I had barramundi which was yummy, but the serving size was really big, so for dinner, I had a piece of birthday cake and a couple of glasses of champagne... full as a googy. 
I got text messages and calls from wonderful friends and family. I have decided birthdays are to be celebrated, not dreaded, and this year, to quote a friend, I am going to "be my own hero" and make the most of opportunities that come my way. Go ME!!