Dad's Birthday Tuesday

Tuesday 28 Feb 2012 - Today is my father's birthday. I spoke to him from work on the phone today, but gave him his present and had lunch with him and Mum on Sunday to mark the occasion. My Dad is the best - he would do anything for his family, give us everything he possibly can. 

The Birthday Boy

I got to thinking about the men in my life, or lack thereof. I have come up with a list of important ones:

• Dad
• My brother Sean
• My brother-in-law John
• My 11 year old nephew Mitchell
• My friend Mark
• My workmates Andy and Brett
• My cousin Ben and his sons, Declan, 10 and Bryn, almost 3
• My Uncle Pat

I wonder if it's a bit sad that I don't have many men in my life, or fantastic that the important ones are of such superior quality that nobody else measures up. The bad ones come and go - but as long as the men of substance, the constants, are around me, it's all good really. 

Moody Monday

Monday 27 Feb 2012 - I had a disturbing dream just before I woke up this morning, and it put me out of sorts all day. I couldn't get it out of my head. I was not helped by having to deal with taxes at work - taxes are fairly mundane, and not the best way of distracting my mind, so today was a bit of a downer. My poor workmates! Sorry everyone. Thanks for putting up with me. 


But - tonight I went back to Zumba with the suburban Mums at Everton Park, and really enjoyed it. A contrast from the class last week with the fancy footwork I couldn't do. So the lesson to be learned is to go with what I know and like. Change is not always good! Although, my arms will be hurting tomorrow, we did a whole song with our arms out like planes or birds - ouchywawa...

The Academy Awards were on today - no surprises, and no awards for anything I saw or liked. Except Bret from Flight Of The Conchords who won the best original song from the Muppet Movie - Man Or Muppet (heh - cute)

• Best Movie - The Artist (silent, black & white, French, looks tres boring); 
• Best Actor - Jean Dujardin from The Artist; 
• Best Actress - Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady; 
• Best Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer for The Help (I did like that movie, and her character); 
• Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer for Sound of Music (not really - but he should have got one for that! I think it was for Beginners?). 
• Billy Crystal hosted. I haven't watched any of it - I don't even think any channel is showing the delayed telecast. 

Watched Revenge tonight on the telly - I really like it so far. A strong female getting back at the people who crossed her - MWAAAhahahahaaaa. Good stuff.
Anyway, tonight, I feel like I've been put through the wringer - physically and mentally tired. Tonight will be an early night. After I read up on Paris in the France Lonely Planet that Angela has kindly lent me. I have started researching flights to Paris and accommodation there - fun! And - the ever important STLFT (Something To Look Forward To). 

Ballina Weekend

Sunday 26 Feb 2012 - Really glad that I left Brisbane early on Saturday morning to avoid traffic. I left at 6:45am Brisbane time, and by 7:45 I was sitting in barely moving traffic on the Pacific Motorway, Gold Coast, in the pouring rain, as cars had to merge from 2 lanes to 1, taking about 45 minutes to move 5km. Workmen worked in the rain, fixing potholes, for about a 100 metre stretch, then the traffic pretty much disappeared and I was on my way again. Random. Then, I seemingly missed my turnoff to Ballina and ended up on the other side of town to what I was expecting. All up, the normally 2.5 hour trip took me 3.5 hours. So yeah - glad I left Brisbane early to avoid traffic!!

Ballina is definitely more laid-back than Brisbane - I love going there for weekends to get away from it all, so to speak. This weekend, we watched a Collingwood vs Western Bulldogs game from last week, an episode of Monk (family favourite), and Mum & I watched Revenge and Smash (which is on a channel I don't have, so I got to check it out - it's good!), and we went through Mum & Dad's upcoming cruise itinerary, which looks amazing, and I am quite jealous about it all... Today we all went out to lunch at Pelicans, a seafood restaurant on the river, for Dad's birthday which is on Tuesday, before I headed back to Brisbane.

Yesterday I also visited my friend Angela.. She has a little menagerie at her house, consisting of a very timid but lovely, fluffy cat called Dalai, a friendly puppy-like bunny called Milo, and a squawky bird called Alby. Ange and I got Thai takeaway, a bottle of wine and a DVD, for a good Saturday night catchup. Ange is a great friend that I've known since the start of high school. She and I travelled to Croatia and Ireland together a while ago, and to Hawaii with another friend, Sally, for my "big birthday" a couple of years ago. Ange is an excellent travel buddy as she is very "laid back and cruisey", and nicely counterbalances my "uptight and stressy"!

She is also a good Band Buddy, who got me hooked on Muse, and used to go to bands with me when we both lived in Sydney. We went to Sydney for a weekend when Green Day last came out to Australia. I managed to score box seats through Thai Airways and work, so we happily consumed free drinks and nibblies, and had great seats for the concert. Here we are beforehand:

Finally Friday

Friday 24 Feb 2012 - How is this for a good looking sunset?

and this?

I captured these images (that's a better way of saying "took these pictures") on Thursday night, on my way to pay rent. It was after a day of rain, and it was so lovely, and put a smile on my face. Brisbane can be pretty when it wants to be.

It's been a hard week. Being short-staffed at work some days, and getting to sleep quite late each night did not help. The reason for lack of sleep? This was the week of Sons Of Anarchy Season 2 marathons - 3 episodes Monday Night, 4 on Wednesday and 4 on Thursday (and out to the movies on Tuesday). Ridiculously addictive show! Well, at least I made it to Zumba on Monday and Wednesday, for a little physical activity...

Today has been very rainy and tonight is still rainy. Nice and cool though. Last night I slept under the doona and with the fan on... love it! I am off to Ballina tomorrow for a weekend with Mum & Dad. Driving in the rain is always a challenge, so I'm thinking of heading off early to at least beat a bit of traffic. I like a good drive to Ballina - I always have the music turned up nice & loud, and I holler along quite happily for just over 2 hours. It's good to get out of the city and hit the open road for a while.

Tuesday Movie Night

Tuesday 21 February 2012 - Tonight after work, Gemma, Lorraine & I watched a movie in the city, called This Means War. Action, mystery and interesting stories and characters (my preferred viewing criteria listed in yesterday's post)? Not in this particular movie!

Okay, there was some action. It stars Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as spy buddies who both take a liking to Reese Witherspoon's character. Her best friend in the film is played by Chelsea Handler, one of my comedy heroes, and she was really funny in this. So, the guys are extremely unprofessional as secret agents, using their other colleagues and resources to spy on Reese and to sabotage each other's efforts at getting her. There were some funny scenes and lines, and it was fairly light and harmless - not really Oscar-worthy, but a bit of fun. Although, Spoiler Alert - I reckon she ended up with the wrong bloke. Typical! Anyway, 7 out of 10.

Today is a very special girl's 1st Birthday. Taylah is my very good friend Sally's daughter, and she is a cutie. They live in Sydney, so I have only met Taylah once - it makes me a bit sad that I have missed so much of my friend's baby's first year, and that I haven't seen Sal either, but that's how life pans out really. Happy Birthday, little 1 year old xx

The birthday girl - clearly she is reading my card out to her folks.

Monday Catchup

Monday 20 Feb 2012 - This post is dedicated to Lorraine from my work.

I found out that she actually reads my blog regularly, when she asked me today if I'm not doing it anymore... Does anyone else read it? Feel free to post a comment, even if you don't want to join as a member. Anyway, for all of my blog fans (or, "blans" for short?),  here is a bit of a catchup since last week. Hang on, it's gonna be a wild ride folks! (no, really!)

On Saturday I went to the Gallery of Modern Art (we call it GOMA, so it kind of sounds like it's located somewhere like New York and not in Brisbane), with some of the girls, to see the Matisse exhibition. It was called Matisse - Drawing Life, and consisted of many, many of his sketches that he used to do to "warm up" or practise, or to get inspiration for what would become his great artistic masterpieces. Or something like that. It was a huge collection, but I think he possibly wouldn't have intended a lot of the sketches to be shown to the public - with some of them, I thought I might just be able to do a little bit better really. For instance:

But the complete sketches, if that's what they can be called, were wonderful, of course. He was quite a talented fellow you know! With only a few lines, he could create great images. So here are 2 that I quite liked:

Saturday night my AFL team, Collingwood, played the first round of the NAB Cup at Blacktown in Sydney, of all places, in a round robin against Western Bulldogs and then Greater Western Sydney (the new AFL team this year). And beat them both. Doesn't matter that the 2nd game was only won by 3 points, it was still a win, and the boys are on their way. Bring on winter and the new AFL season! I feel sorry for poor Brent Macaffer - firstly because his name is Brent; 2nd because he injured his knee pretty badly and will likely be out most of the season.

Anyway, Sunday - I had won 2 free tickets to see the new movie, Any Questions For Ben, so Kim and I went to see that on Sunday afternoon. It was pretty good - a bit long maybe, and I didn't really warm much to the main character till over half way through, when I grudgingly drummed up a bit of feeling for him and his predicament. But I don't really have a lot of empathy for men with issues in real life either, so no surprise really...  I did love that every word out of his mouth sounded like Rob Sitch - the co-writer and director, and part of the Working Dog team who also did The Castle (classic Aussie movie!) and The Dish, and TV shows like Frontline and The Hollowmen - champagne comedy. They create some quirky, funny characters that made this film more enjoyable for me. Rachael Taylor is lovely, but her character fell for Ben far too quickly in my opinion. Ben's friends and parents were great, and Alan Brough was funny in his scenes too - just by playing himself really. I gave this movie a 7.5 out of 10. Great value for the price of the tickets (free, remember!)

I went to Zumba at the Old Museum tonight. And then I left with 20 minutes to go. So disappointed - this class had the most frustrating, fancy steps ever! Just the actual steps - a combination of Eastern European dance, Riverdance and those little ballet steps where the feet have to criss-cross over one another on tiptoe as they move across the floor. I have never had more trouble trying to co-ordinate myself since I started with Zumba; I felt like a big Gumby, and got worse and more frustrated with each song that passed. See, the Zumba I like is South American/Latin dance-based, not fancy little quicksteps. Big steps, big movements for me. So, I think next week I will head back to Everton Park, as well as the fabulous Colombian Carol at Free Zumba on Wednesdays and Saturdays, going with what I know and enjoy.

Tonight, Debbie brought over Sons Of Anarchy season 2. I finished watching season 1 on Sunday, so tonight was a 3 episode mini-marathon. It is a strange show - it has mostly unlikeable characters with few redeeming features, violence, gore, but lots of surprises and twists, and I am completely caught up in it AND with the unlikeable characters, go figure. I've decided I'm not into romance in my movie and TV viewing at present, and am going for action, mystery, and interesting stories and characters instead.

Think it might be Thursday

Thursday 16 Feb 2012 - Today started with our weekly team breakfast at Queen Bean, which now seems to be our regular breaky haunt. Work consisted of checking on recently loaded taxes (yep, boring) and enquiries from the Infinity Consultants, all of which kind of did my head in. Bring on Friday, I have had enough of this week's tasks now.


So I was taking a small "Twitter break" from looking at taxes, and Craig, the Human Resources guy came up behind me and surprised me right at that moment, dammit -slightly sprung! But he told me I have been selected for a Certificate IV Tourism course at the new Flight Centre Business School! So excited and happy to be picked. I don't know too much about the course yet, other than it will be on line training modules and it will be an accredited course. I feel slightly justified after not being accepted by UNE Armidale for the Ancient History BA I applied for late last year. It really does not take much to make me happy. 


I also found out tonight that my Mum & Dad are going on a lovely 75 day cruise, and my sister, her hubby and kids are heading to Hawaii (our family's favourite holiday destination for sure) for a holiday and will be cruising back to Australia. I am so excited for them. I seriously need to get onto planning a trip too. So we will all have Something To Look Forward To.


And Debbie is home, back down from The Mountain! But she is off to Tasmania for a team getaway tomorrow. Ah well, I see her when I see her.


I just know that 2012 is going to be bigger and better than last year! Pick the musical number this is: "I've got a beautiful feeeeeelin' everything's going my way!"