For the Benefit of Mr Kite

It's official. Tom and I have decided to sell the unit and upgrade to a house. We've signed the paperwork and it will be dropped off to the agents later today.

The plan for now is to sell the unit and in a best case scenario we will rent the unit back from the owners while we look for a house. If that doesn't come to fruitition, we can rent somewhere else in the meantime. There is a third scenario which is us finding a house and having it settle on the same day as the unit but we're not banking on that.

Stay tuned for house hunting updates, a link to our unit on realestate.com.au and pictures of our for sale sign.

Spherical Timesheet Logger

This is the best program I've used in a while. With a job like mine, it can be really hard to keep track of billable hours for clients. During the day I can do billable work for up to 10 clients and by the end of the day, not all of the work I've done is recorded somewhere.

Spherical is great because it sits in the background and monitors what I'm working on during the day. It will tell me what I was looking at in Firefox and IE, which emails I was reading and responding to Outlook, etc. Basically, at the end of the day, I can go into the program and assign work that I did to clients which I can then log and invoice to clients.

If you do a job, like mine I recommend downloading the trial and trying it out. I think by the end of a week, you'll be converted.

And no, I wasn't paid to write this, I just seriously love this program so much that I felt the need to give it a shout out

Last night Brisbane got its third big storm in less than a week. Unlike the previous storms, Tomas and I were out an about when this one hit.

We were attempting to get to Spring Hill to collect our organic fruit and vegetable box last night. The traffic was bad thanks the storm the night before which had flooded the Inner City Bypass. We spent a good 20 minutes in traffic watching the storm decend upon Spring Hill. It started raining and then we heard the hail pinging on the car. Not long after the hail, the torrential downpour began. We couldn't see much past the bonnet. Unfortunately Spring Hill is hilly and we couldn't find anywhere on top of a hill to stop so we continued onto the fruit place (which coincidentially is on top of a hill). I stuck one leg with one thong attached to my foot out of the car (just dangling it, not touching the ground) and the water rushing down the drain ripped my thong from my foot never to be seen again.

I'd like to say that was the worst of our experience in the rain, but it got better. After sheltering in the house of the woman who coordinates the fruit boxes, Tomas decided he wanted to try and make it home. It was still pouring down and hailing but for some reason we thought it would be a good idea. Just as we drove off, the hail got bigger. Like the size of tennis balls. One of them hit our windscreen. Expletives were yelled but the windscreen showed no damage. When we'd made it back to the Valley we decided to ditch going home and try for Vanessa and Cameron's. We turned into Dogget St which was a giant puddle and decided to turn off when we noticed the cars in front of us parting the water. Unfortunately we didn't choose the best place to turn and when we turned into the side street, our car made a bow wave. I kid you not. We had water on the bonnet. Luckily we were going uphill and there was no more bow waves.

We tried to get to Ness and Cam's but there was too much water on the road, so we drove to the top of the hill at Teneriffe and parked. I was quite happy to stay in the car but Tomas wanted to get inside (in hindsight sitting in a car under a tree during a storm probably wasn't the best idea). So despite the horrendous rain, we got out of the car and ran to Ness and Cam's. We were soaking wet and I didn't have shoes but at least we were inside.

It turns out that the car has some hail damage but considering that and a lost thong was the worst that happened, we did okay.

On Saturday I made my first batch of yoghurt with my new (second-hand from ebay) yoghurt maker. It was an outstanding success and astonishing easy to do. 

Tomas and I headed over to Newmarket to check out the health food shop over there. Whilst looking for gluten-free goods, we found this new gluten-free beer.

Whilst not a perfect imitation of a Pilsner, it's pretty good. It costs about the same about a Silly Yaks. I think this beer is a bit nicer, less of the "zinginess" of Silly Yaks. It's made in the Netherlands from sorghum, teff and rice. Plus it had an important sounding name (which is why I took this photo from a low angle).

Stay tuned for a blog post on my first yoghurt making experience.

I'm really tired at the moment. I'd like to go back to sleep but I can't. I had a dream where I was really, really angry. The kind of angry where your whole body tenses up and steam comes out of your ears. And now I can't go back to sleep because my body is so worked up from the dream. At least the cat is enjoying it. 

In an effort to curb our spending and have more variety in our fruit and vegetables Tomas and I have signed up for a weekly delivery of local organic produce. This is our second week and above is our box for the week. 

Tomas has gone away for the rest of the week for a "man weekend". He has driven to Bundaberg to go camping and fishing with other men leaving Fenella and I to our own devices. So far we haven't done much, Fenella has done a lot of what you see in the picture above. I have cooked dinner and then facilitated what Fenella is doing in the photo above. 

The other day at work, I noticed a stray hair. Not in the usual place, like escaping from my eyebrows or a hair I missed when shaving my legs. This hair was in the middle of my forehead. 

I'm into my fourth week of OGAT and so far so good. I'm making progress but importantly, I'm still enjoying it. My trainer has only come close to killing me once - on Tuesday last week when I was the only woman with three men. Not easy to keep up with them. This week, I've decided to pick up my efforts in the exercise department. Though I've been supplimenting the training sessions with one or two swimming sessions, it's not really enough. So I started riding my bike to work as well. 

Today, I rode my bike home after training this morning. I think I'll be sore tomorrow.

And the original...

This morning I took the first steps in Operation Good-bye Amanda's Tummy and went to by first session of group training. Avid readers will remember that I used to do this three times a week but I stopped when Tom and I moved. So this morning I got out of bed at 4:50 to get ready to be at the Valley Pool for a 6am session. I remember training being hard but always feeling good afterwards. This morning was hard and I'm not feeling good right now. At this point in time, I'd like to go back to bed and have a little nap. Also I can't really lift my arms - they are weak. I'm sure that tomorrow there will be other parts of my body screaming in pain for me to worry about but right now, even typing draws protests from my arms. I'm going again on Friday morning so hopefully by then I actually capable of physical activity.

Tomas is currently enjoying his morning sleep-in so I am taking this opportunity to write about him when he isn't looking over my shoulder. 

All day yesterday I was so looking forward to my sleep in this morning. I was imagining a peaceful morning, getting out of bed around 7:30-8. However, despite living with Fenella for one and a half years, I completely left her out of my sleep in fantasy. Sleeping is something Fenella does after we have left for work not at 5am in the morning. 

ABC2 is broadcasting the 2020 Summit this weekend. I'm in two minds about the Summit. 

About a month ago, I shaved my head for the Leukaemia Foundation's Shave for a Cure. I raised just over $800 thanks! The reaction has been almost exclusively positive and I may even shave it again soon. Growing your hair out is always awkward, more so the shorter it is to being with.

Most people have seen my newly shaved head but for those who haven't or who are on the other side of the world here's the proof that I really did shave my head.

Post-shave with the other 'baldies' at work

Too cool for you - almost finished the shave

Pure class - the mullet and the office's fake cigarette.

I have promised two things to go on this blog: an updated list for my birthday (that was a while ago, I know) and what I thought of the movie I saw on the weekend. Let's start with the updated list:

• Bike lights - I'm still using cheap ones from Kathmandu. I also don't have a place to mount the rear one, so if it's dark, I have to clip it to what I'm wearing or my backpack if I have it.
• DS games: I bought Elite Beat Agents on the weekend and I love it. But I would still like: My Spanish Coach (my spanish is getting pretty rusty), Sim City, or Star Wars the Complete Saga (changed my mind about the Wii version)
• A wok
• Tablespoon/Teaspoon measures. Mine have just broken so I could do with some more. Probably multiple sets would be good as I'm always using the tablespoon with the wet ingredients before the dry ingredients
• Sun lounge for the balcony - best consult with Tom here.
• Jewellery Storage.
• Laptop Case.

Now onto the Movie. Tom and I decided to go and see Juno on Friday night. We saw previews for it in the States and have wanted to see it ever since. It's been a long wait. And was it worth it? Yes. It's a really funny movie. The dialogue is very good though at times it seems a little manufactured and on the whole, it's a good story. I'd recommend it. Don't want to go into too much detail as I don't think that Ness and Cameron have seen it yet.

I am sunburnt. Hideously sunburnt.  I look like an English tourist. 

After almost four weeks of continuous motion Tomas and I enjoyed a weekend of doing nothing. The sum total of our achievements for the weekend was: