unstable

i had never seen a heavily-pregnant lady wearing stilletos before, but there was one at work yesterday. running up the stairs too. carrying hot coffee!

Monopoly

Just been reading about a new version of the (in)famous board game Monopoly that has been released called Monopoly Now & Then Cashless Version, that replaces the coloured paper money with debit cards and a computerised ATM that automatically deposits money into your account when you pass GO. Hmm, no more hiding extra money under the game board.

Wanna see more?

We made a new webpage. With pictures and everything.

Crash & Burn

We're both not well at the moment. Both been to the doc. Both on Aunty Biotics.

Just to add a shot of adrenaline to our weary bodies, Nature decided to play a little trick on us last night. At just after 1:00am there was an almighty crash in the house. I was just enjoying a good fever, and thought "did I just imagine that noise? should i get up and investigate?", then managed to convince myself that I was just delerious.

In the morning we found out that a 3 metre strip of colorbond metal that acts like a kind of pelmet above the lounge room door had fallen down and thats what the commotion was. Question is, why did it decide to fall in the middle of the night? Not when we are slamming the door open or shut. And not when we've got all the windows open and the wind is whistling through the house. Oh no, wait until the dead of night when the boys are sick and have just drifted off into a pyretic coma, that'll be much more fun.

more bugs

the hot spell has brought more little beasts to our abode. last night joe called me all excitedly to show me how many insects there were outside. usually we only attract the odd 70-80 moths & mozzies, but these were like little flying ants (we later found out were a swarm of termites). and they somehow were crawling under the closed sliding doors of the bridge and into the house in their hundreds.

we normally do the humane thing with insects indoors, trap them under a glass and let them go outside. but there were so many we went on a squishing mission and sprayed aeroguard on the floor where they were coming in.

1:00am - Joe wakes me up to tell me there are termites all over the floor and in his bed. I carry on sleeping

Next morning I spend half an hour before work sweeping up the corpses of the termites in the bedrooms and hallway. Outside they've all gone, apart from all of their wings have fallen off and the courtyard looks like its covered in confetti

earwig

yesterday I thought i felt a fly crawling on my neck. but when i reached up to feel it, the thing my hand touched wasnt light and feathery like a fly, or soft and tickly like a spider, it was hard and crusty, like a massive prawn-crab monster. erggg. then it fell onto the floor with an audible crash and i could see it was a giant earwig - lucky i felt it before it crawled into my ear and bored into my brain to lay eggs

climbers

any tips for some good climbing plants for north and west facing fence - hot and dry with sandy soil?

we want to cover up the fence, to see green when we look out, over winter too so pref evergreen.

the garden diagonally behind ours has bougainvillea growing over the fence, how can we lure it into our garden? we tried playing nikki webster to it but to no avail yet...

Say Cheeese!

As mentioned yesterday, I'm feeling a bit rough. I think it is a cold now, can't stop blowing my nose.

Luckily I'm not teaching a class this week at work, just studying in a room on my own for another exam next week. So decided to forego having a shave this morning. I'm also wearing glasses to give my eyes a rest from contacts.

So today has to be the day when they decide to take work photos of everyone. Me unshaven with red sore nose and mad hair, not looking my best. Hopefully the beetroot stain won't be noticeable in the picture.

[dino]

cough splutter wretch ....

...are the noises in our house this week.

i thought i was getting a cold (headache, closed-up throat) but Joe reckons is cos of all the dust from the grouting. i don't normally get affected by stuff like that. maybe its the dust combined with the greenhouse gases and the drought.

so what do we do to give our sinuses a rest? get lots of strong chemicals to sniff! well, grout sealing stuff actually, it says that the main ingredient is serpertine.

help..... need...... fresh-air..... now.....

grouting

last week we had the builders in to redo the floor grouting. its only taken 8 months and 2 independent reports to get it done. and after all the arguing and stress, its nearly all done after 2.5 days (just one bathroom and half of the hallway has been left to dry out)

the whole house is tiled (yep, even bedrooms) and all of the grout had to be scraped out by hand and new grout put in as it was so patchy and discoloured. this was because after it was done the first time the builder did not protect it from the rest of the workmen as they were building the house, wheelbarrows, cement mixers, etc.

when we got back from work on friday the whole house was covered in fine white dust. and big dirty fingerprints. and dead flies.

we'll have just about cleaned up everthing when the builders come back to do the plastering...

Daylight Savings

An email I got at work this week in Melbourne:

Some places have changed their clocks (using the Light-Offset Summer Extension Rule). Please note that as of right now:

Brisbane is one hour behind the ‘LOSER’ sites.

Perth is 3 hours behind the ‘LOSER’ sites.

The ‘LOSER’ sites have all changed by the same amount, so there are no relative changes between them.