muppinstuff

everything was happening yesterday

2009-11-15T18:49:10+11:00

Ahem.... added on Monday night. This post needs an edit. Obviously I really was a bit worse for wear. Some of it just didn't make sense at all....

Well, my computer is back (big thanks to my Dad!). All repaired with a new motherboard and new hard drives. It's blisteringly fast compared to before. There is still have some work to do. We need to re-install my beloved photo processing software (ACDSee). And there are questions I keep asking myself now I see myself at a sort of crossroads of the new. Do I go with internet explorer or make the leap to google chrome? Or run both? How am I going to set up my favourites? How different is Windows 7 to Vista? It all feels a little strange, so I think there will be an adjustment period before blogging and working on my photos begin in earnest. But I have my Outlook back! Yay! I felt so cut off from internet land and even my offline life without it. Although I was beginning to adjust.

Anyway, it will all have to wait a bit. I'm still feeling a bit fragile. Like a rose wilting in the heat. We had a double birthday bash here last night for G and me. There was no escaping the inevitabilty of this party as it was a significant birthday for G and really, it just had to be done. Of course, we decided that everything had to be ship shape - why I don't know, because once those kids go through the house it's not like anyone notices whether you've tidied the laundry or not. I had nightmares about not having enough food and as a consequence we have a fridge full of leftovers. All up, it was a pretty good party though. Lots of neighbours and children, who for the most part were charming and had fun without hurting each other. Some cool presents including a hilarious book on fruit carving. I also made the executive decision to clear all the savoury food before setting out a dessert table, as I'd made cheesecake, cupcakes and a big cake and others had bought slice and meringues and there was fruit and sesame biscuits and Mim's lovely banana cake. I rather liked that bit and people seemed to enjoy it. Then when it was just us and the stayers, I relaxed into a serious bit of trashification. For which I am paying today. But it was so totally worth it. I know I keep saying it, but I really like living around here. It's the best.

p.s the picture above is clearly not our house. I got the photo from here. Real life photos will be a while coming I think.

Grrrr, unscheduled radio silence

2009-11-05T20:54:10+11:00

Last night when I turned on my computer, the dreaded blue screen of death appeared. After a restart, all seemed well. Until I logged on this morning and going through my emails, clicked on something from a real estate site and everything crashed again. Managed to get it going in safe mode and hoping to be able to at least access my emails (having submitted an expression of interest in a job at a much more convenient office), went to open outlook and everything crashed again. Now nothing works at all and I am camped out at G's computer with no access to my photos, my spreadsheets with vegie co-op roster etc or my emails...... woe. Sad isn't it? Shows just how dependent I am.

We think it's something to do with the hard drive being too full because of the back up system we use. And perhaps dumping 500 photos onto the computer tipped it over the edge. Or maybe something happened when G vacuumed the dust out of the sound card. Or maybe the computer has caught something nasty. Whatever it is, I'm really hoping that my dad, the computer magician, can fix it up. Soon.

Otherwise I'm just going to have to cope for a while. Sigh.

Update: The computer is going for a re-build on Monday. I'm worried that I might have lost all the photos from our Queensland trip (well, except for the one tenth of them already on Flickr) but Dad says that's his job to worry about the data. I'm kicking myself because, normally I delete the photos as I download them from the camera but this time I held onto them until they were safely on the computer. Sigh. I'm so used to my computer going right that I would never have dreamed of this happening. Wish that a) I could remember whether there was an automatic backup after I downloaded the photos and b) that I hadn't tried to resurrect the computer to the last known good configuration, thereby possibly corrupting some of the more recent data. I really, really hope that my photos are still there. Oh well, what will be will be. But fingers crossed.

hello again

2009-11-03T22:38:19+11:00

Well, hello there. Waves. It's lovely to be home again, but I'm missing Betty and the girls already. As a friend said today, going and visiting them where they live now makes the reality of them having moved away all the more real.

I had hoped I might keep to the spirit of blogtober while we were in Queensland but as it turned out, blogging wasn't really practical or desirable. Especially given that we had so little time there. Which is a pity in way, because often I found myself thinking, oh this would be interesting to write about... here's something new I haven't thought about before and, oh look what those charming children are doing! Oh well, sometimes you just have to live your life.

However I did take my cameras and spent a part of each day taking pictures. Now I have over 500 photos to sort through, which is somewhat daunting. So, I've sorted them into folders and I'm going to try and tackle a folder each night, and then write a little blog post to go with the photos that stand out most to me. Hopefully that way I'll remember all the really important things. Maybe it won't be as hard as I imagine, although there are lots of pictures of blurry children and quite a few that look like they've been taken by a four year old. Which is what will happen when you leave your camera on the kitchen table.

I took these photos as Betty and I were lying back on the grass (in a patch with no bindis) on the second day, looking at the sky and talking. There weren't as many of those moments as I would have liked, but actually there were more than I expected, given the number of children around. It was beautiful, I can understand why people leave a city with a cold winter, hellish summer and hideous traffic to live there. I loved the bright colours and tropical gardens. And the water! Although the dry season was only just ending, we saw sprinklers and you could water the garden with a hose! Betty told me that she is planning a much more subtle garden, which I totally understood once I saw their block, but that's a story we'll get to later.....

we're here now, and life is different

2009-10-25T16:28:28+11:00

It was so good to arrive. There's something about the noise and squishiness of planes that makes it less exciting than it should be, given that you are flying in the air, and it was a relief to walk onto the tarmac. Grace held my hand and squealed at the noise of the jet (she freaks out about hand dryers in public toilets so no surprise) but I convinced her to turn around and have a look. Inside the terminal she helped Daddy retrieve our bags, heaving her dora the explorer suitcase off the carousel like she'd been doing it all her life. Moments later Cam pulled up and we were on our way. I have no real sense of our location and have just figured out which way is up, or north today. All the roads are very windy and where we are seems unconnected to a major town, which feels strange when you are so city focused.

The moment of arrival at the house was joyous. I was so happy to see Betty, Ruby and Maeve and to my great relief they are still little. Grown a bit, but it's not as if they've turned into teenagers since they've been away. And it felt right to be with them straight away, like we'd hardly been apart at all. Grace and Ruby were so happy and even gave each other a little cuddle. Some of the things I've thought would be difficult are not. Grace is sleeping in a little beach shelter next to our mattress under a pergola in a very luxurious garage attached to the house. Her mattress is red and her doona cover has pretty flowers on it and Grace loves it. Betty went to quite some effort to make it comfortable for her and it is.

Other things are not so easy, after the initial delight in seeing everyone, there is a different house and household to get used to. And there are three children under five and by lunch time today they were all cranky. Grace is napping right now and she was only prepared to lie down and rest if I was there too. In fact I have been spending a lot of time helping her do things that she is fine with a home and I've found it wearing. G has been sick, possibly with a variation of what Grace had although I think he's better now. And it's hot. Very hot, when you've come from a Melbourne in which spring has barely sprung. The light seems very bright too, and I find it difficult to be out of the shade in the middle of the day. I have accepted that I will barely acclimatise while I am here. So I'm just going to try and take things slowly. And relax, despite the moments of chaos, because it's a holiday.

Yesterday Betty and I went out with Grace and Ruby. First we stopped at the big pineapple, which for some reason was very high on my to do list and I wasn't disappointed. It's kind of crappy but in a good way. It must be pretty old because I know someone my age that worked there as a teenager. Grace loved it and climbed up and down several times. I couldn't get her to go and meet Betty and Ruby at the growers market (we'd stopped to sit and recompose in the shade after a foot scraping on new shoes without socks incident). Apparently the market was pretty good and we've been eating some sensational mangoes and pineapple. And I learnt that pineapples don't have a season as such and that they take two years to grow. There are some around here and I will have to photograph them because they are strange and beautiful. After the big pineapple we went to the pool, and after some initial difficulties, it was so much fun that we could hardly get the children to leave. Today we've just been hanging out and tomorrow, I think we'll go somewhere. Oh, and I really need to get my act together and take some serious pictures of the children, perhaps when they stop being so cranky. Because they are just all so beautiful.

happy day

2009-10-23T13:17:24+11:00

So. In less than an hour a lovely friend arrives to take us to the airport. We will be absurdly early for our flight but I like it that way. Maybe we'll drink coffee or indulge in a spot of airport shopping. Small presents, or a trashy magazine, perhaps a bigger backpack for Grace. Or maybe we'll just hang around being early.

Our bags are all packed and everything is ready. The house is as clean as it's going to be. Our house sitter is here and everything has been explained. Yay for holidays!

Will post if convenient and feel so inclined, otherwise it's adieu from me until we get back. See youse!