SNAP dragon...

These were my results

You Are a Snapdragon
"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."You Are a Snapdragon

Snapdragon...

Snap.. .. yes I snap at people...

Dragon? well, I've been called worse !

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

Wulkuraka

Took a road trip up north (& inland) yesterday.

We did rather well, found our way there with out getting lost which is always a bonus :D

Went to historical place called Wulkuraka which is just west of Ipswich in South East Queensland. My brother in law (who I will refer to as BIL) lives there on a HUGE property (approx 140 acres I think). We only explored a small section of it yesterday as SOMEONE (namely me) did not wear suitable foot attire. Der !

Wulkuraka was quite a major crossroad in the golden olden days of Australia. I tried to find some interesting facts on the net about it - found this but most of what I found only refers to the region once the train came into play. Prior to that, it was a coach stop - yes, coach as in horse & buggy type thing ! The original coach stop hut is still standing and is located on the property I visited.

Here it is.

Aint it quaint?

It is amazing to me that the historical society of the region has not taken possession of it - or moved it to somewhere with other museum type thingies (thingies - thats a technical term btw).

In saying that, I would imagine that much of the original wood work would not take too kindly to being moved.

The original floor boards are still there too.. that surprised me. The weather can be quite harsh there. They have been in drought until recently. Typical Australia, drought then flood.. drought then flood.. and.. repeat after step one...

As you can see by the photo, it has been used for storage on the property for many many years - understandable, but such a shame the old place wasn't maintained.

BIL cooked us a Hungi (or Hangi as some seem to call it) This is a traditional Māori cooking technique now only used for special occasions. Banana tree leaves are used to stop the hot rocks from burning the food. Banana leaves get very burnt..lol


A shoulder of pork and lots of fresh vegetables.. yum ! We had the best home grown butternut pumpkin. Brought lots of fresh picked ones home too ! Pumpkin soup this week guys! I wont do a Mel - I wont make pumpkin icecream ! hahahah (yes, she really did that once - that poor grandchild will be scarred for life I tell ya!)



There are a few Kangaroos that frequent the front paddock. BIL sees them most every day, both morning & evening. They are getting used to him now and come in fairly close to him. They did not come out to play when I was there but here is a photo that BIL took a while ago.

Seems like a nice family - but don't be fooled into thinking that you could walk up and pat them.. they are wild animals and can be quite agressive. That great big male (over 6ft tall btw) wouldn't think twice about defending his family... and in the process... possibly disembowling you!

All we saw of them yesterday was roo foot prints by the dam

The owner of the neighbouring property obviously has quite the soft spot for the local roos because he has built them a shelter ! Check this out ! See the humpty style lump of greenery? Its hollow on the inside ....

Nice cosy home for roos in the rough weather eh?

As we walked down to the big dam we came across much of the local ant population.

I have the bites to damn well prove it !

This is a big ant nest - with big ants. Not nice little ones..big buggers. Im not totally sure what kind of ants they are.. but let me tell you .. the bastids jump ! Which in turn makes you jump, and when you jump near an ants nest..what happens? Yeeeees.. more ants come to see what the commotion is all about.. more ants - more jumping - more bites....I got out of there VERY fast let me tell you.

Now, for the Pièce de résistance ! Check this baby out !

This is a female Golden Orb Spider. The info on that link says that the body (just the body) can grow to 23mm - I'm telling you this was bigger than that. Much bigger. With legs spread, it would have to be close to my hand span. Anyone hate spiders? lol I can feel you squirming in your chair now!

In this next shot, you can also see the male. Look at the end of her back legs.. see the little fellow? Don't forget, you can click on the photos to enlarge them.


He is much smaller that the female as you can see - I guess she wears the pants in that family eh? The web of a Golden Orb has a yellow tinge - hence Golden Orb name. The web is so damn thick.. it is extrodinary... incredibly thick. I think the web worries me more than the spider to be honest - they are awful when you walk into them.. *note* I said walk INTO them, not through them - as they are very strong. I recall almost 'bouncing' out of one when I was a child. I was running through the scrub and ran in between two trees. I don't think it was a golden orb spider as it was in South Australia, but I will NEVER forget that incident. *shivers*

Those spiders can and, if really annoyed,will bite. Will not kill you, but dear oh dear, what a mess they can make of your skin ! Check this out.

Necrotising arachnidism: Progressive ulceration and loss of skin around the site of a biting by a number of araneomorph spider species. Its cause is uncertain and for this reason no fully effective treatments are available at the present time.
NO treatments at the present time... whoa ! Didnt know THAT when I was upclose taking photos !

I can't actually work out if that is someones hairy leg.. or ... or what appendage that is!

Ok, lets end this on a nicer note. This section is especially for Mel.

The ducks. Oh they are so cute but typical for real wild ducks, we could not get close to them. This photo was taken from across the dam (gotta love the zoom on my camera!- as that was as close as we could get to them.

They waddled off and sat in the shade in the next paddock while we examined the area.


They really made me laugh because as they waddled off, they voiced their disaproval of our arrival by making a mumbling grumbling quacky sound.

Mother duck said.....

"Quack Quack Quack Quack

Sod off of my territory and dont come back !"

Ha ! I swear she said worse than that!

Yibbider Yibbider, thats all folks!

Take care & I'll be back soon

Happy Australia Day 2008!

Hmm, meant to put this in the last post, but hey - if I do two posts, it makes it look like I have done more work?

Not convinced?

Oh well, bite me.

Anyway, I was sent this photo a while ago by a good friend.

Considering all the rain (see, flooding) that we have had locally, I thought this photograph was appropriate. So good to know that, at least in some parts of Australia, the drought has been broken.

Ok, bedtime now :)

Oh, and its raining !

The catch up

Ok Ok OK !

Yes I know I have been remiss when it comes to my blog.

After much public pressure (ok, so only 5 people have complained) I thought it best to put cyber pen to cyber paper and bring this blog up to date.

Now, what to talk about? Hmm?

*pregnant pause with musical interval as I consider my options here*

Well I have been job hunting. Gee, that’s fun.

I have never, ever, in my life had any problems in finding a job – until now.

At first, I guess I was being a bit choosey. My bad.

My bad, yes but – holy shit let me give you an example a job that I turned down in December.

Let’s see, would I like a position of office manager that supervises 7 other staff members? A position that also entails being personally responsible for all of the company’s monies – accounts in & out, payroll, taxation, superannuation etc?

Sure I can do that.

The workplace was quite close to home, just over the border. Excellent eh? Crossing the state border each day can be a pain in the rear during daylight savings time (6 months of the year) as there is a one hour time difference.. but hey, I can handle that.

If I was to accept this position, the company wanted a firm 12 month employment commitment. I asked why. They said that they had, in the past, had difficulties keeping someone in the position. That rang alarm bells to me, so I asked more questions.

Eventually we get around to discussing wages. What were they offering me per hour?

$14.56 per hour – Gross.

I don’t even want to THINK what that is AFTER tax!

To put that into perspective, I could get a job working on a check out or stacking shelves in a supermarket, with a smidgeon of the responsibility of this job and get paid $17.00 per hour. That’s $2.44 more per hour - nearly $100 more per week to stack shelves than to run company finances!

Accepting personal responsibility for an entire company’s finances can be quite a duty – but I for one, expect to be paid accordingly for that responsibility and not to be paid less than a check out chick (with all due respect to check out chicks !)


I told this ‘gentleman’ at the interview that I wasn’t surprised that he had trouble keeping someone else in the job. That was an insulting hourly rate for the position he was offering.
But.. would it?

I left quite soon after that.......

*sigh*

Other jobs I have gone for I have been told that I am over qualified.

OVER QUALIFIED??

What the hell is that? Oh sod off ! I would much prefer to have an employee with experience and qualifications.

So, I keep applying for jobs. Filling out applications, changing my resume to suit the position.. forms, forms, forms and as for Selection criteria.. what the hell is that shit about?

Would I like some cheese to go with that whine? Yes please.

Well I think that will do for today, not very informative but hey, it’s all ya getting for now.

Hopefully soon, I can report that I am gainfully employed again.

Ooroo for now

I'm still alive !

That I am :)

I will get back to you with more details soon... ish !

Australians all let us rejoice, for we are Howard free!

New lyrics for the national anthem maybe?

There are many posts I need to do to fill in the gaps of the last month but this advert I saw in the local paper I just HAD to share with you. This is a REAL advert - bloody cheeky eh?

Still, I laughed

Mwahahahahah - Ok.. I laughed A LOT.

Nothing personal Johnny, but this is what happens when you sneak important Industrial Relations laws through... No previous mention of them at the last election. This is what happens when you fail to ratify Kyoto (here is how they explained it)

As the current Liberal/Coalition domintated Senate will be hostile to Labor till at least July 2008 when the newly elected Senate comes into play - our new Government will have trouble going ahead with their promised plans for a while - just until we can get the shoe horn under their blue ribbon arses - then we can move forward. This may help you understand a bit more

John... you made the mistake of viewing us everyday Aussies as inferior plebs.. but you forgot that it is us plebs that vote the Australian Government in.

With what can only be viewed as superior arrogance, you lost contact with the real Australians.

Lesson learned?

Rant over :)

Oh, ps. Yipppeeee ! We did it !

Time to resurrect this blog!

Hmm, where do I start? 21st August was such a long time ago. This is gonna be a long post.

So much has happened since August. Not much of it was very nice - hence no blogging took place.

We had a serious illness in the family - much time was spent visiting hospitals & nursing homes.

I loved this man as if he was my own father. He passed away in September. He is now in peace. No more pain, no more suffering. For that we are grateful. that is all I will say about that chapter. Let's move on.

A few days after the funeral, our household started a huge face lift. Cupboards were completely emptied and only frequently used items were replaced. Some things were packed away but most were donated to a local charity. Aside from the fact that this really needed to happen, I'm not really sure why we started on this epic journey. Once we had started..... we simply couldn't stop ! Enter into the picture Vacuum storage bags ! What a wonderful way to store things. All winter bedding & clothing has been packed away and with all the clearing out of unused items we discovered that our house is really quite a good size !

I started to get grumpy at our vacuum cleaner. It seems that over the years I have paid what I thought was a decent amount of money to find that the vacuum sucked...... or didnt suck, as the case may be. After vacuuming the lounge floor one day I was really annoyed to discover that dust still rose from the carpet when I banged it with my hand - even immediately after cleaning it. That afternoon, I googled & researched vacuum cleaners. Let me share with you that vacuum cleaner forums are simply the most brain numbing boring read ever.

The next day, I purchased a Wertheim 5035 vacuum cleaner. It wasn't cheap but it does a fantastic job. It had been less than 24 hours since I had cleaned the carpets with the old vac - the Wertheim filled the bag when I did just the top floor of our house ! We were well chuffed with the purchase, albeit a very expensive one. We did however get a free steam cleaner machine with the vac so that made the price much more acceptable.

Our joy was short lived as the washing machine died just a few days later. It must have gotten its nose out of joint at our vacuum celebrations.

Back on to google and washing machine forums I go. Boy, they were exciting. Such riveting stuff! Keeping in mind that I was trying to be a good greenie, we looked at water & power usage. Trying to do the correct thing for the environment and at the same time get a decent machine & warranty is bloody expensive. Settled on an Asko. Haggled the price between shops and got a good deal :) This is what we got. It has had quite a work out since purchased (thanks to the spring clean on steriods) and has proved to be a very good investment. How awful that both appliances we bought were not made in Australia. Both are from Europe.

Next to shit itself was the upstairs fridge. I have learnt that you should NEVER replace a household appliance unless you have enough money to replace the whole friggin lot. Luckily, we had a better fridge downstairs.

On the 27th Sept both fridges were emptied and positions swapped. I didn't do the moving of the horrible bulk up and down the stairs, the guys did. (thanks !) All kitchen counters & the table were covered in the contents of both fridges. I had been out, and when I came home the kitchen was very dark. The phone rang, it was a good friend from Florida USA. I chatted for a few minutes but felt that I needed to open the kitchen curtains. It was too dark to see all the stuff on the counter. With phone in one hand (to my ear) I leaned across the kitchen sink to open the curtains with my other hand. As I moved backwards, I felt a heavy thud on my left foot. I had no idea what I had knocked off the counter. It hurt, but I guess it felt kinda like a small can of food hitting me. Heavy thud but not lasting pain.


I was happily chatting away but imagine my surprise when I looked down to see this sticking straight upwards out of my foot. It had to be the big heavy chef knife didn't it? It couldn't be anything but the heaviest sharpest knife in the bloody house.

I think I managed to uttered something like "umm...there is a knife in my foot - I think I have to go" and I hung up (sorry about that sudden end to the phone call btw!)

So, as I had refreshed my senior first aid course last year, what was the first thing I did?

PULLED THE BLOODY KNIFE OUT.

What a dick. (actually that is the brand name of the knife - coincidence no?)

I know that was the wrong thing to do. Listen up kiddies, do NOT pull a knife out if you are unfortunate enough to get stabbed. Its the normal reaction I know - BUT - I did know better. I even had all the correct first aid items on hand to make the doughnut bandage etc etc.

I now know that rudimentary reactions override learnt skills.

Of course as soon as I pulled the knife out there was blood everywhere. I calmly called out to Zed and said "um, I think I might need a hand here". He had no idea what I had done and my tone of voice gave him no indication at all.

Off to the hospital with me. Once again, our local hospital (that every one complains about) did a fantastic job at getting me attended to fast & effectively. After xrays etc, the doctor told me what a lucky girl I was. I had missed the artery by a smidgeon. The knife had gone right through my foot all but the thick skin on the base. He reiterated a few times that I should NOT have removed the knife. I know... I know... I KNOW !

This is the foot now, 3 lots of antibiotics, 5 weeks later and Im finally off crutches. It doesn't look like much but it sure does hurt sometimes. Who would have thought that something so simple could have caused so much damage? I still have about 40% feeling in two toes and the nerves go spastic frequently.

I dare not complain because I know that if that knife had of gone a few mm's either way, I would have been much worse off. Don't whinge, be grateful woman!

So, now I am off crutches and just in time to start helping out for the Federal Election. It is to be held on November 24th. As Lish may read this, I will omit any political talk :) I know she dislikes it !

Now, to end the month on a wonderfully high note, we got visitors. Mel, Christian & children arrived on Monday evening. It was so lovely to see them all. We stayed up way later than we should have as we knew that we would be attending a theme park the next day. I roared with laughter at Mel's work stories. No one can tell a story quite like Mel can. No one I know can relate to 2 year olds like Mel can. Mel & two year olds........ a recipe for hillarious adventures I must say!

I am so happy for Mel in her new job. I just knew that she had found her niche when she told me about the position she was offered when I was in Gladstone on holidays. I know she had her doubts about it, but I just knew she would love it. Now, when she tells me stories about the wonderful children, her eyes gleam and you can see the love she has for those kiddies. Its not my place to be, but I'm well proud of you Mel - and you should be too.

The next day, we went off to Wet'n'Wild for a fun filled day. We had such a great time. We didn't leave until the park closed. We all had the appearance of drowned rats but that was ok as everyone else there looked the same. This photo was as the troup had just come off the Mammoth River Ride

This beach towel made me laugh. It looked much funnier when it was wrapped around him. I did a double take as it looked as if the man was wearing an itsy bitsy yellow thong .I don't know the person but I did ask permission to take the photo. I may or may not have mentioned that it would end up on my blog. My bad? Still, he was such a good sport about it and had no problems posing for the pic !
It was a devine tempreture all day. Not too hot & not too cold. We drove home from the park to discover that Zed had cooked dinner for us all (what a champion!) We all showered and as we were knackered from the day's outing (and the staying up late the night before) we had an early night. Mel & crew needed to be at the airport the next morning at some ungodly hour. This was made worse by the fact that day light savings had started here the weekend before. It always takes us a few weeks to settle into the change. It is made harder by the fact that only a few houses away from us, is the border. There is one hour difference between the two states. Mel & I managed to confuse our tired brains by trying to work out the correct time to get up out of bed the next day. The airport is right on the other side of the border. All things considered - including a taxi that did not turn up - we got to the airport in time. You can see some of Mel & family's adventures in Sydney by checking her blog here. I advise you visit her blog frequently as it is always entertaining. Mel, unlike me, attends to her blog often.

I will try to blog more often although I imagine a lot of it might be political (that is your warning Lish!) I still can't sit at the pc for too much time at once because of this damn foot insisting that it needs to be up higher. That will pass in time.

It was so lovely to see that I had so many comments left on my last post. Thanks to all of you :)

Winky, if you read this, allow me to leave comments on your blog please ! I loved seeing your fishing adventure - what exactly were you doing to that fish?

Take care all :)