Evelyn - Cycling

We cycled out to Tancred's work and back - about five hours in total. Stopping for Ice-cream, and wild blackberry picking.

Becstarr : Househunting in a feral market

OK, I'm being overly dramatic. It's not quite a feral market for househunting, it's just that (a) it's now painfully expensive and (b) I've always, always hated househunting. Looked at 3 places, confirmed that taking over Dave's Newtown lease is waaaay the best option. Hoping to move around late November, and already making cooking plans (green mangoes!) with Lady K, flatmate-to-be.

falsedan - ill communication

Still sick—I have a weird lump on the back of my head which is causing me concern. Aija is smuggling me care packages from work: pies, cans of Solo, Violet Crumbles.

Jen - Last day of the holidays

(Not including the weekend). Cooked french toast for breakfast to use up the loaf which Atti squashed earlier in the week. Crashed out on the couch and then went for a nap in bed. Had a lovely visit from Auntie Bec in the afternoon. The boys adore her but Elora was terrified. I think she's going through that "stranger danger" phase. Stir-fry and chicken & sweet corn soup for dinner. Now trying to get Elora to sleep. Perhaps she's still a bit frazzled from earlier??

Becstarr : A slow girding

No boxing or pub in the end-- instead, went home and started learning (South American) Spanish! Señorita Cyn has lent me a CD to this end. While I don't think I'm likely to ask to go windsurfing any time soon, it does provide for lots of helpful rrrrepetition.... especially of the lovely rrrolling r's.

Big Day Out is GO!

So after missing out on tickets to Rage Against the Machine and predicting the quickness Big Day Out Sydney sold out on, Kim and I resolved to go down to Melbourne for this year's show.

Discussed this with Nick and similarly he was planning on going to the Gold Coast show. His experience was a bit past 12 and he had some problems logging onto the site but not too many.

As such I waited until Friday officially ticked over and logged on. No problems whatsoever and was still considering picking up my full ticket allotment of 4 though I only needed 2. Decided against it in the end since it really wasn't the ethical thing to do.

Anyway, got my confirmation at 3 this morning so am good to go (barring plane tickets). Just looked and even the Melbourne show's sold out already so yeah for staying up past my bedtime!

falsedan - fully sick

Went to a farewell last night for a couple of the girls who live at the hostel. My first time in a Walkabout! My beard got lots of attention (from drunken Australian males)—I explained to Aija that girls in AU don't overly care for beards.

Saw Control: Ian Curtis was a doofus >:|

Jen - Peaceful Thursday

Atti at child care, Dante out with his cousins, Elora slept for three hours in the middle of the day. Bliss! Then, managed to get all the kids to bed before 9pm. Hopefully we're getting back to our old routine.

Becstarr : Pennywort salad

A day of minor but accumulating frustrations and hold-ups. Luckily, after work things picked up, with goat curry and pennywort salad at the monthly family dinner, this time at Burmese restaurant Bagan (Strathfield).

Anna : Thank you for not killing me Mr. Lion

Good day at work today I think, starting to get the right tone in the weekly meeting with the boss, got to report on lots of completed projects and may be able to jump into something and help Library IT get a thorn pulled out of their paw. There was a project manager involved in that fable right?

Becstarr : Team play takes coordination

Spent most of today re-orienting myself in a site which I'd handed over to someone else to work on at the end of last semester. Realised that sometimes (often) handing tasks over, when I'm going to need to take it over again later, doesn't really save me work. Probably this would be less the case if I was working in a system less obfuscating than WebCT-- it's like working blind most of the time.

Jen - No Atti today

Sent Atti to childcare. Spent way too much money at Ikea but did get a wodge of groovy fabric. Also, put the finishing touches on the cardigan. It's completely done and ready to wear! Yippee!

Dan - rampant consumerism

Slept in, got Atty to school late. Went to Ikea, bought too much stuff (frames, hand puppets, shelves, giant bugs, kitchen stuff, etc.) Dropped off Dante for a sleepover with his cousins. Played with test 3G phone.

Anna : Zing!

Feeling (literally) whacked today after a pump session yesterday afternoon and had to give back keyboard and mouse so they could go back with lease equipment and left using the keyboard and track pad on laptop which seems to have reduced productivity by *cough* percent.

Solution? My first coffee in over a month.
Result? The caffeine is hitting me hard, like a hammer wielded by a humming bird. Concentration, slightly increased, focus, spread thin as I jump from unfinished tought to unfinished email to unfinished ITSM job and back again. And I have a feeling I'm going to crash just before my meeting with the boss ... meep! WHAT HAVE I DONE!

Shoo Blowfly Shoo

Went for a walk around the paddock at lunchtime on a warmish spring day. Discovered that blowflys would land on white shirts, and dark blue shirts; but did not like red shirts.

falsedan

Feel sick with maybe some kind of flu, washed my hair for the first time in 4 months (barring the two times I had haircuts).

Shannon - The Long Weekend Draws to a Close

So this Thanksgiving weekend not only served up a delicious roast chicken dinner (followed by pavlova) but a chance to get some serious sleeping-in done, our discovering that Old Navy is awesome, and us finally catching up on some movies - Eastern Promises is great if you can sit through the brutality, and 3:10 to Yuma is officially my favourite film of the year; See it!!!

Becstarr : Ashtang-ouch-ya

Dave's on evening yoga classes while in school holidays, so I was invited to come along to "the best yoga in the world". Having heard a lot about these classes over the last year or so, I tagged along to the Dobroyd Hall, overlooking the water. It was seriously upper-body challenging-- I was at one stage invited to cross my legs and flip them through my arms. Saw some poses I'd never seen before, and realised once again that I seriously need to work on abdominal strength. Ouch! Great class though. Yoga tourism-- recommended!

Jen -Sewing and crying

Sunday: Tennis in the morning. Made a pin cushion for my sister-in-law in the afternoon. Started making some more pin cushions but got too tired so just watched some telly in the evening.

Monday: Got to sleep in a little! Entertained two nieces for a little while (wasn't hard - they just played with the boys). Played some new Singstar. Sewed together the pin cushions that I started last night.

Tuesday: Dan had to work for most of today so I didn't do much except look after the kids. Stuffed and finished the pin cushions/pyramids. Yelled at Dante too much.

Becstarr : They seek clarity

Week 11, coming up to the end of classes, and (for me) of project period (~26 Oct). Starting to pull the Bioethics stuff together, with a fair bit of student feedback coming in, which is very helpful-- it's always good to have hard data to remind people that students care first and foremost about having a clearly communicated calendar, getting to their readings easily and lecturer feedback on their tasks, well before any of the fancier stuff like pretty colours, phone voting or Flash animations.

Anna : Big Weekly Cook

Sunday was cooking day, made "Left Over Pie"*, "Chicken and Mushroom Risotto with Barley" and experimental "Prune and Seed Cake" which I then ate too much of. Anyway, Hotel Yorga now well sorted for a week of eating at home.

* A true "Left Over Pie" this week, used the last of the eggplant, last two satchels of pesto and pizza sauce, last of the lasagne sheets and the celery and capsicum that didn't get eaten at Euge's housewarming.

Becstarr : Sisters and swimming

Beat morning heavy-headedness at Cafe Julia. Revelled in the ongoing glory of my pansies in the Redfern backyard. Met up with the sisters for yet another coffee in Newtown to plan the last family dinner before Rache heads off on the 28th, first to Africa then to the UK for a year. Swam laps at NM with Joel, then cooked a korma for dinner and dreamed of making beautiful, beautiful quilts like they have on the internets.

Kit: back to old stamping grounds

Markety, market market. Went to the smh/good living growers markets on Saturday. Pretty much the same stall holders as when I last was there ~ about a year ago. Stocked up on fruit bread, venison mince, willowbrae chevre, darling mills olives. Pretty crowded and busy. Gillie's garlic had sold out by 9am. Heard one woman exclaiming on her phone "These are the best markets I've ever been to!". Um, yeah... if you haven't travelled much.

Shannon

First Saturday morning sleep-in in our new home - divine! Gonna make crepes with maple syrup for breakfast and then tackle some more unpacking.

Dan - a day at ease

Didn't do much, since I'm in vacation mode. I've been enjoying my deck chairs, and the Spring weather - warm and indecisive. Danced with Atticus and Elora, played Uno with Dante, got some Civ goin' on, and watched about a cubic metre of TV this evening.