Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!

-Woke up with no voice after yesterday's 16 hours of sleep deprived hell at work
-Revived over husband-cooked breakfast, strepsil and asproclear
-Walked to the primary school and, after a long queue, voted
-Decided it was too muggy for coffee and too early for sausage
-Crossed road to Scout Hall
-Bought raffle ticket from nice scout mother who was my teacher in year 7 (Religion I think, neither of us could remember)
-Picked up the Christmas tree we'd pre-ordered from the scouts (actually, mc_shamo picked iot up, and carried it home too)
-Got home, placed tree in stand with water, put it in the most attractive position and plan to try to ignore it until Wednesday when we both have the day off work and will put up the decorations
-Drove to Icehouse
-Skated on my BRAND NEW ICE SKATES! Seamus gave them to me for my birthday. I was lots of fun, but breaking them in will take a while. I'm going to try to go back once a week until after Christmas to break them in before I take any lessons. Anyone who would like to come with me it would be great to have company!
-Went to CostCo across the road for a cheap lunch, then bought a beautiful hand made gourmet Christmas pudding, a proper one that has "Best Before 2013" on it. We'll probably have my Dad's family around to our place before Christmas as I'm working Christmas day, and that is afternoon tea sorted :-)
-Came home and got dinner together than headed off for work!

Day off tomorrow, I plan to sleep, do some housework, sleep, bake, sleep, sleep, sleeeeeep...

SATURDAY
-Sleep in,
-Baked cake,
-Light housework,
-Played with cats,
-wrote in card,
-"wrapped" present (tied a ribbon round it),
-Made dinner,
-car pooled with vivienne_aster who has been away, yay!
-Will and Rose's engagement party
-"Twistmas in July" dancing at Trades Hall (WAY too crowded, but still fun for a little while)

SUNDAY
-Sleep in,
-Queen Vic Market,
-Jam doughnuts for breakfast,
-Early afternoon nap,
-Made dinner,
-Iced cake,
-relaxed with a book while Seamus mopped and vacuumed
-Made wasabi bread (like garlic bread but with wasabi butter)
-Parents and brother came over, nice dinner,
-Cleaned up and reassembled table after dinner, then relaxed with book and cup of tea and jazz cds
-Worked overnight, did two hours of paperwork but didn't receive a call

Friends, family, baked goods, nice house, not-much-work= pretty darn perect weekend.

Yesterday was pretty awesometastic.

I woke up at about 8:15am, nicely rested. Seamus and I got up, dressed and were out of the house by 9am. We went to Ceres and woke up properly over coffee and orange juice, then a big breakfast each. My God, the beetroot relish was heaven. I love early morning breakfast as Ceres, it's fun to watch the kids running round and the dogs playing :-)

We made out way up to their farm market and bought our fruit and veggies for the week, and ducked into the organic shop for honey and yoghurt. It was fun waiting in line for the fruit and veggies, I watched the chickens and goats and sheep milling around in their enclosure and smelled the wonderful food being cooked nearby.

I had a quick look around the not-food market and bought a second had shirt (because clearly I don't have enough clothes) then joined Seamus in the nursery where we umm-ed and ahh-ed over two different tomato plants and then decided to get both.

By this stage it was nearly half past eleven, so we hopped in the car and drove to East Melbourne so Seamus could go to work. I had a chat with the librarian who reccomended a new (to me) author's books after I told her what I liked and so far I'm very impressed (Donna Leon Suffer the Little Children) If anyone is interested these days my relaxing reading is gory crime novels by middle-aged female British ex-public servants. It's a bigger field than you'd suspect, including Minette Walters, Val McDermid and Lindsey DAvis who is the least gory but the most funny, and she writes books set in Flavian Rome that are by and large historically accurate- what's not to love?

I bid Seamus farewell and drove home, unloaded the shopping and the books, decided that before I hit the housework I'd lie down with a book and... fell asleep for three hours. Ooops! So, gym kinda didn't happen, instead I raced through the housework and went down to Tonik to confirm my booking for my birthday and pay the deposit. When I came out who should I run into but Seamus on his way home from work. We went to the supermarket to pick up supplies for dinner, then came home. I made up some vanilla and berry puddings for dessert and Seamus set himself up for making Moussaka.

Eva and Shayne came over at about 7:30pm for dinner, which was lots of fun. Oysters and lemonade and wine and Moussaka (which was AWESOME!) and pudding and good friends and conversation, perfect! Then we all piled in the car and headed over to Lisa's for the last ever Kent st pub.

Kent st was the last sharehouse I lived in and the last of the MUCAAS sharehouses, so it was a little sad to know it was going to stop being a MUCAAS house. I slipped out the back to the veggie patch to talk to my kitten, Menelaus, who is buried there, and I was surprised that I started crying. I am still upset about his death and wish I could have prevented it, but it's impossible to keep a cat inside that house with the windows the way they are he was always going to get out, and he had a good eleven months, and his death was quick.

Seamus came out and stood with me, and told me not to be silly when I said I was embarrassed to go back inside. he brought me tissues to wipe my eyes and blow my nose and we went back in. I'm glad I talked to him one last time and said goodbye. I just wanted him to know that I couldn't come by anymore but that I'll still think of him and love him.

The rest of the night was great, people were talking and laughing and having fun. It was a smallish gathering, but very very nice. I drove Eva home and got to play with Jezebel and Albert the dogs before heading back.

Today involved sleeping in, wandering down the street for tea, getting a few supplies we forgot yesterday and then coming to work. So far this shift is going alright.

I think I might go have another cup of tea...

After several shift changes (about 5 in all I think!) I ended up working from Saturday 3pm right through to Sunday 7:30am. It sounds bad but it was actually quiet for a Saturday night (I actually checked the phones were working at one point!) and it meant that I got yesterday completely OFF!

I got home about 8am and slept until midday. Luckily as I thought I'd be working I'd already made lunch for mc_shamo and I in advance, so all I had to do was stumble down the stairs and revive over a chicken salad.

After lunch we decided it was too nice a day to stay inside. We also looked at our "Gardening" fund and found it had enough money in it for a compost bin. With these factors combined we decided to make our way to Ceres in Brunswick. We ran into hespa there in the queue for coffee and said hi to aurellia who was there with her family, then I sat on the lawn sipping chai and watching two of the cutest little girls ever playing chasey, and a gorgeous hyperactive dog running around and around and around the cafe, all while lazily discussing the future with Seamus and enjoying the sunshine.

After a walk around looking at the animals and bikes and stuff we made our way to the nursery. We lusted after the native plants for a while then chatted to a lovely bloke about our composting needs (two people house with bugger-all garden, trying to grow herbs and sick of "wasting" food scraps) who suggested we get a Worm Cafe and took us through how to use it in detail. We bought one and 1000 worms to start our wormfarm. In the car home we decided the worms were our new pets. They are all called Leslie.

Once home we set up the worm farm in the garage (it's meant to be completely out of the sun, and let's face it, we're never going to clear enough space in our garage to park the car there anyway!) and made sure the Leslies were comfy. Inspired by our new purchase we set about clearing the front garden of grass and weeds, we've made a significant dent, and we're thinking of planting some native plants there with the landlords' permission- which I'm sure we'll get as our landlords are my parents and they're very easygoing.

In the evening I made spicy indian roo burgers and tandoori vegetables and we went for a walk around the neighbourhood, enjoying the dusk and the birdsong. Then we realised we'd completely forgotten to do any grocery shopping for the coming week, so high-tailed it to Coles.

And we've also planned our next mini holiday, on Wednesday the 28th of Oct we're going to leave Melbourne proper about 5pm and spend the night in Healesville, then the next day have a look around and visit the Sanctuary as I've never been. We'll be doing this on the cheap this time, so not looking for the luxury of the last holiday, but I realised how much better I feel after a break, no matter how short, so I plan to take them more often in future.

By the way, anyone who can get the Thursday off work is more than welcome to join us!

Last night I was too tired to go dancing which was a bit sad, but meant I got some quality time with mc_shamo while we took the piss out of a crappy movie on tv. I also cooked something that made Seamus go "wow" which makes me happy (a pasta bake with red onion, bacon, swiss mushrooms, whole grain mustard, parsley and a very small amount of evaporated milk to bind).

Last week Seamus cracked it with our crappy matteress and bought a new one, it arrived today. I know that Seamus is the man for me because together we moved a crappy, bulky queen-sized matteress down stairs, through the house and into the garage and then did the reverse with the new matteress (harder as new matteress not-crappy which means not-bendy and we were going up stairs) and it was fun. At one point I nearly collapsed laughing (I think that was when we were trying to convince the cats they wanted to go in the study so we could open the doors downstairs- they were too excited to be picked up so we were literally trying to herd cats, it took a while!) and now we have a decent matteress that does not sag in the middle and still has fabric all over it, yay!

Sleeping on the new matteress really brought home to me how much we neded it- I slept the night through! And woke up comfy! Fantastic!

This morning we had an earlyish breakfast then headed off for a gym session before I met up with my cousin Emily, vivienne_aster, cows_might_fly (my bridesmaids!) and clappamungus (not my bridesmaid) at fraus for crepes and chatting, then bade Shayne farewell as the rest of us tottled into "Call me Madam" to appraise the dresses for bridesmaids-worthiness. I think the verdict was that we'd keep the dress in question in mind and definitelly keep an eye on the shop (such preeeeety things!) Then Kate, Emily and I went on an adventure to Brunswick st so I could buy a new swimsuit (a gym one, not a beach one) I got a very plain black swimsuit, one-piece with legs coming down into shorts, which is actually what I was after last time I bought a swimsuit too! I also got a perfume spray because it smelled divine and like summer-inna-bottle.

I managed to do all this and get back home for lunch by 1:30pm, then get showered and changed and presentable for work, where I am now.

And I'm cheerful, I'm peppy, I'm perky- I'd go as far as to say I'm chipper.

Wish me a quiet shift!

On Sunday evening I was picked up from home by _audhumla_ and Stevie and we three drove to Bendigo. As much as I'd like to say it was a spur of the moment road trip performed by three mid 20s women in search of wacky adventure to a kickin' 90s soundtrack it was in fact a pre planned event. We were meeting mc_shamo, Helen and Sharon there and in the morning were going to perform Aeschylus' Persians for 70-odd VCE students. The others had already been at a rehearsal camp for Mostellaria all weekend, so were a tad worse for wear...

We managed to find our way to the YHA despite Bendigo's ludicrous amount of one-way streets. The YHA was really nice, we got an 8 bed room for the six of us all to ourselves and one of the lower bunk beds was a double, which was welcome as Seamus had been on rehearsal camp the night before and we'd missed each other. It sounds silly but I don't sleep well without him anymore. We sat and watched the multi media part of the play (John- the messanger- had been pre-recorded to appear as a news-report-cum-documentary) then as Sarah and I were getting noisier and noisier about our desire for dinner we all headed out to a local Chinese place where the staff were incredibly nice and possibly too ready to bend over backwards for us (no, really, what's on the menu is fine, we don't need the chef to make things up...). We then realised we'd prepared nothing for breakfast, silly us. So we asked the lovely Chinese lady about supermarkets and discovered we were a mere block from Coles, awesome.

The Coles, and it's carpark, was surrounded by teens and extremly young adults, most of whom had spilled from old cars with P plates on them. Many were still in the cars and engaged in driving very fast for very short distances. we had to walk through them, it was mildly disconcerting. Once out of Coles we had to walk through again, and we nearly jumped out of our skins when from a car parked near us there came a shriek of "Christina!!!!!" and a slim blonde girl jumped out- my cousin Heather. We hugged and I explained what I was doing in Bendigo and why I had not come to visit her family (feeling incredibly guilty as I did so) she was waiting for her boyfriend to come out of Coles and I would have liked to have met him, but by now it was past 10pm and we still needed to run the show before the next day, so with a final hug and directions to send my love to her family we left her among the youth of Bendigo.

Back at the backpackers we stumbled through a few lines runs before succombing to exhaustion and piling into beds. Best. Sleep. Ever. Oh lordy were we all tired! (Well, except Stevie, who sensibly had brought a book and a reading light) There wasn't even any chat after the lights went out.

The performance the next morning went very well considering. The kids were quiet and seemed absorbed, though turned shy afterwards and didn't ask questions until most of them had left, then a few came up to talk to us. I was feeling a little grumpy as Seamus had accidentally grabbed my ear instead of my hand to fling me across the stage (an easy mistake to make in the circumstances, though hard to explain on paper, and I was not grumpy with him just grumpy it had happened) and it bloody well hurt. We also chatted to one of the teachers who seemed really interested in what we'd done, especially with the concept of comedy within tragedy, with the idea that some of the lines can be comic. He was expecting the scene between Queen Atossa and the ghost of King Darius to be high drama I think, and instead we gave him a squabbling domestic tiff. I think he really liked it, and hopefully we get asked back again!

We walked through the park after the performance and hit the second hand books and clothes shops with a vengence before discovering that the brewery we were planning to lunch in (and drink in) was shut for the day. Bollocks. So we searched and search for a closeish decent pub, found one and walked in. Only on actually being inside did we discover that we'd managed, like the homing pidgeons we old MUCAAS types are, to end up in a Pugg Mahones.

A very nice few hours then passed, til we realised it was nearing 3pm and Seamus had to be back in Melbourne by 5:30. So we walked back to the cars and with a little too-ing anf fro-ing and organising of luggage we were off back to Melbourne, where I has the fun of driving un-accompanied through the city to get home after dropping seamus and Sharon off!

I got home, fed the cats (who had been fed that morning by the obliging _bounce_, thanks again!) and was just contemplating my own dinner when I received a very welcome text from vivienne_astor, asking me to come around, watch dvds and have Thai take away. And thus an evening was very pleasantly passed. :-)

The next day I blitzed through errands and housework like some sort of domestic goddess. I can breathe in my own home, oh joy!

Altogether a wonderful weekend, I'm so glad to have finally had a proper one. It makes up for the fact that I am now halfway through my hell-run at work (Thursday overnight, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning shifts- with only 8 hours between them).

Only three weeks til my next weekend! I think I may have to plan to do something fun with it...

I sit here at work, with 90 minutes left on shift, after one huge weekend.

On Friday I worked til 11pm, then went dancing, getting homeat 2am. This was very generous of my darling mc_shamo as it meant he got way too little sleep.

Saturday morning I vaguely remember stirring as Seamus kissed me goodbye and left for work. I woke up properly and mucked about at home before taking my new Eeepc back to the shop as the apostrophe key didn't work, rendering the bloody thing pretty useless. I dropped it off, dropped in to the Chinese grocery to get some veggie sasauges and then made my way to the engagement party of cows_might_fly and clappamungus.

The party was a retro bbq, and I seriously think that Shayne, Eva, _audhumla_ and ragedc missed their decade being born now, because they all looked fabulous in their 70s gear :-) I went 50s, A-line skirts for the win.

We left the party in the early hours of the morning, and I'd drunk rather a bit. I managed to roll out of bed for breakfast at Hot Poppy by 10am, which I was impressed at. I went to the city to get my laptop back (safe, sound and working, yay!) then went home. Shayne and Eva proved once again how awesome they are by giving me a ride to work. The hangover has been replaced by epic tiredness.

35 mins left now.

First day of classes tomorrow! I'm almost too tired to be excited. Almost :-)

It's 10:08pm and apparently still 37 degrees celcius outside. I'm almost glad I'm at work. Unfortunately I forgot my book :-(

I have discovered a wonderful thing about my work's internet access. I can go on Ebay and look at stuff as much as I want, but I cannot sign in, therefore cannot bid. This means that if I like it enough to bid for it I have to wait until I get home, thus preventing impulse buying.

Work was constant and very very busy until about 8:30pm. I think we've hit the lull before we end up with calls about people doing silly things in the overnight cool slightly-less-warm. I walked to volunteering and then from there to the tram today by the way. At 1pm. So all up I walked from my place (in Kensington near the racetrack for those playing at home) to Flemington rd. It sucked. I sweated right through my clothes.

Last weekend was much fun, breakfast at Breizoz in Williamstown was great, as was _audhumla_ and ragedc's party in St Kilda on Sunday night. We ended up hanging out at home on Monday, then had clappamungus and cows_might_fly over for dinner.

Yesterday I worked, then collapsed on the couch. Today I went volunteering then came to work. Tomorrow I picked up some overtime and will work from 9:30am to 11pm. Friday I have the day off. I have nothing at all on, at all (unless I can organise a beach trip). I like this whole having a day off thing.

Saturday and Sunday I'm working, but with penalty rates plus overtime things are looking good to pay off the Loki-bear's vet bill as quickly as possible, then we can start saving for all the other stuff we want!

Things I want after Loki's vet bill is paid off:
-non-smelly compost bin from Ceres (feel free to ask me for compost once we've got it by the way, we have no garden to put it on!)
-new sandals from veganwares (current sandals I can feel the ground through)
-new black high heels from Veganwares for jpom40's wedding
-joint savings fund with Seamus for a holiday
-pay off credit card and Other Bank Account (technically these count as part of paying off Loki's vet bill as that is where the money went, but it's important to pay off the bit we've got on loan first)

I have a headache, this isn't good.

Hey, only 1 hour left to go! Yay!

Well, I seem to have struck a lull, so while I wait for more work to come along (which it just did, I started to type this an hour ago, but have again hit lull) I may as well update about my weekend.

Friday I went to cows_might_fly’s place after work and hung out with her and _audhumla_ for a bit before Sarah nicely drove Eva and me to gym where we went to Pump. Getting home proved interesting as it was pouring with rain and the taxi we called didn’t show. Once we did get home with pizzas and junk food we and mc_shamo and clappamungus had dinner and watched through to the end of Press Gang (Don’t worry vivienne_aster, by the time you’re back and in the swing of gym etc. again I’m sure I can persuade people we need to go back for you to watch the eps you’ve missed!).

Saturday mc_shamo and I braved the horrible weather to meet _bounce_ and go to the Artist Market on at the local Scout Hall. This was silly in retrospect as the weather was truly bloody awful. Still, I got some pot holders and tea towels for various relatives for Christmas, and I think Lisa did well too. We all caught the train into the city and I got drenched waiting for the 86 tram to take me to Fitzroy, where I picked up my new shiny boots which are Made of Awesome.

Once I made it home I decided going out again would be a really stupid thing. I texted clappamungus to beg a lift to the party that night then sat and played with my new toy guitar for a couple of hours before my parents and brother dropped in on their way home from my grandparents’ place. It was nice actually, Mum and I just sat and chatted while dad occasionally woke from his doze enough to join in.

I wore my new boots to _audhumla_ and ragedc’s housewarming. I had a great time. I also wore my old green dress, and old favourite- unfortunately a combination of my diminished daring and my more-developed chest meant I was slightly uncomfortable with the neckline. It was a lot more risqué than I remember it being when I was younger (as I said, either that or I didn’t care so much at 19) All in all, I’m glad it was a MUCAAS party with not too many people I didn’t know very well! I was on a nearly empty stomach, which I then filled with beer, shapes and corn chips... but mainly beer. I talked to lots of people and had a good chat with vivienne_aster who is going off to do fieldwork for a few weeks in other bits of Australia. I also got a mite bit tipsy. When clappamungus and cows_might_fly very kindly gave mc_shamo, Kate and I a lift home Kate and I were sufficiently intoxicated to be incapable of putting on our own seatbelts without collapsing into helpless giggles and confusion. In the end Eva had to get out of the front of the car, come around and buckle us in like children.

I was profoundly grateful that the next morning involved our new traditional Hot Poppy hangover breakfast.

I was supposed to go to the gym with _audhumla_ on Sunday afternoon, but I cried off when I realised I had the increasingly rare opportunity of spending a whole afternoon with mc_shamo without distractions or anyone present or something pressing to do. It was pleasant. Then he left and I played with the guitar some more, I can’t remember Under the Bridge or Stairway to heaven to save my life.

And then last night I made vegetarian sweet and sour pork which worked extraordinarily well and prawn crackers and impostinator and I ate it while watching Spaced and drinking pomegranate and cherry juice. We discovered pomegranate and cherry juice is much enhanced by the addition of either vodka or gin, and my hot chocolate recipe (my real one with real chocolate and cinnamon sticks and cloves) is enhanced by a healthy dose of Franjelico and Crème de Cacao. Yum.

So: friends, gym, good food, alcohol, party, cats, beloved, boots.

Weekends are nice.

Blah, tired. But I'm glad I did the stuff I did on the weekend!

Friday night I went to the gym on my own, on the downside it was a little lonely and there was no one to chat with, but on the upside I was able to keep really focussed and/or drift off inot my own world. Then _audhumla_, cows_might_fly and clappamungus came over and watched Press Gang with me. I think we're just into the third season now.

Saturday I went to a pro-choice rally, which was fun, and interesting. I don't think I'm a socialist, but I find myself on the same side of the fence as them quite often these days. I picket up a copy of a radical feminist magazine, which I'm sure I'll get around to reading soon.

Afterwards I had lunch and hung out in the city with greenpea33 who came to the rally with me, and mc_shamo rocked up.

At about 4pm I said goodbye to mc_shamo who was goingt o check out our theatre space at Trades Hall. I headed off to Port Melbourne, met up with impostinator and went to her place via an awesome organic/health shop of serious awesome, where I spent far too much money on tea and chocolate. I'm glad I don't live as near it as impostinator does, I'd be permanently broke! However, I'm glad it's near her place so I can pop in whenever I'm around :-)

We had dinner with impostinator's dad and mc_shamo at a cosy little Japanese place. Tempura, yuuum!

Sunday was a bit of a scramble. Puck wet our bed (again... sigh) so I fished my sleep on the couch. Seamus had a shower as Puck had been on his side of the bed. I woke up when he went out to meet his dad, and I spent the morning dealing with laundry, trying to get as much of it done as possible (particularley the bedding, since thanks to Puck we'd completely run out) and doing housework until Andrea came over with some props for Lysistrata. These props are long, red, latex and, well, alright yes, they're strap-ons. They look hilarious! If she ever reads this, Andrea, you did a fantastic job making them!

mc_shamo sister kindly drove us to the city and we got to go into the Arts Centre and rehearse. Omniprop in the Arts Centre! Wow! We did our first full run of the play. I hate first full runs of plays, but that's ok, because everybody hates them, they have to be done!

After rehearsal I was meant to meet up with my parents but they piked, so I convinced vivienne_aster that a trip to the gym would be a good thing to do with our Sunday night (mind you, I really had to twist Kate's arm on that one...) and came home afterwards pleasantly exhausted, flopped on the couch, complained loudly and often to mc_shamo about my sore throat and cuddled up to him to watch Midsomer Murders before bed.

About the sore throat, my body is under strict orders not to sucumb to sickness this week, next week there is a strong chance I'll be unemployed, at least for a few days, so it can get sick all it wants then.