Category: Daily Life

DH’s work colleagues Troy and Mary-Ellen were married on Saturday at St Brigid’s Catholic Church. Lovely ceremony with Deacon Harry. Lots of cameras, lots of family, lots of laughter and tears. A country and western theme – wedding party wore denim, even the wedding dress was a beautiful denim gown.

Nice reception after the ceremony. Guests from far flung places – London, Mt Isa, Cairns, NSW … Lots of horseshoes everywhere, and each table at reception had an unusual but striking candle centrepiece wrapped in barbed wire.

Christening next day, T and M’s little boy John Douglas at St Mary’s Catholic Church. Three other christenings at the same time – quite a production line. A different minister, very efficient, business-like. Another get together afterwards, nice to meet up again so soon with same pleasant group of people.

Big weekend for T and M, remember how worn out we felt after our own wedding. Guests tired too – such hard work sitting around eating, drinking and socialising.

There’s a new state government ad on telly with former tennis champion Pat Rafter telling us to find your 30 – it’s all about spending a short part of the day towards being active and getting some exercise. In light of the news that Australia is now the world’s fattest nation it seems a good time to heed that message.

It has certainly struck a chord with me, I’ve come to realise that as I get older I really need to look after my health and fitness. I’ve set myself a challenge to walk for 20 minutes a day and to help keep me motivated I’ve registered on Lance Armstrong’s new health and fitness site, Livestrong.com.

Tools on the site let you create a challenge or “dare” for yourself, then monitor and maintain your progress via self-assessment of your daily performance and degree of difficulty. You can also keep a journal of the dare, and invite supporters to egg you on with encouraging comments.

As someone who beat cancer and then had a run of successive wins of the world’s toughest bike race, Lance Armstrong knows all about self-determination, motivation and support networks. His Livestrong.com site is packed with information, experts, videos and tools to help motivate you to “dare to Live Strong”.

Sasha has always been fiercely possessive of any bone she is given. With her small mouth and a few missing teeth, her bones usually last a long time and she will sit guarding her bone for as much time as she actually chews it.

Boss finishes his bones in a few quick chomps but usually steers clear of Sasha while she has hers. He pretends to ignore her but you can see him watching her out of the corner of his eye, and as soon as she leaves her bone unattended he swoops and it is gone.

Yesterday it was quite hilarious. We gave both dogs a bone and as usual Boss finished his long before Sasha. Eventually she had a dilemma because she wanted to guard her bone from Boss, but the call of nature was getting stronger.

She solved the problem by carrying the bone in her mouth while she did all her business in the yard. It was the first time we’d seen her (or any dog) do this. She is one determined little creature!

Had my hair cut this morning and I’m not really happy with it. I specified short bob, sides left long enough to tuck behind my ears and a wispy fringe. I think I should have just stopped at “short bob” and left the rest to the hairdresser to work out, because the bits that look awful are the sides and wispy fringe. Oh woe, I might have to go back and get them to tidy it up.

Update – the new hairstyle has grown on me (is that a pun?) As Mum joked, I just needed “product”. A bit of hair styling wax and mousse does the trick.

I couldn’t get out of work quick enough today, two weeks off woohoo! Dear husband has the time off too and we might be spending a few of our precious days off in NSW, catching up with a couple of friends. DH hasn’t committed to it yet so we may just as easily end up not going anywhere at all. That’s ok I have plenty of things for us to do around the house haha.

Some of the things I am likely to do on our holidays:

• study
• watch old Doctor Who episodes
• shop
• read books
• get my hair cut

Some of the things I’d like to accomplish during our holidays:

• finish painting the upstairs landing
• get rid of the prickles in the garden
• plant some trees and do a little landscaping
• use my beauty parlour gift voucher – maybe get a nice massage!

A sci-fi tale by David Brin. Set in a not too distant future where a new technology makes it possible for people to imprint themselves into clay “dittoes” (copies). The dittoes are like personal deputies who go off and uncomplainingly do all the things that the “rigs” (originals) don’t want to do – such as housework, a boring job, or risking life and limb. The ditto has a short 24 hour lifespan but memories of its experiences during this time are able to be “inloaded” to its rig, giving the person several lifetimes of accumulated memories.

The story revolves around Al, a clever detective who has been hired to find the missing lead scientist from United Kil’n, the company that first developed the clay dittoes. Along the way it deals with the implications of Kil’n technology on many different levels – the social, philosophical, moral and physical. Narrating in first person and as each of Al’s several duplicates at the same time would seem to be a near impossible task but Brin rises to the challenge, and uses it skilfully as a device to speed up the pace of this page turning thriller.

Thoroughly enjoyed this, very cleverly written and even the regular use of puns (ditective/detective) was a good touch which added to the entertaining tone of the story.