Category: Daily Life

There is something very appealing about the title of Allen Galbraith’s blog, it implies getting ahead, improving yourself without cost or effort. Allen has distilled advice from all the self-help books out there to create a simple set of guidelines for living a balanced and healthy life:

1. Relax
2. Take regular physical exercise
3. Eat a balanced diet
4. Sleep well
5. Socialise
6. Keep a journal
7. Help other people
8. Keep close to nature
9. Develop a spiritual life
10. Laugh
11. Watch less TV
12. Listen
13. De-clutter your life
14. Get organised
15. Think for yourself

All seems pretty sensible, unfortunately it still demands a certain level of self-discipline, so you can’t be totally lazy – damn, knew there had to be a catch! Read the entire article on Allen’s blog.

Applied for three part-time admin positions I found on Seek, all located not far from where we live which is a bonus.

Update: below is the one I scored an interview for. The second one, I didn’t get as far as interview but received a nice rejection letter.. heard nothing back about the third one!

IPSWICH HOSPICE ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT
Ipswich Hospice Care is a non-profit, non-denominational community owned and run facility which provides care for the terminally ill, their families and bereaved people in the Ipswich & West Moreton Region.

The Hospice Team includes a Management Committee, Staff, Volunteers, as well as the patients and their families.

The role of the Administration Assistant is to support the Development Manager in the promotion, fundraising and marketing requirments of the organisation.

To be considered you will have:-
Competent computing skills – Microsoft Word, Publisher, Excel, Access, MYOB and email
Good written and verbal communication skills
Experience in a similar administration role
Strong organisational skills including planning and co-ordination of community events
Cash handling skills
Professional phone manner
Attention to detail
Ability to work within a team and autonomously.

The successful applicant will be employed under the guidance of the Social and Community Services (SACS) Award, level 4 – with salary sacrificing optional after probationary period.

Dad forwarded this email funny to me – The Perks of Being Over Sixty. I love items 5, 7 and 13:

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run–anywhere.
4. People call at 9 PM and ask, Did I wake you????
5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
7. Things you buy now won’t wear out.
8. You can eat supper at 4 PM.
9. You can live without sex but not your glasses.
10. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
11. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
12. You quit trying to hold your stomach in no matter who walks into the room.
13. You sing along with elevator music.
14. Your eyes won’t get much worse.
15. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to payoff.
16. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
17. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
18. Your supply of brain cells are finally down to manageable size.
19. You can’t remember who sent you this list .

And you notice these are all in Big Print for your convenience.

Forward this to everyone you can remember.

Ha ha ha ha!

At present, the positive efforts [toward reducing poverty] are being affected by the still largely unsolved problem of the foreign debt of the poorer countries. The principle that debts must be paid is certainly just. However, it is not right to demand or expect payment when the effect would be the imposition of political choices leading to hunger and despair for entire peoples.

It cannot be expected that the debts which have been contracted should be paid at the price of unbearable sacrifices. In such cases it is necessary to find – as in fact is partly happening – ways to lighten, defer or even cancel the debt, compatible with the fundamental right of peoples to subsistence and progress.

– John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 1991

I stumbled on this cool newsletter service LetterPop, very easy to use. It lets you add your own photos to some very nice looking templates worthy of digi-scrapping. I created this test newsletter about Boss in the space of five minutes.

The basic (free) service lets you email up to 10 newsletters a year to up to 25 recipients, or you can print or publish the page. My test page sits at http://letterpop.com/newsletters/?id=55728-280dce

Paid subscriptions give you more options – $25 US a year lets you send a weekly newsletter to up to 500 recipients. $15 US a month lets you send a daily newsletter to up to 10,000!

I noticed however that the email message only contains a link to the page where the newsletter is published online, the message doesn’t display the newsletter. To me this is a sensible idea (Jeffrey Zeldman agrees) but it might not suit some people.

Our poor shepherd Boss has intermittent bleeding from his penis. We first noticed it a couple of weeks ago, the odd drop of blood on the floor where he’d been. Hubby took him to the vet but she couldn’t spot anything. Then in the last week or so the bleeding has increased. Spots of blood everywhere, I’m constantly mopping around the floors of the house and the veranda. Back to the vet, but still nothing. She took some blood samples though, and gave us some antibiotics for him. She said sometimes it occurs with dogs that have been in a mating, they do themselves some damage – not that Boss has been in this situation recently. He does tend to get a little exuberant sometimes, but it’s difficult to see how it would cause this. So it’s a mystery, and we hope it doesn’t turn out to be something serious.

Update 3 Aug: touch wood, he seems to have improved the last couple of days, since being on the anti-biotics the bleeding seems to be tapering off. Maybe it was just an infection – fingers crossed it clears right up.