Real bling!

Last weekend my mum gave me her engagement ring! OMG! This is Very Exciting, as it means that I now own diamonds! It's a beautiful ring, 3 sparkly diamonds and 2 beautiful sapphires in white gold. I haven't taken it off since she gave it to me - I've even been wearing it to bed! My dad gave it to her 34 years ago. (She's remarried now, so has since gotten a new sparkler!)

Actually with all the clearing out that's going on at mums place ahead of her big move to Lord Howe Island - I've gotten a few interesting things to store at the Cottage. I also now have my mum's wedding dress, some ancient rollerblades, my grandma's ball gown, a lace table cloth my mum got as an engagement present, about fifty flannellette sheet sets and my towering cork shoes of death (photo of cork shoes of death to come soon). My room is so full of stuff. There's stuff everywhere. Stuff stacked in boxes in the cupboard. Stuff on top of the wardrobe. Stuff stuff stuff. (Glorious stuff)

Real bling y'all!

This post also highlights the difficulty in taking a picture of a ring that I wear on my right hand, when I own a right handed camera.

(Yes, it's a right handed camera! The button you press is on the right hand side, and my hands aren't big enough to press it with my left and still look at the screen.)

So finally I have some real bling! And I think it's about time too! I'm thnking of getting it remodelled one day when I have some spare cash *cough* and I'm not holding my breath for THAT blessed day! I feel so special, thinking that 34 years ago my dad bought this ring to show the girl he loved how special she was to him, and that for 25 years my mum looked at this ring on her hand every second minute (just like I do) and felt loved (just like I do!).

Abandoned blogs!

There used to be an abandoned house near my sisters house, we called it the derelict house. It was pretty sad - junk all over the front porch, overgrown and neglected lawn, the whole house looked sad and lonely. There's not much sadder than a broken-down old abandoned house. Except for perhaps, a lonely old abandoned blog! Where is everyone lately? It's feeling very quiet in the blogosphere!

I was checking out this site today, and I came across this slang term, which might go some way to explaining why nobody is blogging lately:

backblog: (n,v) Overflow of incidents you intend to write about on your weblog/diary. Example: I've been meaning to write about my last five dates, but I have to work through my backblog.

Er, so yes, I sometimes read slang dictionaries online... doesn't everyone? Didn't everyone use to read the dictionary when they were little to find out if there were any words they didn't know? I love learning, whenever I get a spare moment online I love to google things I don't know much about (or go to the wik) just for the pleasure of being more knowledgeable. You know that old saying 'Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.' Well I reckon that's relevant in some way here. Google something for someone and they'll have one question answered, teach them to google for themselves and they'll totally stop bugging you.

Or something...

And now, some random photos I liked

Do you remember when you first heard that they were making mobile phones with cameras in them? Oh how we laughed! "What would you need a camera in a phone for?" we cried! "How could it even fit?" we chuckled! Actually I remember, back in the day, when I was selling phones at Testra people were incredulous about a phone that had a built in calculator (never mind a vibra-alert for heavens sake!).

Well God bless those inovating souls at Nokia I say. I have the very beautiful Nokia 6230 with built in camera. This means that whenever I see something funny or random I can take a picture immediately. It certainly makes my stories a lot more credulous.

Here's a small pinch of some of the random glory I've collected with my precious little Nokia...

Ugh thongs - the perfect footwear for in-between seasons...

A shop at Castle Towers I liked the name of (do you think it's pronounced 'cu-tay'?) (That's sassy!)

Taken the 2nd night I got back from London. Very jet-lagged and awake at 3am trying to amuse myself (and totally succeeding)

Bowling for grown-ups! Striker bowling at the Entertainment Quarter in Sydney

Some call them crocs, I call them Ugly Shoes. But when gathered en masse they look suprisingly pretty, no?

It was, in fact, the doorway to a bargain basement shoe shop, that actually held nothing of interest at all. But a good technique I thought.

Spotted on Lane Cove road on the way to work. I hadn't had any breakfast, so I honked him. I didn't get any food.

Funny, it looks quite calm... (that never ceases to make me laugh!)

English Wedding!

Ahh I love weddings! My very very good friend Debs married her sweetheart Neil last week. For some unknown reason they decided to have the wedding in London instead of Australia (possibly because they both LIVE in London, but still - I think they could have taken me into account) so I didn't get to go. But thanks to my wonderful girlfriends Jenny and Mish for sending me photos.

Beautiful dress, beautiful couple, beautiful greenery...

Who would settle for just ONE wedding cake these days darling?

The fabulously, fabulously talented Mish made the cakes. Can you believe that an ordinary mortal person made these deliciously-looking pieces of heaven? She has a real talent! (I'm like a proud mum!)

It sometimes feels hard having dear friends who live in different countries, I miss getting to be with them - not just for big events either, I miss out on really doing life with people who I love. A PE teacher told me once (don't stop me if this isn't right) that when you exercise your muscles get lots of tiny tears in them, and it's while rebuilding these tears that your muscle grows bigger. I sometimes think that that's the way it is with hearts - the more it tears, the bigger it gets a chance to grow. Right now I think my heart is ENORMOUS! Luckily I serve a big God, who is Almighty and totally capable of healing torn hearts :-)

So congratulations my wonderful friends! From a playdate in Ikea 2 years ago to a romantic English wedding, HIP HIP HOORAY!

Summerland Kings shout out

Got a second or two? Do yourself another favour and check out the Summerland Kings site - the hottest band around town!

You can even hear a clip of one of their best known songs 'Too much bourbon and not enough coke'. (It's an instant classic!)

Yes, okay, it's my dad's band! I think they're pretty rocking, even if they do foray into doing *cough* country *cough* music every now and then.

The fellas in the band like to play a few different instruments. For them ‘to get the trifecta up’ means playing three instruments in one night at a gig.
Witness for yourself the harp playing, conga & vocal ability of ‘Uncle’ Bob Morton (son of the great ‘Tex’ Morton).
Enjoy the keyboard magic and vocal skill of the one and only Trevor ‘BIG BOSS MAN’ Norman.
Hear the licks, riffs, slides and bends in the howling and haunting melodic playing of
Ian ‘SMOKEY ‘Armfield.
Walk the bass lines, hear the rhythm guitar and enjoy the percussion from that master bassman Terry ‘TEZZ’ Carlan.
Laying down the funkiest of beats is the drummer (soon to be bass playing) Gordon ‘SKIPPER’ Schubert.
John ‘BUCKO’ Penn plays guitar, bass and drums to round out this unit.

Postsecret and other worthy time wasting ideas

Have you bookmarked this site yet? Do yourself a favour! It's updated every Sunday and is worth looking at every week. I bought the first book, it cost a LOT but is so entirely worth it. I'm holding my breath for the 2nd and 3rd books too now.

This was up there today, so classic.

I can't say that I've never done that before :-)

We played a very juvenile but entirely hilarious game at work the other day. (my idea, they're always my idea) What happens is, at the end of every sentence you need to add on the end 'without my pants'. It's so silly without my pants! We were all laughing so much without our pants!

Right, best to stop that one right there I think! You get the picture, it's so silly but wholly and completely hilarious...

I remember reading an excellent game in TNT magazine once (TNT how I miss thee!) which was challenging, a lot harder than you would think. You basically just refer to yourself in the third person all the time. Amy actually found this quite hard. Amy ended up feeling like a bit of a tosser - especially when she was speaking out loud in front of people who didn't know what she was doing. Amy definitely recommends you giving it a shot yourself! Let her know how it goes if you do :-)

Princesses forever!

OMG I had the best weekend! I got loads of great pictures and have been dying to get to a computer to blog and tell you all about it! Can I set the scene first though? Do you remember this post?

On Monday Shelley, Mish and I were at Darling Harbour, and we went to the Chinese Friendship Gardens - which I've been dying to go to for ages. They are beautiful sculptured, maincured gardens, with a stunning waterfall, and a tranquil lake with giant koi, rogue turtles, funny temple-like buildings and beautiful plants everywhere.

And they made me be a Ming princess.

No, really. It was so cool!There's a part where you can get dressed up in costumes like Chinese royalty would have worn, and you can use your own camera to take pictures of yourself around the gardens. You need to pay to ake the pictures, and sadly, being a few days before pay day I did not have the cashola to get the pictures done. And I explained this to the man as he asked if I'd like to be dressed up. I explained it to him again as he tied a long white skirt around my waist. I tried mumbling it again as he put a beautiful blue kimono on and gave me a fan to hold. I completely shut up as he placed on my head the most ornate and spectacular head dress you have ever seen!

It had blue birds and dragons and huge pearls on sticks! It had tassels that came down past my waist! It had sparkles and diamantes and good gracious it was just the most amazing thing I've ever worn ever. I kind of floated over to the mirror and remained in a daze for some time! Princess! A Ming Princess! Like a beautiful dream come true. I smiled benificently at myself in the mirror.

The time came to take off the head dress, but I must confess that I've been mentally wearing it around ever since :-)

So (can you guess where this is going?!) on Saturday I met up with my beautiful girlfriend Jacx who is visiting from London, and where was there to go but to the Chinese Friendship Gardens to dress up like princesses! It was so surreal, but entirely beautiful!

We were dressed up (by a funny bossy man who I had to get a picture with also!) in the most beautiful finery, the headdress was even more beautiful than I remembered! I stood my ground this time and got to wear a pink robe (he tried to make me wear the blue one again!) and Jacx had a beautiful red one one. Her head dress was specifically for girls with dark hair (he told us) and looked great on her too.

Princess Jacx, Princess Amy and the funny bossy man

So we got to walk around the gardens (and they are beautiful gardens!) and take photos wherever we wanted. It was so divine. What is it about dressing up that brings sunshine into my soul?

I had actually had a pretty rough week last week, but running madly around this magical garden with my great friend, being silly and laughing and taking photos in beautiful costumes totally restored my heart.

Jacx is only in town for a few days more, my beautiful friend Jacx! It really did my heart good to see her. I know I've said it before, but it is such a blessing when you have friendships that are so strong that even when you don't see someone for a year you can still pick right up where you left off.

Amy-Lou Freebush and Jacxterama!

Not so sweet...

Last week it was fruit season at work. Randomly on one day our MD brought in a huuuuge box of home grown lemons, and one of my favourite Group Managers brought in a massive box of very large grapefruits.

I'd never had grapefruit before! I grabbed a couple and took them up to mum's place when I went up on the weekend. Mum was very excited, Gary proclaimed to all that he loved grapefruit, so we cut them up, and served them sprinkled with sugar.

They smelled so great! Everyone keeps saying how healthy they are for you! Before I show you the pictures, I want to say that I was so prepared to love grapefruits.

Honestly, I did try.






But to no avail. I'll pass on the grapefruit thanks, let's just have another slice of birthday cake.

Belated bling

You remember way back when, when it was my birthday? I know, it's been over a month but I only just got all my pics on cd. I had so many birthday celebrations that it turned into a birthday MONTH!

Now, let it be said that this is fine with me. I counted a total of 4 birthday cakes, and I think this is an admirable total. In fact next year I am to beat that and end up with at least 5. Maybe it could be a new trend, to add an extra cake every year? And you didn't think birthdays could be any more fun!!

Here's a few pics from a couple of the parties.

Birthday Krispys - oh the glory!

Jess and Amy at the 'Bling' partyof the century!

Bags of presents! Halleluiah!

Birthday cake and champers with Dad and Katy

Amy, Katy and Jess after a few too many birthday champers...

A few memorable birthday moments:

* Dad, Katy and Jess calling me after a few wines to make me shout out 'Hip Hip', not caring that I was on a train to Newcastle at the time and was getting funny looks from a few people from Toronto

* My wonderful connect group suprising me with a beautiful iPod nano!

* Finding out that the reason my cds were all over the house was because Filipo had been secretly uploading them onto the nano all week - what a champ!

* All of my department at work singing to me - bless you guys! And the fact that our department secretary actually went out of her way to find a pink birthday cake - hooray!

* The huge box of glory sent by Ms Barr, which was kept a secret by Ms Nash until the night of my bday! (She sent jaffa cakes! Oh the bounty!)

* The unexpectedly beautiful package sent by my wonderful girlfriend Mandy - with key-shirts people, key shirts!!

Thanks to all - I know I've mentioned that my love language is primarily gifts, I have to say that I felt truly and thoroughly loved! Ahhh!

Backstreet's back

Yes I'm still here! Sorry for stepping out of the blogosphere momentarily. (Momentarily you ask? It was over a month you exclaim indignantly! That's more than just a moment you shout! How dare you attempt to explain away your absence using words to fool us you demand! To which I reply, you'll take what you get and you'll be thankful for that!)

I actually don't have any excuse for my absence (whether brief or prolonged) other than to say that there are some VERY FUNNY people out there on the net! Here's a few hilarious places I've been hung up on recently.

The Adventures of Sez - the more people read her post from the 11/10 the more blackmail material we've got people!!
Don't Say I Never Told You - a link I've shamelessly pinched from Sez's blog, very very witty and I hang out for every new entry
Miss Doxie - where do these people find all this brilliance and wit??
Column 8 - I'm here every morning checking out my daily dose of Sydney funny
The Daily Truth - sometimes the comments are funnier than the blog post!
Amalah - the Queen of Everything
Snarkywood - not updated even nearly enough, pure evil genius
Go Fug Yourself - ooh, did I say that Snarkywood was evil?

So after being momentarily (yes, MOMENTARILY!) a bit despondent about how I could live up to the amount of fabulousness currently online, and how my little contribution could possibly garnish the already satisfactorily adorned face of the internet... I remembered that actually my blog isn't about impressing the pants off the world, I just like talking about myself. So everybody rock your body, cos Backstreet's back!

And the world said: ALRIGHT!