Wait a minute, what happened to January?!

Seriously, it was January just about a week ago...

Holy smokes, we're one month into 2011 already! That went awful fast.

Quick TL;DR summary of the past couple of months:

• Did the Christmas thing - went to work for a few hours; went to visit friends for Christmas dinner, and then; drove for two hours on an unfamiliar road in the dark so we could collect my nephew, and THEN had to drive two hours back. (I got someone else to do the second trip on my behalf - I was WAY too tired to manage it.)
• Did the New Years' thing - went to our friends' place nearby for a pool party, even though we only spent about 30 minutes in said pool because it wasn't warm enough to stay in it for long. (PS. we seem to have misplaced our summer - do you have it perhaps?)
• Had mysterious car troubles - something weird was happening with the electrics connected to the engine; most of the time the car was fine, but occasionally it would fail to start proplerly, blow a fuse, and on more than one occasion the dashboard smouldered. Eeep. My stepdad had a look, found a loose wire that was the probable cause, and now my car is behaving itself again. For now.
• Friends of mine got married, after having been together and raising a family for the past five years (and have been friends for even longer). It was really great to see all of the friends and family come together and help out the bride and groom; my mother even made the bridal gown!
• Oh, and parts of Australia got threatened by the elements, but not bushfire this time - rather, the opposite: Queensland got rained out and washed away in January, and then had visits from Cyclones Larry and Yasi in February... while New South Wales and Victoria copped the leftovers of these two in the form of huge storms and more flooding.

...A friend of mine had actually put this blog under the January spotlight of her Write Club, but silly me I totally forgot to update anything for the past month, despite actually having stuff to write about. Erm... oops?

What can I say? I apologise to the visitors who may or may not have come through, hoping to find something more recent than my Dad's car accident, and hope that if anyone else out there is still reading this, I'll be going up to Queensland to visit family next week - so this space will actually have something up-to-the-minute on it, if we're lucky!

Sigh. I know, I know. It's not that I didn't want to write to you all, it's just that sometimes the little ole motivation gland doesn't want to act. Sometimes, you just gotta pick up that little cattle prod and give it a jolt, you know?

Long story short, I'm not dead yet. Stay tuned!

The Real Meaning Of The Season

...continuing on from Part One (which is actually the post BELOW this, thanks to the chronological stacking of the blog structure):

Around the same time that my friends came to visit, we also had a visit from my Dad and his partner, who had come down all the way from Queensland in their trusty 4WD. They live further away from us than my friends do, so you can imagine how frequently we don't get to see them!

Dad's visit was very much appreciated. We caught up, shared Christmas gifts, went out for lunch, took photos, and sampled Licorice Sherbet Bombs (which apparently aren't available in Queensland; my Dad actually made a point of calling into the factory while in the state, and bought a 2kg bag full of them!

They only got to apend about a week in the area before they had to drive back up, so they spent most of that time running around visiting everybody. My sister and I really only got to see them for about half a day all up, and then it was time for them to move on to the next destination.

It didn't matter too much though, because we all knew that they made the most of the time they had, and we appreciated it very much.

...A few days later, my phone rings at work. It's my sister: "Has Dad called you yet?"

It turned out, she'd just spoken to him on the phone; the day before, Dad and his partner were on their way back home, and while on the highway somewhere in New South Wales, they had collided with another vehicle at high speed.
The impact rolled their 4WD and made it a write-off; luckily for them, they both avoided serious injury, and were able to walk away, and their insurance meant that they still got a ride home (by plane this time).

It was an incredibly lucky thing that they both survived - I can't even imagine how I would feel if they had been seriously injured, or worse.
It makes me - us, my sisters and the rest of the family too - appreciate the time we had and have together.

Take care this season, folks.

Oh boy, here we go

My computer is playing up at the moment, so I'm trying to use my DSi to manage the task of posting here. Holy heck, it's much harder to do this when you're navigating semi-functional webpages on a teeny tiny screen! Let's just see how this works, hey?

...Well, that seemed to work without too much trouble - though, I doubt I'll be trading in my keyboard any time soon.

So! It's nearly That Time Of Year Again™, and everyone is frantically rushing around the shopping centres trying to prove how much they love each other via expensive and impractical gifts! Gotta love it.

I've been clever this year, and did most of the gift-shopping back as far as June (when I still had my last job). Yet, I still went through the whole "maybe I should get so-and-so a little more"...

I'll be working again on eXcemas Day this year, but only for about three hours... which means that I'll then have to do the big run-around afterwards in order to catch up with everybody. (I'll be driving for at least 3 hours afterwards!)

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I got to socialise a few times this month, and all from the comfort of my home. I had a couple of friends come down for a visit - I 've known them both for at least ten years, from when we all used to study at TAFE. Unfortunately our jobs and locations keep us from seeing each other as much as we would want to nowadays, so whenever we get to meet up is a pretty big deal.

Anyways, once they'd arrived, and we did the basic catxh-up, we fell back into old habits... which were basically sitting around, talking trash and generally doing a lot of not much at all.
Oh, we did get in a few games of Beatles Rock Band too.

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I have more to say but the browser won't let me enter any more characters into this text-box - damn you, Opera! - so I'll continue in the next post.

End of Part One!

Merry eXcemas 2009!

Well, it's finally Christmas! How is it for you? I'm trying to be nice about it this year, even though I have to work again (which is fine, because I hadn't planned anything else for the day anyways).

We had a very ramshackle, scattered Christmas this year.
The main problem was that so many of us had plans for the end of the year, and it made it difficult to co-ordinate anything in the way of Christmas activities. The main issue was whether we would get to see our older sister before Christmas, as she lives about three hours' drive from the rest of us. As far as I knew (up to two days before the event) we weren't going to do the family gathering until after Boxing Day... so I took my time getting the presents wrapped up and sorted.

On the way home Wednesday evening, I called in to the shops to get some last-minute gift-getting done, when my phone rang. It was my sister, wondering when I was coming home so that everyone could do "the Christmas thing"! O_O;; So much for a minute's notice!

It all worked out well. I managed to give out the lion's share of the gifts that I had for everyone, and everyone was happy with what they scored. Not only was it the Christmas gathering, but it was also a celebration for my sister's birthday too... so we got to have some birthday cake as well! Which is always good.

My nephew got very excited during the evening, but isn't that expected of kids? It didn't hurt that he received a huge bag of gifts from his grandma on top of all the rest of the gifts we gave him. He really got into the unwrapping - in fact, he got so carried away that one of his presents wound up flung behind the TV cabinet! Getting a little too carries away, perhaps?
He also enjoyed the presentation of the birthday cake, especially the candle-blowing ceremony. After my sister blew out her candles, he insisted on having a go himself... and so, once he'd blown out the candles, naturally everyone else had to have a turn! My sister thought this was totally hilarious, so I think we have the makings of a new tradition right here. Oh, and needless to say, there wasn't much candle left on the cake by the end of the game.

I think I went a little overboard on the gift-giving this year. Okay, I go a little overboard every year.
The most extravagant thing I got was the Wii console for my Ma, but only because I'd been silly enough to suggest it as a gift idea back in September. Now she can get WiiFit in the comfort of her home, instead of slogging it out in the gym! (At least, she will, once she gets the balance board and other accessories to go with it.)
Everyone else I gave gift bags full of assorted stuff which I thought they would like. There were a couple of pricey things in there, but most of it was cheap (good-quality) stuff I'd found earlier in the year, a lot of which were off "Clearance" tables and things. The nicest thing I found (and almost kept) was a Mr Bean Teddy, still in its original packaging, which I found in an Op Shop of all places!
It's easy to get carried away with the spending at this time of year, which is why I generally try to get some preparation in before December rolls around. Of course, I was pottering around the shops on Christmas Eve, looking for last-minute catch up gifts like everyone else too, so I'm not gloating too much! ;P

I received some nice stuff too. Right now I'm listening to the Beatles Anthology, parts 1 and 3. I bought Part 2 way back in Melbourne, when my friend came over from Japan. I'm also trying to work out if this new MP3 player is going to start behaving itself -
oh wait, I just finished charging the battery, and now the computer is recognising that it's connected! Silly manual should have said that you had to wait for the battery to charge before it would work... X(
But yes. It wasn't so much the receiving that was the big deal, since I have heaps of crap lying around anyway... It was the giving, and the getting to hang around with the family, that was the most important part. After all the stuff that's happened, what with the bushfires, sick family members, work-related chaos, and general madness, it was nice to end this year on a more pleasant note.

Then again, there are still six more days to go until 2009 is done... so maybe I'm talking too soon? :/
At any rate, I hope all my friends and readers* have a Great Christmas (if you do "the Christmas thing") and a Happy 2010!

*Yeah, both of you!

eXcemas

AAAA! The curse of eXcemas... is over for another year.

And, actually, it wasn't that bad.

I managed to get gifts for all the people who mattered, and what's more, the majority of them were bargains. Like the funky colour-changing lamp that looks like a plain white rectangle when it's off, but turns into a miniature disco-floor when you turn it on! That one was a gift for my sister and her man, and it was about 30% of the original price!

I also had to fetch some glassware from Target that my Ma and stepdad had suggested to me.
I had to go in three days before eXcemas, while Target were open until midnight. An unfortunate clash of schedules meant that I spent most of the week before eXcemas doing close shifts - and I was too sleepy and lazy to go during the day.
I made it to the store with about 10 minutes to spare, and went straight to the homewares section, frantically looking for the glasses they wanted. I found... something... that sorta looked like the one they named, and I took it to the counter. Luckily, it was really dead in the store that close to closing time, so I was pretty much in and out within minutes.
I got the box home, and opened it up to show it to my housemates - and OH NO! One of the glasses was busted!!!
So... the next day, I had to quickly pop back in to get them exchanged. This was reasonably early in the day, and I didn't have to wait too long that time either. We just grabbed another box and swapped over a glass, and I was ready to go!

The worst part of that procedure was, turned out I'd grabbed the wrong set of glasses. The one they wanted had a similar name, but was totally different! Oh well, they liked them anyway!

So... eXcemas itself rolled around.
At the stroke of midnight, my sister decided to give out her gifts to us immediately, because she couldn't be bothered with carting them all over to Ma's house the next day. I'd left all her gifts over at Ma's, so she unfortunately had to wait. Ha ha!

The next day, I woke up at about 9.30, and everyone else was awake. I went over to Ma's place, and everyone else was waiting for us to show up so we could get to the gift-unwrapping already!. Everyone was there, but... where was my sister?
She had just hopped into the shower! ARGH! We had to wait about 30 minutes before she was ready! It brought to mind the time Ma made us wait until we'd had breakfast before we could eat our eXcemas lollies - never mind the fact that we'd seldom had breakfast the rest of the damn year...!

Eventually, my sister came over, and PRESENTS!!! were shared out. I got to be Santa's helper again this year, probably because I'm one of the last with functional eyesight. Ha ha!
I forgot my elf's hat this year, so I had to make do with Ma's angel halo instead... and I really do NOT want to show off the photos.
Oh, all right then. There's one to the right. Click to make it bigger and more humiliating.

Everyone liked their presents.
We even managed to include some gifts sent to us from Dad this year, and they were well appreciated. I liked the box of wooden puzzles they sent to me, though one of them had me struggling for about ten minutes - and that was trying to pull the damn thing apart!

Oh, and I got revenge on my Ma for wrapping my Abbey Road keyring in eleven layers of paper! I bought her another keyring, and wrapped that up in as much wrapping paper I could find lying around. Every layer was properly wrapped - no newspaper filler! - and I even put labels and ribbon on some of the layers! It took about an hour to do it all up.
I gave the gag gift to her first (before the proper present, which was jewellery) and... well, let's just say by the end of it, everyone was anxious to see what the end result was!
I lost count of how many layers I'd used, and it turned out there were about 40.
She preferred the jewellery, though she spotted straight away that one of the earrings was missing a stone - this from a woman who has to wear glasses to read! She really knows her bling!

As for my haul, I mostly got what I'd asked for:

• a memory card for the GameCube, because the 251 card I have is almost full to capacity, thanks to my sister's "Sims" space-hogging save file.
• some sleeves for my DS games, which is strange since I keep my games in the original hard cases.
• the usual puzzle books and games - real original, guys! Honestly, why is it that all of my friends and family think to get me these things every year?
• a little music box thing that plays Hey Jude. :)
• some CDs - a couple of Beatles discs, and the second part of the U2 Best Of that I needed.
• two video game discs - Intellivision: Greatest Hits, and Atari: Anniversary Edition. Haven't tried them yet. Kinda don't want to tell Ma I already have a bazillion vintage games on MAME...
  
• a big canvas print of the Beatles, which Ma found in a discount shop :P
  
• some T-shirts that had prints of MarioKart, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Beatles and Alfred E. Neuman on them. The surprising part was that they were handmade, that is, Ma found the pictures on the Internet, and used some DIY T-Shirt transferring kit to make them! They are AWESOME and I will wear them until they fall to bits!
• socks. No underwear, though.
  

Everyone had a wonderful time...
We had a barbecue for lunch, and people had a good time checking out their gifts and playing games. The weather held up very well, as it was warm, but not really hot this year.

Unfortunately, the fun was short-lived, because... I had to go to work.
Dammit, even though I'd tried to wangle my way out of working on eXcemas this year, I still got snookered in to doing an eight hour shift.
I managed to eat a bit of lunch, and then I had to run in and relieve the people who had opened the shop. Sigh - well, I guess I wasn't the only one put out this year.
And it was pretty bad when I got there - we'd run out of BBQ gas bottles, we'd run out of ice bags, and it had been really busy for most of the morning, so hardly any of the jobs had been done. GROAN

...Yet, the rest of the day was pretty quiet. We had a reasonably constant supply of customers, but nowhere near as many as we'd had over bEaster shudder. I guess people were a lot better organised that I gave them credit!
Ma told me she was going to bring me some dinner, but I asked her if she could bring an extra meal, as the other person I was closing with couldn't get to their family for eXcemas this year. She brought two plates, but it turned out that they had made plans for after work, and didn't need the dinner after all!
So, I thought, "What the hell am I gonna do with this food?"
But then, one of our regular customers, a taxi driver, came in complaining that they had been so busy ferrying drunk people about that they had missed their eXcemas dinner, and I said, "Well, it just so happens..."
So that was my good deed for the day. :) Aside from actually showing up to work, that was.

Anyway, I finished work at 10pm, and returned to Ma's place - only to discover that it was all over bar the shouting. Everyone was ready to tuck up into bed! BUGGER!!!
So, I just came home, and played on the Wii until 4am.

And then... I had to go to work again...
(but not before I got to see my Nanna. She came over to Ma's place for the day, and we all got to have another catch-up on things... well, I did as much catching up as you can do in about 50 minutes, because... um, I'd been on the Wii until 4am the night before.)

So... that was Christmas! I mean, eXcemas.
And though it wasn't perfect, it wasn't at all bad. I'd give it four stars ˜˜˜˜.
I hope yours was good as well! Merry Christmas!

PS. Sorry for the long post - considered breaking it up, but can't be bothered. Will post again after NYE!