Moose Musings

11:19pm: M died :O( which was extremely sad, although by the end she was very unwell with Parkinsons and was having these terrible seizures. Still...I miss her and our Canasta games.

It's also the anniversary of the terrible events in Israel that has lead to the latest mess in the Middle East, so yeah...

Today was a public holiday though for Labour Day (and also helpful to get over the Daylight Saving change) and I did actually consider going ice skating, but instead I was super lazy and spent basically the whole day watching James Turner's Sims 4 Every Life Stage Challenge. Which was complete chaos and craziness of course XD There's still one video to go, but yeah I've got to get my butt to bed.

In other news, the cross stitch continues on, although I've realised that the Pusheen gray fur colour in the Pusheen Christmas Cross Stitch box is noticibly darker than the gray I was using before. I thought I got the right colour (I actually ran out of the gray since Pusheen is so rotund so I had to buy one, which I thought match the gray colour, but I can't really say. I think the original Pusheen Cross Stitch box had lighter colours anyway. Weird)

Anyway, not much else to report, which is good since it's 20 minutes to midnight and I need to get enough zzzs!

And I still haven't caught up on the Friday Five, or done any fanfic writing - shakes head - on the plus side Ghosts Season 4 is starting in the coming week, eeee! Which hopefully will mean more fan like discussions with my fellow Ghosties.

For now though, goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Activity

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

10:15pm: Because I got a little less than that last night and I am feeling very sleepy right now indeed. Yaaawn! This reminds me that I should probably start going to bed earlier in preparation for when Mrs S comes back, although I still don't know what days I'll have when she gets back.

One job I won't have however is the Home Library Service Officer role, I heard back from the Manager when I came in to volunteer on Friday. However! She thought I made a good case for myself and all, and suggested that I could do some casual shifts for the Home Library Service while they're a bit understaffed. Who knows...maybe the person who did get the job will decide it's not for them or find something else and I might be considered again. :OP I still haven't heard back about the Library Assistant job that they went external with, though...and there's all ready a new round of Library Assistant jobs to apply for! Phew!

Not to mention actual librarian jobs...which closed on Friday, I applied to those as well, although with my lack of experience I'm not sure what luck I'll have with that (lack of experience seems to be my achilles heel right now, except wouldn't you know it? Back when I didn't have a Masters it was a lack of qualifications! Side-eyes all this.)

So yes, lots of jobs to apply to! I sure hope I get something though...as the jobs get filled they'll be less casual shifts available for me. In fact, it's all ready kinda of happening, for the last two weeks I've only had one extra shift per week, when previously I've had three. I had to take money out of my savings this week to cover rent! I'm wondering if that might have to do with the move to a fortnightly pay system at the library, but honestly, I'm sure it's because even with the extra shifts I'm not making up those 15 hours I do for Mrs S.

Ah man, adult life is hard. :OP

In other news, the parental units are on the cruising portion of their travels, I was following their progress on Cruise Tracker (they have had wifi here and there and sent us photos :O) but it's stopped tracking, which I'm wondering might be because some years back there was the whole pirate thing (the ship my parents are on actually got fired at by Somali pirates!) so perhaps they're not updating so the pirates can't track them. Having said that though...I'm sure they use their own radars or whatever...or just sail around looking for ships. Or maybe they're not even in action anymore, I haven't heard about pirates out there in ages.

But yeah whatever the case, they're in the middle of the Indian Ocean right now, so no wifi and thus they're incommunicado. I bet they're living it up though!

Anyway, with the parentals away I have been seeing more of M and Grandpa, which is nice, in fact this week I'll be spending two nights over there because it's ANZAC Day on Wednesday and Grandpa goes in the march so he'll be out and M can't be left by herself for too long in case she falls over something (knock on wood!) Although, she's been much more steady on her feet since the operation on her toe - which was pretty much an amputation. But, the important thing is, we can play Canasta when I come over! :O)

The only thing I'm still wondering about is whether or not to go to the Annual Ice Skating Show at the Macquarie Ice Rink on Thursday. On the one hand, ice shows are fun and it'd be good to support the skaters, on the other as mentioned I'm running low on dough and I don't have anyone to go with so perhaps I should skip in this year? I dunno... Plus would I drive there or catch the bus? If I do go, should I see if I can stay over at my friend's place like I did a couple of years back? I have work the next day in the afternoon so I guess it can work. Thing is I didn't go skating this afternoon (I got some new shoes and my feet were sore) so I don't actually have a ticket, so I'd have to go over early on Thursday to get one before the line gets too big. Decisions decisions!

Also...I've realised I need to rearrange the day I'm going in for volunteering, because of the working on Friday thing (I forgot about that shift...) Plus I've got my car booked in for a service on Monday morning, phew! So busy busy week coming up!

On that note, I should wrap this up and get ready for bed. Last week I totally overslept and didn't get to church which was a shame, so I want to be up tomorrow.

Hope you're all well in internetland!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Busyness

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:19pm: Although I do at least have my two current jobs of course, so no need to panic on that count, but neither of the library jobs panned out. I'm so disappointed! Particularly about the Inter-Library Loans Officer! I really enjoy that sort of work, but according to the feedback the interview panel just figured I didn't have enough experience to take on such a big task.

As for the Collections Officer, I sort of fucked up that interview so I guess that's not a big surprise.

However, Mrs S has recently interviewed a new person to be a back-up, although it's possible said person may be interested in more hours. I hope I don't end up losing work!

I swear...when you come off poorly in interviews like I do, trying to find a job when you've managed to get one, even if it isn't entirely what you're looking for is is super difficult. I just don't have the confidence to risk my current position even if it's my dream job. :O(

Of course the thing to do, is not mention the interviews to Mrs S at all, but the thing is, if I do that and then get a job, even if I can give plenty of notice, she'll probably still feel kind of betrayed. But, eh, you gotta do what you gotta do I suppose?

Anywho, apart from that, things have been going pretty well, although I "only" got 7.5 hours of sleep last night and thus am most tired! Either that or I woke up at the wrong part of my sleep cycle...either way, zzzs are needed, I tells ya! Plus I get up at like 8:15am tomorrow to go to church with Dad, so I better wrap this thing up.

Oh! And I managed to survive the library today - the air-con remains on the fritz- but it was pretty uncomfortable at times. D: It's going to be much cooler tomorrow, hopefully I won't be chilly in my dress when I'm outside, but I guess that's a risk I'll have to take. :OP

And now, I'm out, goodnight all!

PS. I also went and saw M today after work and we played Cansta, we were in the middle of one game, which she kicked my butt in, and started another where she is kicking my ass. Man, next time I head over there I gotta step up my game!

10:22pm: Yes! I went and saw her yesterday morning and as promised by the newspaper article, she was biiiig. Her name is Rosie, LOL.

I was able to get a nice lady to take a photo of me with Rosie since my attempt at a selfie was hampered by my short arms.

You may ask, why the Hell was there a giant pink flamingo in the middle of the mall anyway? Well, I think I might have mentioned in my last entry it's was an advertisement for a company that makes pool floaty toys among other things. Rosie was convienently located next to the big fountain where there was a display of other pink flamingoes both of the personal floating kind and the set your drink on it kind, LOL.

Anywho, it was a good thing I had to go to the mall because I had to get some napkins and number candles for M's birthday brunch as well as some coleslaw sauce for Mum.

M's birthday brunch was both good and bad, good because it was a yummy meal, M was in a good mood and enjoyed her gifts, the little bro was there and there was cake! The bad was Mum and I got into a bit of an argument over something dumb. Bah!

What else to report, well the dress I wore to the brunch and then to work is a nice one except that the arm holes are too small, I discovered that the dress had been taken in a bit when I got home, so I unpicked it, but the armholes are still too small. So I may have to get it altered by a professional becaue I don't know how to do that.

Apart from that, not a lot to say! Although I'm still trying to sort my outdoor Christmas tree shaped light issue, I thought I'd solved it today with some suction cup hanging things, but they don't work on my granny flat's walls (even though they are supposed to work outdoors). I seem to remember I actually bought them last year and had to return them because of the same reason, LOL whoops. On the upside I did see something at Bunnings that should work. Just as long as it's not nails, because as a tenant I can't bang holes into the wall.

I should post photos of my Christmas decos, I'm quite proud of the set-up I have here, but since I'm going to work at Mrs S's tomorrow (I swapped days with the other carer this week) I need to wrap this entry up. Also I don't want to type for too long because I've got a sore index finger from a cut I got today when I knocked over and broke one of Mrs S's glasses. :O( It was all the way from Peru too! Craaaap. She has some others, but still. Also, I stabbed my ring finger cuticle on that same hand (the left) with the seam ripper last night, so ouch. Then finally I scrapped the first knuckle of the same index finger on something at Mrs S's, so yes, my poor hand.

I'm so clumsy, gee.

And lastly, after the schmoozle of last week and leaving my fridge open a bit, I thought I should make it a bit colder since it's summer time, which turned out to be a bad idea, half the stuff in there got frozen! Including the milk, and the lettuce. Dang. I've turned it back down a bit and hopefully it's OK.

Right, must be off, I made spaghetti sauce tonight and made lasagna which has just finished cooking so I gotta put it in the fridge and I'l be having some yummy lunch and dinner for the next few days!

Goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Hand

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

9:50pm: I'm still alive, I've just been laid low by a cold the last few days. It all started on Saturday when I woke up with a slightly sore throat and a bit sniffling, bad enough that I didn't go ice skating - and thus didn't get my beanie (apparently it's still waiting at Macquarie for me, but I need to get it sooner rather than later!).

By the time I woke up on Sunday I felt terrible and had to make the call to the library saying I wouldn't be able to come in. I had to leave a message actually so I was worried they wouldn't get the message, but fortunately I got an SMS back confirming it.

So I spent most of the day in bed, except for when I got up and drove over to Mum and Dad's house because I didn't feel like being by myself when I felt so gross. Although it was a bit of a gamble so to speak because though I'd also sent an SMS to Mrs S asking if it was possible for the other carer to fill in for me on Monday I hadn't heard back yet and I wasn't sure I'd be able to drive even the small distance. Fortunately, that worked out too!

As it happened I couldn't stay in bed all day Monday because the internet still wasn't working properly over at Newtown so in a last ditch effort to solve it Dad and I drove over there with my laptop and spare router that I bought before I realised I didn't actually have a phone line at my Granny Flat. The modem that was all ready over there was apparently working again after one of the tenant's fixed the cable, but of course, I'd instructed Dad to reset it so all the connection info was wiped off! I decided to change over the modems anyway though, since the one there was old and didn't make it easy to figure out the name and password for it.

Anyway, I was able to sort everything out, hooray! Although I did discover something's happened to my Box Thing, namely, it's padlocks have disappeared! WTF?! There was also a box not inside it when Dad and I arrived. To be honest I'm surprised said box hadn't been thrown out you're not supposed to leave things in the car park, I put it back in the Box, but the thing is still unlocked! Hopefully, no-one breaks in...at least I don't have any comics for them to steal hmpf!

I stayed over at Mum and Dad's last night as well, which Dad approved of since there's central heating here so I don't have to worry about temperature changes. Which M thought was a good idea as well when I called up to cancel (regrettably) today's Canasta game.

Which brings us today, to my great relief, the sore throat and congested nasal passage portion of the cold seems to have ended - cross fingers!!! - although I've got a bit of a cough and my ears are blocked, boo. However, I'm well enough to go to work at Mrs S's tomorrow, and considering I have to get there a bit earlier than normal I better wrap this up and get my butt to bed.

And on a final note, the land lord finally fixed the tap...except...he's installed a completely different tap, so now I have two mismatched ones! LOL. It looks quite unattractive, but hey at least there's no dripping! I know this because I have popped back to the Granny Flat twice in these last few days, on Monday to get the router and today to get my work clothes. The kitchen looks good if I do say so myself. :O)

Right, better be off now. I hope all my USA pals enjoyed the Solar eclipse (the cosmic ballet goes on :OP).

Goodnight all!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Health

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:18pm: Yeeeessss! After work today I went over to M and Grandpa's place so M and I could play Canasta together and as you can probably guess from my subject title, I won! Yaaaaays! I have to admit I was greatly assisted by the first hand. I shuffled the cards, but I still ended up with all the wild cards - necessary for making Canastas, so I was like way ahead. But! M is known for her fight backs and she got awfully close to beating me. :O) Gotta keep on your toes.

Moving on, not a lot to report, I didn't update yesterday because I've fallen into this one day on, one day off thing, but I'm pleased to say despite feeling rather lazy I got off my butt and went to the gym, good for me! Oh! And it went well with the pyschiatrist who gave me some more tips and I've also arranged to to see him in three months rather then the six we've been doing. :O) With any luck I'll be able to work on my anxiety and cut down on the panic attacks. It would appear that I naturally breath a little faster than is normal, which makes it rather easy for me to start hyperventilating, which is the enemy of the panicky person. So I really should work on that...I need to listen to my mindful breathing app before I go to sleep. Although I neglected to do that yesterday because I got distracted by a fanfic - although not mine :OP I'm still working on it though!

I ended up going to be late though, which isn't doing my eyelid twitch any good, it's still going a bit...and I can't sleep in on Sundays since I go to church in the morning. So yes, better not stay up too late, even though I didn't get to watch my house shows this evening because I needed to watch the Bridget Jones' Baby DVD I got from the library, I was going to renew it because it's due tomorrow, but someone's got a hold on it, so...But I managed to do that so everything's coming up Moose! :OP

Right, on that note, I better be off (gawd, I've fallen way behind on the memes again, gotta do something about that). My one regret is I didn't get a chance to go ice skating...and also that I need to get my blades sharpened, man, it's such a long drive out there.

Guess I'll have to wait for next week.

Oh! And I almost forgot, whilst I didn't stay over at the M and Grandpa's, I did have dinner there, Grandpa had made spaghetti mince so we had pasta with a salad. Delicious!

For now, I bid you all goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Canasta Phone

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:09pm: Yes indeed! The Big Day! Although not really. :OP

Although I'm rather disturbed to realise...I'm now the same age as Bridget Jones was in the first book/movie. OMG! That's so weird. I'm gonna freak out when I'm 47 (you Backies know what I'm talking about), I'm sure!

Anyway! I received many birthday well-wishes and the Home Library Service at Dee Why even sent me a birthday card! Although for some reason they sent it to my old, old address (the granny flat at Mum's friend's house), so I better make sure that's updated when I got in next!

I also got an SMS from my brother Chris, and my big bro Mike sent me an email as did my sister-in-law which was really nice. And Mum called me later on as well.

And of course, all my Facebook friends! Thank you to you all!

So this morning I went to work at the library where I've picked up some more shifts and there was a birthday cake too! It wasn't actually for just me, another staff member had their birthday a few days before too. It was a flourless lemon cake, but pretty good for all of that.

After that it was off to M and Grandpa's for lamb cutlets and canasta! As it happened there was another surprise, for dessert Vienetta Cakem, which if you're unfamiliar is this! It's as delicious as it looks.

I also ended up winning the Canasta! Go me! Although, I did make a big mistake in the second hand that I was practically kicking myself over, and we kept getting the same amount of canastas etc. etc. Soo it wasn't an easy win by any means.

After that, I popped by Mum and Dad's to see Dad and find out how the carpet cleaning went...except the cleaning hadn't happened! Which was very annoying, except it did allow Dad to take the machine over to my little bro's place and clean his carpets there - they were looking rather sad. Since my little bro is trying to find a new flatmate this might help make a better impression on prospective viewers. Fingers crossed.

And now I see that it's quite late so I better get going, except for one last meme:

Sunday Stealing

1/10/2016

:The Musical Perceptions Questions:

1. Where did you grow up? Canberra for the first five years, Dubbo until I was 10 and then Sydney from 11 onwards.

2. Where do you live now? Sydney, the biggest city in Australia - but interestingly enough not the capital.

3. What do you think about religion? I'm Catholic, but I don't buy into the whole "Gotta convert everyone, one true religion" thing.

4. When did you start using online social media? I guess it was around 1999 if you count ICQ, if you mean online journals and stuff that'd be 2003.

5. What did you study to be? A librarian, it's proving to be difficult.

6. How are you at this point of your career? See above. I've got two jobs though so I guess it's not all that bad.

7. Do you use your real name on a blog? Not my full name, but my first name, yes.

8. Do people you work with read your blog? One of them does, apparently, or at least sometimes. I'm not sure how they found it to be honest. But I haven't said anything too horrible on here.

9. Are you on the job market? Yes, sort of.

10. If you could go back in time to meet someone famous but now deceased, who would it be? I'd like to meet George III! I have no idea what he'd think of me though.

And now I'm off, but dang it I missed out on doing my Russian tonight, sigh! Why the fail me.

But now I must say goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Birthday

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

11:22pm: Yeah, that's pretty much me right now, except I'd be grabbing my right foot because something seems to happened to my heel, I think it's Plantar Fasciitis, because whenever I try to walk I get terrible sharp pain from the inner heel right through my arch and when I'm just sitting around it aches.

Fuuuck. This is not good. My fingers are crossed that I'll wake up tomorrow and it won't hurt as much...or at all because it's gonna make work tomorrow for Mrs S somewhat difficult.

I'm a bit concerned because apparently my mother had this same problem a few months back and it took like six months to go away.

I guess I should have gone to my podiatrist.

Anyway, in good news I went to M and Grandpa's today thus avoiding the hot weather and managed to beat M at canasta! Hell yeah go me!

And now I'm here at the parental house where I'm spending the night, since the big bro and his family are away tonight, although he did just pop in to get the stroller (which I found pretty surprising, he had to drive all the way from inner western Sydney! Seems a bit of a trek...)

I did have some other stuff to report, but my foot is distracting me and I really need to get to bed so I shall wrap this up here.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

Goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Canasta

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!

10:54pm: Yes! As I'm sure you can guess from my subject heading I'm at M and Grandpa's house and this afternoon M and I played Canasta.

And I was sooooo close to winning! But alas, M pipped me at the post! LOL, M is always so relieved when she wins! Like she didn't used to beat me constantly for fifteen years. :OP Ah well, I have a chance for revenge tomorrow, which means I gotta keep this update short.

Not that I've got much to say, I did finally get around to changing some of the water in Plushenko the fish's tank. Only problem is the siphon pump thing I got turned out to be too big for my tank and thus didn't work! This is no good because I had to completely wreck the packaging to get it out and I'm pretty sure I didn't save the receipt for it so how am I going to return it? I'm not even sure if I can exchange it because I'm pretty sure it's the smallest one they had. Dang...

But Plushenko seems happy and that's the important thing, I was rather worried that in trying to get the siphon to work I might have startled him too much. But when I left for Scripture class this afternoon he was swimming about happily.

And OMG Scripture class was a shock! First of all I ended up running late because I washed my hair before going and managed to fall down on my time-keeping and second of all when I got there...the teacher who's supposed to be taking the class wasn't there! And she wasn't late...she just...wasn't there! I guess she must have been sick or something, but I had no idea and no way to contact her.

So I ended up taking the class! Fortunately, the actual teacher provided some assistance in keeping the class calm and all that jazz, but what do I know about teaching scripture and talking to children?! I did my best and I guess it wasn't too bad. I'm not sure if they quite got the idea of giving the gifts of love, joy and peace, but eh, those are kind of difficult concepts anyway. Although all this reminds me I need to tell Mum what happened but I need to go to bed now so that'll have to wait until tomorrow, I guess.

Still no luck locating my lunchbox, I checked the car again, but no sign of it and I'm quite certain I didn't leave it at my parents' house. Sniff, that bums me out.

Right, better be off now, I didn't get anywhere near the proper amount of sleep last night and if I don't get at least 8 hours tonight I'll regret it I'm sure.

I don't have my external drive plugged in right now so I'll have to give the Sims Thing a miss for this entry (I know, shocking!)

Goodnight all!

11:34pm: I have lower abdominal pain, which really sucks and means this entry isn't going to be as exciting as I promised! Although when is it ever?

However! I can report that I won one of the half-finished games of Canasta and M won the other half-finished one! Also worth noting that I only juuuust scrapped by my win, where as M totally kicked my ass with her's.

What else to report? Scratches head...oh the opening of the DVD case yesterday, well basically with Daylight Savings setting in and the beautiful weather the library was pretty much dead yesterday. So in a moment of boredom one of my co-workers offered to help me get the case open. This involved a lot of brute force and a pair of scissors, looking back on it many OHS rules were overlooked there. :OP But! In the end the DVD was opened yay! Although there was a bit of damage to the cover insert, a tiny tear, but eh I'll get over it.

Anyway, I shall have to wrap this up...and lament on my boring entry. Man, I gotta get some more hobbies or something...Any suggestions?

And now I bid you all goodnight!

Hunger Comfort Hygiene Energy Fun Social Bladder Room Canasta

Reach for the laser with Antic's Sims-ulator!