And the rest of that epic....

In a moment of inspiration (OK,I confess - it was extreme boredom) I started clicking the Next Blog button that I noticed up there on the right. I've clicked almost of all of those buttons at various times. What can I say - put a button there, someone's going to push it. That the someone was me should surprise nobody. So I pushed it. And then I pushed it again; and again. And I found that there are some interesting - and potentially scary things out there, and that they can come in amusing sequences.

One thing I did notice, however, was just how many blogs there are that are dvoted to documenting the life and times of people who cannot - or might not even want to - document their own. The blogoshpere is full of proud parents. Which set me thinking (since i wasn't thinking of work, I had to have something to fill the space...CAD drawings make an interesting backdrop to websites, but they don't distract you nearly as much as they should...) Somewhere out there, in 20 years or so, there are going to be a whole lot of kids having 21st birthday parties and, instead of the traditional photo board,they'll be getting a whole other type of memory celebration. So howwould my life have looked on a blog, way back in 1980? Probably not nearly as interesting as it does from here, to tell the truth - although it would have had a killer soundtrack and some dance moves that would have everybody out on the floor. That everyone would be rolling around on the floor laughing at the same moves would be beside the point.

So how would it feel to have a permanent record of growing up, all your most embarassing stories where anyone could get at them? And that photo of you and your brother/sister in the bath together that you thought you could bury forver getting out into the world? No thanks. One of the things I loved about my own 21st birthday was that there was nobody there with any embarassing stories (OK, tehy had the stories, but most of them had something to be ashamed of within thier own closet that I could drag out for a square up). I managed to dodge the speeches, the awkward clash of family and friends. And yet...Somehow, my own 21st wasn't nearly as good as some of the others I went to. In fact, I enjoyed two parties of three or four others far better than I enjoyed my own. And that was knowing in advance that there weren't too many skeletons coming out to haunt me.

So maybe all those parties will be better than my own was. Or maybe, just maybe, there'll be a whole generation of kids scarred by the knowledge that, somewhere in cyberspace, there's a record floating around of all the times they called their teacher "Mum" by mistake, of every step, every word, every deed. And that, if people are willing to sift through the endless political rants - and there were plenty of them, too - to find the site, their life is laid out for all to see. Or maybe they'll just see it for what it seems to me - an expression of parents' wonder at the little person suddenly in their lives. That the expression is quite often sickly sweet will only affect the other people who happen to stumble across it. Who am I kidding? How many kids would think that way????

Think about what this is doing to poor defenceless people! Their life online! Forever! So I take a moment and be grateful that I grew up before the digital age. Back in the 80s, when Pacman was considered cool, and computer screens were all green text with a black/brown background.

The God of Small Things - and epic posts

Another weekend gone. They seem to evaporate at the moment. One moment, you're looking at a lovely deep pond of relaxing free time with the sun shining - as it most kindly was on the weekend - and the next, its all dried up and the only thing left is the hope that is rains during the week to fill it all up again. And somehow, you know its gone, but you can't for the life of you think how on earth it went so quickly. Because it does. It rockets by. Most of my Monday mornings alone seem to take five times as long as my entire weekend. I can only think that its becasue, instead of sitting wishing I was anywhere else like I do every Monday morning, I spend the weekend moving from small thing to small thing - or occasionally, running through something a touch larger.

Take this weekend just gone.

It started off well enough, in spite of yet another train missed by inches on my way home from the city and the mother of all traffic jams on the tram lines leading up St Kilda Road - what's the plural for trams? Flock of sheep, gaggle of geese, glut of trams? and why is there never one when I'm running late in the mornings? Questions for the ages - with a dinner at a great Indian restaurant. I admit, it didn't live up to the home cooking I've had at a friend's place, but nothing ever does compare with home cooked food.

Running around after that making movies of the places we used to hang out to send to a homesick friend in the States was one of the more fun things I've done in a while. It was worth freezing in the bitter wind to see the looks on the little 18 year olds who go to the places now as we walked around outside, too tight to fork out the cash to get inside the places. The fact that they were wearing those tiny shorts that all the little girlies seem to wear at the moment (hello to my mother's voice coming through there, too), with even tinier singlet tops, the boys ogling them had t-shirts and goose bumps, while we were rugged up with coats, boots and scarves might have been part of the look. In fact, the only people with more wintery clothes than us were the security guys, and they were looking at us like we were terrorists there to scope their manky little club. Yes, we've moved onwards and upwards - we headed to a much quieter manky little pub instead afterwards, with llive acoustic music, instead of plugged in and pumped up bass.

Saturday saw my hockey team return to form. The 4-0 thumping was bad enough; it sounds even worse to hear that the score was nil-all at half time. So I won't say it. Instead, I'll move on to th joy that was Saturday night. There's a bit of a tradition in my family over the past few years. I'f I'm not going out, I'll go and sit on the couch with my dad to watch the Bombers play when it's a night match. And play they did. I probably should put this in some context. During the 2000 season, my team had what was arguably the best season. Ever. They equalled winning records that stretched back to the season before. They only lost one match in the season. They were all conquering. This year, they've equalled their worst ever losing streak. 15 weeks without a win, and with only a draw against the much-hated rival for this year's wooden spoon, Carlton. Their other win was way back in round 1 on April Fools Day - against the defending premiers, no less. So there wasn't a lot of optimism in our house when Mum retreated from the tension of the game. (Or maybe it was more the yelling at the TV screen. It wasn't me. I promise. It was all Dad. There is no genetic tendency to yell during football matches that goes through at least 3 generations of my family. Honest.) So imagine our surprise when they won. And it wasn't just our own happiness - although we were pointing and laughing at various points whent here were skills on show we were certain had disappeared forever. It was a sheer joy on the faces of the players as well, as if they couldn't quite believe their luck either.

So, even though the next day was spent chasing around small details of invitations for a hen's night, or sourcing material for wraps t match the bridesmaid dresses, and my hockey team had slipped that little bit further out of touch with the finals this year, there was plenty of reason to smile. The bombers had put Brisbane out of football finals contention and Carlton was back in thier box on the bottom of the AFL ladder. All's well in the world.

Something old, something new

One of my very good friends is getting married in October. She also happens to be my cousin, so I'm involved on a lot of levels. Not nearly as many as she is, but there's plenty to keep me busy on the day. She's kept all of us entertained watching her try to juggle the many balls involved in organising the day. Occasionally, she lets one slip, and nobody laughs harder than she does when it happens. Like when she called up one of the bridesmaids to come out on the first trip to try and find dresses. Catch was,she hadn't asked the girl to be her bridesmaid yet. My own invitation was similar; I wasn't so much asked as told I was going to be one. When we went for a dress fitting a few weeks back, it came out that I was supposed to know I was maid of honour. Apparently all the others knew, it had just slipped her mind to mention it to me. She's changed the date of the hen's night twice, without seeming to realise that she has. Only the crossings out in my diary mark the changes. But I can understand how it happens. Her life is a balancing beam, and she and her fiance walk a fine line between thenir families, trying to see each group of parents as much as the other, fit in time for each other, and plan a wedding on top of that. Right now, friends aren't high on the list, and we understand that. We're giving her a day away from wedding talk as a birthday present - massage, lunch, and a night out on the town with the girls, something we haven't done in an age with her. Only catch is, she's so busy that we've had to shcedule it across two nights in mid-August. Her birthday was in June.

Somehow, our worlds keep accelerating. I'm going away the week after her wedding. The last time I see her before I go will be at the airport at about 4am the day after her wedding as she takes off on her honeymoon. It makes me sad to think that by the time I come back, she'll be living the full married life, and I'm going to miss the easy coming and going we've had for our whole lives. We'll always be friends, but nothing will ever be the same after she moves in with her husband. It sounds jealous, I know, but its not (entirely). I wouldn't want her life. But at the same time, the changes that are coming are huge - the biggest either of us has faced so far, I think. That we'll be at opposite ends of the world will just add to the challenges. And, I'm thinking, the phone bill.

The Biggest Yawn Ever

It's a slow afternoon here today, so I'm tempted to post again. Sadly, I'm giving in to that temptation, obviously. Given that even a brisk walk up a lovely boulevard in Winter sunshine didn't manage to kickstart my day, I'm hoping that this will. So, as I struggle through the biggest yawn of a day ever, I'll try not to fall asleep at the keyboard and get through without putting anyone else to sleep either.

It's a pay day today - one of the good things about it. It's lucky for me that it is, though. Somehow, I'm not so great with the whole concept of budgeting. I'm sticking to the budget, up to a point, but that doesn't mean it's working out for me. Let me explain. I earn a certain amount - no, I'm not planning to put down the pitifully small amount that my 7 years of study nets me. Let's just say that the architecture profession needs a union. Now - and that amount goes straight into my bank account each week. It stays there for about half an hour every week. THat's it. By tomorrow, it will all be gone, redistributed to various points around town. There's the bit that goes to pay for my car (ooh, and if anyone knows someone who wants a nice, low milage, well-looked fter blue 2003 astra? Let me know. It's for sale soon!); there's a chunk that goes straight to my credit card; another whack goes into my ever-shrinking savings account. I'm left with a pittance, a tiny fraction of the total amount on which to live. And I promise you, no matter how much it is, byt Wednesday morning, there will be none of it left. I live through Wednesday without a cent to my name - or to my purse, at any rate - and try very hard to avoid the cravings for anything that involves spending money.

Given the whole must-work-for-money tenor of my life right now, the cravings come in the shape of longings for junk food. Chocolates, chips, potato cakes, dims sims, coke - hell, iced tea seems pretty attractive right at this minute. That makes it doubly hard when one of the guys in here taunts me with the food he's going to be buying for afternoon tea. He has, generously, offered me a dollar, before going through his own options: cheesecake, battered savs, ice creams, deep fried mars bars (notice the theme of foods involving amounts of fat I'd normally shudder to think of but today, simply because I know I can't possibly have them, want desperately). Perhaps the worst part is knowing that, if the boot - or the cash - were on the other foot, I'd do exactly the same thing to him. But until I get home and get my money out tonight, all I can do is rub in how many years of the torture that is an architecture degree he has left. With 18 months to go, I figure I've got bragging rights for the moment. Because, as he so eloquently puts it, singing a happy tune, "Uni sucks. It really, really, really sucks."

To adventure or not to adventure...

I'm the first to admit that the title of this blog is a little optimistic. I'm not a person who has a lot of adventures. Anyone who knows me will agree with that, I think. And no, the 12 hour oddyssey that was my outing around town on Friday night doesn't count, if only because I was officially asleep for the last four hours of it.

I never hear gossip first - a recent example being me congratulating a friend on his engagement when I turned up somewhere late, only to find that he'd been dumped by his fiance and told everyone else before I got there. At the moment, I don't go anywhere, because I'm trying to save like crazy (and going a little nuts as a result, because I'm sure my bank balance should be growing, but no...its somehow managed to shrink instead. My credit card debt, on the other hand, continues to grow - how? I'm not going near shops!!! I'm paying it off!!! I'm not even carrying the cards with me anymore!!! Yet still it grows, in one of the mysteries that will always be too much for me to understand).

TOday, however, marked a step closer to the adventures I know are waiting out there for me. I have a visa to work in the UK. True, its only a working holiday visa, a poor second (maybe even fifth) cousin to the ancestry visas so many Aussies seem to qualify for, but it will let me stay there longer than the two weeks that's been my record so far before running out of cash. (Yes, it's a recurring theme. I know. But to do things, I need money. I spent 7 years as a poor uni student, and now I've got to pay back the government for the paltry sum they loaned me to do it. I'm thinking if I work until my 87th birthday I should almost get there.) The point is that the adventure is so much closer. In under 10 weeks, I'll be wrapping up my work life here. Two weeks after that, and I'll be landing at Heathrow and finding my way to the couch of some friends until I have a job of my very own to support my shopping habit. Suddenly, it all seems more real to me. The lists I've been making of things I need to organise are getting whittled down, and the count downs I've been running since I bought my ticket way back at the start of February have finally made it into double digits. Things are starting to happen.

Now the only question is, will I have the nerve to get on the plane and leave almost everyone I know behind for two years like I plan? There's so much of the world that I want to see, but so many adventures that I know I'm too chicken to do on my own. So, to adventure or not to adventure, that is the question. I think I answer "To adventure!" and, in the spirit of that, feel compelled to down a shot of something harsh and alcoholic that makes my face contort into an unattractive grimace. Cheers all round.

That time of the week

There's something special about certain times of the week. The point at about 8 on a Sunday morning when you realise that there's nothing stopping you from going back to sleep (although this time of morning quite often passes without the smile it deserves when the Saturday night has ended much closer to sunrise than it ought to at my age...). The time on Saturday - whenever it may be - when you meet up with your friends to head out where ever you might be going. Christmas, any time of day. Midnight on New Years Eve. And to this list, I'd like to add 5:30 on a Friday afternoon - especially Fridays.

It's the point where there is no more work to be done for the week (and anyone who's seen how often I post has probably worked out how much I celebrate that moment). The weekend still stretches out in front of you, and whole 2 days for you to do whatever you want (OK, that's not necessarily true, but you've got more say than other days of the week), and no reason to come into the office in the morning. Even leaving my car keys, house keys, credit cards and diary sitting in a bag on my desk when I dashed out of the office at about 5:28 last week wasn't enough to drag me bag to the office, so I survived the weekend without shopping, probably a good thing actually, and used my spare keys to get around. Anything rather than going back to the office! Felt a bit guilty about it on Monday when I found that the guys in the office had waited around in case I came back after they couldn't find my phone number to get in touch with me. I did feel guilty about that, sure. But I'm still going to be running out of here at about the same time tonight. The only difference is that I've told them I'm leaving a bag here deliberately so I don't have to carry it around to various bars tonight when I catch up with a friend straight from work. That way, there's no guilt on Monday. Because, as everybody knows, Monday is enough to deal with all on its own!

A Train Odyssey

There's a girl - woman, rather - who I see on the train almost every morning. She both fascinates and annoys me. It's not that she's strange to look at, or, like some other public transport users, mutters (or worse yells). She's not one of the people who listen to ipods so loud people at the other end of the carriage could sing along if they felt like it. (I don't mind this when the person has my taste in music, anyway. If they don't, I just put in my own headphones and turn up the volume, so I can't really complain about other people doing the same. Doesn't always stop me though) But this woman seems to be completely ordinary when she walks into the carriage and, like this morning, sits herself down in one of the last vacant seats. I'd be interested to see how she gets on when there aren't any spare seats, but so far she seems to have had the magic touch in that way. I've never seen her have to stand. That in itself should be enough to get me interested. I get on three stations earlier, and I occasionally have to stand all the way to the city, so how she manages is beyond me. That's not what draws the eye, however.

She has a routine.

It begins when she sits down and strips off her sheepskin coat. Then she reaches for her handbag - not the tote that she also carries, but the small Gucci handbag that most women would use for their money, maybe a lipstick, their phone. But notthis woman. She uses this gorgeous little designer bag as a make up purse. Out comes foundation, compact, mascara, eye shadow, blush, lipstick, lip liner, powder, moisturizer - in short, a full kit. She sits and gives herself a full make over on a wobbling train, balancing the small jars, trays, palettes,and tubes on her lap, applying with her left had, and holding a small mirror in her right. It's quite a performance, and one that I know I could never manage successfully. As someone who rarely wears make up during the day, and never to work unless I'm having a really bad skin day (or, like today, I have some sort of mark, be it bruise or cold sore, to hide), I'm fascinated to watch this woman when I'm sitting near, but not next to her. Its only when I'm next to her that I find it annoying, and that could be as much from knowing how I look in the morning (does the expression death warmed up mean anything here? Or maybe, given the uncontrolled - and uncontrollable - state of my hair most mornings, a hag would be a better description. Either way, it isn't pretty) as from the fact that her coat bunches between her and whoever she sits next to.

The thing that really gets me, though, is that this happens every morning. There is always someone on the train putting the finishing touches to their outfit, whether it's a guy in a suit doing his tie, or a woman pulling her hair into a ponytail. Generally, they do it because they were running late that morning, and didn't have time to do it at home. Some tend to feel that its almost rude to leave the house without being perfectly presented. Not this woman, who clearly plans the time on the train to finish getting herself ready.

I guess what really annoy me, is that I can't work out if its genius or insanity. Is it insane to turn a train carriage into an extension of your bathroom or your bedroom? Or is it genius to snatch a few extra minutes of sleep, putting to use time when you'd probably be staring at the newspaper of the person sitting opposite? The chance that it could be a little of each drives me so insane that I get twitchy when I hear her polite "Excuse me" as she climbs into the seat beside me. So maybe, given how much better it is to sit next to her than the loud obnoxious swearing school kids who sprawl across four seats each, the problem is with me? Maybe, just maybe, I'm really jealous that there's nothing I can take out of my own morning routine and do on the train.

Old friends and other ways to offend someone

Last night seemed to be the night for catching up with people I haven't seen for months. A group of us who met years ago doing a swing dancing class in the scummiest venue in Melbourne's north west heard that our teacher was going to be taking a break from teaching the venue for a while, so we all went along to have a catch up, and wish her luck. Most of us don't dance anymore - or not regularly, anyway - but we've stayed in a vague kind of contact, mostly through a tenuous network of gossip and emails.

It was great to be with them all again, and to dance the night away (but not too late. It was, afterall, a school night). There were laughs and giggles, and girls being picked up and thrown around by guys - not nearly as violent as it seems - and somewhere in the middle of all that, it was like we'd never stopped meeting once a week. It was easy to forget that one of the guys had his engagement broken off two weeks ago, much to his surprise; that one of the girls now spends most of her time overseas, travelling for work from London to New York to Paris to Melbourne, and barely knows where she is going to be from one week to the next. We knew the topics to avoid - nobody asked one of the guys where his now ex-wife was, or mentioned too much the two of the group who now live in London, although we all agreed that getting together like that made us miss them more. It was a close group, and fitted together again like there hadn't been almost 18 months since we'd all been in one place together. It was good enough that we've all agreed to aother night together not too far away, not letting things slide for so long next time.

In contrast, earlier that night I had a text message from a girl I was friends with at uni. I won't say we're still friends, but we've kept in fairly loose contact since we graduated, generally meeting up every 6 months or so, but we haven't been in contact since February apart from the odd text message though. At uni we were inseperable. For five years, we spoke or met up or emailled almost every day. It was always going to change after we stopped having classes together and went to work on what are basically different sides of the building industry, but we were fairly certain that we had enough in common to keep the friendship going. Now, not even four years after she finished studying (I did another 2 years), we're barely talking. We had the same interests, the same sense of humour, the same industry, but somehow we drifted apart. And then, last night, I got a text message wishing me a happy birthday. Only problem is, my birthday was in May. And no matter how much she might have apologised for forgetting - and don't get me wrong, she did, trying to make up for such a "shitty thing" - but it couldn't change the fact that she had forgotten. For some reason, I'm finding it very hard to respond to the message. Our lives seem to have moved too far apart now. Incidentally, her birthday is December 2nd. I've never missed it, and I didn't need to look it up to know that. But people change, and who knows where I'll be by the time her birthday rolls around? I might send her some birthday wishes. I might even catch up with her. Who can say what will happen between now and then? I never thought we'd end up here, that's for sure.

Oh my gosh....

Wow...There's someone apart from me reading this? (And clearly, looking at some of the typos I let get through here, I'm not reading it nearly close enough before hitting the little post button...)

I know I just posted something a few minutes ago, but that was before I got any feedback! I thought this was just for me, but I've discovered that it's kind of fun to have an audience - even if it is an audience of one.

So Reese, thanks heaps for commenting. It's made my day, and given how bad it's been so far, that's quite the achievement. Incidentally, I had a peek at your blog too, and it's got some amazing photos. Love where you live! And yes, I know, that should be posted in the comments on your blog too - it will be, but there's only so much stealthy office internet use I can squeeze into one day! Sadly, my own blog seems to take up most of it today.

Again, thanks!!! And if anyone else happens to stumble across this (I'm guessing that's the only way to find me, since I'm not exactly telling the world about doing this), please feel free to comment - especially if it's nice.

Shiny red stuff

Have to say, I think there's been admirable restraint in not blogging every minute detail of my life on here, even if it mostly because I'm trying to keep it to things that I think are either not boring, or things I wouldn't mind if my Dad stumbled across. Which brings me to contemplating the lovely shiny red metallic nail polish I put on on Saturday night. There aren't nearly enough red things in my world right now. I have a beanie, a scarf, a hand bag, and now nail polish. Oh, and the warmest polar fleece wind stopper jacket, which is probably one of my favourite winter rug-up things...But its not enough. I want red shoes, a red coat and a red top to wear when I go out partying! I'm not sure why I have this sudden fixation with red - it could be because it blends so well with my last colour obsessions, black and grey (although there was a minor flirtation with teal, and one with brown, that don't quite go so well). I do know exactly where this particular colour fetish started. It was at work, strangely enough, in a kitchen design that will never be built, now, thanks to some dodgy developers - but that's a story for another day. Shiny red kitchen cupboards, with sleek white stone benches. That was what started it all off. I was so impressed with my own computer modelling of the kicthen, that ever since I've been looking for all things red. And finally, otehr people must be as well, because I'm seeing things in the shops that are the exact shades I'm looking for. Only catch is, now I can't buy them, for one reason or another (grr to the accountant who screwed up somewhere in one of the three places I've worked in the last financial year, not taking out nearly enough tax, leaving me with a choice between skipping the country - a viable option - or selling my soul for filthy lucre). Why does it always work like that???

So the upshot is that I have come up with a new version of Murphy's Law. If you're looking for something in the shops, you will find it the day you have no cash - or the day after you settled for the next best thing that was twice the price. It might not solve the ever more dangerous and decidedly childish round of "well they started it"s coming out of the Middle East - again, something for a day when I'm not trying to cheer myself up after a 2-filling trip to the dentist at 8am on a Monday morning - but it's a rule to be aware of, and true for all that!

Not a fish...or Finnish

The lovely people at Google have just brought something to my attention. (OK, they didn't really do anything...I ran a search out of curiousity, to see if this blog appeared...sad, but true.) And it turns out, there are thousands of posts relating to Killi...so I thought I'd take this opportunity to clear something up, incase anyone should ever accidentally stumble across this while looking for something else. The Killi referred to in the name of this blog is not a fish. Nor does it relate to Kilimanjaro (although the two have been linked in the past). It has nothing to do with a Finnish singer by the same name. Nor is it anything to do with Lord of the Rings (there are an amazing number of people who, in the past, have thought that the name was to do with one of the dwarfs in The Hobbit. I did read The Hobbit a long time ago, and there were plenty of -illi-named dwarfs. As far as I remember, Killi was not one of them). Instead, the name comes from something silly, and has been stuck to me since I was about 14 years old. One of my high school friends had a few problems spelling what I had thought was a fairly simple name (and no, I'm not going to say what it is...need some privacy!). So ever since, I've been known as Killi.

World Cup insanity

So the World Cup is over, and Italy won. I'm sure it's a big thing if you're Italian - even if you're Italian Australian...What I'm not sure about is whether it is a sane thing to get up at 3 in the morning when you have no ties to either of the countries playing. I have to say, I didn't do it after Australia went out. And for all the people saying that Italy winning is some consolation? No. It's not. We lost. Move on with your lives. Look to the future. Hope we beat the pants off the Italians next time we meet, instead of pondering what-ifs.

One good thing about the world cup though, that my new hobbie (the Tour de France - at least it has a handy highlights package at 6pm every night, even if I hardly ever get home in time to see it) doesn't have. The World Cup united a whole lot of people who would otherwise have nothing in common. They found common ground in hating the referees. For that, we can all be grateful.

And in other exciting news, my hockey team have found a team even more crap than we are. We managed to beat this team for the second time. Shocking but true.

Hello!!!

OK. This is kind of exciting, having my own blog. I know, I know, there are thousands out there, and I'm probably the only person who's going to read this post, but at the same time, its a bit exciting. I might be sitting here in my dressing gown, with fluffy slippers on (which, incidently I discovered have a big split in the sole that let in water when I had to go outside to shift my car the other night...hate that!), but I'm kind of talking to the world, so it's all good!

What can I say? Jen Lancaster (author of Bitter is the New Black has a lot to answer for here. I just finished reading her book during the week and was inspired by the idea of getting my thoughts out into the world in a way that doesn't involve going through editors, publishing, and journalism. The fact that my thoughts are irrelevant to most other people is not going to deter me, so anyone unlucky enough to stumble across this should be warned right now...There was also the thought that I work in an industry that's being tipped to implode any minute now, and this would at least give me something to do other than thumb twiddling should my job fall by the wayside. I can't say that I'd be exactly devastated by that (anyonewhothinks architecture is an exciting and glamourous career shourd spend a day watching us agonise over the choice of toilet bowl for a primary school for A WHOLE DAY. They might change their mind after a glimpse into the mind numbing world of attention to detail...once they woke up, that is), but I do like getting a pay cheque every so often. It seems to make my world run that much smoother.

For anyone else, here's a thought for the day...With the new financial year just started here in Australia, everyone was wondering just how the new round of tax cuts was going to affect them, expecting a slightly larger pay packet. So, you can guess how surprised my Mum was when her pay came out to be almost exactly the same. After all the fuss that was made about this round of cuts, you'd think that there was going to be twice as much money in your pay at the end of the week. Instead, my Mum, who works 20 hours a week in retail, one of the lowest paid and least appreciated jobs around in my humble opinion, found herself the proud owner of an extra 81 cents. That's right. Not even a whole dollar. So, the next time you're in a shop, have a think about that. Pro rata, shop assistants can boast that they have $1.62 more per week to spend. That almsot buys them a litre of petrol. Well, it does this week, but next? Who knows...

So, I officially have a ranting blog to vent spleen...and spleen has been vented accordingly...Let's see how long I can keep up the enthusiasm for doing this...Given how bored I get at work (does Ebay count as mis-use of office resources? I'm in trouble if it does...) I can see the posts coming thick and fast for the next 98 days...beyond that, who knows...