New haircut

Well I finally got sick of my hair growing out and decided to get it cut yesterday. I figured that my hair grows quickly enough that I can grow it out in time for the wedding next year. And with summer being upon us my long hair was just too hot. Plus it was getting really ugly and boofy (hmm - that may not be a real word).

Sorry Tanz - I know you prefer my hair longer ;-) But I definitely prefer my hair shorter. And I've had lots of positive feedback from the guys at work so that must be a good sign since guys traditionally don't notice things like haircuts :-)

So after Paul got home from St Johns last night I got him to take a few pics. I haven't washed it yet so tomorrow will be the first real test of the cut. I think I'm going to have to buy a hair dryer though as my fringe has a major cowlick in it so it tends to go crazy when left to dry by itself :-)

Front view - don't mind the face ;-)
The hairdresser said my old sloping style was "dated" so she wouldn't cut it like that :-)
The front is long enough that I can tuck it behind my ears which is just the way I like it!!

The back view.
You will notice the top is quite long but the bottom is very short & off my neck - yay!

The side view.
Now it looks a bit more boofy than it really is as I had been slouching on the couch watching tv. It sits a little closer to my head than this pic (I think)

This that and the other thing

Man - what's up with the weather in Wellington lately! Go Wellington! I innocently checked stuff when I got into work this morning and there the weather forecast says the high for today is 20 degrees! So in disbelief I went and checked the metservice website and it reckoned the high for today is 23 with an expected high of 24 tomorrow! That's almost at Brisbane levels tomorrow - we're set for a chillier 26 with it getting back up to 30 by Monday. Although I don't really notice day time temperatures as we have air con at work and it is freezing! Way too cold aye! It's a bit of a shock (first go at writing that I put sock - whoops) to go out at lunch time sometimes when it's 31 or 32 outside - like walking into a wall!

Well I went for my first run in a few months last night - very tiring!!! I figured out on google maps that it was about a 4km loop around the railway line - down to Oxford Park station and back around past Grovely station where Paul and I catch the train from every day (you can see it at http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=14388927970835008790,-27.403904,152.967985%3B6500185445753650216,-27.407625,152.972365%3B12719500060159039039,-27.400950,152.963274&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=83+woking+street,+keperra,+qld&daddr=Cribb+Ave+%40-27.403904,+152.967985+to:Scanlan+Rd+%40-27.407625,+152.972365+to:-27.401032,152.963998&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=3&sz=16&via=1,2&sll=-27.40295,152.965245&sspn=0.013735,0.028667&ie=UTF8&z=16&om=1)
It's pretty easy to extend it as well as I get a bit fitter as I can just go another block down the train line towards Mitchelton:-) Paul biked to work yesterday morning but I don't think I'm fit enough to give that a shot yet as it's just under an hour of hard biking. I can go for a run ok but I'm not very "bike fit".

Well I haven't really talked about anything very interesting in this post - it's been more of a brain fart. But oh well. So just to continue on that path - Paul and I bought ourselves a bbq from Bunnings last night. They're great as they're open from 6am till 9pm so you can go whenever. You won't believe the number of businesses over here that are open 9-5 Monday to Friday and maybe Saturday mornings and that's it. So go Bunnings! Actually no bad Bunnings as Paul and I have spent way too much money there lately. What have we bought - from memory:

• BBQ
• Pots & saucers to re pot our house warming plants. (2 cool self watering ones so Ange can't over water the plants)
• Potting mix for above
• 2 10 metre lengths of grey water hose to pump our washing machine water onto the trees.
• Watering can
• 3 Rubbish bins
• Rust off stuff
• Turps or Meths or something that Paul needed (aka Man stuff)
• 2 of those briscoes type fold up chairs
  
• Garden fork
• A little garden fork and spade thing
• Line trimmer (needed for doing edges when moved out of old flat - evil property manager)
• Mulch for the big trees
• Gardening gloves
• Electric bug zapper for outside
• Broom
• Brush and shovel
• Padlock
  

Now I'm sure there's probably a few more things that I have forgotten - but that's all I can remember off the top of my head. So you would think that's all we could possible want right - wrong! I actually want everything in the shop - but that's besides the point. The next things on our list are:

• Fertiliser for the plants (they were out of stock of the one we wanted last night)
• Potentially one more pot
• Spade (when we decide to build a vege garden - but that has to wait for a rain water tank)
• Outdoor table and chairs
• Lawnmower
  

And everything else I may want will probably remain on the want list as we have to start paying off the mortgage :-( Good thing we got our full bond back from Chermside or we'd never have been able to afford half that stuff.

Well better do some work now.

Latas
Ange

The team golf photo

Well i didn't have any photos but here is one that Brooke took at the first tee :-) This was just before the rain shower that made the morning really muggy. Then the sun came out and it was all redness from there on out :-)
My bosses are the 2 in the red shirts - Pete on the left and Gary on the right.

Back to work but only 2 weeks till Christmas!

Well I'm back at work on a Monday morning after having 3 days off work. Well technically only 2 but having our work Christmas do on Friday was pretty much like having an extra day off. And it came at a good time too as I was at that point where you just don't care anymore. There is only so long a person can run in overdrive - and I'd been doing that for quite a few weeks. So as you can imagine I am definitely looking forward to the Christmas break! And the best part about it - Paul and I don't have to drive anywhere - YAY! On Christmas eve we will go home from work, sit around the house and then go to "midnight" mass at 10:45pm (mass is at 11pm but with carols at 10:45pm). Then we will go home, go to bed, wake up, open presents (yay) and still not have to drive for 8 hours anywhere. Of course the downside is that we're by ourselves for Christmas - but oh well!

I forgot to bring the cable from my camera to work to I can't put any pics up from the Christmas do on my blog today. But I had the best work Christmas do ever - and it pretty much didn't involve any alcohol so how good is that!

We went out to the Royal Pines Resort golf course on the gold coast and played 18 holes of golf. And it was so much fun! We were playing 3 man ambrose - everyone hits the ball and then you pick the best shot and play your next shot from there. I had one of my bosses in my team and he plays golf about once a week and could hit the ball for miles! So that was really handy as frankly my drive left a little bit to be desired. It would have taken me a long time to get down some of those fairways aye!! However I did a couple of good drives and a few good shots from partway down the course. Also thanks to Dad taking us to put put golf as kids lots I could actually put ok :-) And it was very cool driving the little golf buggies around the course - wahoo :-)

Anyway after 5 hours of playing golf in the blazing sun we were all pretty tired and hungry. So we went to the resort pool where we had a huge feed put on for us and all you could drink alcohol for 2 hours. However we were all far too tired to get tanked so I had 1 beer and a bubbles & OJ mix (really refreshing!). I'm such a booze hag aye ;-) Then after lunch (lunch having started at 3pm) a bunch of us went for a swim - that was so nice :-) Afterwards half us came back into Brisbane and went to Lock N Load in West End for dinner and a drink. And can you believe it they served Monteiths Summer Ale! I was in heaven! Paul came in and joined us and we hung out there for a few hours until the stragglers decided to go clubbing. However I was too tired, too poor (had used my $35 I'd saved up on dinner and a couple of Summer Ales) and was wearing shorts & my tshirt from golf so Paul and I caught the 12:43am train home.

So ... the moral of the story!
Christmas events do not have to be big drunken affairs to be fun! I'd much rather do something active and fun and get to know my work mates better (and remember it) than get drunk and (frankly likely) embarrass myself!

Anyway so got to do some actual work now :-)

Ange

p.s. Yay - Paul and I finally get our phone connected tomorrow!!

1 year till the wedding

Yes that's right - it's exactly 1 year until Paul and I get married. Exciting aye! Whats really funny about it is that I wasn't actually the one who realised this - Paul did and had to remind me when we met up for lunch today. Cute aye (yes yes I know - stop gushing Ange).

Hmm - 1 year to go! Lots to organise in that time. All we have so far is the church and the reception locations booked. Better start looking for that wedding dress! Oh yeah and better sort out the guest list aye ;-)

Well better get back to it! Busy as always!

My first walk to work!

Well this morning was my first walk to work from the new house. And it's definitely quicker which is very good.
In Chermside I caught a bus every morning which took about 30 - 55 minutes depending on traffic (average was 40 mins) - plus a 10 min walk either side.
Now it's a 10 minute walk to the train station (past Eagle Boys, KFC, Video Ezy & Maccas - bad!!), a 30 min train ride and a 5 minute walk to work. Much better! It's not so good for Paul though as the bus used to stop right outside his work but now he has to walk about 10 mins from the closest train station.

Well have lots to do. My brother and his misses are flying out of Brisbane back to Wellington after a wedding in the gold coast over the weekend. So I'm going to be having a coffee with them at some stage today. That on top of being so busy at work is going to make for a long day (week). At least I have our Christmas do on Friday to look forward to. We're going out to a resort on the Gold Coast (something Pines) and we're playing golf and then having lunch. Should be awesome! Work is picking up the tab for the bus out there, the golf game and lunch so all we have to pay for is the golf clubs and any food/drink outside of lunch - seems pretty fair to me!

Better go. Hope everyone has a fab week!

Ange

p.s. Paul just sent me the following link in an email. I've seen it before but it's still good :-) http://home.versateladsl.be/bavertel/fun/swf_ani/monitor_cleaner.swf

House warming gifts :-)

Well this will have to be a very quick entry as I'm in at work on Sunday. Since we can't get our phone connected till Dec 11th I'm having to use the internet at work to check emails etc. And since settlement on Thursday turned into a nightmare I have a bit of work to catch up on.

Anyway we moved in to the new house on Thursday night and Friday ok. We were blown away on Friday when we came home from one of our many trips between Chermside and Keperra to find a whole bunch of plants and a bottle of nice bubbly on the deck. These were a house warming present courtesy of my family in the UK. So a big thanks to Marea, Dan, Mum, Liam, Jules and Matty :-) I knew Marea was organising something but was only expecting a single plant. So To find all those was amazing. In fact I'm pretty sure my first words were "Oh wow"!!

I took a few pics at the time so that the family can actually see what they got us :-) We've since bought a couple of pants with drip trays to move a couple of plants inside :-)

The plants on the deck as they were when we got home :-)
The green of the ferns looks really nice against the deck & house colour.

Ange getting a bit keen to crack open the bubbly

A side view of the plants on the deck looking into the house

Paul getting confused about whether he is man or dog

I've moved one of the plants into the hallway. The hallway looks much nicer now :-)

A couple of pics of the house not yet seen (weren't on the real estate ad)


The laundry and old back door.
Lots of laundries in Brisbane seem to be external. The view of the back yard extending out from the deck.
The old owners left an old rickety table behind so that should do quite nicely until we can afford our own one :-)