Purple People-Eater

Some of you may know that I have a condition known as Frieberg's Disease, that affects the second toe on my left foot.  I've had this (and its associated pain) since the early 90s, however, in the last couple of years it seems I'm also developing arthritis in the joint.
   
This is what happens when you get older, people. Try to avoid it at all costs.

Driving any great distance in peak hour traffic (constantly on and off the clutch) has become unbearable. Even the orthopaedic specialists have asked if I'd thought about getting an automatic car.  Well, yes, I had thought about it, but I'm a manual girl and have never owned an auto.  Hell, I'd only driven an auto once in my life before.


Combine this with the fact that Steve was a tad unhappy about all the extra kilometres that I was putting on the Prado getting to and from work every day, and the decision was made to sell his Courier and buy a small, economical auto. After consulting our friendly mechanic, Steve's model of choice was a Mazda 3.

I won't bore you with the tedious looking-at-and-test-driving-of-vehicles drama, other than to say there's a whole lot of crap out there for $6000 (huge mileage, no logbooks - seriously, not one of the ones we looked at had logbooks, only the one key - apparently Mazda owners are a careless bunch who are too tight to pay the ridiculous key replacement cost), so we ended up having to borrow a little extra and look in the $7500-$8000 price range.

Lucky for us that we did, or we'd have never stumbled onto this brilliant little car.  One (retired female) owner, full logbook history, both keys, and genuine VERY LOW mileage, for the bargain price of $7500.  You'd scarcely believe it's a 2007 model.

I don't know about you, but when we saw it, we were sure it was maroon, but apparently it's purple. Phantom Purple Mica, in fact, according to Mazda.  In direct sunlight, it certainly appears more reddish, but in the shade or on an overcast day, it's definitely more purple.

It has been so well looked after and so rarely driven (for its age) that it looks and feels like a brand new car on the inside.  Sure, there are a few small nicks and scratches on the exterior, but overall, pretty damn good considering it's a 10 year old car.

When we bought it, it had done just under 48000 kilometres, so of course we had to take a photo when it finally rolled over to 48000.

That was two weeks ago now, though, and considering I do just under 500 km per week just travelling to and from work, it certainly won't take long before it has the kind of mileage that's usually seen in a 10 year old car.

After two weeks of driving it daily, although I've never once tried to use a non-existent clutch pedal, I still occasionally find my hand drifting out to change gears, and twice I've subconsciously gone to check that it was in neutral before starting, lol.  I'm blaming too many years of driving manuals and the fact that the auto transmission stick looks very much like a manual gear stick.

I'm sure that driving an auto will grow on me.  Eventually.

Happy New Year - Roll on 2017

Happy New Year!

 Part of the NYE fireworks display at Coolangatta

 
I can't believe we're nearly at the end of the first week of 2017 already!

 Boxing Day with May Family rellies

 
Both Steve's and my workplaces close down for the week between Christmas and New Year, so we had a nice quiet week off, using that time to go and see a couple of movies (including Rogue One), have a Boxing Day catch up with some of the rellies, hang out with friends, re-waterproof the canvas and put new mattresses into the Jayco, and organise Cheyenne's school books and stationery for the year. Not long now until school starts again. We just have to get her some new track shoes and pay the usual assortment of fees and she'll be ready to go.

May I just say that I have so much love for my new Brother P-Touch label maker?  I have no idea how I managed to live without it for so long!

This Saturday we head off for a week away at Boyds Bay caravan park at Tweed Heads, with some of Steve's family.  The Jayco is mostly ready to go (we leave it packed with the camping gear) - we just have to do our food shopping (tonight) and pack our clothes in.

Looking forward to our little holiday (yes, I know I only just had a week off, but a stay-cation just doesn't feel the same as a proper holiday) and can only hope the weather plays nice for us.

It's a Christmas Miracle!

After being unemployed for 15 months, sending out countless numbers of job applications, and (surprisingly) having four interviews in the last month... I have FINALLY managed to get a job!  I'll be working as a casual Accessioning Assistant at Peter Pal Library Supplier!

The best part is that it's a job in my chosen field, utilising my Library Technician qualifications again after all these years!   I'm really excited to get back into it.

There are a few minor downsides, though.  

The big one is that they are based at Shailer Park, which means having to drive around 90 km a day (round trip), at a cost of just under $45 per week in Gateway tolls.  Then again, I would probably have driven as far as the Gold Coast for this job.  I only started today and Steve is already grumbling about all the extra mileage that's going to be put on the car.  It takes around 45 minutes to get there in normal peak hour traffic and a bit longer coming home, thanks to crappy traffic around the Nudgee area where the old and new Gateway arterials merge.  Oh yeah, and the next two years worth of roadworks from Boondall to Deagon. *eye roll*  It might even be time to invest in -gasp!- an automatic car.  Did I just say that???   When I got the train into work in the city, it took 42 minutes, not including the time it took to drive to the station or the time it took to walk down the street from Central.  At least this time I'm in my own car, with my own music, my aircon, and no sweaty weirdos can sit next to me and try to engage me in conversation.  Winning!

The only other thing is that it's 5 days per week.  I'll be working 8.30-2.30 Mon-Fri.   I would have preferred longer hours over fewer days, but that can't be helped.   At least I will be home early enough to still get to the bank and post office in the afternoons if I need to, and Cheyenne won't be home by herself for too long after she gets home from school.

Starting this week has put a bit of a spanner in the works for her school holidays, though.  There won't be any spontaneous trips to the beach or anything that requires vehicular transport, but she has a bike and at least she can still catch up with friends or veg out around the house watching YouTube and Catch-up TV - what more could a teenage girl ask for?

On the whole, my hours will work out very well once school goes back, and I pretty much avoid the worst of the afternoon peak hour traffic, so the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

On another note, I've been waiting all this last term to finally be able to get a sleep-in in the mornings.  Now I have to wait just a little bit longer, until the week between Christmas and New Year.

Oh well, bring on the first paycheck!  Ka-Ching!

A Whole New World

It's been a while between posts.  No surprise there.

Things have changed though. (Well, not on the job front. I'm still searching, but that's another story.)

I'm now the mother of a High School Student !  Yes, it's true.  I'm getting old.

High School. I've had a whole term now to let that sink in.

Cheyenne seems to have adjusted well to the new routines and to reading timetables (both school and bus). She's joined the choir (she still loves singing even though she's given up on playing the flute), tried a new sport (beach volleyball), and she brought home a much improved report card at the end of term.  She even got an A for Japanese, which is one of her favourite subjects.

She has some of her old primary school friends at school with her and she has made a few new ones.

The only blip on the horizon is a certain girl from primary school - who shall hereafter be referred to as X - a toxic little Narcissist who, for the last three years, used to be one of her "besties", although I use that term loosely.  Her particular brand of friendship includes emotional blackmail, manipulation, hot/cold mood swings, "boyfriend" (another loosely-termed label) stealing and just plain bitchiness.  The original Mean Girls have nothing on X.

That girl needs a good slap. Across the face. With a Besser block !

The problem is Cheyenne is too kind-hearted and kept giving X chance after chance to redeem herself as a good friend.  Yet every week or so it would blow up in her face again.

For the past year, I have been consoling Cheyenne with the idea that when she started high school she'd have the chance to make a whole new lot of friends from other primary schools and never have to deal with X again (unless they were in the same subject classes).  The year started out well. The grade 7s had their camp in the fourth week so they could get to know each other.  Cheyenne made a few new friends and things were going great until X broke up with her latest boyfriend and started running him down on the group chat they have on iMessage.  Cheyenne had the - gasp - audacity to stick up for this boy (since he was one of her new friends) by telling X that she shouldn't be so nasty about him.  X decided this was the ultimate act of betrayal - "I thought you were supposed to be my friend!" - and has doled out her usual revenge.  She has systematically turned most of the new friends Cheyenne had made, against her. X has manipulated them all with rumours and/or her fake charm.  Even the nice girl who invited Cheyenne to her birthday sleepover now looks through her as if she doesn't exist.

The sad fact is that none of the new friends know X well enough to know who/what she really is, so they've been sucked in to her web, and by the time they finally realise the truth, it'll probably be too late for Cheyenne.  She's nothing if not resilient, though.   At least she does still have a few loyal friends from primary school who have stuck with her (because they know the truth), and she has overheard some girls in one of her classes complaining about how rude X is, so it seems there ARE still some people out there who don't think the sun shines out of X's arse. Maybe Cheyenne can become friends with them too.




In the meantime, Karma had better hurry up!

Still Cruising After All Of These Years

Well, it had to happen. We've hit that 5 year mark that's the upper limit on Steve's boredom threshold. Naturally this means it's time to change cars. Again.  I was blissfully unaware that this also meant I had to change MY car as well.

The clear coat was starting to go on the paintwork on the Cruiser, and there were a few other minor niggles that were starting to get on Steve's nerves (one being that I hated driving it), and the paintwork is shot on my Mazda and it had a few overheating issues, so he decided it was time to sell the Cruiser AND my Mazda.  The plan was to replace them with a 2nd generation Prado (which would be predominantly my daily driver) and a dual cab 4WD ute that could be loaded up with the trail bikes or taken to the boat ramp.

Not one to let the grass grow under his feet, Steve started looking in mid-January, and had found a 2005 Ford Courier in no time at all.  As we hadn't even advertised the Cruiser, we had no intentions of actually buying a replacement just then, but it turned out to be too good of a bargain (they were asking $4500 but we got it for $3500) to pass up.

 Bargain ute

Having 3 cars was not exactly part of the plan, so we had to get a move on selling the Cruiser and Mazda. I didn't want to sell my car until I had a replacement to drive, so the Cruiser had to be first to go.  It took just over a month, but we sold it for $19000, which was only just under what we were hoping for. 

 Bye-bye 100 Series

Steve already had a firm idea of what model Prado he was after, so we knew we'd have to extend our home loan a little to get the extra money we'd need.  We test drove several, both manual and automatic, before finding the right one.  It's a 2003 model, manual, 3 litre inter-cooled turbo diesel with 107000 on the clock.  It's a little older than the 05-06 models we'd been looking at, but those low kms and the immaculate condition really sold us on it, and Steve got the car yard down to the price of $24000, drive away.

Our new Landcruiser Prado

It is an absolute dream to drive AND I get to park in the garage, lol.  What could be better than that?  Well, selling my Mazda would help.  We just have to get a road worthy and give it a good wash and polish - not that doing that will help all that much, lol.  Let's face it. Anyone buying it will not be buying it for looks.  The clear coat is so stuffed that it's gone white and flaky (OMG my car has dandruff!), it's covered in hail dents and scratches from supermarket trolley run-ins, but it IS reliable and economical. It would make a great second car for someone who just uses it for daily running to and from the train station or the local shops.  I will NOT be telling potential buyers that it is an imaginary car, though. After all, nobody warned me!

Edit 10 April:
Sold my Mazda!  Our mobile mechanic has bought it as he has a friend who wants it but doesn't have the money right now.  After subtracting the cost of the things that needed to be addressed to pass the roadworthy from the potential sale price of $1000, we have come out of it with $750, which has been spent on having a flash new Alpine stereo (or Mobile Media Station, as it says on the box) installed in the Prado.  All touch screen controls and capable of playing movies, and we've also had a reversing camera hooked up to the screen.  Not sure that all that swanky tech is completely necessary, but somebody had his heart set on it.

Musically Inclined

At the end of last year, the Grade 4 students were invited to apply for this year's Instrumental Music Program.  They each nominated their top 3 choices of instrument (from those available at the school), then were tested for physical suitability and potential ability.  Cheyenne was apparently better suited to flute than to clarinet. Luckily, flute had been her first choice all along.

There were a few pitfalls of course.  There are not enough school flutes to go around, so we had to decide whether to hire or purchase our own.  After adding up costs associated with hiring, and reviewing prices for brand new flutes (yikes!), we decided to buy a secondhand flute from a local music store, for a reasonable price.

Last week, Cheyenne and four other flute students from her school attended a full day Kickstart Music Workshop at another local school, along with students from several other surrounding schools.  Here they learned the basics from flute assembly and cleaning, correct hand positions for playing, and correct posture, through to learning their first few notes (B, A and G) and playing some simple tunes.

Cheyenne was very excited to be able to come home and play Hot Cross Buns.

I'm glad, not only that she chose to learn an instrument, but that she has the opportunity to do so - something I unfortunately missed out on in primary school, as my school was too small to have a music teacher.

Today she has her first flute lesson with the school Instrumental Music teacher, Mr James, so I'm sure she will come home with new things to practice.  I hope she retains her love of music, even in the face of seemingly endless practice.

Life begins...?

Apparently, if you believe what the popular adage says, "Life begins at 40."  Wait, what?  What exactly have the last 39 years been?  Not life?  Perhaps a mere existence then.

Well, three and a bit months in and I'm still waiting for this "new beginning".  Come at me Life. I'm ready.

...No ?

Thought as much.

Nothing has changed.  Inside, I don't feel any older (or wiser, lol).  I'm still married to a wonderful (if sometimes exasperating) man, still have a daughter with attitude, still have a mortgage, still looking for work, still enjoying the company of my friends...

So, I'm fairly sure this "life begins" business is just BS to bolster the spirits of those who are depressed because turning 40 apparently means they are now OLD.  But you know what?  I'm ok with it being BS because I'm ok with being 40.  Age is not a number, it's a state of mind.

Being 40 does not make me feel old.  The fact that Cheyenne is now 10 and started Grade 5 this year?  That makes me feel old.

Photoboard of my first 40 years.

Happy "Back To School" To You All

Well, despite the Big Wild Wet of the long weekend, and predictions of showers for the remainder of the week, the first day back at school dawned bright and sunny, with barely a cloud in the sky.

No power outages or flood damage in our neck of the woods, so Cheyenne's school was open for business.

Figured we'd make a good impression for the first day, so she wore one of the new style polos. The uniform is in transition, meaning for the next year, the students can wear either the new or the old uniform. As I'd only just bought her two brand new polos (old uniform style) at the beginning of last year, I only bought two of the new style shirts this year.  As you can probably tell, I did not buy a new hat.  I can't see the point in spending money on a nice, crisp-brimmed beauty, when it is only going to be jammed into the school bag during class. Within a week it would look like her current one (although, perhaps less faded, lol).

We had to get a new school bag this year, too.  Her old one only just made it to the end of its second year of use.  Can I just put it out there that I'm unimpressed with the available selection of backpacks at Big W, Kmart, Target, etc.  They are all either too small to put folders in, too humungous for a kid to carry or come in a bundle pack (because EVERYONE needs a new pencil case, ruler, lunchbox, utility case etc that they will probably never use).  Most of the selections this year also seem to come equipped with a laptop compartment and a "wet section".  I'm guessing this is for stashing your togs and towel after swimming lessons... or maybe it's for leaky drink bottles?  Does anyone still sell normal backpacks?

Anyway, Cheyenne likes her teachers - she's in the two teacher (job share) class - and is, for the most part, happy with the kids who are in her class.  She's excited to be learning Japanese for the first time, looking forward to her first school camp later in the year, and, so far, happy to be back at school.  Hopefully she retains this positive outlook.

After 3 days of rain, we actually needed sunnies!

 

2013 Already? Happy New Year!

Well, didn't 2012 flash past rather quickly!   It seems like only a month or so ago that I was writing a "Happy New Year 2012" post, but in fact it's been twelve months.

I'll admit it now - I was VERY SLACK last year, postwise.  I think I managed to post twice. Twice?  I really will try to make more of an effort this year.  Not that it's a New Years Resolution. I don't make them.  I'm not anti-resolution or anything. I just think that if you want to turn over a new leaf, you can do it whenever you want. You don't need to wait until New Year.

So...  what has happened since my last post in August?   Let's see.  Cheyenne turned 9 in September, I turned 39 and Steve turned 41 in October, and Cheyenne finished grade 3 with an encouraging (although not fabulous) report card.  We bought Cheyenne an early Christmas present of a Honda CR50 dirt bike, which she is getting more confident at riding. My boss closed her office for the whole of December, so I've had a month off work.  Nice, except that no work equals no pay for casuals. Oh well.  I finally bought myself a new Christmas tree, managed to get my Christmas cards done on time, and did a little bit of Christmas baking (including Baileys balls - YUM!).  We had a nice quiet family Christmas lunch at my mum's followed by a bbq dinner at Steve's mum and dad's. As usual, Cheyenne received far too many presents.

We've just had a relaxing week away camping with friends at Borumba Deer Park.  Although we do enjoy it there, we have vowed to try somewhere different this year.  I sense some Googling research in my future, lol.

Steve returned to work today after two weeks off, and I go back to work on Wednesday, so I guess with three weeks to go, it's time to start covering school books and getting ready for the new school year.

I wonder if 2013 will seem to fly by as quickly as 2012 did.

August Already...?

Where has this year gone?

Seriously, I had good intentions of keeping my blog up to date this year.  Clearly that hasn't happened.  I could try to tell you that life has just gotten in the way, but that would be less than true.  To be honest, I've just been very slack.  

That's not to say I didn't have anything to post about. 2012 has provided me with plenty of blog-worthy events (I even had titles for potential posts rattling around in my head).  I guess I'll just have to do a quick roundup post to bring you all up to date.

Shortly after Christmas, Steve hit triple digits on the scales and decided he needed to do something about it.  Over the last ten years we've both gradually put on the kilos, so we figured we'd do this together.  We jump started our weight loss with Optislim shakes, decreased our portion sizes, ate less pasta, cut out fast food and increased our exercise.  This effort has seen Steve lose 12 kg and I've lost 10kg.  I am finally back to my pre-baby weight.  We've been a little slack during the cooler months, but as the weather warms up we'll go on family bike rides again regularly.

I have a "real" job. (Yes, sadly there are some people who believe being a mother doesn't count... *looks pointedly at my darling husband*)  In an effort to stop Steve whining about me "not working", I started applying for casual jobs.  While Cheyenne is still in primary school, I prefer to be there for her before and after school, so that does reduce the pool of available work.  I found a night job doing retail merchandising.  The money was great, the work was good, the people were a wonderful bunch to work with, however the hours didn't really suit our family circumstances.  9pm to 5am sounds doable until you discover that the company considers the end of shift time to be merely a suggestion and that you could be working anywhere from Caloundra to the Gold Coast and out as far as Redbank.  Often the rest of our team worked until 7 or 8am and I had to keep asking to be let off "early" at 6am so that I could be home before Steve left for work.  Couple this with the fact that Steve leaves home at a different time every day depending on where and when he's due to start his first job of the day, and you can see why I was destined to give this job up after only two and a half months.

I'm now working one day a week, during school hours, doing admin work for my tax agent.  Sure, it may be only 5 and a half hours at a lower pay rate than the merchandising job, but I enjoy the work, I'm learning MYOB and some tax software, I can still do the school run, and (the best bit) I have no travel expenses since work is only 6 houses down from me.

Other things have happened this year, obviously, but those are the important things.

I promise I will try to post more regularly from now on.

New Year, New Room

After a nice long reprieve, Operation Room Swap could be put off no longer.  Steve decided that Cheyenne had to move into the front room because her room at the back (that she’d had since she was born) was too cramped and far too cold in Winter.  We decided it would need to be done during the holidays, since there was a lot of shuffling of furniture and the front room needed to be painted before that could happen.  Cheyenne picked out the paint colour she wanted for her new room.  A nice pink called Paper Daisy.

Cheyenne spent a week on holiday with Nanny and Poppy at a caravan park, so we took advantage of that week to get everything done. 

The "before" shots of the rooms.

First we had to move everything out of her old room. For the better part of a week we had to live with her bookshelf in the hallway, her dismantled bed in the rumpus and the rest of her furniture in the lounge room. Then I had to empty everything out of my craft room and move it into her old room.  Then the hard work began. 

Over the next few days, while Steve was at work, I sugar-soaped the walls then got stuck in to the painting.  I would highly recommend not painting on the two hottest days of Summer if you can help it …especially with gloss enamel for the trims.  That stuff is not my favourite at the best of times, but in stinking hot weather it is tacky and nasty and a bugger to apply.

Walls done. Now for the trims...

By the end of the week it was ready to move her furniture back in, including the new tallboy we’d bought her.  Steve had been worried that the pink paint was too dark, but it’s a nice contrast to her white furniture, and hopefully she’ll be happy with it for several years.  The trick will be trying to get her to keep it tidy.  So far, so good.

Fit for a princess.

 

I would also like to add, that despite my reservations, I’m rather pleased with my new craft room …even if it isn’t quite finished yet.

Steve even surprised me by attaching some pieces of alloy angle to each cube, so my over-desk shelf could finally be installed.  Only took him about 5 years, lol.

Back to School

Well, we've survived the first four weeks of Grade 1 without any dramas. Homework and the learning of sight words has commenced, and home readers are now being brought home for reading practice. PE, Library and Music specialty classes have also started, as has Junior Choir practice. Cheyenne has settled into the routine fairly well, and even with the new earlier starts, we've only been a little bit late once. She loves sitting at her brand new desk and pink swivel chair in her bedroom to do her homework. So far, so good.



She was ready early for school on the first day. We found her classroom, met her new teacher Miss Wilton, and looked for her name on the desks to find out which group she was in. She loved being able to put her stationery things into the tidy tray of her desk, as they hadn't had allocated desks in Prep.

Another cause for excitement on the first day of school was that another wobbly tooth fell out. My little Gummy Bear is definitely keeping the tooth fairy in business! The good news is that just this last week, her missing top front tooth has finally made its appearance! (Typically, only AFTER I'd made her an appointment with my dentist, but isn't that just the way life goes, lol?)

Gummy Bear

♫ ♪ ♫ All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth ♫ ♪ ♫

Well, Christmas has come and gone and we're still waiting for Cheyenne's second front tooth to come through at the top. Her two top front teeth (the ones which were wearing away at an alarming angle) fell out within a couple of weeks of each other, during the last term of school last year. Her left-hand side adult tooth has cut through and grown nicely, but there's still no sign of its mate. To make matters worse, the baby tooth on the other side of the gap has recently fallen out as well, so Cheyenne has a rather gummy (although cute) smile. This of course, has given rise to her new nickname, "Gummy Bear".

She's told me that even though she likes the nickname, I am only allowed to call her that until her new teeth grow in. Fair enough, since she won't be gummy anymore.

Christmas was a fairly quiet, family affair once again. Lunch with my mum and brother, dinner with Steve's parents and two of his three brothers and their families. On Boxing Day we went up to visit some friends who live the other side of Gympie, and stayed the night at their place.

Steve found out about his work closing down between Christmas and New Year a little too late for us to book anything, so we didn't go away anywhere for a holiday. We spent New Year's Eve with some friends and Steve actually managed to see in the New Year for a change, lol.

This past weekend we spent Friday and Saturday nights in the annexe of Steve's parents' caravan down at the Broadwater Tourist Park. Cheyenne spent the entire weekend, playing with some of her cousins, either in the pool or at the beach, and has really gone quite brown. She already had a cute little oval shaped tan mark on her back from her bathing costume after spending so much time in our pool over the holidays.

Now there's only one week to go until the holidays are over and Cheyenne starts Grade 1. Time to buy new school shoes and start going to bed early to practice for next week. The earlier start time is going to be a shock to her system (not to mention mine as well). Guess I'd better start covering schoolbooks and labelling everything so that I'm not doing it all the night before.

Cheyenne has just had her hair cut nice and short so she doesn't start the new year looking scruffy.

It's a Nissan...

...and that's my car!

(Pretty sure that's how the jingle used to go, anyway...)

As promised, I've finally gotten around to taking a photo of our new car, so I've put the "before" and "after" pics up for you all to see. We picked it up last Wednesday night, but Steve only did the tinting on it last Friday evening.

Thankfully, this one doesn't require much to be done. Steve has already installed his UHF and aerial, swapped out the original Nissan stereo for our Kenwood mp3 CD player, bought some new speakers for the front doors - for some strange reason the original ones had stopped working - and put his huge spotties on the bull bar. He just has to finish wiring them up properly to a switch on the dash.

He is still undecided as to whether he will keep the styleside tray it has now or whether to change it for an alloy dropside tray. This really depends on whether he can find a fibreglass canopy with the window configuration he wants, at the right price (ie. bargain). In the meantime, he's removed the polished chrome rear carry bar and the cargo pins, so that it looks a little less like a workhorse. (Photo with vehicle facing left is from the Trading Post ad, so you can see the carry racks it had)

All that's left to do now is the rust-proofing - both spray on and electronic, for good measure - and possibly some minor panel work on the dent. You can't really see it in the photo, but it is just above the side indicator on the front driver's side guard.

Hopefully, as this one is a turbo diesel with plenty of power, and isn't even 4 years old yet, he will decide this vehicle is our "keeper"... well, at least for the next half a dozen years anyway!

Fingers crossed!