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!

Life, The Universe, and Everything

The tension was unbearable...
"All right," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question..."
"Yes..!"
"Of Life, the Universe and Everything..." said Deep Thought.
"Yes...!"
"Is..." said Deep Thought, and paused.
"Yes...!"
"Is..."
"Yes...!!!...?"
"Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy


I have waited a very, very long time to be able to use the above quote in reference to myself.  Almost 30 years, in fact.  Ever since I first read the Hitchhiker's series.

Yesterday I turned 42.

I am now The Answer.  The magic number.

Maybe that means my luck will turn and I will find the job of my dreams - or, at the very least - a job that I don't absolutely hate, LOL.

After finally finding a job (one that I was enjoying immensely) back in May, a restructure at work has meant that a lack of physical office space has rendered my employment a logistical impossibility, so now I'm back on the job hunt again. 

Just what I needed.  (Where is that sarcasm font when you need it?)

There are still bills to pay, books and uniforms to buy for Cheyenne as she starts High School next year (yikes!), and I haven't even started shopping for Christmas presents yet.  No thanks, I do NOT want to hear how many shopping days left until Christmas.

In the meantime, I'll just kick back (between job applications) and enjoy being 42.  I might even re-read the Hitchhiker's series to celebrate.

Hopefully Life, the Universe and Everything is coming my way soon. 

Seek and ye shall find...

...lots of jobs that you probably won't get.

Well, that's what it feels like to me, anyway.

I applied for 13 jobs during February.  Along with several hundred other applicants, no doubt.

How many of them have I heard back from?  Two.  Both replies were of the "Thanks for applying, but unfortunately..." variety.

Apparently, despite my having 4 functioning limbs, a heartbeat, reliability and near-full availability, and the fact that, in their words "your skills and background are impressive", Woolies found someone who "more closely matched the current requirements" for a store replenishment (night fill) position. Seriously?  Yeah, I'm reading that one as "we found someone cheaper".

The other rejection (for an admin assistant to a property manager) was still quite positive. They received a huge number of high quality applications and I am to be commended for being one of only 10% of applicants who actually followed the unusual request for a hand-written cover letter and a posted application, and as such, they are going to keep me in mind if anything further becomes available.  That would be really lovely, but I don't think I'll hold my breath.

Do I expect to hear back from any of the others?  Probably not.  These days, even the ones that don't specifically say "Due to anticipated large number of applicants, only those shortlisted candidates will be contacted" won't bother giving you feedback, more often than not.  It's a rare few who actually do.

In the meantime, I could try to upskill.  That's the buzzword of the moment, isn't it?  Seems like everybody wants a piece of paper these days, on top of your experience.  The problem with this is that, without a job, I can't afford any of the certificate courses that are available.  Even a 6 week basic MYOB course is upwards of $1500.  It could be a while before I can save up enough for that.  Luckily TAFE has several intakes per year for that one.

The whole thing is incredibly soul sucking, but I won't give up.  For every job that I don't get, it should mean that one less person is competing against me for the next one, right?

If only that were true.  *sigh*

Rollin' Rolllin' Rollin'

Don't look now, but it's another natural disaster... and you all know what that means.

Yep, that's right, Tropical Cyclone Marcia has reached a Category 5.  

Cue the 24 hr rolling television coverage.  

Networks 7, 9 and 10, I'm looking at YOU. The ABC is also guilty of this, albeit to a lesser extent.

While there's no denying that TV coverage is essential in getting warnings out to those in the "at risk" areas and keeping the rest of us up to date with developments, there is nothing more irritating than seeing the same video footage playing on a constant loop.

Remember the Cyclone Yasi reports?  How many times did we see the same piece of awning ripping off a building and flying up the main street?   Or how about the 2011 Brissie floods?  I swear, if I'd seen that loop of that same wheelie bin floating down the river, just one more time...  OMFG!

Sex sells, as they say, but obviously it's natural disasters that get the TV ratings.

But honestly, if nothing new has happened in the last hour, I'm really NOT interested in seeing footage shot last night (AGAIN), combined with a scrolling news ticker and a misleading "Live coverage" label in the top corner of the screen.

Please return us to our regularly scheduled programmes.

I'm more than happy for you to cut into a show with "Breaking News"... so long as it's actually breaking news and not another rerun of events that happened yesterday, that you've already televised ad nauseam.

In the meantime of course, it's Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.  (see what I did there?)  

I have family and friends in the path of Marcia, and I can only pray they will be safe.

It does seem like the media has forgotten all about the NT. They're facing Cyclone Lam, but if the networks are to be believed, it seems to be only a second thought to Cyclone Marcia.  I hope everyone in the NT stays safe too.

Oh well, I have a portable hard drive full of movies I can watch. So. Very. Glad.

Yes, I'm a Bad Blogger

So... last year I promised to update my blog more regularly.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You can see how well that turned out.  

The last time I posted was April last year!

...erm, yes... well...  no excuses.

Nothing blindingly fabulous happened that needed a blog post.  The year sped by quickly and was full of the mundane, and there's no point boring you all with blah posts.

Steve's still working, Cheyenne's still at school, I'm still looking for work. We even still have the same car (surprise surprise, lol).

This year I'm not making rash promises about my blog.  I will try to post more regularly... if anything happens that's worth posting about.

This is Cheyenne's last year of Primary School though, so that could give me topics to post about. We'll see.

Mum, I'm Bored!

Now that the Easter holidays are over and Term 2 has started, I finally have time to sit down and write about my experiences with Melted Pony Bead Suncatchers.  I actually made these back in February, but we'll pretend it hasn't taken me two months to blog about it, OK?

You know how it is...  You see a post on Facebook or a picture on Pinterest and think to yourself, "That looks pretty/interesting/easy enough, and would be a good boredom buster.  We've certainly got all the supplies to make it.  Why not give it a go?"

Sound familiar?  I know you're nodding your head.  So, here it is - part tutorial, part cautionary tale.  This is NOT one of those Pinterest Fails... for the most part. I'll get to that later.

Step 1. Gather your supplies.  
You will need cheap pony beads in colours of your choice (we already had a heap of these - they seem to be a popular gift for pre-teen girls).  Depending what you are planning on making, use either transparent, with or without glitter (for suncatchers) or solid colours (for coasters, placemats, etc), but don't, on any account, use those iridescent ones.  Their oil-slick colours will lure you in with their attractiveness, but just don't go there.  I'll show you why later.
 
You'll also need some old non-stick pans, shaped foils pans, or egg rings on an old pizza tray (basically use whatever shapes you're aiming for), cooling racks and something to do the melting in.  Don't use your good cookware. You will not want to use it for food after melting plastic in it.  Try thrift store for cheap pans and keep them for craft use. 
Most instructions tell you to use an oven, some have used a heat gun, but I recommend using a hooded bbq. Outdoors. Trust me. Melted plastic fumes are NOT pleasant.  If you have pets or people with sensitive noses, keep them away.  Consider yourself warned.

Step 2. Arrange beads in your chosen moulds 
Preheat your oven/bbq to 200 degrees celsius.
You could go completely random or try to make patterns. Totally up to you, but make sure you only have a single layer of beads or they won't melt properly.

Step 3. Melt beads.
Instructions for ovens says 200 celsius for 20 minutes, but as I'd cranked all the burners on the bbq and shut the hood, it got pretty hot, pretty quickly, so I didn't need 20 minutes.  Just keep checking them and remove when fully melted to a smooth liquid state.

Step 4. Allow to cool.
Place on a cooling rack and wait for the plastic to cool.  Don't freak out at the loud cracking noises it makes as it cools.. As it cools, it will come away from the edges, so that it should just tip out of the pan when completely cooled.

Step 5. Remove from pans and sand rough edges if needed.

These heart shaped ones used glitter beads.

Step 6. Drill holes for hanging, if required.

Step 7. Hang and admire. Wasn't that easy?

And now for that cautionary tale...  I had a bag of iridescent (yet translucent) beads.  The colours were dazzling, like a dragonfly.  Semi transparent, so I thought they'd turn out nicely.  Wrong!  Not sure if it's the iridescent coating or maybe they're made of a different plastic, but they just didn't melt properly.  Even after triple the time in the heat.  The result was a lumpy, oil slicked mess that resembled fake vomit and stained the pan.

BEFORE

(I used solid colours to form the C)

 AFTER

So now you know what to do and what not to do.  Have a go.  It really is easy. I'm very happy with how mine turned out and will definitely make more.

Experiment with colours and patterns, but if you do find yourself falling for the allure of iridescent beads... don't say I didn't warn you!

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.