Trying to Catch Up

So last week I finally finished uni for the year. I spent the whole of Thursday in bed, working on a quilt I'm making (more on that in another post), watching TV, and having mini anxiety attacks, thinking that I had something due for uni or had to go to work. I kept checking my phone calendar to make sure I hadn't missed anything, and the relief that came when I realised I had nothing on was heavenly.

I basically spent the weekend doing nothing much - hanging out with my friends, being Sunday people down on the Central Coast, and trying to organise my new job.

Have I mentioned that starting this Sunday I'm going to be a Santa Elf???!! Well, not really. I'm just working for a Santa photo set, and unfortunately, we have a uniform - it would be so much better if I could be an elf. It's only for 6ish weeks, but I'm already stressed from the job because I've been made the Set Supervisor, and having to try and chase my staff and lock in training dates and new staff when the old ones quit before they even begin is doing my head in. One exciting thing is that I've got Mikey working for me every weekend. Basically, I'm going to be working 6 days a week on the Santa set, then on the 7th day I'll be doing before and after school care. That's not to mention the tutoring afterwards. Sigh. I'm looking forward to it, and I know it's not for very long, but the thought that I'm not going to be able to see my family until Christmas Day is a bit sad. BUT I need to do this in order to survive the Christmas holidays, money-wise. Although I love looking after kids and tutoring, one of the downsides of this kind of work is the zero work during the school holidays.

Meanwhile, after tomorrow night's tutoring session, I'm going down to Sydney to see my family. There's been some crazy big news from that camp, so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I'll let you in on the news once everyone knows. But annoyingly, I then have to come back on Thursday night or early Friday morning for my set's training session (today's was cancelled because our equipment hasn't turned up), and then go back down to Sydney Friday evening so I can see my lovely friends on Saturday.

Hectic. But worth it.

Yes, this is the most boring post in the world. Sigh.

Where've I been?

So, I've been a bit busy lately, and haven't had a chance to post, so here's an update:

1. I attended the This is Not Art Zine Fair. I picked up some great zines on a whole bunch of random topics, and also bought a greeting card that's a print of a painting of one of my lovely friends, Bronwyn, made by her sister Rob, who's also on the card.

It now has pride of place on my bookshelf. We didn't get to check anything else out during the festival though due to the revolting weather. No wait! I lie - I forced my tired and over-it friends to head back out into the cold and go to the pub to see a spelling bee hosted by Lawrence Leung, just because I heart him so.

2. On Saturday night, Bec, Wade, Mikey and I travelled down to the Central Coast and joined the Hunter Paranormal Society on a ghost hunt! We went to a cemetery and a local beach (Jenny Dickson Beach), and used a bunch of high tech equipment to see if any ghosties were about. Here's Bec checking out a lone grave:

Here's a terrible photo, but the only one I have, of one of the heat sensors that were used:

And here's a shot of one of the K2s, which sense ectoplasm or something, a voice translator thing, and Mikey's hot gold shoes.

After all that, I didn't get to see any ghosts, and there was NOTHING going on at the beach (at least at the cemetery there were some readings on some of the equipment), but all in all, it was a fabulous night. I highly recommend it. Best thing about it? The fact that a Hunter Paranormal Society even exists! Win!

3. To continue the spookiness (not really), I've finally begun reading The Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman:

Mikey leant me this series months and months (and months) ago, and they've just been sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust. I mean, they were sitting on my bookshelf being lovingly taken care of and in much better condition than when they first arrived. (Phew - covered that one up!) That is until Bec decided to start reading them and forced them upon me, and now I'm hooked! Sure, I'm 20-odd years too late to the table, but I run on Filo time.

4. I spent Sunday morning with the boys at the Darby St Fair.

It was actually a lovely day, considering how gross the days leading up to it were. Darby St was packed, and it was difficult to navigate through the foot traffic, but there were some lovely stalls, and what looked like some awesome food.

Anyway, I'm going to leave this post here because I have to get through these before I leave for Melbourne on the weekend:

Oh yes! I'm off to Melbourne. More on that later xx

Sunday People

So, keeping with tradition, I've been working very hard this week to ensure that I put my assignment off as long as possible. I think I've succeeded nicely, what with it due tomorrow and my having started it... half an hour ago. Success!

In my effort to procrastinate, I like to ensure that I force others to abandon their assignments too, because if I'm going down, everybody's going down. One way I succeeded in doing this was by hijacking Mikey this past weekend and forcing him to accompany me in this quest.

Saturday was an awesome, everything-filled day. It started at Bar Beach, meeting Beau and Mark for some sun baking. The beach was crazy packed with people enjoying one of the first lovely weekend days of Spring, so Mikey and I only lasted half an hour. We then went to the library in town, because we're super hardcore. At the library, we borrowed a stack of books on Christmas food, as we're already planning our now annual Parkhill Christmas dinner. I know, right? You wanna be us.

Then, we were about to head to Bunnings in order to make use of their sausage sizzle (a recent obsession of ours), but were distracted by the sound of music coming from Civic Park. Curious, we decided to drive past the park and see if THEY had a sausage sizzle. Indeed, they did. AND IT WAS FREE!!! It was run by the Lions Club, and they didn't seem that enthused for us to have one, so we gave big donations out of guilt. It turned out that the reason for the sausage sizzle and the music was that it was a celebration for South Sudanese Independence Day. Mikey and I had absolutely no idea that they'd even gained independence! That's how up to date I am with World News. Anyway, it felt good to celebrate with everyone, but we had to head off before the real celebration began. Why? Because we were actually going to head to the UNI LIBRARY and do UNI WORK.

Well, we did go to the library, but we got absolutely no work done.

All in all, a productive Saturday.

Sunday is the day of the week where we feel that anything is possible, and when we become Sunday People. Sunday People enjoy being out and about, going where they fancy, never rushing, and always on a whim.

Wade, Mikey and I headed off the Glenrock Lagoon for a bushwalk. I had never been there before, but really wanted to, and hadn't realised how close it is to my house!

Afterwards, we had a late barbeque lunch at Blackbutt Reserve, where this peacock decided that he'd join us. Silly peacock - he thinks he's people.