rotheche's posterous

I have upset the cats

I have upset the cats.

No, wait. I haven't just upset, I've wounded them beyond belief, betrayed their trust in me, made them doubt the very order of the world.

I took their food bowls away to wash them.

Oh, the horror! Their breakfast was delayed by five minutes! You could see them wasting away to skin and fur and bone while you watched! Poor starving, tormented kittycats!

Apparently, according to them, I might as well just change my name now to Pol Pot and show my true colours to the world.

(The fact that, when I put the now-clean and full food bowls down again, they had a bit of a leisurely nibble and then wandered off to watch the birds through the door rather than wolfing the whole bowl down is of no consequence according to them.)

Regards,

Pol Pot
(Nobody ever accused our cats of having a sense of proportion.)

Weekly update

Forgot to do this last weekend.

That sort of thing is happening a bit lately: forgetting things, getting stressed out over it.  I blame work.  Things have been reasonably...well, intense lately.  I'm looking forward to having a few weeks off.

Alas, not the couple of weeks I wanted off - if I had what I wanted, I'd be travelling to the US with my husband, not staying at home while he goes gallivanting off.  It's his parents' 50th wedding anniversary, but the money just hasn't worked out, so he's going instead of both of us.  Me, I'll hang out at home: taking the time off work, so I'll go to the gym a lot, read a lot, work on the novel a lot.  Sleep a lot too.  My sleep patterns are disrupted again and it doesn't help the rest of the stress when I'm trying to stay calm and civil on only four hours of broken sleep a night.

Urk.

Anyway, it's the weekend now: I've cleaned up a bunch of stuff I had waiting for me to do at DR, didn't get any emergency phone calls last night, so I'm doing my best to unwind a bit.

The weekly update

Work
Has been flat out.  We have new staff on, so I'm doing some extra.  Very tired, rather stressful.  The fires that started not long after the last weekly update don't help, to say the least...

The training course that was going to run end of March/into April has been postponed, probably May now.  If it's been put off, that means it'll probably be a three-week trip instead of two.

Blackberry arrived.  Cool gadget, but it's so goddamned easy to just check office email... damn.

AFL season starts up in a few weeks - end of March.  I'll probably run the office footy tipping comp again.

Leave is coming up soon.  Husband's going travelling to the US for his parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I'm taking that time off work but not going to the US (money for tickets).  Wish I was, but will use the time to work on the novel.

Fires
Yeah, should mention them, much as I try not to think about them too much.  Still burning.  450,000ha (1.1 million acres), 1800+ homes destroyed, 7000+ people homeless.  181 known dead - that's 'known'.  There are more bodies out there.  At least 200 is predicted, maybe 300.

One man's been charged with lighting the Churchill fire - that one killed over 20 people.  He's said to be in 'a fragile mental state'.

Yeah.

Study
Had two classes, one in each unit I'm doing this year.  Got the first assignment in Literature for Writers due on 4 March; the first one for Industry Overview is due on 16 April, so that's got a bit of time.  Needs more research, though.

Photography
Photos on Flickr since the last update:


Right now
Right now, I'm sitting here on a non-smoky morning, with a load of laundry going, drinking a coffee.  It's Valentine's Day, and husband has said he's taking me out for dinner tonight, my choice on where.  I'm contemplating either the Japanese restaurant in town, the Thai place or the Indian place.  Soon, I'll drag out the Wii and play some tennis, and the Wii Fit and do some work there, find out how much weight I've put on through not doing much exercise in the last fortnight - heat and stress and tiredness.  Will be going back to the gym from Monday.

The weekly update

I"m going to try and do this on Saturdays or Sundays.

Work
Generally busy this week.  Going to get busier.  Friday was insane; I spent hours continually on the phone.  When one call finished, there would be another one already on hold or the phone would ring almost immediately.  I think everyone left things to the last minute.

I'll be getting a new toy at work; currently, they supply me with a phone and a laptop.  The phone will be replaced by a Blackberry.  *sigh* I don't really want a Blackberry.  Well, not a work-supplied one.  But I suppose I'll get used to it.

And more travel coming up; I skip the conference trip at the end of April, which I'm fine with, but I am going on a two-week training trip at the beginning of April.  Looking forward to this - I like training.

Study
Yes, a whole new thing in my life!  I've just signed up for a course at TAFE, Cert IV in Professional Writing and Editing.  I'm doing it part time - two units this year (Literature for Writers and Industry Overview).  At this rate, it will take me three, four years to complete the course.  Work is being very helpful and letting me take one unit in work hours, working around that.  Of course, since a large part of my job is helping folks write articles for online consumption, they get a certain amount of benefit out of it; what I learn in some of the units, I can pass on.

It's been quite a while since I've been in real, formal study like this.  Hope I can cope; I'm doing six face to face hours per week, and am expected to at least match that in study away from class so, all up, it's a twelve-hour-a-week commitment, at least.

Exercise
The heat's killed me here.  (Not literally, obviously.)  But it's bloody hard to go lift weights and leap around when it's this hot.  Even though the gym's air conditioned, the a/c doesn't really combat the heat entirely.

Still do some Wii stuff, so I'm not totally inactive, at least.

Reading
Lately I've been reading Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire series - Star Wars novels.  They're not bad at all.  On the third one now.

Watching
DVDs of Torchwood (series 2), Farscape (series 2), Deep Space 9 (all over the place), Rush on television (explanatory note for the foreigners: it's an Australian cop show), Eli Stone (very good).

Pets
Still at two cats.  Nearly had a dog, but that didn't work out.

Blood tests

Back about halfway through last year, I got turned down for donating blood because of low iron levels. Not only turned down, but put on a six-month deferral, and told to go see a doctor.
 
So, went to see the doc, got sent off to do some tests, which (ta da)
revealed I had low iron levels, but everything else was okay. Nothing I didn't already know, in other words.
 
Got put on iron tablets, told to take them til after Christmas, then have a blood test.
 
Just got back into the office after having the blood drawn; let's see how long it takes to get (hopefully) good news!