Happy 4th Wedding Anniversary

well four years ago, hubby and I tied the knot - having known each other for about 10 years prior to that!! tonight we went to Brett's Wharf Restaurant - the place he proposed to me (and I accepted!!), the place we got married and the place we spent our first (and now 4th) wedding anniversary. In true Brett's style they wished us well.......


This was written on Dave's plate of Affogato dessert (icecream with a shot of espresso and a shot of Bailey's). I have nothing but wonderful things to say about my cold seafood platter and the scrummy chocolate fondue with strawberries, freshly made orange marshmallows and pistachio praline I had for dessert.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY SWEETHEART

56,929 words and a jar of nutella later....

And I don't feel like I'm any closer to finishing....clearly I am as I've written 3,000 words more than last time...... no photos of updated pile as I only add to it after my supervisor has said the chapters are okay. I'll get a chapter back from her this Friday. Standby dear readers as some of you are about to receive my Chapter One via email for comment. It's about 10 pages long and it's meant to 'sell' my thesis to the examiners - some suggest that this may be the only chapter that an examiner truly bothers reading - others suggest that it's the first impression they get and while the rest of the thesis will be read, this first chapter may colour the rest of their reading. It's supposed to have a 'wow' factor - you're meant to be left with the feeling that you'd like to go on and read the rest of my thesis...... all constructive feedback greatly appreciated... remember I am pregnant so you have to precede any negative comments with at least one positive..... :)

Carla

A night away from ...... child AND thesis!!

Went to a friend's wedding this afternoon, followed by a cocktail reception for 3 hours at the Powerhouse in Brisbane..... the bride looked stunning and the venue was totally different .... we loved it.

It was so nice to get dressed up!! Hubby doesn't have to wear a shirt and tie to work and as you can imagine, sitting in front of a computer while 6 months pregnant does not afford one the need to get dolled up - so it was fun to play dress ups and go out - even if just for a few hours....
Not that this photo really does it justice but thanks to Beck for the lovely black wrap (again!!) shown in this photo - it was tres chilly up on the rooftop so this was my saving grace!!

Not happy Jan.....

Just needed to jump on and vent about my latest issues with our tax agents. I'd like to point out that up until 2 years ago I used to do all my own tax but then between rental properties, low income tax offsets, child-related tax benefits, well it all just got too confusing.... I mucked up one year and got audited and hit for $2000 I had to pay back. I decided to just start paying a professional to do it. And for the last 2 or so years we've been happy with our tax agents. A lovely man we'll call Scott has handled our affairs nicely. But then this year we got a lady (let's call her Jan given the title of today's entry!!) who has done nothing but shit me to tears!!! She was dipsy during the appointment for a start - never a good sign. Then I had said to her:

"look I'll check on our health records and see if it's worth claiming a rebate but I don't think so as I don't think we hit the $1500 threshold - if you DON'T hear from me tomorrow just go ahead and process our refund"......

Two weeks go by and after 3 phone calls to ascertain why we had not yet received the papers to sign, she finally gets on the phone and says:

Her: "aren't I waiting on information from you?"
Me: "No, I said if you DIDN'T hear from me to just go ahead with the claim"
Her: "Oh, well I'll complete that today and mail it to you"

d'oh thanks. So the forms turn up. I just about die when I see the money darling hubby owes - and why? Because she had not logged into the ATO office and deducted the amounts that he had voluntarily paid to ATO during the year he had his own business .... AND..... apparently I'm getting 4 times the amount back that I expected - why? Because she has me down for an offset that you can only claim had Charlotte been born a full 12 months earlier than she was AND her comment when I called to check was "don't you have two children?"...... oh sweet jesus. So I got her to correct that so I wasn't up for another ATO debt when they figured that one out!!

And for all of this we've been charged $500 for the privilege of getting our tax done - WHAT THE ????? - that is a far cry from the little brochure that appeared in our mailbox in July suggesting that these people could do your tax from as little as $60 a refund (yes, apparently that is only the case if you have one group certificate and no children, rental properties or anything else that would require them to have two brain cells to work out your refund!!) .....

Hubby and I have decided to return to good old e-tax next year - screw it, who needs a tax accountant charging $500 to stuff up your tax return - I'm capable of doing that myself for free!!!

53,839 words and counting

Hi dear readers,
Allow me to just take a quick moment out of my thesis-writing day to share with you the growing pile of paper that will (in 13 weeks I hope) be submitted as my PhD thesis. this is only photos of chapters that have been seen by my supervisor, commented upon and revisions made - so it's still probably only half of what you will eventually see. But then ironically the thesis will actually seem smaller than this because the thesis office at UQ is now - in the interest of 'green' thinking - allowing double sided printing of theses. I think this decision was also made to reduce the number of workers' compensation claims that were being made for back injuries by those having to pick up the documents!!

4am panic writing

Well it's 4am on a Sunday morning....... 13 weeks to go until the deadline and I've woken up in a panic that I've written up all my MANOVAs incorrectly (based on someone else's write-up that I've borrowed)..... so of course rather than lie there stressing about it I decided to take the more productive approach of getting up and actually working on it. I will no doubt regret this decision in about 2 hours when I have to get up to small child.... plus there is a first birthday party on the agenda this morning but I suspect unfortunately I am going to have to un-rsvp to that. I'm hoping she will understand (the mum, not the one-year old!!!). I have warned people that I am going to be totally selfish with my time for the next few months and I hope that they can all forgive me for the occasions that I miss.
Anyway, best be off and actually write these stats up. As of later today I may start posting pics of the growing pile of thesis as it emerges.

Ciao

Day 4 .... big girl bed

day 1 - daytime nap - 30 minutes
day 2 - daytime nap - 25 minutes
day 3 - daytime nap (was at her nan's so no big girl bed)
day 4 - daytime nap IN BIG GIRL BED.... going on 2 hours now - WOO HOO...... yay for charli

Day 1......big girl bed.... 10 minutes later

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!

Day 1......big girl bed

Hmmm, well here I sit, 7.49pm, listening to my daughter chatting away to herself (i can only assume she is alone in there)...... waiting for her to go to sleep for the first time in her big girl bed. Here it is in all it's girly glory...... it's actually a bunk bed and this is the top bunk. we chose bunks because it's got the safety rails we can use for now and then when the second bump arrives and is ready for a bed, oooh, say 2 years from now, it will have already been purchased and that's one less thing we need to worry about...... I'm sitting here patiently still waiting for her to sleep. I just know I'm going to spend the first night waiting for a thump followed closely by screaming as she hits the floor.... I just know it.

When you gotta go.... you gotta go.

Oh my goodness. Meegan put me on to this site........ can you believe there is a website for this?

Who do I look like? it all depends on which photo you choose!!

Hi dear readers,
Well I did say that my next post would be about my thesis didn't I? Well I lied. I'm sitting here writing my overview chapter while simultaneously (in true Type-A style) playing on a website that will allow you to upload a photo to see who you match with regard to celebrity status. Now I ran four different photos before being happy to be compared to these women (you can actually choose to be compared to men and women as it utilised facial features).....



One not so charming photo I uploaded compared me solely to men.... one of them gave me a 65% match rate with Gene Hackman.... I decided to pass on that one!! Not that he's not a handsome man and all....

Now of course I can't see a resemblance between myself and any of these women but then I can't even see how my daughter resembles my husband OR I so clearly picking out facial features is not my forte...... still I'm happy to compared to any of these women - especially that sexy one of Raquel Welsh - personally? I think the shadow covering the left hand side of our faces in this photo is probably the only similarity!!

Projects update...August 2006

I realise that I haven't updated on all our projects in a long time - not (I think) since I first outlined them many many moons ago.....so here we go.

1. Stay at home mummy

I think the previous post fairly well outlines how I'm coping as a stay at home mum....... thank goodness for childcare centres and family who are willing to look after their grandkids because seriously I've come to the horrible horrible realisation about myself that I am not cut out for full-time parenting of a toddler on a day to day basis.....

2. Working part-time.....

well this has ceased for the next X number of months... to be replaced by hard work on my PhD for the next 4 months and then you know... giving birth again.... and then those glorious months of wandering around with a newborn attached to your mammory glands while you attempt to sleep in whatever position you can find where the baby can still feed. Except joy of joys, this time I get to also attempt to be awake and alert and various times in order to continue parenting what I can only assume is going to be one independent (read: nightmare) 2 year old..... I can't wait :)

3. The backyard...

Well, finally!! A project I can say is finally complete - well the paid, professionally landscaped part of it anyway. Here are some updated photos of the small amount of gardening we've managed so far. The big stuff of new fence and garden shed etc is still to happen...... it's a work in progress. I'd like to point out that the sad state of the garden is in no way due to poor maintenance on our behalf..... for those of you not in the know Brisbane is on level 3 water restrictions..... so we're praying for a wet summer....





4. House renovations....

not happening. won't happen until we stop pro-creating... let's move on...
okay well they are happening on a smaller non-professional level because sometime in the next 4 months (read: before our bump number 2 arrives into this world) we have to:

a. get a new toilet and vanity for the bathroom and have them installed
b. move my study into dave's study (there is a bit of feet dragging on this and I suspect he is struggling with losing his male sanctuary.... he should stop knocking me up then I say as we are fast running out of room in this house!!!)
c. do up my study as charli's new bedroom which entails ripping up carpet, painting walls, putting in fly screens, a ceiling fan... buying a single bed and wardrobe and whatever else a small child requires.....
d. buy and install a rainwater tank
e. get a new back fence and a garden shed installed

and the list goes on.........

5. And last but not least...........................THE THESIS!!

I'm going to do a whole post on this next time - but suffice to say that my first week as a full-time student did not go well. Dave's entire family were struck down with some dreaded lurgy (and hence I had no childcare), I got a gastro bug, and charli was cutting 2 teeth...... despite that I did manage to get a little bit done but here's hoping the second week goes better...... (and god help anyone who gets sick in the next 4 months - people I'm on a deadline!!!!)

An artist's view

Well at my wit's end this week - I discovered the life of a full-time stay at home mum with a toddler. I don't think I truly appreciated those 2-3 days a week when someone takes charli girl off my hands and I get to go to work or work on my thesis - both 'work' but not nearly as hard as entertaining a 16 month old. So we resorted to 'art' - something I've been reluctant to embark upon as it's seemed so messy. Little could I realise the true issues at hand.......

So here she is decked out in a shirt that Claire bought me back from London - I love this t-shirt but having already managed to stain it with what I think is beetroot I was willing to allow it to become Charli's art smock (as it turns out she didn't stain it as much as I already had!!).


So it turns out the art classes were not the real disaster. The real disaster was me leaving a can of coke (mine not hers!!) on the table - next to my mobile phone which I'd just used to take these photos - and walk inside to get her a drink or a bicky or whatever the little ratbag was insisting upon at the time (i realise now it was just a ruse for her to tip my coke all over the mobile phone)...... here is a photo of me grabbing the phone (and inadvertently taking a photo) in an attempt to rescue it before it was drowned....... this should come with the caption "oh shit" which is what was being exclaimed at that exact moment...

Ekka 2006 Part 2

Here are some more pics from our beloved Ekka. Today we made sure we got in there early and went straight for the animal nursery - a pavillion that is extremely popular with young and old alike so the queues are normally out the door. Thankfully at 9am we got to go straight in and spend a good 1/2 hour ...... it was fantastic. Photos didn't come close to capturing the hilarity of Charli girl pulling a goat's tail as he went past or when she grabbed some hay out of my cup to feed the animals and then got mobbed by 2 lambs and a butting goat.... it was hilarious!! Times like that video is in order!!




We lent charli girl's hat to my neighbour so she wore my cap (I scored a free one from the RACQ people at the Ekka...... the brim is a little too big no? :)



And inevitably it was all too much by 11am and a quick kip was in order.... I wished at that point that I could curl up in the grass and have a sleep too as I was exhausted......

Can she live up to her title?

Well dear readers..... as little as I've been posting lately - I may soon hit an all time low as I bid you adieu for a few months. On a whim a fortnight ago I applied for a scholarship that will pay me to convert to full-time on my thesis (i.e. give up my job/go on extended leave of absence) and complete and submit in 16 weeks. Submission date 8th December.... not the 9th.... not the 10th... but the 8th. This is non-negotiable. Talk about pressure huh (scholarship monies to be repaid if I can't submit on time)..... and you guessed it - on Friday night I was offered the scholarship. A weekend of panicking, stressing, weighing up finances... weighing up the stresses of having to submit a thesis in 16 weeks and give birth a mere 2 weeks later (and that's assuming the little blighter doesn't come early)....... all of this resulted in a very sleepless couple of nights and the ultimate decision was made this morning to accept the scholarship and go hell for leather getting it completed.

Let's face it... I had trouble completing it when i was full-time, when i was single, when i was married with no dependents - the thought of working part-time and raising 2 children under 2 - let's be honest, if I don't complete this now it will never happen. And in case I've not alluded to it before, clearly if anything has been learnt in the past 8 years, it's that I'm not self-motivated enough if there are no deadlines...... so I've just given myself the ultimate deadline......

So blogging may be a thing of the past for awhile.... or I may end up using it as my sounding board in which case you are about to be subjected to 4 months of sheer boredom as you listen to my rants about the post-divorce adjustment of teenage children - sound exciting?

So wish me luck dear readers. All offers of baby-sitting, bringing around home-cooked meals, sending of vouchers for holidays in the Bahamas when this is finally all over........ well they'll all be well received. Adieu......

Ekka 2006

It's Ekka time again (or 'the show' for you southerners) and so far we've totally reaped full benefit from our annual $100 membership by having been to the ekka every day (I'd like to point out that I do work just 50m up the road so ducking down to the show to get a bratwurst dog and strawberry sundae constitutes 'going to the show' that day). Here's a quick shot of hubby and Charlotte outside sideshow alley - now renamed Moove Alley.... everything is sponsored this year!!

More photos probably tomorrow as Charli girl and I are going with our neighbour and her daughter to see the chooks, cows, pigs and hopefully have a pat of all the babies at the animal nursery!!

Big dog?

Well Beck and I seem to be on some sort of back-n-forth with this....

Your Ideal Pet is a Big Dog

You're both energetic, affectionate, and a bit goofy. And neither of you seem to mind very slobbery kisses!

What's Your Ideal Pet?

It's official

According to this website - I am actually a type-A personality - it's not just something I made up!!

You Have A Type A- Personality

You are one of the most balanced people around Motivated and focused, you are good at getting what you want You rule at success, but success doesn't rule you. When it's playtime, you really know how to kick back Whether it's hanging out with friends or doing something you love! You live life to the fullest - encorporating the best of both worlds

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

Thought of the day.

Trying to clean your house before your children have grown up is like trying to shovel the footpath before the snow has stopped falling.

AIN'T THAT THE TRUTH!!!

Happy Birthday Nanna, From Princess Charlotte

Well it was Mum's birthday today - so happy birthday Mum. To celebrate this special day, Charlotte ran around in her new princess/fairy outfit courtesy of Aunty Libby. (thank you!!). It was hard to get her to sit still while she had the outfit on so I ended up having to get a photo of her sitting down - which kind of loses some of the effect......





We've also been doing a lot of gardening lately - well correction - I've been gardening and little miss monkey has been taking it easy, just kicking back watching me work...... hmph!!



Also have been meaning to post about the new 'dishwasher' game...... it's fairly self-explanatory.... behold!!