Spam Bot

I haven’t been on twitter for ages, perhaps even weeks.  It has been sitting quietly open on my desktop just not used.  I have flicked by it a number of times and contemplated reading tweets but have refrained claiming that I just didn’t have time.  Occasionally I would check the direct messages that were sent my way – they are so few and far between that I really didn’t check often at all, I would wait for my email to notify me.

So to cut to the chase, I had a direct message from someone who I don’t often message so I thought I would check it out.  The message was asking ‘Is this you?’ with a link.  Now I have been in the local media of late and I was wondering if I had been discovered in the real world so I clicked on the link.  It took me to a page that said Twitter was busy, try again later.  As the dupe that I am, I did try again later, many, many times.  Eventually it took me to a different page, a page that I can’t really remember but I think referred to losing grip on reality – a fair description of my world of late.  I wondered if it was a subtle suggestion that I should take a step back and try to relax.  Of course before I replied, after checking the link a few million more times, I was sidetracked by life and promptly forgot all about Twitter.

The next time I thought about Twitter was again via email, saying I had more direct messages, this time from friends saying I was sending random messages.  It seems that my Twitter account has been infiltrated by an evil spam bot.  I have been sending out spam to people left right and centre and not only to people that I follow!  OOPS.

Of course I had no idea how to make it stop, I couldn’t appease the Twitter gods so I did what any good help desk operator recommends – Shut Down and Reboot.  Fingers crossed it has worked.  If not, any suggestions on how to remove a spam bot from Twitter?

Chatting with Children

Like many parents the journey to get the kids to bed of an evening involves reading a book or three and a chat about the day.  Some days it is stressful and frantic, other days it is relaxed and days like today it is simply entertaining.

After reading the first book tonight, girl-child complained of a head ache.  The conversation that followed went something like this.

girl-child, “I’ve still got a headache”

me, “Oh I didn’t know that you had a headache, where does it hurt?”

girl-child, “here and here” pointing to the side of her head and the back of her head

me, “so what does it feel like”

girl-child, “it feels like my head is too tight”

me, “is your brain growing even bigger and you are even smarter now that you are six?”

At this point boy-child, who had been sitting by quietly watching the exchange, interrupts

boy-child, “Nah, she isn’t getting smarter she has got that infectious thing that will make her brain explode.  I don’t want to clean up that mess!”

Oh the love they share.

Fortunately girl-child was happy with the concept that perhaps she was getting smarter now that she is six.  She was also really tired after another crazy week.

Land at the End of the Rainbow

I have to say that I feel much better about July having written the epic Goodbye July sagas.  If I can separate the emotional insanity of the month and the fact that we were in another country, with no income, no jobs and totally broke, I can honestly say that we had a fantastic adventure.  It is easier to think of that time in a glass half full way, as a holiday of a lifetime as opposed as a relocation gone haywire.  

I still plan to do a ‘best of’ of our time in the US but for me to actually relive the adventure it needs to be accompanied by photos.  To do that I need to find the external drive that has the bulk of the photos on it because for some reason I didn’t ever get around to updating all the photos to flickr.  That said, there are still plenty of photos there if you want to check them out here.

 In the mean time, I am very happy to be living in Melbourne.  I live in a great community, with an amazing family and wonderful friends.  I really do feel like I live at the land at the end of the rainbow!

 

Afternoon activities halted for a rain dance under the rainbow!

 

Of course I wouldn’t say no to another international relocation at some stage in the future – change IS good!

Retail Therapy

To celebrate the end of July, to take a break from the extended writings of ‘Why I hate July’, and to escape the house of ungrateful brats that I seem to be surrounded by, I spent yesterday with a girlfriend enjoying some retail therapy.  First stop Yarraville Market, a local craft market filled with amazing wares and much inspiration.  I didn’t buy anything but I did get heaps of ideas about things to make.  After a wander around the market and then the local shops we stopped for a bite to eat and then headed off in search of craft stores.  Again I found so many fantastic ideas but I didn’t buy any supplies.  In fact I plan on not doing any crafty goodness until I clean up and reorganise my study area.  (I tried to reorganise the mess last night but the noise from downstairs was too distracting.  I started but didn’t get much done.)

Once we finished at the craft and sewing shops we headed over to an outlet store for a surf shop.  I found a fantastic pair of shorts that I wanted.  They didn’t have any change rooms and they didn’t have the size I would normally buy.  There were no larger sizes but the size smaller looked reasonably large normal.  I really liked them so I bought them, thinking that if they were muffin top-ish it would inspire me to run harder and eat better.  When  got home I tried them on.  hmmm – I think I would need to run 5 km morning and night for the next decade and then perhaps they would fit.  I guess that translates to me being totally delusional.  

To continue my retail therapy we headed in to the Docklands Market.  Months ago I had bought a new bag for my laptop, it was beautiful and very unlike a laptop bag, so unlike a laptop bag that it didn’t fit my laptop in it!  The bag has been hanging inside another bag in the kitchen for months, just waiting until I had time to take it back and try and exchange it.  Unfortunately the ‘bag lady’ wasn’t at the market today so I had to bring it home, again.  

I was beginning to think that the weekend of retail therapy was pointless and then I remembered a few less traditional purchases from yesterday; a woolen cap that kept my head toasty warm all day long today and two new books, one for me and one for the kids.  Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad retail experiment after all.

And Rest

A friend who is a teacher commented yesterday that she wasn’t looking forward to today, to school resuming, wondering if that made her a bad teacher.  I responded with by telling her that I am looking forward to school going back.  Does that make me a bad mother?   

Anyway, today is the day.  Not only is it the day that school goes back, it is the day that I cling on to the wagon, trying desperately to get on board (again).  So at dark o’clock, I was up and out of bed, dragging my sorry arse around the river for day 1 of the Couch to 5K.  Did I mention that this was as dark o’clock and you know it was dark, really dark.  Oh and cold too only 6 degrees.    

I huffed and puffed my way around the track doing the prescribed walking and running, hoping that when my phone would ding to say that it was time for me to change activities I wouldn’t be passing other early morning nutbags.  The dings were in my favour this morning, not because my timing was impeccable but because there weren’t many crazy people out in the cold today.  I managed to run when I was supposed to, for the entire time.  I am feeling pretty good about that, it was a decent start to the day.  By walk/running the entire time I finished the loop quicker than I would normally run it, back in the days when I went running regularly.  Clearly, despite running regularly back then, I didn’t run quickly.  I am looking forward to actually being able to run the river loop one day.  All going well, that day will be in 9 weeks, just in time for the next lot of school holidays.

So here I am.  The sun has barely risen, the kids are up and about and hopefully getting dressed and ready for school, although judging by the sounds of stomping and thumping I can hear overhead they are more likely to b playing kamikaze off the bunks.   Here’s to a great term of predictability and routine where kids go to school on school days, weekends are for fun and all is well in the land of superRelish.

Holiday Fun?

I used to love school holidays with endless lists of fun things to do, school holiday programs and the kids begging to go to my parents for a holiday.  It used to be that there were far too many things to do and not enough days in the holidays to enjoy all that was on offer.  The last school holiday period was exhausting to say the least, with broken arms, hospital stays, raging fevers, infections and of course chicken pox.  I managed to use up most of my leave and all of my sick leave just surviving the last lot of holidays, as a result, my love of the school holidays is not so great.  Finding a holiday program that suits both kids, that is near by and is affordable is harder than I ever imagined.  Of course trying to find a balance between working almost full time hours and keeping the kids entertained is near on impossible but somehow we seem to have survived.  Today is the last day of school holidays and tomorrow it is back to school and some sort of normalcy around here I hope.

I feel like I haven’t done anything special with the kids this holiday.  In fact it has been so spectacularly ordinary that I am miles behind on the kids blog and need to play catch up.  It is time to flick through the photos to actually see where we have been and what we have been doing.  Here goes another bullet list!

 

• We played changing rooms (again).  The kids are sharing a bedroom again, apparently forever because they like being able to keep each other company.  They are sharing primarily to make room for a gorgeous student who has been staying with us for 3 weeks and will be here for another week.
• We had a girl’s morning out, looking at the Barbie Forever exhibition and making our own Barbie dolls.
• We celebrated man-child’s birthday with too much cake and a trip to the Healesville Sanctuary.
• The girl’s began another craft project but I haven’t had the time nor the energy to help them finish them, perhaps one day after school they will be completed.
• We celebrated hair cut day, with both kids and two of their friends getting their hair cut.  Boy-child is devastated that his hair is now too short.  He was after short back and sides with long hair at the top and front that he can constantly sweep to the side, emo style.  Now it is short all over, really short and he isn’t a happy chappy!  
• We visited Harbour Town.  Of course with kids in tow their was no time for shopping but they did get to play on the carousel and chase ’snow flakes’ (bubbles).
• The school holiday program we found was fantastic, albeit expensive and negating the concept of working to have extra cash!  
• Sharing the love of Ikea with the kids.  Now they not only love visiting the store and climbing through the displays, they also like making the items purchased AND know how to follow the instructions to build the item correctly.
• Throw in a few birthday parties, a few tantrums and lots of late nights for everyone and I am really, really looking forward to school starting back tomorrow, I might be able to rest a little (or at least settle back into a routine of madness and insanity).

Hooray for bullet lists and photos, I now feel like the kids haven’t been neglected all holidays.

So what should we do to for the last day of the holidays?  Do we go out and try and find something special to do or do I leave the kids to their own devices and listen to them play Harry Potter over and over again?  I wonder if I can convince them that they need a nanna nap this afternoon?

Dumping Ground

Apologies in advance – this space is becoming a dumping ground.  I have been away from here for only a few days and have realised that I miss being here, that I can clear away some of the gunk and guff if I visit here often, sometimes to write, but most often to read.  I haven’t even been doing that and I feel completely out of touch.  It is an addiction, but one that seems to be working for me, without doing any real damage so it must be a good thing.  

So now for the dumping, the bullet addition.  Let’s start off with catch-up, filling in all the gaps of what has happened in the past few months, that I have blogged about but never ended up filling in the rest of the story. Here goes

• We all still have lingering remnants of a cough but it is nothing more than a cough (well except for man-child who is lucky enough to get bronchitis any time he gets a cough).  No one we know has been affected by swine flu.  No one we know has or has had influenza this season. 
• Boy-child is enjoying life more now that he has his cast off.  He still hasn’t regained full movement of his arm but he is now able to actually able to use his left hand to put food into his mouth without having to bend his head towards his hand.
• So physically he is doing better and I think that it has helped him cope with school and peers.  He still doesn’t seem to like many of the people in his class, but he does appear to be more tolerant.  He no longer clings to me every day begging me to let him stay home.  It is still a work in progress.
• Mum is better, she never actually found out what caused the not stroke, but the fact that it wasn’t a stroke is a good thing.  The last few months has made me realise just how quickly life can be turned upside down and all of a sudden parents, my parents as well as parents of friends, are getting old.  Getting old means the likelihood of more health issues increases and that scares me more than I care to think about.  
• Lil sis is half way through her pregnancy already.  All appeared to be going well, but apparently there could be some unforeseen complications.  As a result they have brought forward her ultrasound and scheduled her for an additional round of  doctors appointments this week.  I and everyone else is hoping that it nothing too serious, based on the assumption that they didn’t schedule the scans on the spot, but it may be something to be concerned about as they weren’t willing to wait an extra few days until her pommy boy arrives to be there with her for the appointments.  Fingers crossed it is nothing major.
• My knee is feeling a little better, but it really isn’t healed.  Perhaps that has something to do with not actually resting it at all.  Doing level 1 of the Shred has put less stress on it, but there are still far too many lunges for it to actually recover.  Still deciding what level of Shred to do next week.  I feel like I work better and harder doing level 1 because I actually do all of the exercises and do the harder option (most of the time at least) but I do it with a 7 year old wondering why I don’t do level 2 any more? are you ever going to do level 3?  The ‘peer’ pressure may get to me, who knows?
• Girl-child seems to be coping better with the concept of death in an abstract manner, as long as I pinkie-swear that I will try not to die almost daily.  Clearly there are still issues that we need to work through, but it is on the improve.
• Man-child has decided that he needs to get in on the injury action and hyperextended his elbow at basketball during the week.  Fortunately there is no major damage visible on the xray, only soft tissue damage that has restricted the movement he has in his left arm.  For a few days there was a competition to see which boy could move their arm more.

So I think that sums up the updates, health wise, moving on to other areas.

• Work is frustrating.  All of the issues that were driving me insane last time I complained are still there unresolved but I have started working on a couple of new projects and partnerships that are exciting.  It is keeping me interested and motivated and most days I am looking forward to going to work.  
• All going well, I will be moving offices, hopefully in the next month (although we were supposed to move offices in March) so that should make the work environment more pleasurable and enjoyable.  There is still the possibility of my work hours increasing and I don’t know if I want to, I am starting to really enjoy and need my extra time off.  
• I have decided that I really enjoy doing craft projects, but only when I am with someone else.  I don’t do craft when I am on my own, I think I equate craft with being social and relaxing.
• I still have far too many things on my to-do list but I managed to tick one item off tonight – the furniture downstairs is rearranged.  Next on the list?  Cull stuff from the kids rooms – again!

I think that just about gets things up to date.  I will just add one more thought based on a conversation with a colleague whose theory was that your desk is a reflection of the person you are.  She used herself as an example – her desk is disorganised and she claims that she is also.  So my desk is a dumping ground for not only my stuff but everyone else’s stuff that the y can’t fix or don’t know what to do with so what does that say about me?

Day 1 and Back at Work

Well Day 1 wasn’t quite as successful as I had pictured.  I dressed in my running clothes as I set my alarm before bed, only I didn’t actually set my alarm for today!  And yes, I did just say I dressed in my running gear to go to bed.  I know it is a little abnormal, but I find that if I just get up and go as soon as the alarm goes off, I don’t have time to talk myself out of it.  Usually I am half a block away from home before I wake up so I just keep on going.  It may be lazy, but it is who I am.

Anyway I digress.  My alarm didn’t go off.  I awoke and the sun was already rising.  I knew that it was too late too go for a run.  I was still the first awake, so there was no mad rush to get everyone ready for the first day back at school and work.  I didn’t make time to run tonight, but I did eat well all day.  No snacking, no junk food, only shakes, fruit and vegetable and of course dinner.  I haven’t felt hungry at all and so far no sugar deprivation headaches.  It wasn’t the perfect day, but it was a decent start.

Thanks to friends who have offered to cheer me on as I begin this journey, your support is fantastic.  I hope not to bore everyone with the monotony that is likely to follow.  On a normal note, it was back to normal today.  Being back at work reminded me of exactly how dysfunctional my workplace is.  Fortunately both kids made it through the day at school and were both exhausted.  by 6.30pm both kids were in bed.  Girl-child was asleep in minutes and boy-child played quietly for a short time before falling asleep.  I have had a quiet evening in front of the tv, not snacking on chips or soft drink and I have been able to catch up with all that is happening in the real world.  I am down to single digits on my Reader, I hope I can finish reading before the battery runs out.

Random Update

I still have lots to say, and changes to make, but I am too tired and distracted to write much now.  Distracted more than anything.  Step 1 of changes has taken place – I have just ordered the 30 Day Shred.  Stay tuned for more changes!

Medical Update

This could have been an add on to the last post but I had already hit ‘new post’ and so here it is, a new post.

So, Lil Sis can’t have surgery until next year some time, well after her ’secret is out’, but it isn’t required urgently and may not actually work, so there is no point rushing it anyway.  Mum is out of surgery and it looks like all went well.  She is resting comfortably and I will get a phone update tomorrow.

On the home front, girl-child didn’t want to go to school without her brother, she wanted to stay home and play.  I guess I can understand her thinking, the boy-child had a good day, watching new movies and wii sport training.  He had a decent day, but it got ugly around bed time.  He didn’t want to have to take his tshirt off for a bath – clearly he didn’t get the concept that his tshirt was as dirty as he was and needed cleaning too.  We negotiated and he convinced me that he would have a bath, but put clothes on so that he doesn’t have to get his oversized plastered arm in and out of a tshirt again in the morning.  I really couldn’t argue with that logic.  It reminded me that I had to go through the too big clothes to see if there was something that would go over his arm without causing tears.

Once he was settled into bed it was time for meds – one for pain relief (we save the kick arse one for bed time) and also antibiotics.  He hates them both, so I let him choose which one he wanted first.  Well that was my stupid mistake – HE NEEDED THINKING MUSIC TO HELP HIM CHOOSE!

Of course the trauma of settling him into bed, getting him back up, settling him back into bed, finding the required number of pillows and strategically placing them appropriately has driven me insane.  I need cheesecake and comedy, A LOT OF CHEESECAKE!