• Mood: reasonably content
• Music: “Janey don’t you lose heart” - Bruce Springsteen

I know, yet again I have ignored my blog for a prolonged period of time (23 days by my calculations), but I’ve actually been rather busy these past few weeks, so I’m going with that as my excuse. The lead-up to Christmas was a little hectic, not to mention I’d been a little depressed and not feeling the greatest, probably as a result of being alone every day at my dad’s house…I know I said in my last entry that having the house to myself was peaceful, but after a while it just feels very lonely. *sniff* Oh well, I’m staying with my mum again until new year’s day, so I’ll have a bit of company for a while.

My Christmas Day wasn’t too bad…I must admit I wasn’t particularly looking forward to Christmas this year (maybe I’m just getting too old and cynical? Haha), but the day didn’t turn out too badly. We started off with a champagne buffet breakfast at Bronco’s with my mum, brother, granddad and Stuart (a family friend of ours from way back), where I loaded up on cherries and pastries and also made off with a purse full of flavoured milks…hehe. Then Sean and I headed over to Dad’s place for lunch with him, Grandma and his girlfriend (aka Bitchface, aka Bride of Chucky, aka the most miserable excuse for a human being in existence…you might have guessed I don’t like her!), which dragged on for a lot longer than I would have liked/was necessary because Dad forgot to defrost the meat and we had to sit there for a couple of hours while the lamb and turkey defrosted, then a couple more hours after that while they cooked…gah! Dad -who isn’t exactly the most domesticated man in the world- was going insane trying to cook the meat and vegetables and all that stuff, not to mention we couldn’t find a tablecloth big enough for my dad’s gigantic dining room table, so we ended up covering most of it with a big king size bed sheet…how embarrassing when the neighbours came over to wish us a merry Christmas! We also had a small disaster there when Mum came to pick up Sean and I…Jeanette (Dad’s evil girlfriend) is insanely jealous of my mum and won’t even be in the same room as her, so when Mum came in to wish Dad and Grandma a merry Christmas, Jeanette practically ran out of the room, and then when Mum was invited to stay and have some dessert, Jeanette went absolutely nuts and packed up all her stuff and drove away in a huff! Honestly, she is so pathetic! Apparently Dad went mad at her over that later on that night (I guess she returned when the coast was clear?), and now the last I heard is that she isn’t talking to him. Well that’s great as far as I’m concerned! Maybe he’ll start to realize at long last that she’s a stupid, immature bitch and dump her once and for all….maybe. Anyway, after Mum picked us up we went over to my aunt’s place, where Stuart rocked up again, as well as Patti (another friend) and we all sat around eating and drinking. Jonty also brought his friend Andre back with him, and I helped them get “drunk” (I bought a bottle of non-alcoholic wine and let them think they were drinking the real stuff, hehe), which was all good until one of them (still haven’t worked out who) got a little carried away playing Wii and spilled the wine all over my aunt’s coffee table and cream carpet…oops. I got a little buzzed towards the end of the night…ok, that’s a gross understatement, I was absolutely rotten, could barely stand up….but yeah, I was having a good time (at least that I remember, hehe).

As for pressies, I think I did pretty well this year…Santa still hasn’t bought me a riverside apartment (damn!), but I got some other nice stuff, including….

• A pink iPod nano
• A digital photo frame
• A fish tank & fish care stuff (I told Dad I wanted to get some fish soon, hehe)
• A ton of DVDs (Law & Order SVU season 6, Kyle XY season 1, Meet the Parents/Meet the Fockers double pack, Mr Bean double pack, Juno, I’m not there, U2 Zoo Tour, Rosemary’s Baby, Little shop of horrors, Because I said so, Madagascar & A beautiful mind)
• CDs (3x Bob Dylan, 2x U2, 2x Chris Isaak, Bruce Springsteen, Suzanne Vega, Rolling Stones, Sarah McLachlan, Beethoven & 101 80s hits)
• NDS games (MySims Kingdom, The Simpsons game, Puzzler Collection & Road to Vegas)
• Booze (a bottle of wine, vodka, Baileys & some coconut rum mixer stuff)
• An alarm clock (Santa obviously has a sense of humour, hehe)
• A wastepaper basket in the shape of a giant Starbucks coffee cup
• A plush Albert Einstein doll
• A pair of “Freudian slippers” (plush slippers with Sigmund Freud’s face on them, hehe)
• Dr Karl’s “Science is golden” book
• Mr Potato Head parts (Princess Spud & Party Spud)
• A Paul Frank watch
• A beaded photo frame
• An Oroton purse
• A “just add vodka” cocktail kit
• An iTunes gift card

I’ve acquired even more stuff since then, given that the boxing day sales were on today…I bought some more DVDs (Inspector Rex season 9 & The importance of being Ernest), The Sims 2 Apartment Pets NDS game, some PJs, some wine glass ID tags, a pad of prank telephone messages, tons of costume jewellery from Diva (a really awesome necklace with a little Lego man dangling from it, hehe, plus half a dozen pairs of earrings), a 2009 daybook designed especially for procrastinators (hehe), a new black leather handbag and a couple of leftover Christmas things like food packs and chocolates. The stores were all so incredibly busy though! We were originally going to go into the city, but when we got there, the car parks were all full, so we ended up at Garden City (our local suburban shopping centre), which was also uber-busy, but we somehow managed to fluke a park when someone drove out. And inside the mall was just as bad…some of the smaller shops you couldn’t even fit into because of all the people, and I didn’t even bother with Kmart because I could see from the entrance that the cash registers were all backed up for miles. Ahhh! Anyhoo, it didn’t really matter in the end because I still got the stuff I wanted…yayness.

I also found this totally sweet Christmas gift from Simply Precious waiting in my inbox when I checked my e-mail today….isn’t she sweet? I love it hon, thank you!

Anyway, this entry is getting kinda long and it’s just after 1am here, so I’m going to go to bed and hopefully I’ll remember to blog again soon! Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other. Hope everyone who celebrates it had a great Christmas!

My lovely commentors: Simply Precious, Julie & Christina. <3

• Mood: content
• Music: “What is life” - George Harrison

I must say that since I’ve been staying with Dad, my home life has been more peaceful. I’m not fighting with my mum, Sean isn’t irritating me, and I don’t have Marty barking constantly at everything that moves. I’m actually quite happy here, and I’m wondering if maybe I should stay a little longer…like maybe until Christmas. Speaking of which, we’ve been trying to make arrangements about where my brother and I are going to be on Christmas Day - so far it look likes the plan is to have a Christmas buffet breakfast with my mum and granddad (and possibly Stuart), then go to Dad’s for Christmas lunch with Grandma and Bitchface because Dad’s apparently doing a roast. *gasp* I know, shocking, isn’t it? I just hope he’s not going to cook duck…he was teasing me about doing roast duck when we were getting groceries the other day (because there were ducks in the frozen meat section) and I will just die (figuratively, of course) if he cooks duck. Poor little duckies…they’re so cute, I couldn’t bear to eat one, and if it tastes anything like the duck meat I had once at Yum Cha, they’re not even tasty. Anyway, after lunch with Dad and his little family, we’re heading over to my aunt’s (Mum’s sister’s) place for more celebrations and maybe a BBQ or something. Not quite sure what they have planned, but it should be fun. I’m just looking forward to seeing them again, since they’ve been living in Sydney for the best part of 6 months now. I bought The Sims 2 Pets NDS game today for Jonty as part of his present, so I’ll have to remind him to bring his NDS with him so he can play it while they’re in Brizzy.

So as you might have just guessed, I’ve been shopping again. I can’t stop myself! I’ve racked up hundreds of dollars in credit card debt just in the past week or two….I sure hope I get some money for Christmas so that I can pay the bill! My plan is to pay off everything I charge at the end of the month to avoid paying interest, but I don’t know how feasible that is at the moment…I guess we’ll see though. Anyway, today I picked up a lay-by I had at Big W, which was just a few little things like Jonty’s WWF flip-flops, a George Foreman grill cleaning thing for my dad, a shirt for myself and a couple of Christmassy things (tablecloth, coffee mug, etc), and I also bought a few other small things like some boxer shorts for Sean, some DVDs and some screen protectors for my NDS. I’m actually pretty pleased with myself for not spending more than I did, because I know I’m going to totally freak out when I get my credit card statement if I spend any more money over the next few weeks. I’ve also been messing around on ebay again, starting to check out some of the rarer collectible items that are in my price range (mostly for gifts). I found some really neat Phar Lap (a very famous Australian race horse) novelty bank notes and some Las Vegas casino chips that I’m thinking about bidding on for Sean (as a birthday pressie for next year) and I’m also watching some NDS games for myself. I’m very quickly becoming addicted to ebay again, lol.

So while my life has been pretty peaceful the past few days, it hasn’t really been very eventful. I did go out to dinner with my dad on Tuesday, but we basically just ate and left again, so we were home pretty early. Then last night we went to visit my grandma in the nursing home (which my dad does every Wednesday night, apparently), but when we arrived they were all about to leave for a “field trip” to a Christmas carols concert, so we were only there for about 10 minutes or so, which was fine by me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my grandma, but seeing her there in that home with all the other demented (as in, suffering from dementia) old people is just really depressing. I’ll be glad when my dad brings her out to his house for Christmas lunch.

Anyway, I’m going to sign off now because my wrist is seriously sore…I don’t know what happened to it, but even little things like picking up a heavy book or carrying dishes is making my wrist really sore. Maybe I’ve been typing too much?

Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Simply Precious & Nile. <3

• Mood: exasperated
• Music: “Holy Joe” - U2

First of all, before I launch into the passport dilemma, I want to announce that I have a new Christmas layout up, featuring none other than Shrek as “Ogre Claus”. I watched Shrek the halls last week and loved it, so it made sense to me to use it as the theme for this year’s holiday layout. I’ve made it the default theme until Christmas, but if you’re currently using another theme, you can change it to the new one via the sidebar (towards the bottom).

Now, about that damn passport. As you can probably tell from the title of this entry, I’ve been looking for a passport - not mine though, my loser brother’s. He’s supposed to be going to Fiji in two days time and he’s lost his passport, so I have literally spent hours today searching Dad’s house for it. I’ve turned the place upside down (not that you can really tell the difference here!) and Mum has done the same at home, and we just can’t find it anywhere. Now it looks like he’s going to have to wait until Friday to be issued an emergency replacement (and he was supposed to be leaving on Wednesday) and then buy a one-way ticket and stay just for the last few days. I know it’s kind of his own fault for not bothering to look for it sooner (Mum has been telling him to make sure he had all that stuff ready for weeks), but I still feel really bad for him because I know he was looking forward to this trip and he’s spent a lot of money on the airfares, hotel and so forth that can’t be refunded. And to make matters worse, he found out today that he no longer had internet access on his laptop because I took my wireless router with me to Dad’s, so in an attempt to cheer him up a little we went out to the mall this afternoon and I put a new modem on my credit card for him. He says he’ll pay me back, but I’m not holding my breath, at least not for a speedy repayment. At least it was only $70 and it’ll be almost a whole month before I have to make a payment on my card. Poor Sean though.

Aside from spending hours looking for Sean’s passport, I’ve also been mucking around with online quizzes again. I think I’m obsessed, lol. The ones I found today are a little different from the usual “what type of ______ are you” quiz, so you might be interested in checking them out.

I named 19 organs in 4 minutes!

I named 23 disney films in 7 minutes

I named 44 US states in 10 minutes

Anyway, I’m going to finish up here now because Harry keeps nudging me as if to say “it’s time for my dinner” and my dad won’t be home for a little while yet, so I think I’d better feed him. Harry’s really such a good dog though, he’s spent most of the day quietly sitting at my feet (if I’m using the computer) or else snoozing in his armchair, and it’s only now that it’s time for his dinner that he’s starting to get a little wound up. Bless his heart.

Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Karyn, Simply Precious & GorgeousX. <3

• Mood: so-so
• Music: “Knight moves” - Suzanne Vega

After getting sick of the constant fighting between me and my mum, we both agreed it would be a good idea to give each other a bit of space, namely by sending me to stay with my dad for a couple of weeks. So that’s where I am now, and will be for the next two weeks. Luckily I thought to bring my wireless router with me, so I still have internet access on my laptop, but that’s pretty much the only technological luxury I have here. My dad’s not really into technology (I think it scares him, hehe), so I’m probably lucky just to have broadband internet. I suppose a plus side of my dad not really keeping up with the times is that he still has a really awesome collection of vinyls (records) that he plays on a stereo system with a built-in turntable. I had a lot of fun going through his collection this evening - he has lots of old Bob Dylan albums that I haven’t ever seen on CD, so for the next day or two I’m going to listen to all of them. Tonight we also listened to the first Suzanne Vega album, which is fantastic (and hopefully available on CD - I totally want it!). My favourite song from it is “Knight moves”, which I have on song repeat in iTunes now, hehe.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops staying here with my dad. It’s not so much the company (my dad and I usually get on pretty well, and I adore being with our dog Harry), but the house is a little…ugh. It’s actually a really nice house - huge, 3 floors and freakin’ chandeliers in almost every room - but my dad’s kinda made a mess of it. *sigh* There was about a week’s worth of dishes in the sink when I arrived, my bathroom (my grandma’s old bathroom, which hasn’t been used for several months) looks like a breeding ground for an entire civilization of germs, and there was a dead gecko in my shower! I think a good part of tomorrow will be spent just getting the kitchen and my bathroom to the point where it’s no longer a health hazard. *groan*

Anyway, tonight my dad’s evil girlfriend Jeanette (aka “Bitchface”) came over for dinner, and was kind of a wreck because her son Ricky was in a really bad motorcycle accident this morning. He’s very badly injured apparently - punctured lung, lots of internal bleeding, leg broken in 4 places and a fractured spine, which means there’s a chance he could come out of it all a paralyzed. It’s so awful, I actually felt sorry for her tonight (not enough to make me like her of course, but enough to induce a bit of pity), and now as we speak he’s about halfway through a 12 hour visit to the operating theatre. Scary stuff. I swear those motorcycles are death traps. I can’t believe there was a time when I wanted to buy one. I was 16 and I wanted a classic Norton, hehe. I’m thankful now my parents wouldn’t hear of it.

Anyway, I have a couple of things to do before I go to bed (namely finding some bed linen and towels and having a shower), so I’ll end my entry here. Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: None. Nobody loves me. *sob*

• Mood: bored
• Music: Coo ca choo - Alvin Stardust

Today is by far the most boring day I’ve had in months. Absolutely nothing is going on at all and nothing seems to be holding my interest right now. That probably also has something to do with the weather, which is revoltingly hot and humid (and summer doesn’t even start here for a few days) and makes me feel tired and restless. I need an airconditioner for my room….or an ice bath….or a certain gorgeous vampire’s icy embrace. Seriously, this weather sucks. Anyone who still thinks global warming is a myth should try surviving an Aussie summer! They get hotter and more unbearable every year.

I’m starting to get into the Christmas spirit now (about time too - usually I’m excited for Christmas long before now!), so last night I watched my new Shrek the halls DVD. It was so cute! I loved Shrek’s version of The Night Before Christmas, hehe. I think I’m going to put up a Shrek the halls layout soon for my 2008 holiday layout.

And still on the topic of Christmas, I’ve done a bit more shopping online in the past day or so - I went to the Big W (aka Aussie Walmart) website the other day and used their photo centre to make a photo scrapbook type thing that I’m getting printed up for my Grandma as part of her Xmas gift, and I also made another two (since they were on sale), one each for my mum and dad for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day next year respectively. I know, a little ahead of myself, but I saved $10 on each book, so I thought I’d make them now and put them away. I also found myself drawn to the World Vision Smiles catalogue, where you can buy charity gifts for people in third world countries on behalf of a friend or relly or whatever. You can “buy” things like farm animals (chickens, pigs, goats, etc) or other essential things like mosquito nets and water purifiers, and World Vision will used the money collected for those items towards their various projects (agricultral, sanitation, etc). My mum always says there’s nothing she wants or needs from me (other than for me to behave myself, hehe!), so as part of her Xmas gift I donated some chickens. Cool huh? They’re mailing me a little card that explains that I made a donation on her behalf that I’m going to give her along with some chocolates and a kitchen utensils set, so I thought that’s a pretty neat idea.

Anyway, I don’t really have anything much to say right now, because like I said, my day has been deadly boring so far. Probably the highlight of my day will be buying groceries this afternoon (seriously, we haven’t bought food in nearly two weeks), which is pretty pathetic. Ah well. I might add a little excitement to the trip by calling in to the liquor shop on the way home, hehe. I drank my last vodka cruiser for breakfast this morning (like I said, it’s been a while since we bought food…though that’s still probably not a very good excuse), so I need to get some more.

Adios amigos. Be excellent to each other!

My lovely commentors: Simply Precious, Julie & Karyn. <3