Took 36 hours off-line over the weekend, which is the first time I can remember doing so while remaining at home. Nasty habit the ol' checking email, updating RSS feeds thing. Not that I achieved anything spectacular with all the added time, but that will come. I plan on doing this regularly now.

So, I read a little, ate a lot (was fed a lot - Mother's Day!), had some friends over, and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Mostly, I cultivated a sore throat. Yay.

As a counter:

1. I won a free facial today!
2. Tomorrow's Friday.
3. Braised celery for dinner - love it, but rarely cook it.
4. More House of Eliott to watch tonight.
5. May have solved a novel problem.
6. Rediscovered a box of old cassettes. Including the theme from Twin Peaks and Do the Bartman.
7. Brian Wildsmith's ABC

Things that are cheesing me off today:

1. People who do not include their name on a file when they know that 15 other identical files will be perused at the same time.
2. People who send three times as much data as requested. Yes, you're special. We'll make an exception for you.
3. Websites that highlight text using blue. And underlining. And it's not a link.
4. Small talk.
5. People who commit to projects then remain conspicuously silent and absent. (This may include me, I'm afraid.)
6. The fact that I only just remembered to boil water for the pasta when the rest of dinner is almost ready.
7. I could really use a drink, but I have a headache.

Don't know why I'm complaining. I won a free $100 facial today. I'm not really a day spa/facial/massage kind of person, but I'll make an effort to enjoy it.

Watching The Doctor Dances. Having a small voice behind you say, "Mummy. Mummy!"

'Scuse me while I climb down from the light fitting.

I just went into Abbey's room and vaccuumed around all the clothes on the floor.

Incidentally, if this is the kind of entry that keeps you returning to this blog you can now also follow me on Twitter where I am entertaining myself with the minutiae of life. Until I get bored of that and start making stuff up. I wonder if you will be able to tell the difference?

I wanted to make a few notes about the wedding I went to on Saturday. It was by far the largest and most extravagant I've ever been near and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it all.

It was in an absolute barn of a reception centre. So large it could accomodate the 300 guest reception I attended plus another, although not quite so massive, I think. Three hundred guests. Did I mention it was a sit-down dinner? With nine courses? And one of the courses was half a lobster each? I told you it was big.

What really impressed me though was the way it all ran. Sure the meals were not served exactly as to the program on the table, but they were all a)piping hot and b)delicious. Amazing co-ordination by the dozens of staff. No glass went unfilled, no dropped fork went unreplaced, no one went hungry.

An MC ran the proceedings, and to be honest he was dreadful. Fortunately he was brief. If he'd left out mentioning the name of the reception centre twice in each sentence he would have been even briefer. There were speeches, but they weren't too long either, even though they were in two languages, and there were only a couple of fart jokes. (no, really...)

There was a dance floor, naturally and the bride and groom were well rehearsed for their waltz, but when the MC announced them, they were nowhere to be seen. Then a section of the floor broke away and they ROSE UP IN A GLASS ELEVATOR. I am not making this up. So awesome.

The lesson here is if you're going to do a big production number for your wedding there really are places you can go to that will facilitate your dream. Your dream of rising out of the fog-drenched floor looking like a cake topper.

After that there was more food, drunkeness and dancing, bouquet tossing, more dancing. It all blurs together a bit, but it was a great night out.

Thank you and Congratulations Melissa and Quan!

We're off at the crack of dawn tomorrow to collect Richard who has been in Chicago for the last two weeks. The tradition has become that whenever he's away I do something to the house. I think I overdid it this time. Here's what's been done, most of it today:

Tank base prepared
Tank installed - admittedly the tank stuff was not done by me, but I had to fight to get it done before Easter
Bathroom benchtop and cabinets painted (three coats!)
Silicon sealant applied
New handles fitted
Two picture frames painted and hung
One additional picture and two mirrors hung*
Towel rail and four hooks installed
Chips in bath and basin repaired
Every surface dusted and cleaned

I'm so chuffed! The tank is so pretty - I keep going out to admire it, even though it remains stubbornly empty. And the bathroom is now complete. We began a minor renovation of it about four years ago. Renovation is not our strong suit, apparently. Now I'm curled in a nest on the couch idly surfing the 'net, congratulating friends and watching some early Star Trek TNG. Ahhhhh.

*The technique there being lots of double sided mounting tape, liquid nails and crossed fingers.

Happy

Birthday

32

Hooray for 2008! Not that 2007 was so bad for me, just hooray for getting a new number to write down for a while.

So what did I do in 2007? Collected some very pretty rejection notices, learned to wet felt, mostly fixed the bathroom, prepared about 522 meals and some other stuff I'm sure.

I read 72 books. That's eleven more than last year, and one more than in 2005. I think I was aiming for 100, but I didn't really try. My own definition of book might be different to yours, but I didn't count the many that were not worth finishing.
My favourite for the year was A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire by Amy Butler Greenfield. Other notables: Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman, Magic for Beginners - Kelly Link, The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins and I, Coriander - Sally Gardener.

I watched 127 films. Yeah. That's a lot isn't it? I think I'm going to try and make them count more this year. Avoid the crap.
Top choices: Nightwatch, Good Night and Good Luck, V for Vendetta, Stardust and some classics; Rebecca, Cool Hand Luke, and Dial M for Murder.*

So this year I'm going to attempt:

• a review a fortnight
• a short story every three months
• a novel draft
• a book proposal
• read 75 books
• fewer films watched
• an Etsy store for some of my felty goods

I'll be watching Buffy again along with Shiny (any excuse) and I imagine some M*A*S*H too considering this was one of my Xmas presents!

I hope all of you have loads of fun this year. Keep celebrating the change in government, relax, and do something you really love. Good health, good luck and good times!

*And Daywatch, Elizabeth: the Golden Age, Transformers, Pan's Labyrinth, Little Miss Sunshine, Porky's** and Children of Men.

**See how I snuck that in there so you wouldn't notice? Oh. Whups.
I wouldn't watch it again in a hurry, but I nearly split my sides laughing. Hi-lar-i-ous!

I have tidied my desk for the new year. The piles are the same, but now their corners are square.

Going away. Back later.

To amuse you in the meantime here's a holiday image recycled from 2005*.

Have a good thingy everyone!

*Better for the environment.

It's my five year bloggiversary today. Huh.

Been moving the furniture around today in preparation for carpet cleaners tomorrow. It's kind of like moving house, but without the excitement. I have a dust-induced headache, but I can't complain about that when to entertain me is a near-four-year-old girl who alternately today threatened to exterminate me and left for the moon in her TARDIS as Doctor Who. It's been fabulous really. In less than twelve hours this Doctor person has become a catch-all hero for the household. "Time for Doctor Who to brush her teeth", "If you don't eat another mushroom you won't know how to operate your sonic screwdriver", "Doctor Who is very friendly. She certainly wouldn't beat me over the head with a pink balloon." All this stemming from a glimpse of a Dalek animation on Danny's blog!

(TARDIS, formerly known as "House".)

I knew if I waited long enough everyone else would do my homework for me...
So here is my Conflux experience as filtered through other people's reports.

Cat Spark's gets the negatives out of the way early on by bitching about the lack of basic competence by the hotel staff.

Emma gets into the nitty gritty of panel attendance.

Gillian not only reports on the success of the Regency Gothic Banquet, but blogs all the recipes so we can recreate it at home (I recommend the caper sauce and all the desserts - just not together)

Cat wins the prize for photo-taking at Conflux. (You may have to hunt, but I'm in there a few times.) And there are pics of the costumed Banquet-goers here.

Most comprehensive is that almost all of the panels are available as podcasts from the Conflux website. Including the one I am on. I can't verify the quality of them yet, but I will definitely catch up on the Guest of Honour interviews and speeches that I missed.

Other than that I bought a lot of books, then turned around to get everyone present to sign them (nerd!) and attended a couple of workshops run by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta who were sadly stricken by a tour-induced lurgy but who brought the goods anyhow.

It was a pretty neat con. Very writerly, which didn't bother me so much as other people, but best of all, it was friendly. I had some great conversations with old friends and new ones. Mission accomplished!

I know you're all waiting with baited breath to hear what I have to say about Conflux, but first you're going to have to put up with, yep, that's right — more Justine Clarke.

Abbey and I went to the concert last Wednesday and it was excellent. Absolutely everything you could want from a touring kid's show. To adapt the CD to a live performance it has been written into a loose narrative of what Justine does in her backyard on a hot summer's afternoon. In this way they managed to include, I think, every tune from I Like to Sing! The set was simple but effective, the props were minimal, but again effective and, following the Playschool philosophy, there was absolutely nothing that you could not recreate in your own home.

Justine was marvellous. Her performance was enthusiastic and engaging. Several times she walked through the audience asking the kids questions and really listening to their replies too. Far from juvenile or sappy though, there were a couple of lines directed to the adults as well. "I'm a tree," she said waving her arms wildly over her head, "Can you all be trees too? I've been to drama school, I know how to be a tree."

There were just two others on stage, Peter Dasent, writer of the I Like to Sing album and resident Playschool pianist, and Jeremy Cook a versatile percussionist. Both participated in the storytelling, being the straight guys for jokes, wearing daft hats and of course providing all the backing music.

We both had an absolute ball, as did the rest of the crowd. But the most reluctant to let them leave the stage were the five and six year old boys who ran down to the front row in order to lean on the stage and make doe eyes at Justine.

Having established that I am in possession of a gown for the Regency Gothic Banquet on Saturday night that will not need to be held in place with safety pins I am now (almost) packed to head off for Conflux tomorrow!

I won't be bloggy or emaily for the next five or six days, but if you're in Canberra you'll find me at the aforementioned dinner, the disco-thing on Sunday night, buying books and apparently even on a panel, although I don't know when that is yet. I'll be wearing my name - please say hello.

Have a good weekend everyone!

I was in the bakery of a large supermarket choosing bread, she was stocking shelves.
"Great day isn't it?" she said.
"Sure is," I replied.
"I mean," she went on, "Isn't it just a great day to be alive?" I begin edging away, but I still don't have my bread. I circle warily.
"I like to take each day as it comes, you know?" I nod bravely, I want her to stop.
"It's great to be alive." She tucks a price tag onto the shelf and turns to me, "I was just diagnosed with breast cancer, you see, and I just like to be really grateful for every day I have."
"Ah," I say, and manage not to follow it with, "That's great!" Because she was just so happy. It sounded like a good thing. For a moment.

Abbey is growing so fast - it's all eat and sleep with her at the moment - that today she managed to stub the same toe four times. Of course each time she did so she set off a wail akin to an air-raid siren. Kids aren't supposed to yell like that after the age of two. Really. Her lungs are so much bigger now it's damaging my hearing.

I'm slowly rewatching all of Star Trek: TNG at the moment to shore up my nerd-cred. Last night it was Home Soil - The Enterprise discovers intelligent inorganic life on a plant about to be terraformed - and I wake up this morning to this!

Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space are revealed today in the New Journal of Physics. The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks.
...
"These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter," says Tsytovich, "they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve".

Press release. Paper at New Journal of Physics.

But can it be accurately represented by a little glowy light in a bell jar?

(via Boing Boing)

They tried to do me in today. I was scouting around the floor, looking for where they were getting in. One drops onto my head. I look up. They are pouring in through the skylight just like extras in a horror film and half of them are the flying kind and they're getting in my hair and stuck in the fibres of my woolly jumper.

I spray and spray and oops, cover the fishtank, and spray and spray and I swear they are attacking me. The chemical smell is unbearable. We escape to the supermarket.

Something is tickling the back of my neck. It's my jumper. It's my hair. It's psychological.

We're in the vegetable department and something psychological is biting my arm. I scramble. I itch. I pinch tiny ant bodies from underneath my clothing. People are looking at me strangely. More strangely than usual.

We return home. The floor is littered with corpses.

Victorious.