Centarian

Sunday:

Yesterday was my Poppa's 100th birthday. (My mother's father.) A celebratory lunch was held at a country club, all the extended family from near and far plus family friends. I enjoyed catching up with family, but all these older people kept coming up to me and knowing who I was but I had no idea who they were! Darryl? Um, maybe Poppa's cousin's daughter? Or lived next door to Poppa when I was a child? Who knows? I had long conversations with two different old ladies with no idea who they were. They assumed I'd know, and I felt it was rude to ask. At least 'Evan' explained he was a family friend, and the father of a boy I went to primary school with (and a good friend of Tim's old boss, which is a crazy co-incidence as we were in another state at the time!)

I wasn't successful in finding a new winter dress before the event so I wore an old one that was too big on me but looked ok. Actually the shopping process was depressing, for some reason I looked fat and dumpy in everything I tried on, very unlike my other recent shopping experiences, even though I'm the same weight! I refuse to buy anything that makes me look like that.

Group photo of Poppa with all the sons, grandsons, great grandsons and in-laws.

 And with the granddaughters, great granddaughters and in-laws (I have my arm linked with Poppa, the only one wearing glasses).

It was also Tim and my 16th wedding anniversary, so in the evening we went out to dinner. It was a restaurant we hadn't tried before. The food was nice but we were right at the front where it was very noisy and also cold from people going in and out or the door being propped open. They couldn't move us to another table because they were full. I kept my coat on most of the time. We liked the food, but I think we'll save that restaurant for better weather or check when we book that we can be seated at the back.

Today is Mother's Day, I received some lovely presents - like slippers with inserts that you heat in the microwave! - and breakfast and lunch made for me. It was cold and rainy outside so it was a quiet day at home doing some study, watching Librarians Season 4 and trying to avoid the news (Eurovision was 5am our time and there are always spoilers about who won before we get to watch it in the evening) then in the evening - Eurovision Party! Every year we get family and friends to come over and watch with us. None of our favourite groups even made it to the top 10, I think. Oh well, it was fun.

lots of swimming

Monday:

The kids had their Acrogym Christmas party on Friday afternoon. Started with a crowd of kids on a jumping castle and tumble mat and a few other gymnastic equipment things, then the 'development groups' (including Jasmine) did group performances and all the little kids got participation medals. Jasmine's group - level one - was pretty good, but oh my goodness the level six performance from the really experienced kids! Gasps of awe from the audience.

Saturday was Christmas shopping for extended family, and a swim in the afternoon. Sunday was BBQ lunch and party for my niece Ashleigh turning one, she's the youngest of the three born at the end of last year. Then another swim in the afternoon. Tim and Aiden went with the other boys to see Justice League in the evening, Jasmine and I weren't interested.

I'd been feeling a little achy Sunday morning but then better during the day, but by about 7:30 at night was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. I thought maybe it was just the result of a big meal after a big day and went to bed at 8:30, before the boys even got home. But this morning very achy back and also a sore throat. Dammit. I do not want to be sick again. I just got better after four weeks of flu!

Some good news today about a story I've been following (story is the wrong word, don't know what the right one is). The winner of this year's Eurovision song contest, Salvador Sobral from Portugal, has been in hospital for months waiting for a heart transplant. He was even unwell during the actual Eurovision, his sister stood in for him at all the rehearsals and he wasn't allowed to leave his doctor's care for long, he just sang in the actual competition. Some people say he got a pity vote but I thought he was wonderful. Shortly afterwards he had to retire from his music career because of his health. He was offered a new heart in October but was too sick at the time to have the operation. Anyway in the news this morning he has finally got a new heart and is recovering well from the surgery so I am grateful for that. I know it means that someone else has died, but at least they were able to save one person's life - maybe more - who would have died if they hadn't been an organ donor.

My weight this morning was 76.2 kg, still slowly creeping up. That is 1.1 kg up in four weeks since I stopped Duromine. And still two weeks to Christmas! So much temptation around. This past week it was that time of the month and I was just hungry all the time. I ate and ate. I think I'm also feeling the effects of 'nothing to do'. Of course there are always things to do, but there is nothing pressing to take my mind off food! Exams are over, kids still at school, Christmas shopping done, I'm not even into any games at the moment. It’s not that I'm not enjoying leisure time, it's just that I'm enjoying using a lot of that time to eat. Eat, watch TV and read. Nice. But not slimming.

I wrote about moving the spider, Gertrude, from too near the pool seating over to the corner. She has stayed where I put her and seems happy there, in as much as you can tell with a spider. But her identical twin sister, Beatrice, has spun her web almost directly in front of the mailbox! Very uncomfortable getting super-close to fetch the mail. I might have to move her too. And near the laundry door there was a messy web (obviously not one of those that gets eaten and remade every day) with some very large bugs stuck in it - including a whole cockroach - beside a hole that the spider hid in. I didn't know if I wanted to know what sort. Turns out I didn't. Seen Lord of the Rings, with that spider Shelob? Yeah, like that. Shudder. A red back. Venomous. Biggest one I've seen. Too dangerous to leave there with kids around. I pumped half a can of fly spray into her lair, and scooped the body into the bin so no lizards could eat it.

Another swim when the kids got home from school. We are really making the most of having a pool! There is a very hot week coming up, forecast of 38C on Thursday. My new and not so new swimming cosies were both in the wash so today I dug out a really old one. Saggy and horrible. Public pool chlorine had taken its toll. I wore it with a Tshirt over the top but put it in the bin afterwards. I need to buy another one. Something pretty. I enjoy feeling much better in a cossie than I did 8 kilograms ago.

Mother's Day

Monday:

I had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday, although of course I missed my own mum. The kids made breakfast then I did the grocery shopping (that bit wasn't particularly fun, but I'd still rather do it myself), take-away for lunch and played some computer games.

My afternoon probably won't sound fun either but it was satisfying. I'd been struggling with this week's lesson in my most difficult class, and was getting more than half the exercises wrong even when I thought I 'had it' - very frustrating. So I spent a couple of hours over the weekend really getting it into my head and I finally did work it out. It wasn't fun to do but a big relief when I got a good mark in the online quiz.

Then we had family over for dinner, I got to stretch my new oven to its limits and it performed well, and a Eurovision Song Contest party in the evening with a few extra people joining us. I really enjoyed it, in fact it was a very good day overall.

My website project is live - its a website for a pretend library, you can find it at www.webdesign.sit.edu.au/stud588. There's only two pages so not all the links go anywhere. We need people to have a look so we can get some Google Analytics data for class, so I'd love you to check it out! You don't have to do anything to give feedback, the Analytics tell us how many people visited, how long they stayed on each page etc. If you want to compare to other people's you could try putting in a different number at the end (like 587 etc), I'm not sure which numbers are valid but I was one of the last on the list so the other numbers might be higher than mine if they are in sequence. (I have looked at other students' but by clicking on a link so I didn't pay attention to the number).

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day and a great weekend.

Fifteen years

Friday:

Today is my/our fifteen year wedding anniversary. Fifteen years!! Just over a third of my life, married to my lovely Tim. We're going out to dinner tonight. Last weekend a family member looked up that 15 years meant crystal was the traditional present, and Tim mentioned that he wandered into the Swarovski store this week but not if he bought anything! I won't reveal my present to him as I haven't given it to him yet, but it's not crystal.

The replacement oven was delivered yesterday and works fine so yay for that. I've cooked a few things already but the real test will be big Mother's Day dinner on Sunday.

Our tiler was making good progress on the paved area outside, but Friday lunchtime last week he said he needed to pick up more tiles and left with his two assistants. And didn't come back. On Tuesday I sent a slightly cranky text asking what was going on. Turns out he had been hospitalised on the weekend and was still on bed rest with a ventilator four times a day! Asthma exacerbated by allergies I think. He had been very wheezy carrying tiles around - I thought he was just unfit! I feel bad for him and hope he feels better soon for his own sake, but there were three of them working you'd think one of them could have called to tell me what was going on. Anyway, no sign of their return so far. I just try to suspend all expectations of when the pool will be finished, nothing has gone as planned. More than nine months now.

Eurovision starts tonight, or at least the Australian coverage of it does (actually I think both semi's have already finished). If we wanted to watch it live from the Ukraine it would be 5am, so we wait for primetime viewing. We'll have people over Sunday night (also Mother's Day) to watch the final. Love the Eurovision Song Contest!

Eurovision Party

Sunday:

Eurovision is a European song contest that gets bigger and more glamorous every year. It is very popular in Australia as we have many people of European descent here, and the past two years Australia has had an official entrant even though we're round the other side of the world. I believe it was telecast in China and USA this year too (and Justin Timberlake was the guest performer). Maybe eventually it will become WorldVision. No, that name is taken.

The charm of Eurovision is its diversity and weirdness. Plenty of normal power ballads and a few rock or country style; but also Russian grandmothers with a folk song, heavy rock from Finland with the band in full "orc" makeup and costumes, a Romanian opera singer dressed more or less as a vampire and singing the whole thing in falsetto. Actually this year lacked a bit of the weirdness. ABBA and Celine Dion have won it in the past, other names probably more famous in Europe than here.

We've been really into it for only about four years, but we love it now. Semi finals Friday and Saturday nights and the final Sunday night. Actually it was performed in the early hours of the morning, our time, so had to stay away from media giving away the result! We invited extra family to our usual Sunday dinner then more people to come over in the evening to all watch together. It was a fun party. We let the kids stay up late too. I was worried there would be so much talking I wouldn't be able to hear the TV, but we all quieted down for the songs and gave scores after each one. I think our top five was pretty close to the official top five. Australia's entrant came second! Ukraine won instead of the favourite, Russia, in what many consider to be a political result.

There were also a couple of family announcements. Our close family group is made up of two sets of brothers - cousins to each other and they all grew up in the same street so it's almost like four brothers - and their wives (and parents). A few weeks ago one wife announced her pregnancy, I knew another was not ready to make it public. Last night she announced, and then the third did as well! I'm the only one of the four of us not pregnant. So we'll have three new babies in the family in October, November and December.

I say "she" announced it, but actually I just realised in all three cases it was the husband who got up to give the news. I wonder if that is because it was his side of the family they were telling, or if that is a thing?

Mother's Day

Sunday:

I got some lovely presents and cuddles in bed, then breakfast cooked by my husband (not in bed). It was kind of a struggle to appreciate it all because I was feeling pretty sick and really just wanted to be sleeping, but I enjoyed as much as I could then went back to bed for the rest of the morning. And another nap after lunch. In a lot of ways I am feeling much better today, I don't ache nearly so much. But I have a runny nose and a cough and can hardly keep my eyes open. But hopefully this new phase means I am on the mend.

I'm a bit cranky with Facebook today. The Eurovision song contest is on tonight, we watched the two semi-finals and I was really looking forward to seeing the final. But we see it more than a day behind the actual event which is on the other side of the world (Copenhagen this year, I think), and Facebook has a "trending news" stream at the side that gave away who won! So annoying! I was being careful not to watch the news on TV today, just in case, I didn't know stupid Facebook would give it away.

Eurovision is awesome. Every country in Europe (or most of them) put in an entry, an original song. And it is so so random. My favourite last year was a male Romanian opera singer, dressed basically like a vampire, who did most of the song in falsetto. There were little Russian grandmothers doing a song a couple of years ago, they came second. There are some atrocious performances and some really good ones, you never know what you're gonna get. People on trampolines, people whistling while playing violin and drums... This year the stand out for me from the semis was the bearded lady from Austria. She was clearly born a man, with a male voice and a beard, but in all other ways looked very female - the hair, the make up, the slinky dress. It was quite confusing to watch. But a great singer and song, a powerful performance, as well as being voyeuristically entertaining.

We were supposed to have a party tonight with people coming over to watch but of course I am too sick so we cancelled. And now I know who is going to win. Where is the dramatic tension?

NB I talked to my mum on the phone but I'll see her next weekend for her birthday.