Rhian's Random Ramblings

I didn't think it had been that long. How time flies and all that palaver. I may end up spending more time online at home now we have a nice, shiny new office. That is if I can tear myself away from admiring my beautiful new bookshelves with all my books, spine out. Sigh.

I always knew I had a thing for books (obviously) but it wasn't until a couple of years ago when someone posted these pretty pictures that I realised I had a thing for libraries. Now I just need a mural painted on my ceiling.

After flying back and forth between Perth and Sydney for three weeks, it was nice to have a week at home. Even if two nights weren't spent at home! We had a lovely dinner at Villa D'Este on Tuesday and then I went out to dinner at The Windsor with some work friends on Wednesday. I'm back in Sydney again next week and the week after. I'll be paying another visit to the Guylian Cafe where my friend and I will have a chat about The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

I took part in a community forum yesterday orgainsed by our local council to assist with the local area plan. It was very interesting and well run. I will need to make sure I follow up when the plan is drafted.

I just realised today is the winter solstice - hurrah! That means from now on the days will start getting longer again. Summer will be here before I know it!

So here we are, another new year, another resolution to lose weight.  It feels like I spend the first half of the year losing weight and keeping it off, then the second half putting it back on again.

And summertime is definitely not to the time to be feeling flabby - too hot!  Maybe I will sweat some of the blubber off.

There was an opinion piece in one of the weekend papers talking about language, specifically, about the pronunciation of the letter 'h', but generally it was about the so-called decline in standards.

Like a lot of people, I have my pet hates about the 'misuse' of English – nouns being used as verbs is a particular favourite – so I usually read this type of article with a certain amount of sympathy.

But however much I might want to leap through the television and throttle the next commentator who talks about an athlete medalling, I can't help but be struck by a couple of points.

Language evolves. Look at the difference between Shakespeare and Harry Potter. It has to, as humans discover new concepts that need to be expressed. Think of everything that exists now that wasn't even contemplated 100, or even 50, years ago.

Language is used to communicate thoughts and ideas between individuals. If someone does that successfully, why does it matter whether or not it's 'correct'?

I can't help but feel there is some sort of elitism at work here. Clearly, only uneducated people say 'haitch', misplace apostrophes and don't know the difference between your and you're. But ultimately, if the message is conveyed, who cares?

I have been guilty of judging someone on the quality of their writing, shared a snicker of disbelief over a misspelled word. Time, I think, to start focussing on what is being said rather than how.

I am lazy by nature, and the less I do, the less I feel like doing. At the moment, I pretty much eat, sleep, work, read, watch TV and that's it. What I would like to be doing more of/some, in no particular order:

Exercise

Take better care of my worm farm

Gardening (me!)

Cleaning

Meal planning and cooking

Cycling

I read The 100-Mile Diet earlier this year, and ever since, I have thought that I would like to compile some sort of local food directory. But it's yet another thing I've thought of that I haven't done anything about.

I keep saying to myself that I'll wait (doing/starting whatever) until after we've gone live with the new system at work, but it's not like I am working horrendous hours. It's just an excuse. I need some way to get motivated and to maintain it. Magic bullet anyone?

Another new week, another pledge to get back on track weight-wise. Sigh. I've been on this merry-go-round before and I'm starting to feel dizzy.

Nevertheless, at 6kg over goal, it's time to stop the rot. I know I should be doing all this pledging and planning at the WW boards, but I'm not really that interested in paying attention in turn to what everyone else is doing.

So my immediate goal is to lose 3kgs by Christmas. This week's goal is to exercise for at least 30 mins on at least four days, and my daily goal is to record what I eat and drink, and my thoughts/feelings.

I went for a walk this morning. I had planned to go for a run, but I just can't face that level of vigour first thing. It was quite nice - the sun was just coming up, the air was cool on my bare arms, but not enough to raise goosebumps, and there was the scent of flowers every where. Just lovely.

I'm expecting a bit of a challenge this evening as we've got a work Christmas function. We're going lawn bowling (which should be fun) and I think dinner is going to be a barbeque. Must remember to fill my plate with salad first!

Went out for dinner with some ex-workmates last night and had a lovely time. It was great to catch up with what they have been up to.

Co-workers is an interesting relationship. Because it's day-to-day, you tend to know a lot about what's going on with them and you are quite involved as a result. But of course, once you stop working together the relationship almost ceases.

I love a long weekend, and this one's been a good 'un.

Saw my mum, watched a great footy grand final, caught up with friends, spent some time in the garden, went for a bike ride down by the river - simple things that all add up to one contented cookie.

While I haven't been asleep for a hundred years, it certainly feels like I have just woken from hibernation.

The last few weeks have been pretty much work, work, eat, sleep as we moved toward our first go live date. We went live last week and I am now starting to feel I can get my life back.

I didn't work at all last weekend and managed to spend some time in the garden. I went to my first WW meeting in 8 weeks and discovered that I'd put on 3.3kgs. Which was hardly surprising given my eating habits and lack of exercise. I've planned meals for the coming week and I'm kinda looking forward to doing some cooking. I'm going to see The Nutcracker this afternoon. You know - life things.

It's spring and the garden is absolutely exploding with new growth. I'm a little surprised how much I love it actually - I've never been much into gardening before. Maybe it's different because this is the first garden that's been mine from the beginning. It's finally all finished - the last electric work was done on Tuesday. We stood out in the dark, looking at our beautiful water feature, grinning like loons (well I was!). I can't help feeling slightly shallow by how much I love my home, but we have created such a great space for ourselves. Our castle. Though we don't have a pool room.

I've been feeling a little blue the last couple of days, and other than the fact that I spend too much time alone in my own head, I think part of the reason comes down to the sameness of my days.

Which is completely controllable by me, but I usually can't be arsed doing anything. Can one be slightly depressed?

I know I'll snap out of it, I usually do, but I'm moping around like Eeyore in the meantime.

The Olympics opening ceremony is tonight. I'm a little bit over it already, but I know I will watch a lot of it over the next couple of weeks - from inertia if nothing else. I'm also more cynical about these games than any before - was anyone surprised when China broke the promises it made to get the games in the first place? I know it's all supposed to be about participation, etc, but does anyone believe the Olympics is about anything other than money these days?

There's also been talk in recent days of increasing funding for sports if we want success in London. Rolleyes. I'd be interested to see the government spend on sport, art and education per capita, because my feeling (without any evidence) is that we already spend too much on sport.

Another day of joining all the other worker drones in our hive. Bzz, bzz. At least it's Friday.

Well not quite.

I did go for a run after work, so I'm quite pleased with myself. The good news is that I wasn't particularly puffed, so aerobically I am relatively fit. The bad news is my legs got tired and sore, so that will be my challenge. My next run will be tomorrow morning.

Training starts today. I *will* go for a 30 minute run when I get home from work. Yay.

On my way home from work yesterday (I left a bit earlier than I have been recently) the sky to the west was still slightly light. Summer's coming! I need to keep that in mind while I'm sitting freezing my bits off.

We had a fantastic time at karaoke last night. Instead of being in a roomful of strangers as I expected, we had our own little room. Just brilliant and lots of fun. I drank too much and stayed out a bit later than I had originally thought, but I'm glad we did it and I hope we do it again.

Had an early appointment at Estetica this morning and feel like I have been on the go ever since. I went into work for a few hours, which was good because I actually did what I said I was going to do, but bad because I only accomplished one thing off my to-do list. God only knows how long it would have taken me if I'd tried to do it during normal working hours. I think I'll go in again tomorrow and get a start on the other task that I had hoped to get to today.

I set up my worm farm tonight in the garage. Happily my worms were still alive. I saved the vegie peelings from dinner and I'm keen to feed them to the worms. Must remember not to kill them with kindness. I'm also looking forward to using the water that's currently wasted while I wait for the shower to heat up.

The Tour de France started tonight, so if I think I'm tired now, I suspect it's going to get worse over the next couple of weeks.

The closer we get to go live, the more anxious I become. My to do list gets longer by the day.

This last week has seen the accidental unearthing of uninformed decisions and data problems. I'm frustrated with both the vendor and our PM. The vendor does implementations of this system (just the one) all the time, they should have it down to a fine art - there should be a checklist of tasks and data validation required. Don't get me wrong, the people themselves are great people who are good at what they do, it's their company's processes, rather the lack thereof, that is shit.

The other thing that's making me tear my hair out is that decisions are being made without the necessary people being involved/consulted, which is a problem in itself, but those decisions aren't being documented/communicated either. Not only are we finding things out this late in the game, we're stumbling across them.

I'll go into work tomorrow and hopefully make some sort of dent in the list, maybe Sunday as well if required. I have completely dropped the pretense that I will do any work if I bring it home.

It's not all work and no fun - we're off to karaoke tonight. I still haven't decided whether I will get up and sing - maybe in a group but definitely not on my own!

Weighed in last night and am currently 1.4kg above goal. Thinking about it, I'd probably like to get back to a little under goal prior to going to Sydney to give me some buffer against being out of my routine.

Training for the fun run starts next week. That should help - assuming I actually do it! I have my watch fixed now so there's no excuses.

I attended a workshop run for our local council on worm farming last night, and I am now the proud owner of a worm farm. It seems pretty straightforward and I took notes and paid very close attention. I am a bit worried that I'll do something wrong and kill them. I'm looking forward to being able to recycle our vegie scraps. And make some use of some shower water (while I'm waiting for it to heat up). Look at me, Miss Green!

There only ended up being three of us for dinner last night, and as well as being a very yummy meal, we had a good old chat. A bit depressing at times but friendship is as much about sharing the bad times as the good.

We didn't have any spicy dishes, but the table next to us did, which affected us. At one stage, I couldn't inhale without coughing. That's spicy!

We went to my in-laws for lunch today as they have some relatives over from Scotland on holiday. We spent a very pleasant afternoon chatting and eating. It makes me realise how much I like my family.

I'm off to dinner tonight with some girlfriends. We're trying somewhere new Ninniku Jip so hopefully that will turn out alright.

I got up a bit early this morning and managed two and a half hours of work. I didn't get everything done that I needed to, and I could probably squeeze in another hour or so before going out, but I think I might spend some time out in the garden instead.

I decided on the bring-work-home option to try and make a dent in my ever expanding work to-do list, and what am I doing? Spending hours online going through emails that aren't important, reading message boards and posting in my blog. I can't help but be amused at myself.

Other things I "need" to do before I fire up my lap-top include lunch (legitimate but I can see it dragging out to include reading the paper, doing the crossword, etc) and having a shower (again a legitimate activity, though not actually required *before* I do some work). No doubt I will think of some more in the meantime. Maybe a nap, some Pilates and before I know it, it will be time to start dinner.

The thing is that I *know* I need to do this to keep from drowning at work and to relieve some of the pressure I am feeling every day, especially because it is not going to get better, and will likely get worse, for realistically the next month. But part of me wants a break from work - just a couple of days of not worrying about anything.

Sigh. The stupid part is, I know myself well enough to know this would likely happen, and nevertheless convinced myself that bringing the work home would be the best choice.

I'm feeling a little pressured at work so I decided to bring something home to do that I need to get done by cob tomorrow.

I made myself a cuppa and fired up the computer ... only to discover that the fucking document is a PDF and I can't edit it. Fuck! Admittedly I should have checked before I saved it, but I was in a rush to leave work and besides, who the fuck sends out a document for comment in PDF?! PISSED OFF!!

Normally I would be looking forward to tomorrow because it's Friday, but all I can think about is everything I have to try and cram into the work day. I know I'll need to do some work on the weekend (which doesn't particularly bother me), but I'm trying to decide whether to bring the work home (which worked so well *last* weekend) or go into work (which costs me travel time and is less convenient). The weather is supposed to be shit on the weekend, which means I am less likely to be distracted if I stay at home. Does that sound like a justification to anyone else?

I ran into my neighbour at the bus stop the other day and he reminded me that the winter solstice occurred this weekend (well Friday technically). Hoorah! I know it seems like a weird thing to cheer (for a non-pagan), but I hate winter so much, anything that even vaguely indicates a return to summer (like the days progressively getting longer) deserves celebration.