Archives for February 2008

Those annoying squiggly lines in Word

February 12, 2008 by Jen

Last night JJ was practising typing his words on the computer (I also made him write them). He was going quite well, as well as he could with the dodgy keyboard that doesn’t recognise when you’re pressing on some letters, until he started completely losing it. I was in the kitchen preparing dinner and ignored him for a bit then the noise reached a crescendo that I couldn’t stand any more.

I went out to see what the problem was and he told me he was really upset about the squiggly red and green lines underneath the words. (For those unfamiliar with Word, if you have spelling and grammar checking as you type turned on it creates these squiggly lines if it thinks your spelling and/or grammar is incorrect.)

As dinner was nearly ready I told him to shut down the computer and explained to him that all he had needed to do was ask me if I could get rid of the squiggly lines.

Talk about sweating the small stuff!

Life

February 11, 2008 by Jen

I didn’t really know what to call this post – ‘Life’s a bitch, then you die’ would have been quite apt. I got one of those early morning phone calls. Mum called while I was in the shower and JJ said she would ring back so I knew it wasn’t anything major to do with her. There’s another reason that she wouldn’t be ringing me today and that’s because it’s her birthday and you’re supposed to receive calls on your birthday, not make them. So while I was in the shower all the worst thoughts were going through my head.

Mum rang back just as I finished drying off and started by saying that it was bad news. She was right. My cousin was killed in a car accident. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I already lost a cousin around this time last year in a car accident. He had a head on with another car and died. This time, my cousin – the other cousin’s half brother – hit a tree and was killed. His brother-in-law found him early this morning. I’ve taken the day off work because I still can’t believe it and know that I wouldn’t be able to function at work.

His mum and dad had been away for the weekend ‘celebrating’ the other cousin’s birthday and now they have to face going back home to another dead son. I can’t even begin to imagine how they are feeling. Distraught would be an understatement. And this cousin leaves behind a wife and three children.

So, mum, sorry your 67th birthday will be a bit shitful, but at least we celebrated the other night.

I went, I spoke, I conquered

February 7, 2008 by Jen

I gave my first ever conference presentation the other day. In fact it was more a cosy seminar type situation. Nevertheless it’s the first time I’ve ever been asked to speak at something like this so for two months prior I wrote and practised my presentation.

It went off without a hitch. The technology worked and it all went pretty well. I didn’t stumble too much. There were a couple of moments where I thought people were going to ask questions but they didn’t so I mumbled something and moved on. Questions were asked afterwards and they were easily dealt with and a couple of people talked to me about it after that. I’d say that if I was a complete failure everyone would have been too embarrassed to say anything. Now that it’s over I feel a bit lost because I’ve been focusing on it so much.

It’s a lot of mind over matter with something like this. I really had to train myself to think positively so I could get through it without having an anxiety attack. Even if I never do something like this again, I know I can do it. But would I do it again? I honestly can’t answer that. It was a lot of work to undertake outside of work hours (most of my prep was done during my holidays) and while I’ve benefitted personally it will be interesting to see if there are any other benefits – not that I’m expecting any.

I’m not keen on a 4am wakeup time which is what I did on Monday to get to Sydney to present at 1.30pm. I made the mistake of having a coffee after dinner which then kept me awake till around 11pm or so. So by the time I back to Adelaide I had a bit of a headache and had an early night Tuesday night and a really good night’s sleep. JJ had missed me. He said my sister was really bossy and we established that she’s even more bossy than me!

It was raining all day in Sydney on Monday and I hoped to bring some of it back here to Adelaide with me. I may have got my wish as we’ve had a couple of showers today and hopefully there will be more.

View from below

February 3, 2008 by Jen

I’ve been meaning to take the camera to the park on our daily walks for a while because one day we were lying on the ground looking up at the blue sky through the trees and we both thought it would make a lovely photo.

I did take some photos like that but I also took this one. I like how the subject has become the leaves and the grass on the ground but you can still make out the boy (my son) with his arm around our dog in the background. I’m submitting this for a photo challenge by Neil Creek for photos taken from the ground or very close to it. It was a complete coincidence that this photo fits the bill timewise and otherwise.

A day at the Port

February 2, 2008 by Jen

I’m a bit behind on writing about activities we’ve done in the last couple of weeks. Somehow going back to work and now school has taken over.

Two weeks ago today we went to Port Adelaide to the Maritime Museum and then did some real touristy stuff afterwards. It’s kind of comforting being a tourist in your own town. You know that your car is parked not far away and you’re not too far from home where there is a comfortable bed.

After the Maritime Museum, and watching the pirate show (I also took photos of this but it warrants its own post), we decided to climb this lighthouse. The lighthouse is quite small and there’s a small set of narrow spiral stairs going up through the middle. Somehow the up and down traffic sorts itself out and waits where necessary. I was wearing a swirly skirt which was fine until I climbed the ladder bit at the end and the wind blew my skirt up. This was okay going up, but coming down I found out there was a group of people waiting to go up so goodness knows what sort of view they got.

We had a good view up the top of the lighthouse and we also had a good view of the dinosaur sand sculptures. I had planned on paying to go in and see this but after seeing it from the lighthouse decided not to. Instead we did the Port River dolphin cruise which cost half the price and occupied us for one and a half hours. We even saw a couple of dolphins. JJ also got talking to and playing with a couple of boys.

I love it how kids usually don’t have inhibitions to meet other kids, although for some reason this doesn’t seem to happen at school. I’ve noticed a couple of times JJ go up to kids he doesn’t know and start talking to them when we’re out and about. He gets on fine with them but at school I think because of his sometimes being silly he’s earned himself a reputation as a kid that others just don’t want to play with. Just to digress slightly from being a tourist in our own town JJ was very excited this week because he and another boy who’ve been in the same class since they started school 18 months ago have started playing together. This other boy has realised that JJ is not a bully and is okay to play with. He’s even said he’d invite JJ to his birthday, which probably won’t be for another few months as they are very close in age I imagine and by then might be back to non-friends.

Back to the cruise. I love being out on boats. I love the different view you get than from a car or from walking and I just love the peacefulness of the water, despite being on a boat run by an engine.

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