Archives for June 2008

Now he is seven

June 28, 2008 by Jen

JJ turned seven on Thursday. It’s taken me two days to get around to writing this post because of birthday celebrations and work.

He was very excited to get a Playstation 2 for his birthday. This present had been a long time coming. Around the beginning of the year he informed me that he would like a remote control game, ie a Playstation. I thought that one of these days I would get it for him, then I decided that he should earn some of it himself. Therefore the weekly money earning chart was born. For undertaking certain daily tasks, behavioural and helping around the house tasks, he would earn a certain amount of money. Some of this money was to go towards the Playstation.

I put one on layby a couple of months ago – there’s plenty of bundles that you can get if you keep your eye out and we got the console, a carry case and a game for not much more than the price of a new console by itself.

A couple of weeks ago, just before the layby period was to finish, we raided his money jar and went to the shop to get it off layby. He ended up paying about one quarter of the purchase price and it sat in my room until Thursday.

He opened it up Thursday morning and we plugged it in and got it going. I soon realised that to save games we would need a memory card. We couldn’t play for long anyhow because he had school and I had a busy day at work.

I did write JJ a note on his sandwich paper for his school lunch.

I left work early and we went to see Kung Fu Panda. I asked JJ what he thought of it afterwards and he said he didn’t like, but he LOVED it – it was brilliant. It was good to hear him truly laughing during the movie as his laugh is so infectious. He will probably go and see it again as a friend has said she will take him to see a movie for his birthday present and I don’t recall any other suitable movies being out at the moment in time for school holidays.

Afterwards we got fish and chips (his favourite food) and went home. My sister came around with another Playstation game and after eating we cranked it up again. By this time JJ’s Nanna’s birthday money paid for a memory card, which we bought after the movie, so we could save the games.

The cake pictured above was for last weekend’s festivities which JJ informed me was much more fun here than at the football. Here’s some more pictures of the cake from last weekend.

To top his birthday off, he thanked me the next morning for a great birthday and for his presents which he really likes. Happy seventh year darlin’.

The great outdoors

June 25, 2008 by Jen

The world is a small place until you look up into the sky and realise there’s a whole lot more space out there.

I get lost looking at the clouds, especially when they look like this.

I’ve submitted this for this week’s Photo Friday.

The eyes have it

June 24, 2008 by Jen

Just over 20 years ago I was in my first job where I used a computer a lot – they had me working like a slave over many documents. Consequently my eyes started to hurt. Not too far down the track I got my first pair of spectacles – nice big framed 1980s ones which I still have because I can’t throw out a perfectly good pair of glasses. Never mind that I will probably never wear them again and even if I did the lenses would need to be changed. I’m long sighted and staring at a computer screen all day gave me bad eye strain, hence the glasses alleviating that pain.

I’ve cruised through the past 20 years with two new pairs of glasses and not too much of a change in strength. That is, until recently. In the last year or so I’ve noticed that I have to read things in good light otherwise it’s just too hard. I’ve also noticed that it takes longer to get something at the right distance and in focus so it’s comfortable for my eyes to read.

As it had been two years since my last eye check I went and had another one and the outcome was that I needed to upgrade my glasses because my eyesight had deteriorated markedly since my last prescription about four to five years ago.

There is a name for this eyesight deterioration. The common name is ‘You are now 40 plus and your eyesight is deserting you along with your youth’ and the more scientific name is Presbyopia.

Because my new glasses are much stronger from my old ones they took a while to get used to. It’s also made me realise that this is just the beginning of eyesight deterioration. They aren’t going to get any better and I will soon be at the stage where I will need to take my glasses everywhere so I can read. I haven’t got bi-focal glasses as I couldn’t face that just yet. So if someone talks to me at work I peer over the top of my glasses. It reminds me of watching people doing exactly the same thing. Soon my glasses will be perched on the end of my nose when I’m not doing closeup work because I can’t be bothered taking them off.

At the moment my glasses stay in my work handbag because work’s the main place I use them. If I’m doing a longish stint on the computer at home (like now) I’ll put them on but I still read books and the newspaper without them.

I can see a time where I will need to keep them on me at all times so I can read the labels on grocery products and menus at restaurants when I’m out.

An afternoon at the footy

June 22, 2008 by Jen

Yesterday afternoon 13 of us went to see an Australian Football League (AFL) game. Let me say that I’m not a fan of the footy as we call it but being at a game is different than sitting down and watching it on telly. It was also JJ’s birthday outing – he will be seven on Thursday.

The leadup to the afternoon footy outing was horrendous. I was accused of his lordship being bored. As I reminded him more than once I was busy preparing for most of the 13 to come back to our place after the game for dinner. Because the attention was not focused on himself he was particularly awful to be around so by the time people started rocking up to our place I was ready to just stay home and leave them all to it. It’s sometimes very hard to act like the adult in this relationship!

Things, however, got a lot better. We caught one of the footy express buses to the game and it was great. It took half an hour from door to door and because we had tickets for the game it was free. We didn’t have to worry about driving there or finding a park.

We arrived an hour before kick-off so we had some time to kill but there is plenty going on around the place from activities for the kids to just people watching. These big blocks were a winner.

It was also a good opportunity to catch up with a couple of friends that came along while making sure the kids didn’t run off, but by the time they’d curbed their over-excitedness they were fairly bearable. Toward the end of the game JJ even sat by himself just watching the game.

I also enjoyed taking the camera for an outing – it’s been a while, and I love the photo below. Not sure what he’s so excited about but it makes me smile just looking at it. JJ took this one! We were in the east stand and the sun shone in our eyes for the first half of the game and it was quite warm. I didn’t need my warm woollen coat at all. I ended up using it for a cushion.

It’s easy to get distracted from watching the actual game. The guy with the beard behind us in this photo was very vocal and had lots to say about the umpires. There were some Richmond supporters nearby who got pretty drunk. One of them looked very seedy at the end of the game and ended up vomiting. JJ stood nearby mouth agape until he finally heard me calling to him to come along as we were going.

I did, however, take some photos of the game and this guy was about to kick a goal.

At the end of the game JJ informed me that he hadn’t had a good time and maybe it’s not his thing, but everyone else enjoyed themselves and we’ve decided to make it an annual event. I’ll just leave JJ home next time. There are more photos here.

Cardigans are my favourite

June 17, 2008 by Jen

For a long time I’ve loved cardigans. They’re great to wear because of their ease of getting on and off. I’m sure there’s other reasons I love cardigans but I can’t think of any right now.

I used to be known as Jen Cardigan ……. because that was all I wore. This name even got lengthened to Jen Off The Shoulder Cardigan …… (the dots are my last name).

I bought this cardigan because who couldn’t resist this type of detail? I used to have a similar cardigan but it wore out and had to be thrown out. I spent more on this cardigan than I spend on most of my clothes because I’d received a couple of vouchers for a second-hand clothing shop and bought some great stuff there, including this.

In fact, one day, I thought I’d go to this shop to use my voucher but spent at least one hour looking for it and still couldn’t find it. I rang the shop and as they don’t keep records of these things they couldn’t replace it but suggested I look in my handbag. I’d already looked in all my handbags to no avail, but I had another look – a proper one this time – and it turned up.

When I used to knit more prolifically than I do now I knitted some cardigans.

I bought this mohair wool when in Melbourne in around 1986 from a little shop in the city somewhere. I originally started knitting a jumper but realised that I wouldn’t have enough wool so unpicked what I’d done and found a cardigan pattern and this was the result. This was the cardigan responsible for the Off The Shoulder name mentioned above.

I wear it a lot in winter and JJ was born in winter so I wore it a lot for the first few months of his life. He was one of those babies who threw up a lot after feeds and despite wearing towels over my shoulders, his vomit invariably ended up on my clothes. I distinctly remember handwashing all my winter woolies that year.

This is acrylic I bought when still going out with my ex-boyfriend about ten years ago. It took nearly that long to make but I eventually finished it a few years ago. It is really warm. I wore it the other night and had no need to put a coat over the top to keep me warm because this was warm enough.

Now I feel like getting out the knitting needles and knitting another cardigan. Perhaps I will!

Photo blog popularity

June 16, 2008 by Jen

I’ve written a post over on the Aussie bloggers blog about the popularity of photo blogs. Am interested to know what you think.

An eye full of colour

June 13, 2008 by Jen

Around 20 years ago I used to go out a lot. I was into seeing live music and for a while hung around two girls, one of whom wore lots of makeup all the time. Unfortunately I’ve lost touch with these girls but we had lots of fun.

We were getting ready to go out one night and for some reason her Piaf eyeshadow (like the pictured above) came out and she decorated my eyelids. She recommended I go and buy my own. Not long after I was in the Piaf shop and bought the eyeshadow pictured above.

Obviously I don’t wear lots of eyeshadow all the time otherwise this would be long gone, but I put some on the other night and it brought back memories of these two girls and the times we had when we went out.

I also realised that for relatively cheap eyeshadow – I think it was about $20 for all these colours – the eyeshadow is quite good. Eyeshadow and me don’t have a lasting relationship. Some people seem to be able to put it on and it stays on for hours, but inevitably with me it will come off. However, this eyeshadow lasts that bit longer.

It’s also been really handy for the numerous 70s nights I’ve gone to because I’ve been able to plaster on blue eyeshadow. No matter what outfit I wear, there’s a colour to match.

I guess you could say when I’m in the mood for makeup, this is the cream.