Shopping at Ikea is So Easy...?

As many of you know, outside of the Apple Store on Regent Street, IKEA would have to be my most favourite store on the planet. Oh the joy, the sheer exhilarance of wandering around the gorgeous displays, dreaming about the endless possibilities - how you, too, could have an IKEA dream home for a reasonable price - the only limit (other than your pocket) is your imagination. It makes me literally dizzy with excitement. And to top it all off, you can have a (relatively cheap) yummy lunch of meatballs with lingonberry sauce - oh it takes me back to Sweden and the Icehotel...fabulous...

So of course, every available chance I get, off I choof to IKEA. Well, its not like I have a real lot else to do! The fact that the nearest store to me is no longer 3 miles away is irrelevant - no, that just adds to the adventure. Its at least an hour long journey now to my nearest store, the only one in Queensland (although apparently that's set to change with one being proposed at North Lakes) - and I relish every minute of the trip, psyching myself up for the buzz of wandering those hallowed showrooms, soaking up that IKEA millieu...

Alas, my last few journeys have unfortunately not been "all that". First of all, I've had literally no money with which to shop - so I've had to gaze longingly at the lovely items, pick them up if possible, play with them, sniff them, drool over them - and return them to the shelf. Except for my most expensive IKEA purchase to date - my bed. I was so pleased with that purchase, a piece of 'proper' IKEA, not the sort of quasi IKEA stuff I'd been buying (you know, small storage boxes, a dish scrubber and the like - the small stuff). A real proper thing - fantastic.

Except for the mattress. To be honest, I really have a lot of problems with mattresses lately. I guess its just because I'm getting older, but it seems to me that particularly in the last few years, I've had a lot of back problems if I sleep on a mattress which is too soft. Mattresses are a really difficult thing to get right. Luckily though, IKEA have the 'love it and exchange it' policy - which means that you can try the mattress at home, and if its not suitable, bring it back and exchange for another within that specific brand. There are a few other terms and conditions, but that's essentially it.

Well anyway, this mattress has been giving me a bit of gip, so finally I decided to take it back and exchange for a firmer one. Out we trot to IKEA - Dad needing to come too as I don't have a bullbar on my car so I can't tow a trailer - and I return the mattress. We then have a quick spot of lunch and head off to the showroom to try out the others.

Eventually I selected one that I liked - some $400 dearer mind you, but nonetheless, I thought it would be ok. So I tell the salesperson which one I've selected and then she does a check on the stock levels. Alas, they're out of stock. Hmm. What to do now - my original mattress has already been taken away...

I went back down to the exchange counter and explained the dilemma. She, too, had a look and discovered the stocks were out, so we set about setting up a 'case file' so that the new one could be ordered. She told me the difference in price - and it was $50 more than I thought it would be. Why? Well it turns out that the salesperson had given me the code for the Queen size - but I wanted a Double. Quickly the lady checked - and it seemed that they did actually have a Double in stock. Great, I'll take it. So she cancelled the previous paperwork and set about arranging for the correct mattress. Meanwhile, she was now technically working overtime, as she should've finished at 4, so when the paperwork was in order, she told me all I had to do was wait til my number was called, and it would be ok. 4.30 came and went. 4.45 passed. 5.00 too. Then at 5.15, (15 minutes after the store had closed), I was informed that there were no Doubles in stock! Problem!

'Cos now of course my other mattress has well and truly gone - and its getting late - and I don't have a bed to sleep in!

So the long and short of it is, I've got to sleep on my dodgy pull out sofa bed for a week until a new mattress comes in!

Kind of makes you re-think this photo then, eh?

A Month of Birthdays...

July has been one very difficult month for me, in terms of my diet. This is because this is the month of many birthdays in our family - 4th - Mel, 14th - Dad, 27th - Beck... so its pretty huge.

We chose to celebrate them this time with family dinners at Mum and Dad's. This has actually been quite good, although I have been very surprised at just how loud it is - when you have 7 adults and 5 kids all crowded around one small table, it is very, very NOISY! (in a nice enough way, I suppose).

It has been lovely to be able to spend these times with the family (although very hard-hitting on the old pocket, I assure you - and the hips) - and we've got round 4 tonight with Mum and Dad's 40th wedding anniversary... oy ve!

Anyway, here are some pics... alas I don't seem to have any of Mel's sorry, but if I get some I'll put them up here...

Dad's Birthday

Beck's Birthday

Desperate Times...

Well, I know I haven't posted here for a while, but boy has there been some stuff going on. Alas, all the concerns are ones to do with that one thing that causes everyone much concern... yes, I am speaking of money, and especially the lack thereof.

You see, as many of you know, I have 2 "investment" properties that I rent out - and I am currently renting the place I live in. Unfortunately, the cost of living in Brisbane over the last 10 years has seriously escalated, and it is not unheard of for me to have to spend quite a large whack of my salary on everyday necessities... you know... food...electricity...a roof over my head...

With the setup costs of moving into my flat, things have been somewhat tight, and I have had to go without a lot. I've also had to swallow my pride, and ask for help where needed - like with furniture, a fridge, a tv... and its been tough. It's been particularly tough to do without internet at home - but that's because I don't want to be locked in to a contract, so of course in that instance you pay more for the set up and so on, but once you're connected, you're pretty much on even stevens with everyone else. But I've been getting by with going to McDonalds and using the free wi-fi there, when it works, and stuff like that. Its a pain, but do-able.

I've had to make do with crap TV too, because unless you have Foxtel, there's nothing really worth watching on the box. In the past my way around this has been to watch lots of DVDs - but of course here, they're region 4, not 2, and my Mac isn't as easy to hack as a PC and get around the region encoding. Plus, why would I change everything to region 4 when I have a load of region 2 DVDs in my collection? So I bought an external DVD-Rom from Cash Converters to attach to my Mac, but recently that has been going belly up - and I don't own a DVD player for the TV. So no movies or anything for me. Just crap telly.

Anyway, I was sort of making do, and getting by ok, until recently. One of my tenants has moved out - and the real estate agents as yet haven't found anyone else to move in. This leaves me with a substantial mortgage to pay on top of my already very high living costs. Not good. Then today I found out that the other tenant is moving out next month! How am I going to manage?

I mean, as it is, my grocery bill is as minimal as I can make it - and therefore my diet is not very interesting, bit like eating cardboard, really. So how on earth will I afford all of this?

I just don't know... these are desperate times, indeed...

Menopause: The Musical

Now before you think I've completely lost it - this actually was surprisingly quite good! Last night, Mum, Mel and I went to see this musical at the Gardens Theatre, QUT. I was a bit apprehensive - hey, its a theatre in a University after all - but I had heard good reviews and thought that it could be a bit of a laugh. Plus, its Mel's birthday this weekend, so the tickets make a perfect birthday present, right? Well, aside from the intimation that another year older, another year closer to the big M...

Anyway, I picked Mum up earlier in the day at Chermside (after returning the boys to their mother there - having endured the awful Land of the Lost movie - how that got a PG rating I'll never know!) and we made our way back to the flat for a cuppa and to wait for Mel. Mel rocked up around 6ish and we headed into town, grabbing a very quick bite at some Chinese restaurant in George St or something.

We made it in good time to the show, and settled down to a very fine evening of laughter. This musical uses old 60s, 70s, 80s songs to get across their humorous viewpoint on the menopause. It was soooo funny!

If you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it.. Menopause: The Musical!

School Holidays Week One

This week was the first in two of school holidays for the Winter. To be honest, it hasn't really been all that cold, and has at times felt more like the Summer holidays in London, with the exception that I only have 2 weeks off, and not 6. Bummer. But we'll take holidays any way we can get them. Anyway, for the most part, I have been unpacking the flat - a mundane way to spend the holidays, but hey, with no money, and with distance being somewhat of a problem, there was never going to be any chance of going someplace exotic anyway - so might as well spend the time at home unpacking the flat and sleeping in as doing anything else. The only hitch was that I knew for sure I would have the boys to look after on the Thursday - other than that, my time was my own. So I made plans to meet some of my colleagues at the Art Gallery on Wednesday to see the American Impressionist and Realist Exhibition. This actually was quite impressive, because its the first time that these paintings have been seen outside of America. The reason for it is that the paintings are on loan from The Met, because they are refurbishing a wing in their gallery, so rather than store the paintings somewhere where no one can appreciate them, they shipped them off to Australia. Sounds a bit like the paintings are convicts, eh? Anyway, for $20 you can see some pretty impressive paintings, plus have a free (volunteer, of course - so they can't be held liable for the quality of information they deliver) tour guide through the exhibition. It was actually pretty good. To be fair, I had a bit of a quick squizz at the rest of the Art Gallery too, and the verdict is - Brisbane is definitely on the up for Arts stuff. Especially as the main Art Gallery is actually free.

The next day I was on duty - babysitting duty, that is. I had my nephews come stay with me for 2 days - daunting for some, and to be fair, at the end I was ready to hand them back - not because they had been naughty, because they had been really well behaved, but because I am too old to keep up that level of energy!

The first day we went on the City Cat, which is the city ferry along the river. Its actually a really good service, quite reasonably priced, and a cheap way to entertain kids for a bit. We stopped off at New Farm Park first of all, and the boys had a bit of a climb on the big Moreton Bay Figs there. After that, we discovered a free AFL clinic run by the Brisbane Lions, so they had a go at that, before making our way back on the City Cat to the South Bank. The South Bank is now an area in the heart of the city that was previously used for Expo 88. It has lots of lovely cafes and restaurants, as well as a man-made beach, a small rainforest, and a large piazza for often free entertainment. The 'Wheel of Brisbane' (aka the "Brisbane Eye" - not a jot on the London Eye, I might add, but the concept is there) is also there, and it is adjacent to a couple of museums and the Queensland Performing Arts complex, so its pretty good. The boys had an absolute ball! First of all we had a spot of lunch, then off for a Cold Rock icecream (easily the best icecream in the world) and then we sat and watched a street performer for a bit. He was actually pretty good. After this, we made our way down to the Queensland Maritime Museum. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical - and even more so when I saw the price. So I asked the boys if they wanted to go in. Lach had a quick peek and said "Nup. Not interested" but Haz marched straight up to the ticket attendant and asked if they have anything about the Titanic inside (Harry is absolutely fascinated with the Titanic). Sure enough, they had a bit of a model on the 2nd floor - so that was that, off we went. And I'm glad we did (as are the boys) because although the inside of the museum was a bit naff - mostly models of boats, and the occasional real boat - the outside though was very cool. Outside the museum in dry-dock is an old Royal Australian frigate from WWII called the "Diamantina". The boys had a complete field day! They climbed all on, around and through the ship, from the bridge down to the engine room. It seemed that each new corner they went around brought forth more whoops, gasps and excited calls of astonishment! But the piece de resistance would have to have been the gun turrets. They still have working winches on them, so they boys could wind the winch and reposition the guns. Oh boy did they have fun! We were easily at this museum a good 2 1/2 hours. After this, it was starting to get a bit dark, so it was time to get the City Cat back home. The boys stayed overnight and we watched Star Wars, which Harry is just starting to get in to. The next day I had them only for the morning, as we went off to see Land of the Lost. That movie has a PG rating but it was so full of innuendo that it was embarassing to sit there and watch it with kids aged 10 and 8. Anyway, here is the slideshow that Lach made about their "Boys Day Out"!

Movin' on Up - or Should That Be In...?

So this past weekend I finally bit the bullet and moved out and into a small, one-bedroomed flat in Nundah. This has been a good move for me but has proved to be somewhat expensive as I this is the first time in my life (how sad is that) that I have lived on my own in Australia, and therefore the first time that I have ever needed furniture, kitchen appliances and so on. This is no mean feat to try and set up on an extremely limited budget, particularly when one is having to pay quite a lot in terms of bond and the first few weeks rent, so as a result, I am 4 days into the current pay period and have less than a 1/4 of my pay left to last me for 10 days. Especially not good when you consider I still don't have everything I need, and its school holidays - so I'm being expected to take nephews and neices to movies and outings and so on - and I don't even have enough to fill the car, or pay the groceries - let alone all of that. Oh well. Mr Visa will have to help out - again...!

But it is nice to finally be in my own place! When I get proper internet access there, and when I get things unpacked and so on, then I will finally upload some shots.

Meanwhile I am currently reliant on the free wifi at McDonalds, which is fine except that everyone here in the food court is looking at me like I'm a knob or something...

Gabrielle Emily Head: A Dedication

Yesterday was my lovely niece Gabrielle's dedication at the Salvation Army, North Brisbane. It was a lovely day, despite the weather being inclement, because both Nanny and Grandma were able to be there, as well as the whole family. Nanny hasn't been well, and it really was the first time she's been properly out of the house since Mal left. It was lovely too because my Aunt, Kathy, was able to be there too, making the family as complete as it could be.

After the service we had a sausage sizzle at Beck's in-laws, which was lovely.

I volunteered for the task of preparing the video presentation for the service, a task I enjoyed very much but because I am somewhat out of practice with my editing, found took an inordinately long time to complete. Essentially I worked on it every night for a week - and then on Saturday completely abolished all but 2 or 3 clips, and re-worked the whole thing using one of several animoto clips I had prepared to 'give me an idea of how the flow of the photos would work'. Anyway, here it is, hope you enjoy:

And this version has the little 'coda' I wanted to show - but it would've detracted from Gabby's day...

A Very Expensive Lesson

Recently I was housesitting for a friend. It was a great experience, and certainly one that I would do again, especially as in this instance, the flat is really a very large one, and very close to a relatively big shopping centre, which meant that I spent quite a lot of time leisurely window shopping (well, sort of window shopping - I would look in the window, then go in and buy the item!).

My friend was really very generous in the housesit, giving me free reign of all the things in her flat, even having stocked up a few essential items in the grocery department and so on, and letting me have free reign of her foxtel etc. She even offered, very generously, the use of her computer and internet, with its very fast connection. Fantastic!

There's only one catch to all this. You see, in Australia, the internet companies are really very monopolising, and I am not aware of a single one (perhaps someone can enlighten me) that offers, for personal use, unlimited downloads. Each provider sets a phenomenally low limit - 2GB, 4GB - in usage per month. Now you think about it, in this day and age, it is really not very hard to reach and overtake those sort of limits with the size of files these days. So, not wanting to overstep the mark with regards to this, I asked my friend what her limit was. 4GB, she told me. Ok, sweet - I know not to use the computer very much then.

But alas, during that time, in the UK the BBC was showing "The Apprentice", my all-time favourite show. And I had been very lucky in finding a very special thing, called "My Private Network", that allows me to connect to a UK based ISP so as to fool the BBC into thinking that I am accessing their site in the UK, and thus allowing me to watch (streamed) their recent TV shows. This meant that I would be able to keep up to date with the happenings of the show.

Alas, although my friend's service is quite fast, the time of day I was accessing it meant that the rest of the world was watching too, and so you would get 1 or 2 seconds of show, then it would 'buffer' again. For those who don't know, 'buffer' means 'send a little spinning wheel around the screen, pausing the picture and waiting for a good 30 seconds before resuming again for no apparent reason'. So it essentially rendered the watching of this show virtually impossible.

However, the BBC have recently introduced the ability to download their programmes - not to keep, no, they expire in a week or so - but it means that you don't have the stupid buffering thing going on. And, helpfully, they let you know what the size of the download will be before you do it.

So, knowing my friend has a limit of 4GB per month, and having been given carte blanche to use the internet, I allowed myself the very small luxury of downloading during the course of the 2 weeks, 2 episodes of this programme - the sum total of about 1.2GB all up. That's ok, that's within her limits - sweet.

No. Not sweet. For when she returned on the Sunday she informed me that her ISP provider had emailed to say she had gone 2GB over her limit! 2GB! And all I can think of is having used only 1.2GB for the total amount of time I was there!

But that's not the worst of it, no, not by a long shot. She then informs me that the cost for this is charged as an excess fee, at the rate of - you ready for this - 15cents per MB! 15 cents per MB! Seeing as how there is something like 1024MB in 1GB - this is a problem - at the rate of 15 cents per MB, I'm looking at at least $184! For 2 episodes of "The Apprentice"! And I can't even keep them - I only had them for a week each!

In actual fact, I've now been informed that the total bill for this '2GB over limit' malarkey is a whopping $279! But what I don't understand, is how 2 episodes, which should be about 1.2GB all up, is nearer to the full 2GB!

The moral of this story is, if you are housesitting for a friend, and are going to use their internet - find out if they are near the end of their billing cycle or not, and then - DON'T USE IT! AT ALL!

What a total waste of money... and a very expensive lesson...

Camping With The Boys

So this past weekend I decided to get in a little family time with my sister Mel and her tribe, so I stayed over for the weekend.  Now there's staying over the normal way, and staying over my way.  We did, of course, my way.

Which involved me bringing my tent over to Mel's property to set up camp in the backyard for 2 days with 2 little boys.  It was absolutely fab, we had a brilliant time.  The boys and I set up the camp, then Kevan and Lach built a little campfire for us to cook dinner on - we had a sausage sizzle - and then Mel brought out some marshmallows which we proceeded to roast over the campfire.  After this we even had a little sing song!  What a fab evening we had!

Bethany though, at one point in the evening was getting a bit fractious, so we let her out of the high chair (yes, a campfire with a high chair) and took her over to the tent.  She thought it was just wonderful, she was jumping up and down on the mattress and flinging herself face forwards into the sleeping bags.  So funny to watch.

Later on in the evening, Mel, Kev and Bethany made their way back to the house, and Lach, Haz and I settled in for the night.  It was really quite funny - there was Lach on one side, with my iPhone, playing Wolfenstein 3D and generally making himself gloriously sick, and on the other side, there was Harry, with my iPod, watching Home Alone.  What a social bunch we were!

Slept quite well that first night, except for one thing.  Whereas both boys had blow up airbeds, I had a piece of thin foam on top of a doona to sleep on.  Suffice to say it was somewhat thin for my rather robust frame.  Coupled with the fact that I was squeezed in the middle between the two boys, and you get the picture.  Nonetheless, sleep did eventually overtake me, and I do recall my eyes having been closed for at least a short period of the evening.

The next day we had a glorious fried breakfast before heading out to Mel's church for the service.  That over, it was back to Chateau le Goff for a spot of lunch, and then the hard work began.  The clean up.  

Not the clean up of the camp - no - I mean the house.  A houseful of boys and a very little girl can only mean one thing - disaster zone.  So the boys were each set tasks and we set to it - the dangling carrot being the reward of Cold Rock and Gamezone if we were successful.  Suffice to say with that as our reward - we were!  So off to Cold Rock and Gamezone...

...and back to the last night in the tent.  However, there was just no way I could have another evening on the foam, so we stopped off at Beck's to pick up their blow up mattress, which, being as its a queen size, Harry and I both slept on.

It was considerably colder the second night, but we were snug in the tent.  The boys had started the evening off on their own in the tent, as Mel and I were in the house watching Die Hard 4.0 - don't worry, the boys had the walkie-talkie should the boogey man come whilst I was absent.  I got back to the tent to find it was 10pm and two little boys were still playing with iPods and iPhones...

I think it was probably just after 11pm before we truly got off to sleep.  But a lovely weekend camping it was too, even if it was in the backyard...!

The highlight (after the camping and campfire of course) was our little video series, In The Wild.  I haven't finished the edit here, but I have included footage of the lovely Bethany attempting to (not) say Lachie's name... enjoy...!

Nanny and the State Of Origin

My poor Nan has been really unwell lately.  I won't go into details, but essentially the poor lady is, and has been for quite some time now, housebound.

So last Wednesday, as I was house-sitting for a friend in Strathpine (in the attempt to find a quicker commute to school - alas, that didn't happen!  Gympie Road is the Devil's Road....), I decided to pop in on Nan on my way home.  During the course of our conversation, I happened to ask what she was doing next week for State of Origin.  "Why, watching it here on my own" was the reply.  Now, seriously, I can't have that.  She hasn't managed to be out of the house in literally months now.  If she has to watch the game at home, then she shouldn't have to be alone.  And seeing as its the first time I'll get to watch the game in real time (as opposed to a delayed telecast some 8 hours later at the Walkabout), I felt it highly appropriate to suggest to the rest of the family that perhaps this year, we all go watch it at Nan's.

Unfortunately, for those in my family with young ones (i.e. - all of them) that just was not a possibility.  So, I decided I would go myself.  I phoned Nan in the afternoon, suggested a take away option for tea, and picked up some gorgeous Chinese (food, not man!) en route to her place.

We had a whale of a time!  We had a nice little catch up whilst eating dinner and watching Two and a Half Men (seriously, what is the attraction of that show?), and then we enjoyed the pre-game wind up (although Nan did spend half of the time chatting to her mate Enid, or Edith, or something - on the phone beforehand).  And then we thoroughly enjoyed yelling our advice to the ref, the coach, the team - and the opposition - at the TV for the duration of the game.

Fortunately Queensland won, quite convincingly too -  28-18...  Now its on to Origin 2, and then 3... be still my beating heart...

My view of the game - note my gorgeous blundies in the foreground

Nanny giving Mum a score update at half time

Enjoying the game

Billy Slater's awesome try