I can’t believe that I’m still going with a 365 challenge when it is almost 7 months into the year! I’ve well and truly eclipsed my last record of around 36 days. Lots more photos of construction this time around because the house is well and truly up and running, so to speak. The whole process has been so streamlined – one trade finishes on one day and the next trade is out the following morning doing their bit. My only other experience with builders was when my sister built her first house. I think they took around 4 months just to put a slab down from the day her block was cut. So you can imagine my surprise when we are around 1 month out from the block being cut and already we have a slab, drainage, frame, roof, doors, windows, electrical and plumbing done!

The house is turning into somewhat of an obsession – I feel like I must go and check on it every day. Not that I am worried that the builders aren’t doing the right thing but more because if I don’t go out for just one day, I might miss a huge phase in the construction. I love seeing it all come together.

July 25th, 2009 | Category: Phoney Photos |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)

365 / 171 = 2.13 and a lot of other decimal points.

That can only mean one thing – the middle of the year is rapidly approaching. Halfway through this daily photo grind. I can’t wait until the house starts (yes I know I said that last time) because then I can take photos of all sorts of interesting construction type things – like bulldozers, post-hole diggers and pieces of timber off cuts. Initially I was really happy that construction was due to start in the middle of winter…after all it’s supposed to be the driest time of the year for where I live. But lately we’ve had more rain than I can recall from previous years. Perhaps it is that we need it to be dry for construction that I’m noticing it more. In any case, I’m hoping for reasonably fine weeks ahead so that we can be in our new house by November.

The past few weeks have been insanely busy – winter flu season means work is busy, our house will need to go on the market soon which means I personally am very busy making it presentable. One of our greatest achievements over the last month has been the finalising of the spa area – just in time for one of the cooler early winter weeks on record. I can finally walk outside and enjoy using our alfresco, again just in time for winter. Just as well the winter weather doesn’t deter me from using the BBQ.

June 21st, 2009 | Category: Phoney Photos |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Or as it should be called, Quads of Pain – Attack of the Killer Reverse Knee Lunge!

Forget Wii Fit. This is not a game. This is a method of self-inflicted torture targeted at your calves, hips, bum and thighs. Thankfully today is a rest day in the 30 day challenge or I may not have been able to tolerate sitting for as long as it takes to write a blog post about it.

The 30 Day Challenge is a preset program for the couch potato in the crowd. After you’ve programmed in your height, weight and chosen an appearance, you can select to do the 30 Day Challenge on Low, Medium or High intensity. I do love that the chunkiest figure you can choose for your avatar on screen is still a relatively svelte figure. I suppose it would be a little bit demoralising if you could program the avatar with every single lump and bump to watch it jiggle about on the screen as you go through the paces with the Virtual Personal Trainer (VPT).

I’ve only done the first two workouts and I’ve been told by the VPT that I have something like side step squats to look forward to in tomorrow’s workout. Oh joy of all joys! Is it not enough to have 10 odd other types of quad exercises programmed into the Challenge? I suppose not, given that when women bitch about their appearance, it’s usually the legs and bum that give them the most grief.

It is surprisingly fun though….and not only for spectators. Apparently the sight of me almost kicking myself in the butt doing high kick running is a sight to behold. Fortunately we don’t have a video camera or else I’d be just a little worried that I’d be on the next episode of Australia’s Funniest Home Video. What surprises me about EA Sports Active is that I could easily just quit out any time I liked or pause it for a break. But I don’t. I just keep going. Even when my thighs are burning, my calves are aching and I just feel like I want to drop, I keep running because that cow of a VPT tells me to pick up the pace and keep going. So to quote Nike, I “just do it”, I keep running, keep lunging and keep trying not to fall over doing high kicks and high knees.

I almost enjoy doing exercise using this thing. And it feels like real exercise with the amount of sweat that comes pouring off me. I don’t feel quite as sore as I do after a strenuous 14km bushland hike but still, sore enough to know that something is working.

May 25th, 2009 | Category: Health and Fitness |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

Woohoo! May has finally rocked around which means I’m nearly halfway through this photo a day madness! And it IS madness because when I work for 9hrs each week day, my photo opportunities of things outside the absolutely mundane is pretty limited. Once the new house starts getting built, I might have a few more stimulating photos….maybe I could throw in a phoney photo pile which is exclusively of construction photos to bore your socks off.

Today was the Million Paws Walk for 2009, so I figured I would take the 365 photo I took today  of our canine companions and make it a more prominent feature in the mosaic. And what a great day out it was! I think we saw every dog breed from A to Z, from the diminutive to the monstrous and everything in between. We attended the Cleveland walk as we did last year and we couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather. Rock on MPW 2010!

May 17th, 2009 | Tags: Dogs, Million Paws Walk, Phoney Photo Pile | Category: Dogs, Phoney Photos, Photography, Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

This is probably the first year that I’ve paid any attention to IND, given that previously it passed almost without acknowledgement by employers, let alone members of the public. Think of it as Mother’s Day but for nurses, to recognise the good job that they do, in whatever capacity they work. It’s also the first time in a long time that I am proud to be a nurse on this particular day. Nurses are the backbone of the health care system and while it is true we work as part of a bigger team, nurses are the ones that are with the patients all the time. Without them, the system would fall apart altogether. Let’s just be thankful that the uniforms have improved over time.

Image sourced from Quite Adept (http://www.flickr.com/photos/quiteadept)

Happy International Nurses Day to all the nurses out there, no matter what shift you work or what role you fill. Enjoy the cake your employer has brought in for you and if they didn’t bring any, make sure they put it on their calendar for next year.

May 12th, 2009 | Category: Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

Whoa! I don’t think I realised how busy the last couple of months have been until I got this latest collage of 40 odd photos together. The year is absolutely flying by, almost to the end of April but wait a minute, what happened to March?

We’ve managed to buy ourselves a chunk of land to build a new house on in the last couple of months. The buying of the land was a big enough headache on its own and it seems the building process is going to be a bit of a trial as well. I’m looking forward to the end product and no doubt some of my daily photos after the site works start are going to be bits and pieces of construction. It’s an exciting and scary time simultaneously it seems….at least it takes my mind off turning 30 later this year.

April 25th, 2009 | Category: Phoney Photos |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

It’s interesting the stuff you find on the back of toilet doors. You expect the weird and wacky in public restrooms but the place I wouldn’t expect to find anything interesting is in a government facility. Traditionally, they’ve been fans of stark bathrooms with any form of graffiti removed or painted over pretty quickly. But I’ve noticed over the past few months that every single staff toilet at my workplace has got motivational posters on the back of the toilet door or on the walls on either side.

This perplexes me a little because these toilets are mainly in clinical areas. When I worked on the floor, I don’t think I went to the bathroom at all during the day because there was always that extra thing that needed to be done. And if I did get to go, it was generally a very very brief pitstop. Definitely not long enough to read the multitude of inspirational messages plastered all over the place. I suppose they are there for the benefit of people who have the luxury of spending just a wee bit longer in the loo to read them all….but who are those people??

One in particular seemed to stick out – “your attitude is a reaction to what life hands you, only you can choose that reaction”. I think I almost had a zen like moment reading that in the toilet. Something so common sense yet something I’d never taken the time to think about. It certainly makes more sense that in a workplace where every day can be a constant struggle, the workers tend to go about their day with a smile on their face and take the bad stuff on the chin and just get on with it.

I guess it’s just the new age version of the old adage “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

April 24th, 2009 | Category: Ramblings |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (2)

The traditions of Easter are pretty much lost on me. I spent a large part of Good Friday cleaning out my kitchen followed by a roast lamb dinner on a bed of risotto which had been in the slow cooker most of the day while I cleaned. Whoops. And as for Easter Saturday, we went to Bunnings to get some nails and tap washers and found they were giving out free Hot Cross buns to munch on while you wander through the store. A mate rocked up in the afternoon, obviously as lost as to what to do as we were, so we had an impromptu BBQ without a fish in sight.

Today is supposed to be the day that the Easter bunny visits but why? I don’t understand. The egg thing kind of makes sense because from eggs, little chickens are born so the egg symbolises renewal in the rebirth of Christ I’m guessing. But who was the moron who came up with the Easter bunny? The only eggs that an Easter bunny would produce are indeed chocolate in colour but you wouldn’t want to eat them. So why didn’t they have the Easter chicken dropping in on the Sunday? That would have made much more sense.

Happy Easter anyway, enjoy the chocolate, seafood, DIY jobs and whatever else you choose to do with your long weekend. And for those that are wondering, Bunnings is open again tomorrow so there’s no excuse for not fixing that fence, repainting that wall, cleaning that tile grouting or rejuvenating that backyard. You might as well do something to work off all that chocolate.

April 12th, 2009 | Category: Special occasions |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (3)

I could hardly believe my eyes. Among all the food courts in the shopping centres dotted across SE Queensland, I have NEVER ever seen a vendor with a Vegemite sandwich on their board. I guess when people are out shopping and in need of a feed, they generally want something that their mum didn’t throw in their lunch box most days for school. But at The Green Double Decker in one of Capalaba’s shopping centres, you can in fact get this for lunch. You can even get peanut butter if that’s more your thing.

What astounded me the most wasn’t its appearance on a menu board, but the price!  For the amount they are charging for a single vegemite or PB sandwich, I could buy an entire loaf of bread and a small jar of the stuff. Then it hit me….I could make 20 sandwiches, flog them off at a little stall down the way for $1 and still make a profit. Seriously, you could get the egg or cheese sandwich and pay the same price. Are they trying to tell me that eggs and cheese cost the same amount to purchase wholesale as a jar of Vegemite or peanut butter? The mind indeed does boggle. o.O

April 4th, 2009 | Category: Ramblings |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Comments (1)