Spiders ARE conspiring to take out the bird population….

Posted on October 29, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Stupidity and randomness, Breaking news, A "How-to" tutorial of insanity, Photography - All about the photos Baby! | 5 Comments

ANOTHER ONE!!!!

Arghhhhhh!!!!!  I’m seriously about to start babbling gibberish and start packing my bags.

“That’s it! I want snow.”

Spiders don’t live in snow you see, but apparently Queensland is just CHOCK FULL OF THEM.  I could barely handle the idea of one massive bird eating spider but obviously they keep them as pets on the other side of Australia.

I will never sleep again….

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Sometimes, Australia just sucks!

Posted on October 29, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Stupidity and randomness, Breaking news, A "How-to" tutorial of insanity, They never should have let me be a mother | 4 Comments

I am a child at heart, (read: Immature) and my kids know it. My husband knows it too but he has denial down to fine art and can pretend that I am a perfectly normal, mature adult… most of the time.

Yesterday, Chelsea and I went shopping for her Halloween party this Friday. We needed Halloween decorations and costume necessities. She’s decided to be a geisha for the party which suits me just fine because I bought yukatas and obis in Japan earlier this year. Hooray for no big spending costs!! Now it’s just a question of getting the hair and makeup required. She totally took advantage of me!! Chelsea has developed a keen sense of ‘How to push Mum’s buttons and maker her do whatever you want by appealing to her immaturity.’ I got all super excited and got heaps of great decorations, ghouls, door hangers, table cloths, prizes and black hair dye for her costume.

I am totally living vicariously through my child. It’s kinda sad really, but there is no other option I tell you! Being Canadian, we love Halloween in all its creepiness and morbid pleasures. Trick or treating, haunted houses, parties and pubs that give przes to the best costume. Australians however, view it as predominantly an “American” holiday and view it with disdain at best. Trick or treating is considered the work of the devil rude and the whole thing is rather unexciting. This leaves us with the Halloween party as the only option to live out our bloody fantasies.

Last year was a crowning moment in my life as a mother. My child came to me and said, “I think I’ll go as ‘Little Dead Riding Hood’ this year.” Makes a mother proud, don’t it?

In any case, I am much lighter in the pocket and it’s not even my party. I want a party! Convincing Australians to come to an adult Halloween party is a painful and fruitless exercise. I’ve tried. It’s times like these that a quick 36-hour flight to Montreal looks really appealing. Worse than trying to convince them that it would be fun to cover yourself in blood and gore and rock the night away to the Monster Mash is trying to explain that it is NOT AMERICAN. They won’t believe you no matter what you say. I’ve never fully understood the intense dislike of anything deemed American but I’ve learned to qualify my accent with a quick “Canada.” whenever I feel the “What part of America are you from?” coming on. (Said with the utmost politeness but wrinkled nose like they have shit smeared on their upper lip which is replaced by relaxed relief once they realize you aren’t a yank. As if being separated by an invisible line somehow makes Canadians more acceptable.

In any case, I will spend this Halloween sitting at home, NOT listening to the doorbell ring every few minutes or children laughing and running from door to door chanting “TRICK OR TREAT!” NOT handing out lollies sure to rot the teeth from their skulls. NOT jumping out of a strategically placed pile of autumn leaves to scare the crap out of the teenagers too old to be trick or treating in the first place and NOT dancing the night away to the Monster Mash.

For those of you that can…..HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

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Yep, I’m a slacker

Posted on October 28, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Stupidity and randomness, Breaking news, Tools of the trade - Are you sure I'm qualified?, A "How-to" tutorial of insanity | 4 Comments

I’ve noticed recently that the number of blogs I follow pretty regularly has grown. There is an amazing amount of talented writers out there who make me crack up, shake my fist or sympathize on cue and I have been extremely lax in passing on the joy.

I’m in the midst of doing a major overhawl of my blogroll for this very purpose but please be patient it will take time cause I’m lazy and sorta un-motivated a lot because I do have a job and kids and pets and husbands and all manner of other time consuming things y’know!

For those interested, my top 10 favorie blogs of the moment are (in no particular order)

Wow, I got to ten. Guess I wasn’t so lazy busy after all!

If you get a chance, check ‘em out. It’s well worth it IMO.

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The stuff my nightmares are made of….

Posted on October 27, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Stupidity and randomness, Breaking news, A "How-to" tutorial of insanity, Photography - All about the photos Baby! | Leave a Comment

THIS…

…was snapped in Queensland somewhere near Cairnes a little while ago and made it to the news page of nineMSN where it caused me to spit coffee all over my keyboard and thus informing the IT department of my stupidity. What was harder to explain was the fact that I tried to suck it back in (the coffee, not the spider) and proceded to choke to death. (Well, not quite death but close…)

Not the thing to do when surreptitiously surfing the net at work….

 

PS It’s a Golden Orb Weaver, and no, they don’t get that big in WA.

PPS Yes, it is eating a bird.

PPPS Two posts in one day!! Do i get a gold star?

 

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I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to smart people.

Posted on October 27, 2008
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Breaking news, Tools of the trade - Are you sure I'm qualified?, A "How-to" tutorial of insanity | 2 Comments

Ok, I am now officially terrified.

I hate clichés. I use them only dripping with sarcasm or for comedic effect but today I say in all seriousness…

It’s a small world.  I’ve just realized the effect of global miniaturization, and it’s got me into a whack of trouble that makes my stomach want to find out how my toes are feeling today.  

I will start at the beginning, which makes sense because it would be seriously boring and confusing to start anywhere else and I’m really not into that whole Memento segmented reverse story-telling.

A few months ago I changed jobs and wound up working on a project that included the services of a consultant who comes once a week to torture work with me on the development of the software we are implementing. Let’s call him M.

After several weeks and many conversations, we learned that M’s daughter attends day care with a very good friend of ours, C.

One day a few weeks ago, I went to visit C and bumped into M’s wife, E as she was picking up their daughter. “Lovely lady,” I thought.

Murphy (as in Murphy’s Law – who runs my life with an iron fist) thought “I’ll show you for daring to meet new people!”

I get a phone message from E last week. No explanation, just “Please, call me back.” I did and got the machine… urgh! I’m lame at the best of time but answering machines reduce my IQ to that of a house plant.

I thought perhaps that E wanted ideas for C’s birthday and when I didn’t hear from her the rest of the weekend, figured she didn’t need me anymore.

I was wrong.

She did need me.

…and this brings me back to abject terror.

Side note** I did do sort of a loop in this story didn’t I? So much for starting at the beginning. Memento, eat my dust! **

Today I get another phone call from E. Apparently, she’s a member of the Society of Editors WA and while talking to C one day, found out that I blog and have been blogging for a number of years.

It just so happened that her society is having a meeting next week about blogging and would I mind giving a 20 MINUTE SPEECH on getting drunk and wetting my pants blogging?

Now I, by no means, consider myself an expert on the topic but I have had 10 or so years experience blogging (Yep, even before they had blogging software and websites.) I started with my own web space, creating a “News” page to keep family and friends apprised of the goings-on of our family, then moved to numerous different programs and hosted websites and finally came to rest here at She’ll Be Apples. I’ve even dabbled in paid blogging although that didn’t last long after Google wiped all paid blogs from the blogosphere.

This still doesn’t give me rights to pretend that I know what I’m talking about, hey?

Well I’m going to anyway!! I’ve been taking a course in training and assessment and I need to prepare an hours presentation for that so this should be a snap, right? Nothing like doing humiliation twice.  I may take to hiding in the bathroom with a bottle of vodka snuck in under my hat. That’d loosen my tongue. If I do, I promise I’ll totally take pictures… It could happen!

On the bright side, if I am a complete and utter ass, E is to blame.

After all, she picked me.  Fair warning, E…     

 

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