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Category Archives: friends

Beautiful things

10 Feb

I had a wonderful night out on Thursday night, celebrating a friend’s birthday with “Margaritas and Dessert”. It helped that it was a stinker of a night – well over 30 degrees even well into the night – so frozen drinks and treats were very welcome, but as always the conversations were the best part.

One that was very close to my heart was about beauty and happiness. One woman talked about her time at art school. She still remembers a guest speaker who came and spoke about the importance of beauty, with the example that even if you are just getting out a bowl to beat an egg, that bowl can (should) still be beautiful. Another spoke about the book, The Architecture of Happiness, which considers how where we are might influence what we are (and what we become). And I spoke about Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, which I credit as a catalyst for some of the important (and positive) changes I made in my life last year. I probably need to re-read it, actually.

I try to surround myself with things that I love and find beauty in, that make me feel good, but sometimes I choose things that are functional rather than lovely. And I always regret it.

 
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Posted by on February 10, 2014 in be happy, friends

 

Things to Pack for Bordercon

23 May

In a couple of weeks, we’re going away to spend a few days with friends, playing boardgames.

It must be time to get my packing list together.

So far, it looks like this:

I feel this list needs to grow.

 
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Posted by on May 23, 2012 in be happy, friends, games

 

Guest overload

08 Jan

One side benefit of the house being cleaner (well, less cluttered – it wasn’t ever dirty) is that I don’t stress so much about having people – especially Other People’s Children – over.

Today was a case in point. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on January 8, 2009 in be happy, children, friends, house

 

Holidays?

05 Jan

I think – cautiously – that I might now officially be on holidays.

No mail from work since Friday (and that was just an FYI).

No clients with tight deadlines to be met.

No plans to be in the office until February.

This year, I’m probably not even going to take my work PC to the beach. The eee is enough, I think.

Outlook for the week:

  • Monday – housework. Sigh.
  • Tuesday – organiser coming. More housework, but Of The Good Kind.
  • Wednesday – gloriously free. 
  • Thursday – Kids have friends over, I am babysitting my niece (the kids will have fun with her). I might see whether one of my friends wants to come over too.
  • Friday – unclear. May go away early, may pack. Heh – the weather outlook for our second week at the beach has rain expected almost every day. Great for the garden and the catchments, not so great for, well, spending time at the beach.

Meanwhile, we had a wonderful picnic at St Kilda Botanical Gardens yesterday. Warm but not too warm, the kids had a wonderful time running around (and running around and running around) while we lazed on the grass and chatted. Nearby, some people had hula hoops while others played Frisbee. We took a walk to feed the ducks and saw tiny baby ducklings, tadpoles and a turtle. The children used the plastic salad bowl to try to catch tadpoles. Only two fell in – one into the shallows, the other into what was shallow but rapidly dipped away into adult thigh-height. Luckily her dad was on close watch or this could have been a tragedy – as it was, his wallet was the only victim. Pleased to say that Otto managed to NOT fall in. Didn’t leave till after 4 (I had expected to be home before 2).

Note to self: Arrange picnics with friends, this summer. Often.

 
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Posted by on January 5, 2009 in be happy, friends, going_out, work

 

Good news day

22 Sep

Dad is still in hospital – will be released tomorrow, all being well. They still don’t have an exact cause but he’s in much less pain & is looking better.

I just finished booking all my remaining tickets. OMG. One is first class because if I book out of France I pay less for first class than I was going to pay for second class in Germany (huh). And one is full fare because it was only 6 euros more than the discounted ticket that had all sorts of scary conditions attached to it.

I leave in 10 days. OMGOMG.

I have one hotel left to book and then that is that. All done. Did I mention the OMG factor?

And I am having lunch with a girlfriend.

All’s well with the world.

 
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Posted by on September 22, 2008 in friends, parents, travel

 

Comparisons

14 Jul

Every so often, I get an email from a Facebook application that tells me something like this:

Your friends have voted on your strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS:

best to hang out with for a day
best listener
best shopping companion

WEAKNESSES:

person with the best hair
happiest

And it always makes me wonder what Weaknesses means. Does it mean that I have OMG the best hair and that is a weakness? Or does it mean that the world has not yet woken up to the Fabulousness That Is My Hair?

This is not actually about the hair. It was more about the happy – I think I am usually a fairly happy person (I certainly try to be). Clearly I will have to bribe some of my Facebook buddies to agree with me.

I am not really complaining though. I am happy to be voted the OMGBestShoppingCompanion.

I should perhaps confess, though, that that is really not the case. I am in fact a horrible shopping companion unless you want to keep me company while I shop. In which case I am probably delightful, if somewhat driven. But if you want something? Watch out.

Meanwhile, I made a poll in my BGG profile too.

 
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Posted by on July 14, 2008 in be happy, friends

 

The OMG Sonderpreis! Transcript

27 May

Gentle Reader, I am proud to present to you my unedited-but-somewhat-snipped, names-changed-or-abbreviated-to-protect-the-innocent chat transcript from Sunday night.

Warning: Long Post ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on May 27, 2008 in friends, games

 

Ladies’ Night

25 May

I am excited about our attempt to hold a Ladies’ Night on BSW next week.

My closest friends have always been men. For a while, I think I would have been pushed to name 3 close female friends. I am still drawn to men (minds out of the gutter please) and have a fairly wide circle of male friends.

As I have got older, though, I have realised how important it is to have women friends too. I’ve become closer to some of my older female relatives, too. The idea of a Sisterhood (or even one that starts with Sss) is a powerful one and is also an important one, I think. Women support each other in different ways than men, and a good chat with a girlfriend is a wonderful thing.

It is likely no surprise that most of my gaming, in real life as well as online, is with men. But next Saturday evening is reserved for the ladies.

 
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Posted by on May 25, 2008 in friends, games

 

Odd sort of productivity, but I like it.

23 May

In the last 24 hours, I have

  • Rated and commented on 2 games that I either had not played or had forgotten to rate.
  • Chatted with three … four … several (I think four) friends.
  • Exchanged a flurry of international SMS messages. OK, it was a small flurry, but that is always fun.
  • Kept food down!! Yay, me!!
  • Got Otto back to sleep quickly and painfully.
  • Played a game. Well, most of a game.
  • Named my IUD and discovered the new and exciting world of innuendo that is to be explored when you combine ABBA and this particular kind of birth control, especially when a friend joins in as well. Errm, joins in the game. Of making up slightly smutty comments. That’s all.
  • Given – and received – some much-needed comfort.
  • Spoiled myself by buying 2 new books – one is french grammar exercises and therefore relatively uninteresting to the rest of you; the other is an amazing semi-autobiographical story that is at once tragic, moving and wryly funny. More on this later when I have finished it.
  • Successfully resisted (once) the urge to just say yes when a client wanted more hours out of me than are humanly possible.
  • Cleared some more space in the study (I know I should not be doing this) by replacing the huge old monitor that died last night with a slender and sexy little LCD screen.
  • Contemplated more major house re-organisation (OMG! Ce n’est pas possible !)
  • MAYBE solved my mental problems with French possessive pronouns (OK that was about 30 hours ago).
  • Oh yeah – and done probably 3 days’ work. All billable, I think. *YAY*.
 
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Posted by on May 23, 2008 in be happy, french, friends, games, health, to-do, work

 

Timing (is everything)

18 Apr

More of Teh Crazy last night. We’d arranged to have dinner with Friendless and Scrabblette, who are in town for ConVic this weekend, but we were a bit vague on starting time, as Biggie had a recorder lesson. Also, we weren’t sure what time Fraser would be home.

The evening went something like this.

18:30 Me: Quick, get your stuff, we need to get going

18:40 Me: Quick, get your stuff, we need to get going

18:45 Me: Quick, get your stuff, we need to get going

18:47 Biggie starts frantically shifting games in the corridor, because she wants to get at Ticket to Ride so she can take it to loan to her teacher. Meanwhile, Otto is checking out the kids’ games and I am grabbing my handbag and encouraging them to keep moving. (Which may or may not be a polite way for being somewhat impatient)

18:50 Finally out the door. Load kids into car. See 2 people walking down the street – hi, Friendless and Scrabblette! We are racing to get to the 7pm Recorder class, I’ll just unlock the house (which is beyond chaotic) and you can wait in there for Fraser. Friendless later points out that not only was I letting people I really didn’t know into the house, there was $300 or so in cash on the dining table.

18:52 back to car, see Fraser walking down street. Pause to explain why there are 2 people in our home.

19:04 arrive, late, for recorder lesson. While Biggie is at her lesson, Otto and I read her home reading book and play Sherlock, which is Der Plumpsack without the, errm, Plumpsack.

19:25 lesson ends, early, as requested. I load kids into car and call Fraser to say we are en route. He reminds me that I forgot to buy pull-ups for Otto.

19:35 collect our friends’ daughter who was babysitting for us. She was a flower girl at our wedding and now she is at Uni! We chat about perfume and signs of aging. We agree that perfume rocks!!

19:40 run into supermarket, run out

19:45 home. Fraser, Scrabblette and Friendless are playing Ingenious. I change Otto into PJs and order the Bigster to bed.

Dinner was as good as expected. I think we might start buying the babaganoush by the bucket. Also the potato thing with onion and spices. Which was almost certainly only good because of all the oil … but it was GREAT.

I am up 1 kilo this morning 😉

 
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Posted by on April 18, 2008 in friends, to-do

 
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