On Monday I will visit you about the 'mennooo'......

That's what Laurent said to me on the phone this afternoon. My darling husband knows how much my girlfriends mean to me. He knows that they are wonderful and I love them all to bits. As a birthday present, he offered me a French Chef to come and cook for me and my best girlfriends. How cool a present is that? Laurent does the tuck shop at the high school and by all accounts the food there is divine. This French Chef is coming to cook in my own kitchen. We are going to have this beautiful, French accented man cook for us! (I've never seen him before, but anyone that sounds so good has to look good right??) How awesome. I even made invitations for my gfs. We've invited the fellas along, if they want to come and have a man's night downstairs with steak and BBQ. I thought it was a quirky twist, but it was so that the girls could drink and so my darling wasn't lonely lol..........cause this night is for the girls. These chickies do so much to add richness to my life, that I'm so excited to share this night with them. I still can't believe my Bunny thought of this idea all by himself!!

I didn't jog yesterday, sometimes after a few consecutive days, I need a break. This morning I headed out early (okay it was only 9am, but that's early for me in holiday time) and took Billy-Joe to a friend's place. I'd been asked by the Lovely Lisa to spend the morning at Cotton Tree but I had to say no. Sammy's eyes were a mess, thank goodness I went to the doctor again yesterday and got the script again for his drops. I've been diligent with them today, and they are still not good. When they're really bad, they are light sensitive and spending the morning outside would not have been good for him. Even walking across the road while I did some errands, he hung onto me and shut his eyes until we were back in a store. I had some photos developed and then spat chips, because I was too busy rousing at the kids, that I didn't get all the ones enlarged that I'd intended to. I always feel under pressure on those machines, I should just take my time. The ones I had printed I was just rapt with. I've finally nailed my post processing on my mac, and the Camerhouse in town does a fantastic job. I am really happy with them and their service. I then headed over to Big W and wanted to have a look at some of the Australia Day merchandise. The kids needed new boxers and new thongs, and I thought I'd have a look at a t'shirt or something for Australia Day. Of course, I was early - and the sale doesn't really start until tomorrow, so I was only able to get little boxers which are really cute. We had a cuppa with my parents as we 'found' them. I put found in inverted commas because my parents are even more predicatble than I am (I wonder where I got it from???) so the kids even know where to look for their parked car.

I dropped into Daisys for some inspiration and a quick chat with my sweet gf. She helped me pick some papers and I added some more, and then we headed home. As I started to say in the last paragraph, I didn't jog yesterday, but I did today.

Yesterday I tried interval training, I'd run at 10km/h for 2 or 3 mins and then drop back to 6km/h for a minute. It nearly killed me! Today I decided that I would increase my speed from 8.4km/hr to 9km/hr and just jog at the same speed. I found it much easier. I was able to complete the half hour. It's like my heart rate goes up, up, up and then it slows a little once I'm in a rhythm. It's the same for my breathing, I puff a bit at the start and then it evens out too. I've got the endurance, and stamina, just not the ability to pace my breathing in interval stuff. I was pretty happy with today's effort. I know I need to get to 10km/hr for half an hour before I jog my 5km which is my goal. Actually ultimately I'd like to increase my time and get up to an hour. Now I just have to monitor my diet so that I can lose some weight again. Christmas decadence has show on me, and I need to get back into eating properly. I know when the kids go back to school that things will return to 'normal' eatingwise, but our long holiday break is really too long for me to just eat whatever. I'm not snacking anymore, no morning or afternoon tea, so that will help. I think tonight we'll have finished the divine Christmas pudding I bought at the food and wine show, so then dessert will be back to my yoghurt.

I also scrapbooked a layout today. No doubt a few new papers and some new photos spurred me on - thanks to Suzy's advice. In the last 18 months, I've not spend a lot on my scrapbooking, so my stuff is getting very low. It means I have little choice and then don't feel like doing any, because it makes it too hard. I hope to do another layout tomorrow. I'll upload my layout to my Photo a Day blog, so I've got a picture for it.

I am making Chilli Con Carne for dinner tonight. It's actually a recipe from Jamie Oliver's website, but I'll have to write it out anew, because my recipe bears no resemblance to his.....

LIfe's full of surprises

When I left Geelong over 19 years ago. I left a whole life behind. I left behind all my friends and all my contacts. Actually on deeper contemplation, I'd left them behind around the time my first marriage died. It cut all ties, because my nearest and dearest friends wanted nothing to do with me, so people I'd met on my overseas trip for example, well seeing as we weren't real close, I certainly didn't think to keep in touch with them at the time. I guess in some ways I was ashamed of my first broken marriage, and many of these associations were reminders of what once was. Dh#2 never ingratiated himself toward any of my friends, another nail in the coffin of my friendships. Funny when in the throes of early love, you don't consider that. I look back now, and realize that association was doomed on so many levels, but I was blind to all of them......anyways I digress.....

Occasionally, I'll think of someone to look up on Facebook. I have found a girl I went to school with and another who I'm sure I know, but has never responded. I've found people I 'know' from the internet too - the world is an incredibly small place. South Africa has been playing Australia in the cricket and it reminded me of Mick. We met Mick on the Contiki European Tour in 1984. Truly one of the highlights of my life that trip. I met the most fabulous people and made great friends. Mick was always with us. He was even with us when we tracked down Onkel Vikki in Vienna. Mick hooked up with one of the South African girls on our tour. She actually returned to Australia a short time after and we drove to Sydney to spend Easter with them. I still have fond memories of that weekend. Carrin's Chicken ala King and a heap of us squeezed into a tiny two bedroom unit. I saw Mick and Carrin one other time, Ricky and I called in on our way to visit Mum and Dad. Ricky still jokes about me wanting to make a quick stop in Sydney on our way from Geelong. Just a minor detour I said!

While on Facebook the other night, I looked for Mick. There was a Mick in South Africa. I sent him a message asking if he was the Mick I knew from the Contiki trip.

I felt faint and my arms had tingles in it today, when I read a message from Facebook, saying yes, I had the right Mick and he gave me his mobile phone number.

I rang him this evening. He was delighted to hear my voice. He remembered my voice and said I still sounded the same, to me he sounded more refined. He and Carrin are still married and they have four children. Their eldest is 19. I was so excited talking to him, I'm sure I blabbed and prattled on a bit.......lol.....

Life has treated him well and he sounds very happy.

I hope we can meet up one day.

The power of the internet, never fails to amaze and delight me.

It's only half past twelve, but I don't care, it's gotta be 5o'clock somewhere....

If there was a slack blogger award, I'm sure I'd win it. I haven't spent much time on the computer of late at all. I haven't edited my movies, I haven't edited my photos. I have had too many other things to do.

On Wednesday, I headed out to visit my girlfriend and ended up spending the day with her. We get along so well, and really should spent more time together, but it always seems our schedules are so full that getting together other than on a Friday night is a rarity. Hence the title of my blog. It wasn't half past twelve but shortly after 11 when Karen asked if it was too early for a glass of wine! Hell no! It's gotta be wine o'clock somewhere. Then I thought about the Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffet song - which could have been our background music lol. We sipped on wine, ate crackers and cheese and just chilled out while the kids played. We had lunch and then spent some time on her dh's mac while I gave her a crash course in bloglines. I left after 3pm to pick up Billy-Joe who had slept over at a freind's house the night before. I couldn't believe how quickly the time had gone. Mickey and Sammy had a fabulous tie playing in Karens' kids' new cubby house - which could easily be an extension for my house lol.

Thursday, was grocery day. I did the groceries and picked out Billy-Joe's stationery and also picked up Sammy and Mickey's books.

I made a homemade pesto sauce for our dinner. It was absolutely delicious. I will have to update my recipe blog with the recipe.

Friday was a nice day, although packed full yet again. I was motivated to do lots of things, but had to restrict it to what I needed to get done. My highlight was a visit from Suzy. We spent a few hours together catching up from her holiday and just talking about all things computer. She is my Godsend when it comes to all things technical, because she's the only girl I know IRL who shares my passion for the computer, and photography.

When she left I fed the kids and did some last minute touches to my notes for my class tomorow then we ducked out to get a birthday present for a party that Mickey was attending on Saturday. I also got some boxes for the new Lego blocks and some coathangers which I desperately needed. When I got home I showered and got ready to go out to scrapbooking. It was so nice catching up with Barbi again who was very excited about the prospect of a 7 night break coming up on the Sunday. In all the years of the store, she's never had 7 consecutive days and nights off!! She so deserves it, and I hope she has a wonderful time and comes back relaxed and rejuvenated. She normally things about new ideas for the store, so it will be exciting to see what she comes back with. I stayed until just after midnight and then came home and had to have yet another attempt at fixing my powerpoint presentation for my camera class tomorrow. I think I've finally worked out that while copy and paste works with putting images in my powerpoint and is viewable on the mac, in order for it to render without the horrid red x on the computer at the store, I need to 'insert' the image and make sure it's a low res image too.

I got up in the morning and felt quite sick - always nervous before my class. I'd driven home the night before with a flat tyre. I didn't know it was flat, because it just sounded like my door wasn't shut properly. Fortunately I only live close, but I wasn't stopping to check out the outside of my car for anybody. I shone my torch on it when I got home and my heart sank when I saw the tyre deflated. Bunny tried to fix it for me so I could take myself to my class, but the wheel wouldn't budge. So by the time I got to the store, my heart was pounding!! The class went well, it was large with 7 participants. I neglected to make sure that no-one had Olympuses, so that oversight, caused me some grief as the booklet which comes in the box is as good as useless. This will not happen to me again. I would always remind people, but I just didn't think. I don't see many Olympuses in my classes and I'd just cleaned forgotten. The lady was fine about it, and she had my notes to use, and things she needed to look up when she got home. I've rung her and offered some one on one time, if she needs it - hopefully her dh is better at passing on messages than mine. I had Barbi's daughter and my niece in the class was too - which was great as they could work together. I was exhausted when I got home, I showerd and then didn't leave my recliner much for the rest of the evening. The kids had pizza for dinner, we had Noodles from the take away shop and we were in bed at 9.30pm - most unusual for us on a Saturday night.

Sunday, I headed out to the treadmill, for the first time since Tuesday. My intention of going on every day, had gone out the window. I did okay, but my breathing needs work. In the afternoon we headed out to spend the afternoon with my parents. The kids had a ball in the pool and we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and evening chatting.

Today, I had plans of doing heaps but have been rather lazy. Well, not quite lazy, I did three loads of washing, treadmill, weights, tidied, dusted, made pizza scrolls for kids for lunch - recipe will be on blog later.

Must go and cook dinner now - and finish bringing washing in. I have to make a to do list......can't be this lazy tomorrow.