We are back from our little holiday. It was great. We had a wonderful time. Baden had a ball, he got so spoilt and got so much attention and presents!!

Steve and I had a good time too, we feel very relaxed and want to go on another holiday soon. Just have to decide where.

When we got back the neighbours told us that one of the dogs killed a red bellied black snake that was in our yard!! horrors!!

We didn't go to any of the theme parks on the Gold Coast. We thought about it but decided to leave it for next time. But we went to the wildlife sanctuary which was brilliant. They had kangaroos that you can pat and Baden just went straight up and started talking to one and patting it and he overbalanced and fell straight on to it. I think he thought it was a dog. He has no fear, its a bit of a worry really. We also saw koalas and emus and crocodiles and then we went for lunch at the local surf club.

I met some inlaws that live up there that I haven't met before and Baden met his cousins and I caught up with some old friends, both of us did actually. It was a good holiday.

It was nice to get home too. It's always good to be home.

Thank you Grandpa!!

I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on the pic and bigger pics will come up.

Quick post, here is a picture of a little cardigan I knitted for my next door neighbour. I haven't knitted at all this week, just don't feel the urge at the moment.

Doggies Lost Doggies Found.

Today the dogs got out and went on an adventure. The parcel delivery man came and left a parcel at the door. I had to get the key to unlock the door (we have to lock it with the key because Baden has figured out how to open it otherwise), so I picked up the parcel and brought it in and forgot to relock the door.

I heard the door open and yelled out to bubby not to go outside and when he didn't answer I went out to tell him to come back in but he wasn't there. I went outside and he was standing in the neighbours garden. I told him to come back inside and he turned around and pointed up the street and said "Jibbo". I said "did Jimbo come outside?" because sometimes the dogs come in the back door and they have run out the front door once before. I found them just around the corner last time.

I had to wait for bubby to come inside so I could lock the door and go out the back and check to see if the dogs were there. So I did that and they weren't in the yard!!

So, we had to hop in the car and I drove to the spot that I found them last time, but they weren't there. I drove around and around for an hour, looking for them. I had to come home because I was dying of thirst, it was so hot today.

When Steve got home he went out and drove around for a while too, but didn't find them.

He came home for a while and then we all hopped in the car and drove around looking for them. Nup.

A while later I decided to go for another drive so Baden and I hopped in the car and I drove down the back roads. I was driving along and I passed this house and I felt an overwhelming need to go up their driveway!! I had to stop and do a U-turn and drive back there and as I drove up this driveway a man came out and I wound down the window and said "we have lost our dogs, a german shepherd and a little westie". He goes "I just saw them at the shopping centre". I couldn't believe it!

So I thanked him and drive up to the shopping centre and there they were, sniffing around. They had been gone for over four hours.

How weird that I just HAD to drive up that driveway, I don't know why I had to but I just had to turn the car around and go up there, it was an unexplainable and irrestible urge. I hadn't stopped and asked any of the people I saw walking their dogs or anyone else I saw but I just had to drive up that driveway and talk to the people in that house.

And how strange that the man I asked had been at the shops FIVE MINUTES before and had seen our dogs, who had gone in the opposite direction to where I had been concentrating my efforts because of where they went the time before when they got out. I would never have gone to the shops. The shops aren't all that near our house and aren't near this mans house.

They would still be lost if I hadn't gone up that driveway. If it had just been a random thing I wouldn't be so freaked out, if I had gone up lots of driveways or talked to lots of people I wouldn't be freaked out. But it wasn't like that. It was a force I can't explain that I knew I had to go and ask the people in that house where our dogs were.

Spooooooky.

Anyway, new collars and tags for Apple and Jimbo this christmas. We have been a bit slack with them lately. We are happy they are safe and sound at home.

We booked our holiday today. Finally. It should have been booked weeks ago but I told Steve he could book it since I planned the whole Fiji trip so it was his turn.

We are off the the Gold Coast over christmas, just for a week. Its a complete rip off but we are going anyway. We are staying in a one-bedroom apartment that has a kitchen etc, I can't remember what the word for it is but its in a hotel but it's not like a hotel room, oh, self contained, that's it! I wanted a different one that was a bit nicer and had a better pool and was 50metres closer to the beach but by the time we decided (i.e. by the time I talked Steve into paying the extra) it was gone!!

We are staying at my friend Lisa's place on Christmas Eve and Christmas night and then four nights in the middle of Surfers. My old stomping ground, haven't been there for years. Ten years and ten kilos difference, oh well!

I am looking forward to taking bubby to the beach and going out for dinner and just relaxing and shopping and catching up with some old friends. I think Steve needs a break, he works really hard six days a week and doesn't even play golf anymore.There are some friends who I have decided not to look up. I was thinking about it and realised that they never ring, never email and didn't even reply to the email I sent with our wedding photos. I know they got it because I spoke to them a few months later. I think I will just draw a line under that one because I am sick of being the one to always make the effort.

Baden got his pre-school report today, its all very good, he is doing everything he should be doing apparently. And he made us a present, its a candle holder with a little tealight candle in it and the holder has his fingerprints painted on it. It will match everything else in the house since everything else has his fingerprints all over it around here too, ha ha ha boomtish.

We finally have our new couches in our lounge room. Yes, I know I said they were arriving on Tuesday but they ended up coming on Friday (typical), and then they spent a night in our garage because they didn't actually fit through our front door!!!

Whoever heard of anyone making a couch that is too big to fit through a normal sized front door of a normal sized house?

It didn't even occur to us to measure our door, I mean, that's supposed to be what the designers factor in to the design, surely? Surely?

So anyway, today a friend of Steve's who is a glazier came around and removed the window out of the lounge room and we brought the couches in through the window and then he put it back.

They are very comfy. We have one each. Three-seaters, big puffy cream leather things. Baden was very impressed, he was going from one to the other saying "nice".

Yep, bubby, I agree. Nice.

Steve, aka Mr Negativity did his usual routine of asking if it was the same as the one we ordered, yep its the same, are you sure, yes I am sure, didn't the one we ordered have one big cushion seat, nope it had three big puffy cushion seats just like these ones, do you think its comfortable, yes I think its absolutely delightfully gorgeously comfortable, do you think the arm is the same colour leather, yes its exactly the same and its not some cheapo crap that you need to pick to bits its very expensive certified furniture so can you save the negative routine until I have enjoyed my new couches for five minutes ta.

He got the hint. I know he likes them but he just has this really bad habit of looking for fault in things before letting himself relax and enjoy them. I am not sure why he does it but then he turns all enthusiastic afterwards and I am enthusiastic at the start and I end up feeling a bit deflated because I think he doesn't like whatever it is. And then when he says how much he likes it I get annoyed because he didn't say it at the start and join in my enthusiasm then.

Anyway, enough bitching about my lovely husband, lol.

Last night a couple of the girls and I went to a toy raffle at the Club. We have been going for the last three weeks but none of us won anything.

But last night, I won something!

What happens is that you buy tickets, $1 for 5 tickets, and then they read out the numbers and if your number is called you go up the front and you pick out what prize you want. So the really big prizes go first of course, like the Playstations, Nintendo Wii's, Xboxes etc, and then there are other prizes, toys etc that go down in value till the last person gets the cheapest toy or whatever.

So, they called out one of my numbers and my friend and I raced up the front and man, it was SO hard to pick. I originally was going to pick a toy ride-in car thing, and there is a girl that works at the club and she stands there and sort of helps you pick, and she goes "no no they are really cheap", so I kept looking and the trampoline was gone, and the cubby house was gone, and then my friend Cat goes "what about that?" and points to a motorised ride on bike/ trike thing.

Yep, that's the one I sez. As soon as I picked it I knew it was the right thing. I was SO excited and I still am.

So I lugged it to my car and it just fit in the back and I got home and wanted to show Steve, but Baden was still awake, so we had to wait for the little bollocks to go to bed, so he finally does and we go out to the car and bring in the trike thing, whatever its called, and we ooh and aah over it.

So now its hiding in the back shed, waiting for Santa to come and fling it down the chimney. Not that we have a chimney, ha ha, but whatever.

I can't wait to see my kid's face when he sees it, I literally just cannot wait. I am SO excited. He is going to be blown away and will pull this stupid surprised face that he pulls, he looks like that picture called The Screamer, lol.

Its going to be a great christmas!! We are actually going to give it to him the weekend before christmas because we are going on holiday for christmas and won't be able to take it. So his grandparents and aunty and uncle will be here to see him open it too. They are coming up for a not-christmas lunch the weekend before.

Well, the mystery surrounding my job has been solved.

I got laid off last week. The boss said he realised that his business is in the shit and he can't afford to have me there and he doesn't need a website or any marketing work done because he doesn't think he will have a business to promote soon.

He said he didn't think it through properly and he should have planned better.

I agree.

I could have been settled in another job in that time. Bubby is settled into daycare now so he is staying there but I have dropped him down to two days a week for the moment. I didn't like him going three days anyway.

The boss hired me and then never turned up. I saw him six times in three months. So I did the projects he mentioned he wanted done at the interview, which was the website, new price lists, and some other stuff. I worked really hard and was enjoying it. I even did some work at home which he didn't even bother looking at.

Oh well. At least I learned how to build a website.

Anyway, whatever. Next!

Good news, we get our new lounges on Tuesday!!

Remember how I said I had a sore toe? it was right in the joint and it came and went at random for no apparent reason and I couldn't figure out what on earth was wrong with it? When it is sore I can't put any weight on it at all and I hobble around and when its not sore I can run and jump and even hop on it.

I finally went to the doctor today and he diagnosed.......

Arthritis!!!

Naw! are you serious? Isn't that for like........OLD PEOPLE???

It makes sense actually. Because of how it comes and goes so completely.

And because of where it is, right in the joint.

When I was at the doctors he was saying it was probably arthritis and I was a bit sceptical and I was trying to explain to him exactly where the pain was and I saw a poster with a picture of all the foot bones and I said "see, its right in here, right there". And then I looked at the words on the poster and the heading was "Common Sites For Arthritis".

I didn't read it before that! I was like "oh!"

In one way its a relief because it means I can control it a bit, so it won't be sore all the time or completely at random. In other way its a bit of a shock because there basically isn't any treatment. It's managed rather than treated, which means I will have it for the rest of my life, and its in such an annoying and inconvenient spot.

I never dreamed I would ever get arthritis. I always felt sorry for the old folks who had it.

I hope I never get it in my hands because I want to still be able to knit when I am a granny. What's the use of being called a granny for knitting all these years if I can't knit when I am actually a granny.