Last Post for 2008.

I know that sounds rather sad, but when you think about
it The last post is a sad tune played at funerals! and
it is a sad time watching the last hours of 2008 go by.

It has been a year of endings with the dead of Don Snr
and friends and relatives but also a year of beginnings
with the birth of Ryley and Meg beginning to date again.

Lets hope that 2009 will carry on with those beginnings.

We are all praying that Ryley's medical tests came back
with an all clear and that Meg and Mark make a go of it.

The Christmas Rush!

I guess it is starting to show. Yesterday Tuesday 22nd
Dec, Cliff was saying to everyone in the shop Happy
Christmas. It relly began to grate on my nerves. I
ended up saying each time he said it "It's MERRY
Christmas and a HAPPY new Year!"

Didn't help that Meg dragged me to MAD Valley to do her
Christmas shopping. I had to go as she was out of money
and I had to put it all on my credit card as hers is full!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Euchre Christmas Party Break Up

Visiting Erika

After I had my hair coloured and cut at the Bridal Estate
hair dressers I rang Erika to see if she was home.

After having tried three times before to catch her at home
I was delighted to find her home so I went straight around.

She opened the door and said she had barely put the phone
down.

She had sprained her ankle a couple of weeks ago and is still
finding it hard to walk around. She said it was the first
day without crutches.

I told her she should sue. She laughted and said everyone
hastold her the same thing!!! Someone said she should have
takenpictures. Erika said "Oh yes, there she is laying on
the sidewalk in pain so of course the first thing on her mind
is taking a picture!"

I asked if she had a mobile phone that takes pictures and
she said she did but would never have thought of that.

So then I told her the sad story of my 'lost' phone. She
liked the look of my new phone, so then we played with our
phones.

It turns out she is on the internet so I showed her how to
find my blog on the WWW, so she might check it out from now
on.

She also has e mail so I have added her to my list!

Found!

Cliff rang about 3:45 p.m. Friday 12/12 to tell me he
had found my 'missing or lost phone' in an old shopping
bag that I had left at the shop.

Silly me but at least now I will be able to put all my
old numbers into my new phone!

Partylite Candles Arrive!

Sue rang on Wednesday and said that all her other orders
had arrived. Unfortunately mine had not. She wanted to
know if it was 'safe' sending the order to the shop and
I told her about my Franklin order. She was impressed.

Cliff rang at 11.30 a.m. Thursday morning to say that
they had arrived. But I could not find the paper work
to sort out what belongs to whom! Though some I can
remember off by heart.

So I tried to ring her but the new mobile phone still
had the barring on it so I had to ring them and complain
and use the landline to ring Sue!I told her my problem
and as she has some of her orders in my package she said
she would be here before 6 p.m. to sort it out for me.
But she had not arrived by 9.30 p.m. so I rang her again
and she said she will see me at my place by 3.30 p.m.

Expess Post!

Finally got around to looking up the Franklin web site.
I tried Google and it first gave me the US web site so
I had to narrow the search. With the phone number I was
able to ring and tell the young woamn what I wanted and
she told me the model number of the item.

It was still $69.95 after 8 years! I ordered it at
1.41 p.m. on Monday 8th Dec and when I arrived at the
shop on Tuesday (9th)at noon, Cliff said a parcel had
arrived for me just after 9 a.m. and it was the Collins
Crossword Solver!

Now that is Express Post, particularly at this time of
year!

The Worse Ad I've Seen on T.V. in a Long Time.

Supercheap Auto have this horrible ad on the T.V. at the
moment.

It shows a young boy, who has used his hard earned pocket
money to buy his dad a C.D. He has thought about it and
knows what type of music his father likes.

The father takes him to the garage and DESTROYS the C.D.
and in it's place jumps out a gift card on Supercheap and
the announcer says "Give him the gift he really wants."

Now I was taught that a gift horse should not be looked
at in the mouth!

Also a gift card is an IMPERSONAL gift. Something you buy
for the people who don't know very well or in the case of
a person who is so busy that they have not got the time to
go shopping.

It is anti everything I was brought up to believe Christmas
was about.

ZZZZzzzzs!

Cliff is driving me mad with his snoring! It is getting
worse I suggested he see his doctor about it but he
says he doesn't snore! especially as 99% of the time I
'wake' him and tell him he is snoring he insisits he
wasn't even sleeping!

When he came over and stayed on Tuesday night, I forgot
to tell him to bring the clamp for his nose and I did
not sleep a wink all night and even then on Wednesday
I barely got 4 hours in the morning, so I felt like shit
all day.

Well on Friday night (5th Dec) it was the same thing all
over again. I was so tired I fell asleep by 11 p.m. but
his snoring woke me at 2 a.m. and despite waking him and
getting him to put the clamp on his nose he continued to
snore for the rest of the night which meant I did not get
any sleep till he got up at 7.30 a.m. to do the garage
sales, but even then I only got 1 1/2 hours before I had
to get up.

On Saturday night he tried to sleep in the bedroom but was
so lazy he could not pull the curtains closed and thus
was unable to sleep, as the house opposite had their Xmas
lights flashing, so he came out to the lounge room and went
to sleep on the couch! I of course hurried into the berroom ,
closed the curtains, went to bed and slept like a baby!!!
best night sleep all week!

Thankfully he did not have too much to drink on Sunday night
and we made it through the night with me only being awake
from 5 a.m. having gone to bed at 12 a.m.

I don't know if the non snoring device I bought from HomeCare
works as he refuses to wear it saying 'it is too small.'

Computer Problems and My Surveys.

I think I really hate computers.

I just spent twenty minutes doing this post and
went to publish it and it said Sevicer Error 502
and completely lost the whole thing!!!!

I am having trouble with doing my surveys. Every
time I answer a question and press the NEXT button,
I get a message that says there is an error on Line...
it asks if I want to fix the problem, at first I use
to say yes, but it would take FOREVER and then tell
me it could not fix the problem and that the internet
had to shut down. So now I select No I will not
fix the problem, but I have to do this AFTER EVERY
question and it makes taking the surveys much longer!

One survey group sends me surveys regularly but they
grossly underestimate the time it takes to do them.
The last one on Friday was suppose to take 15 minutes
to complete. It took nearly 40 minutes and I was
screened out which means I did not even finish it!
They will 'award' me 20 points! It takes 5,500 points
to receive a $100 Coles/Myer Voucher, which works
out to be 55 points=$1, so for the forty minutes I
'earned' a little under 40 cents, I feel like one of
those workers in a sweat shop! at this rate it will
be 5 years and 5,000 hours of doing surveys before
I earn the $100!

The galling part is I paid $35 to get a list of these
companies that issue surveys and the company selling
them said "You can earn $1,000's every week." As far
as I can see there are not enough hours in the week
to earn more than $168 with this company and that means
just doing surveys 24/7!!!

Another company 'pays' a decent amount for a $100 voucher
you need 1060 points and in some of their surveys thay
'pay' 600 points, unfortunately I have only been eligible
to do one of these as most times the surveys are finished
before I get to them. Once I tried doing one within three
hours of receiving it and it was already FULL!

The easiest one has been a survey of cinemas, I go and
watch and write down all the ads before the feature film,
it takes about twenty minutes and they pay $25 for each
survey so far in the last year I have done 4 of these,
which means I have covered my initial outlay of $35! But
it is the only money I have seen in the fifteen months I
have been doing surveys! I am cdertainly not going to
make my fortune this way! but as my Aunty Josie was wont
to say "It's pin money dear!"

The Rush To Christmas

On Monday 1st Dec Bruce Oliver came into the club again
when the Euchre Club were playing. He spoke to John and
asked how many more weeks we would be coming before we
broke up and John said two. I reckon he'll be be in both
those nights! just to make it uncomfortable! yet we
usually don't see him Monday nights!

I will do the certifictes for the first three places,
again this year. It is between Billy and Roy for first
with really only one week to go.

I will ask John what he thinks about a wooden spoon prize
for last place? A real spoon with the date and average on it!

So much to do so little time.

Cliff is bugging me about the tape I took nealy ten years ago
that had Chris on it, to make a copy for Audrey.

I have finally got the paper work done for getting a copy of my
marriage certificate to Don and now I just need to send it off.
I need it back before Xmas for the kids presents!

Started the decorations in the shop but there is not enough
tinsel.

Thankfully as Kath is having Xmas at her house I'm not
putting up any decorations or tree at Cliff's this year.

Cliff asked today if I have done the Newsletter for the Xmas
cards this year. He says it is getting LATE!! The answer was NO.

The Partylite candles should arrive by the end of next week and
I need to take them to the people and at the same time hand
deliver Xmas cards. Still have to get the money from three
people but fixed up the mistake with Karen's order also Sue
told me I had won the hostess gift for October which was a
nice surprise. I gave her the information re the rep who
stiffed Meg and I by taking our broken items but never
replacing them1

Serendipity

This has been happening to me my whole life but I
didn't really start to notice it till I began working
for Australia Post.

I'd see an envelope with a city, town etc on it that I
had never seen or heard of before and have to look up
where it went and low and behold the very next day
there would be an article in The Sun about that town.

Last week there was a program on Channel 7, "Life After
People" and one of the things they talked about was the
failing of power stations except for Hoover dam. They
gave quite a bit of information about the dam and up to
now I have only heard of it in movies. Then the very
next day I saw an ad on T.V. for a show that will be
screening over the next seven weeks on Sunday call "The
Seven Wonders of the Modern World." The first program
to be about the 'Hoover Dam' on Sunday 30th November, 2008.

I watched the program and found it fasinating. They are
going to feature 'The Brooklyn Bridge' next week. Then
on Monday night (the very next day!) on the first episode
of the new season of "The Darlings" Donald Sutherland is
talking about the fact that 27 men died building the
'Brooklyn Bridge'!

How many other people have that going on in their lives?