Really flat...

I'm really flat lately. I'm sure it has something to do with not being able to find work. I've filled out over 60 applications. I have to do ten a fortnight so the government will pay me while I look. I think looking for work is more exhausting than actually working. I've only had two actual interviews from those 60 applications and I don't even want to tell you how many "thanks but no thanks" I've gotten.

One interview actually turned into two but I still didn't get the job. I'm kind of surprised at that one because I truly thought the interview went really well. The interviewer even said twice during the interview that she thought I was perfect for thier company. So what the hell happened? The other interview was a preliminary and the organisation is waiting to hear about their funding, which they were supposed to find out about this past week. I am hoping for a second interview as it would be a great job.

Anyway, all I can do is keep trying but it really gets me down and as I say I'm just really flat so life is really grayscale right now. I'll try to keep posting to keep you up to date and who knows maybe something will come up in between that I think you might want to know/see. I will definitely be doing Aprils 12 of 12 as I did enjoy that process but until then just be aware that the post won't be that exciting. Stay tuned...

Earth hour 60 - Vote Earth

This Saturday is a very important day and I'll tell you why. Saturday will be the day that you can do something for the planet that won't cost you a dime. No one is asking you for a donation. All we are asking is for you to turn off all the lights in your home for one hour from 8:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. That's it nothing else just turn off all of your ligts for an hour. **see note

Here's a little background:

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.

Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm.

I hope you'll join me, along with many others, on Saturday night when I'll be switching off my lights in my vote for planet earth. Thank you in advance for your support...

** it would also help if you turned off the telly and the stereo and anything else electrical that you can do without for an hour, but you don't have to, just the lights will do.

WTF???

So, I was sitting in the lounge room the other night, Sunday night to be exact, and I suddenly hurried this frantic sound. It sounding like feet with nails trying to gain tracking on the tiled floor. I thought to myself, "Great it's going to be a a long night" because the cat has started her nightly spastic routine and the night was actually just getting started. I know she gets this way ever so often and she runs around the house for about half an hour like she is possessed. Some people call it the night time kitty crazes and other thing. It seems that all cats do this but usually it's younger cats and ours is far from being a kitten.

Anyway, I figured she'd get it out of her system and the rest of the evening would be peaceful. The next thing I see and hear is her running past me at lightning speed and she ended up across the room under another chair we have in the lounge room. I then did what normal cat owners do and I yelled at her to "Cool it". She replied by suddenly starting to climb up the pole of the floor lamp.

Hang on cats can't climb steels pole as they have nothing for their claws to dig into. Hang on that's not the cat. It's a possum! That's right a possum You know, I talked about them before being in the back yard eating our tree. Well it seems they or at least one of them decided to come into the house to investigate. Hang on, how did he/she get in the house? To be honest I didn't really even think about how it got in all I wanted to do was now get it out of the house. So, I jumped up out of my chair. I'm watching the possum like a hawk and he/she has now spotted me with this wild look of "Get me out of here" and "I wonder if he has spotted me?". That last question works for me and the possum.

I ran to the back door, which as I said was closed, and opened it so he/she would have an exit as it seemed to forget from whence it came. At the same time, I'm trying to get hubby to come out from his shower to help me get this thing out of the lounge room and out the back door. While waiting for the possum to make the next move I did start to wonder how the hell he/she did actually get into the house. There are no holes in the attic. So, he has not come in through the roof or had he? Once again eyes on the crisis! We need to focus on getting the crazed wildlife out of my home.

The possum finely got tired of trying to hang from the floor lamp and started to run around the lounge room, then back down the hall way and eventually into the kitchen. Like I said I had opened the back door and I'm just trying to guide him towards it by gently yelling "Get out, go on Get out" I'm sure that helped as he tried even more frantically to figure the way out. He finally made it to the door and believe it or not he stopped just before going out the door as if to say "Hmm maybe I'll stay a bit longer". I convinced him/her otherwise by finally yelling one more time GET THE HELL OUT!, which seemed to work.

So after he/she left and I got down from the counter. OK, I wasn't really on top of it but I sure as hell was behind it. Okay maybe I was on it, but I mean let's be real, there was a wild undomesticated, very scared, frantic to get away, one and a half foot fur ball with very sharp claws and teeth wanting to get out of my house. I did not want to get in it's way nor did I want him coming at me. Although if he/she could climb a floor lamp then it surely could hop onto the counter if it needed to do so. I wasn't even safe there. And although hubby kept reminding me that possums are basically vegetarians and that he/she was probably more scared then I was. I told hubby to hell with the Animal Planet biology lesson on the eating habits of a bush tail possum. I, plain and simple, did not want that animal dancing on my head trying to find it's way out and didn't really care if it was more afraid of me then him/her.

Anyway moving on, it was gone so how the hell did it get in? Hubby then says "how about the chimney/" and I said that the possum was way to big to fit through the vent opening in the fireplace in the lounge or for that matter the vents to the fireplace in the office and the one in our bedroom were also too small and closed. However, what about the guest bedroom fireplace? Sure enough as we entered the guest bedroom there was next to and at the bottom of the fireplace was this huge pile of dirty and crap that the possum apparently brought down the chimney with him. We don't us that fireplace but we also have not sealed it off as we want to leave the option open in case we have company in the winter and then we can light a fire for them. Actually, seeing all the crap that the possum brought down from the chimney of that fireplace showed me that we will have to have a chimney sweep come out before we ever use that fireplace.

We will be looking at the best way to seal that fireplace, without sealing it off completely, this week so we don't have any more uninvited guest. Thankfully the cat was not in the house. I can only imagine the scenario if she had been. I can envision lots and lots of broken glass objects being knocked off tables and shelves as she tried to catch it while it tried to find a way out. I don't know why it didn't just climb back up the chimney where it fell in. I mean it had strong enough claws to hold on to that metal pole but alas he did not leave the way he came.

All I can say about my Sunday night is; "WTF was that all about?"

Interview completed and now we wait...

I had my interview on Thursday. I think it went well. You know how you just get a gut feeling about something. I talked with the lady doing the interview for 45 minutes. They say that the longer the interview the better the chances. I said all the right things. At one point she said that she thought I would be perfect for their store. I didn't persue that as I didn't want to look overly wanton. She ended the interview by telling me that she would be making up her mind by Monday and that she would be calling all the successful applicants. I say all because there are two positions. I told her that I would really love to work for their company and that I looked forward to hearing from her on Monday.

So, now I wait. I hate waiting. Until I her from her I must continue my search because you never know. Some of these interviewers are very good at what they do. They can have you believing that you are the best applicant they've seen all day and at the same time they really think you're a loser. I hope she wasn't one of those. Monday seems such a long way off.

That was a winner...

Well I'm back from my every third month trip to Sydney. As usual I went to see my neurologist to see how things are going with my peripheral neuropathy. My check-up went well. I'm not any worse but I'm also not any better. Although I have to clarify one point. When I say I've not gotten any worse I mean that the damage that has been done to my nerves has not spread. The damage that has been done to my nerves can not be fixed at this time as there is not cure. So what we keep checking is to make sure no new damage occurs and that the current damaged cells don't some how affect something else in my body. For instance, I have been having trouble going to the bathroom (No. 1 for those that really need to know) for several months. Since my back surgery that problem has gotten better because the surgery opened some nerve pathways that cut off by the obstructed nerves unfortunately the surgery couldn't fix it completely and it's not 100% but we keep moving forward. I'm not sure if that made sense but it's hard enough for me to understand much less explain.

I have had an increase in pain and the specialist believes it's one of three or a combination of three things. Those things are, 1) I'm stressed about finding a job and the stress is affecting my damaged nerve cells making them act up more, 2) because I have been getting the feeling back in my legs ever since the back surgery which was meant to do just that, give me back the feelings in my legs, however the reconnection of these nerves may serve as a new venue (pathways) for the damaged cells to send out even more incorrect impulses then they already send out. The biggest problem with that is those impulses happen to be pain impulses, and 3) it may just be a case that my current pain medication is being metabolised by my liver quicker and so we will have to raise the pain medicine levels. The specialist is erring on the side of caution and he has raised my pain medicine and we will review it in three months at which time I hopefully will have a job which will reduce the stress.

Oh and before I forget it, when I said that was a winner I was referring to my 12 of 12. It seemed to have gotten a lot of people's attention and I'm glad. I will continue to do the 12 of 12 and who knows what we shall see. You'll just have to stick around and check in, at least every 12th day of the month. Other than the visit to Sydney the only other news is 1) my mum seems to have come through the surgery fine and it looks like they got all of the cancer. They will have to monitor from here on but it looks good and 2) I have a second interview with a company I had a 30 minute telephone interview last week. The second interview is this Thursday at noon and unless I totally f&%k this interview up I believe I should be able to get an offer from this place. I will let you know what happens as soon as I know. Until then take care and stay safe...

12 of 12...

This my first 12 of 12 and I hope I am doing this correctly. I printed a set of rules from the originator of this idea. I actually saw this first on this guys blog. I will say that this post is extremely labour intensive but in the end it was fun .This isn't going to be the most exciting 12 of 12 but I'm sure the next one will be better and then the next better yet. Anyway, off you go and have a look at my 12 of 12 for March

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5:09 am
As you can tell by the time it is almost 10 past 5 in the morning. I'm actually 9 minutes late. I wake up every morning at 5:00 am on the dot. I'm not sure why, except that the one constant that occurs at 5:00 also is the pain in my feet from my peripheral neuropathy. The pain medicine I take is slow release over 12 hours and the last dose was at 5 pm the night before. So, I get up take my medicine and feed the cat. Thta is how my day begins.



5:15 am
Next up it's time for my tablets especially those ever so present pain pills for my feet. Down the hatch! p.s. sorry about the blurry shot but is early after all so my eyes are blurry too.



5:28 pm
Trying to catch up on the blogs I follow I'm pretty good and try to read as many as I can and believe me I follow quite a few.



7:00 am
I get ready to start the day with a nice bowl a cereal. It's nutritious and well balanced. I usually put fresh blueberries but I didn't have any. I got some later in the day so I'll have them tomorrow.



11:01 am
The gardener stopped by today to do a bit of weeding and general lawn maintenance. Okay, it's not the gardener it's only the hubby tending to the garden. Please, I'm unemployed how could we afford a gardener. He likes gardening, and planting and I like cutting and taking pictures of the flowers and other things that he turns green. the only time I need to buy flowers for the house is in the winter.



11:03 am
I was out in the garden and look what I found. This was amongst a group of solid red dahlias. It just goes to show that the bumble bees are doing their job.



11:07 am
This is a New Zealand weather indicator sent to us from a dear friend, who lives in NZ. How the thing works is; you go outside and look at the bird, if it's dry like it was today ithat means it's not raining and if it's bright and lit up then it's sunny outside. Last but not least, it was not moving (take my word for it) so that meant the winds were calm. I believe you can figure out how the rest of the weather is indicated by this marvel of technology, if not email me and I'll let you know how it works in reply.

11:52 am

I have a new mobile phone. I had the old one for two years, which is not all that long, but I've hated it ever since I bought it. I ordered the old one on-line from my service provider here in the land of Oz and I should have known better. Just like clothes you need to see the subject matter live and feel it, test it out and just plain give it the once over. So, I didn't on the last one and I did on the new one with a much better outcome. It is a touch screen phone just like an iPhone but at a much cheaper cost to my wallet.

2:02 pm

It seems like we always have laundry to do. The upside is that we very rarely use the dryer to dry anything and I love the fresh clean smell from drying the clothes outside in the sun, breeze and fresh air.

4:20 pm

I think the cat wants her dinner and by the look of those teeth I better give it too her.

4:22 pm She either fell asleep from waiting so long for me to get her dinner to her or she just really likes getting into her meal.

7:30 pm

Finally, my dinner is on the stove. When it finishes, I'll eat it, watch some telly and then off to bed with me, such is my life currently. Hopefully a job will find it's way to me and my days will become exciting once more. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my first 12 of 12 and we'll see what happens next month. Enjoy...

(Update: I just fixed the layout of some of the photos and text that were not in line. I didn't check the entire post last night before I hit publish and I should have but it was midnight so give me a break)

Not a good week...

You know I'm trying to think why I post right now. It seems that all I ever post is about are the bad things going on in my life. I'm sure it makes for lousy reading. Well okay the last post was a good one but this one won't be

I got a call from my mum the other day and it seems that she has gone to the doctor for a check-up to have a look at a growth on her foot. Well it has come back as malignant melanoma. She is having surgery on Tuesday and at the same time they are going to do a scan to see if has spread. All I can say is I will wait to see what the doctors say after the surgery and then we will go from there. If you could send my mum some good thoughts I would appreciate it. I'll post more when I know more.