A lot of the content is dry but I have still learnt a lot, especially regarding harassment and duty of care. Originally we were meant to have tomorrow morning off and a session in the afternoon and then fly home landing at around 10:30pm but they have shifted the afternoon session to the morning so we can now get the afternoon flight home.

I didn’t realise how homesick I was until I thought about how exciting it will be to be home for dinner tomorrow. Then I started thinking about the homesickness. The kids have been in Melbourne for 10 days and yes, I miss them, and I have missed MIML™, but for the first time I am actually missing my home and my garden and my fish and all that.

I think before I have gone away and liked staying in a nice bed with clean sheets and a clean bathroom. I have gone away to shop and spend and consume and eat and drink and all that. This trip I have managed to do some of these things. But I can see a change in my thinking. I have walked past Krispy Kremes a number of times and not bought a doughnut. I went into Borders and picked up 7 books before putting them back. I then went back and bought 3! Or perhaps 4… I did splash out on skincare and moisturiser at David Jones, but am trying to tell myself it has come out of my footy tipping winnings!

You see I am keeping a budget. Using a nifty app on my iPhone called iXpensit I am tracking where each dollar goes. I am also watching what I eat. Perhaps I have had a little more than I would at home, but I have not gone overboard and tried to fit in all my ‘favourites you can’t get in Cairns.’

I have enjoyed doing my own thing and being my own person, but I have also missed sharing it with MIML™. With me going out last night and getting back late and him going out we didn’t chat yesterday and I missed that.  I missed the sharing of what had happened and the funny things and the mundane and the like.

But it’s all good. Instead of being home later than this tomorrow I will be home for dinner. Not sure what MIML™ is cooking yet

Tiredness abounds at work with lots of overtime and tetchy customers. I do enjoy retail at times. Helping people spend their money, buy things they genuinely need/want. But this is often not the case at Christmas. People feel compelled to buy for others and often have no idea what to get. So many women apparently want hair dryers or straighteners and vacuums. Guys want cameras and it seems like everyone wants GPS thingys and digital photo frames. Oh and wii consoles. Lots of kids are getting Nintendo products, either DS or wii, and the rest Guitar Hero World Tour.

But still people have left things to the last minute and this week I have had my share of people whose Christmases have been ‘ruined’ because no one in town has wii’s or Guitar Heros. Yet they haven’t shopped until a few days before Christmas.
I layby-ed the kids toys in July and bought stuff for others since about October. Working until midnight last night I had someone starting their Christmas shopping with teenage daughter in tow at 11.15pm. They were proud of the fact.

I’m cooking Christmas dinner and looking forward to that. Cooking helps me relax. I prepared a lot the other day and it will be pretty cruisy in the kitchen in the morning. The kids should be pretty happy about their presents. And who knows I may even get in the spirit.

MIML™ told me I am getting a new mega Hard Drive for Matilda the MacBook, but also told Miss 10 that I think I know what I am getting but have no idea! Hmmm…

So amidst the retail worker exhaustion, I am trying to get in the spirit. Here’s hoping anyway!

So download the Myer Family and Friends Flyer and get shopping! Tell them Fifi sent you!

Twice a year they have their stocktake at work. Basically it tells us how much has been nicked. The figure given to us in training is astronomical, but I take their word it is correct. A manager told me once that if stock is being lifted then it means the buyers have done their job properly as it is desirable. Whatever! I actually enjoy the process of stocktake. I don’t have to talk to anyone, I am methodical and turn into a robot. For the first time in a while I was a scanner and not a coordinator or part of the tech team. It was rather nice!

This scancount (stocktake) they have introduced a new system. It would have been great if it had been fully tested and an eighth of the store was in a dead spot and unable to get scanner reception! I put my foot down to starting at 6.45am like I was asked to and said I would be there by 7.30. I stayed until 7.30 tonight and could have stayed longer, but needed to get the kids. Today was my day off too. Tomorrow is also my day off and I am working 7.30 til 5.30. Wednesday I am meant to work 5 hours but am rostered on for over 7 and there is word I will again work until 5.30. I am making sure I get the hours as time in lieu. Should accumulate almost an extra week off.

This time off will give me a week to focus on my thesis which again is being neglected. I need to and want to finish it, but the emotional exhaustion I have makes it difficult. I really am juggling so many balls and trying to keep them all in the air. It is the thesis that seems to be easy to just put on the back burner but I need to get stuck into it. Perhaps a week fo solid thesis work will help. Perhaps I need to find another week too… Something I am looking into. If anyone has any ideas how I can finish the damn thing, then please let me know!

And in other news I upgraded to the new wordpress and it seems to be working better now than a few days ago. I even worked out that my google analytics code had gone missing. Well I figured 4 days in a row with no visitors was a bit much so investigated! Hope it is back now!

Savings only this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Shop early and often! Remember 20% off chocolates and 10% off fragrance. You all know my address… If you don’t just ask! And no, they don’t sell Bombay Sapphire. Sigh! Perhaps that’s an idea…

You see for the last 7 months I have had the most inflamed pus filled tonsils. The GP tried 3 different antibiotics before I was referred and as soon as the ENT saw them he got all animated and said they were rippers. I think that is good for him, but not necessarily for me. He even got out his little microscope thing and stuck that down my throat. He said they were full of gunk and no amount of antibiotics was going to clear them.

Yes, they have been sore, especially when I talk too much. Now don’t start on my talking! But come April Fool’s Day they will be gone. I will be in hospital overnight. Mother arrives Monday so I am spending the weekend cleaning and tidying. She then takes the kids back to Melbourne next Friday for the school holidays and I have a week to lie in front of the telly watching Dexter and other assorted shows and movies that friends have sent me!  do some serious work on my thesis. As I have this weekend off work, all in all I get 17 days off. Pretty cool, even though I will be in pain.

Now I don’t care much for anaesthesia.  My most vivid memory of the extraction of my 5 wisdom teeth, apart from one of the ladies in my ward having had a breast enhancement and her (ex?) husband was a celebrity from a well known 70s rock band who popped in for a visit, was vomiting through a clenched mouth after the anaesthetic. I had my pre-admission appointment this week and the nurse told me that I probably vomited from that because I swallowed lots of blood. I commented that I also vomited a lot after my laparoscopy, but that may have been the revolting cucumber sandwiches served at the Flinders Medical Centre! Oh and I did ask her how much blood I would be swallowing from the tonsils. Der!

But no, I hate the thought of an anaesthetic.  This is not helped by someone I knew once whose mother went in for a simple procedure and never woke up from the anaesthetic and was a vegetable for many many years. (Oh and if that does happen to me, which would not surprise me, can someone please publish some of my work?)

So most people at work know I am going to hospital. And most know why. We have a lad who is a bit of a Casanova in one of the departments. He has tried it on with most of the young things at work, and from the stories gotten to places he would never get with me! But that does not stop a 21yo who thinks he is a god trying it on from time to time with a 35yo mother of 2!

Yesterday he comes up to me: “Fi, we should go out on the town again one night, you know Gilligans’s Dancefloor, you and me…” (I should say that a couple of months ago he was at a colleagues farewell where I may well have been at Gilligans, but I was not at all under the influence and I had an early night home!)

“M,” I said, “Very tempting as that is, it will have to wait until after my operation.”

“Aw, Fi, are you sick? What are you having done?” he asked, pretending to be concerned.
“Well, they have finally agreed to remove my balls. It seems the hormones have worked pretty well and they have decided to go ahead with the surgery.”

The look on his face was priceless. I turned around and his manager was doubled up with laughter. I walked away trying not to laugh!

Of course that didn’t stop him asking today if he could have a feel so I did my best ‘When I trained you, don’t you remember my big talk on sexual harassment and discrimination?’  Poor lad. Hope I haven’t scarred him for life!

Oh and for those interested… Cairns Private Hosptial.  Overnight stay. They said something about no mobile phones in the ward, but I might have misunderstood If not the number to pester me on is 07 4052 5200!  I am booked in under my married name because I am not going to pay for a formal marriage certificate to prove a name change so I can change it back to my maiden name so will wait for the decree nisi and have it spelt out on that! And it is a corker name too, or so some say! So flowers and bottles of gin… No, I will not be living on ice-cream! Margaritas all the way, with the occasional Daiquiri and gin and tonic jelly!

And yes, behind the humour I really am sh*t scared, not only about the anaesthetic, but also the pain afterwards.  Positive toughts would be appreciated!

For her birthday I told her I would bake a cake. Now I adore cooking. I find it the ultimate form of relaxation, well apart from sitting in front of computer… When I was a vicar’s wife I loved cake stalls. I would bake for days and days and turn up with at least 8 different types of cakes, most of which had been doubled or tripled or more. I don’t bake regularly for my colleagues, but when I do it is appreciated, recipes asked for and ideas given!

I have often thought how wonderful it would be to have a café somewhere and actually bake the cakes to serve with the coffee instead of the mass produced crap that most places provide. Just imagine, decent coffee, homemade goodies, free wifi, varied lunch menu, good service… One day!

Back to the cake! I knew I wanted to bake a chocolate cake, but which one? I figured for a birthday it needed to be a double layer with chocolate icing. So I settled for Nigella’s ‘Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake’ from Feast. It is delectably easy- everything in a food processor (or in my case I just used Priscilla and the whisk attachment) and blend for a few minutes. Icing is a fudge icing with chocolate, butter, golden syrup, sour cream and icing sugar. I never thought I was a cake decorator, but the comments today suggest otherwise. Amazing what some sugar flowers can do!

Of course with this detox, I didn’t eat any, but the comments were pretty good, well comments and oohs and aahs! Plus the office team wanted me to bake something for them as they missed out. Think I might be able to arrange that! Plus the kids have asked for some more baking… Might be a relaxing couple of weekends.