Gamer? Am I?

I wouldn't call myself a gamer. Not really. I mean, I ran a role playing convention once*. It had a pretty good turnout. I met my husband and, incidentally, most of my closest friends through the Sci-fi and Roleplaying society at Uni. I have my own (pink) Nintendo DS. And a PS2. And spend so many hours playing Zuma on the kitchen mac and Bejeweled2 on my iPod touch.

But I wouldn't call myself a gamer.

Except that I've recently started watching Good Game on Monday nights on ABC2. I think the hosts have a great rapport, they're funny and they have a hot asian chick reporter. I can't remember her name - haven't seen her on there very often.

The thing(s) I like most, however, are their little "community service announcements". 30 second clips interspersed throughout the half an hour show.

I particularly liked last night's one: If art were games.... Mondrian tetris!


* Not on my own. I couldn't have done it with my co-convenor Anna :)

Red, red, red

For the third morning in a row I awoke at 5am, this time without my alarm clock! Still dark and quiet with the exception of the rattling of the fence by the wind. Not even the birds were up.

I pottered around, not sure what to do with myself for a while. Made a cup of tea. Played a game of Zuma's Revenge. Then I looked out the window towards next door. A deep red light was filtering through. What on earth? I thought it was my neighbour's light. But upon another look it was the sky!


I raced outside with the camera (of course). The colours in the photos have NOT been altered in any way. Check out the flourescent light in my kitchen above. And here's the view from my bedroom window.


And just for reference, here's the view from my bedroom window on a normal day.


Wow!

Edited to add (7:10am):
Now the sun is up and the sky is a little less red. More orangey-yellow. The boys both woke up astonished at the sight. Atti said to me, "I went outside [to go next door] and the sky was all orange!" The downside to all this amazing light is that now EVERYTHING is covered in a fine layer of red dust. Ah, a little bit of Central Australia come to our door.

Morning busy-ness

Today was the second day in a row I was up at 5am. Not just awake, but up and about. I'm starting to feel a little tired.

I am amazed at how much I did before work, though.

In point form:

• Showered.
• Drove my parents to the airport.
• Got some dough out to rest before baking it.
• Baked a small loaf of bread (I'll post about that soon).
• Fed and dressed three children.
• Cleaned out the bunny's cage.
• Got ready for work.
• Dropped the kids off at school/childcare.

Hmm. Looking at the list, it doesn't seem like a huge amount but really, it was a busy and productive morning! Dan helped get the kids dressed but he had to leave early for a presentation on the north shore.

And the worst part was that I was still late for work (although to their credit the boys were ready before 8am).

Now that's some driving...

Last night (Monday night = single parent night) I managed to get the children into bed by 8pm! Incredible! Half an hour to an hour earlier than normal!

So early that I was able to watch half of Top Gear. And I saw this. It was incredible. The rest of the show was quite funny, too. I never really thought of myself as a "car" person, but this show makes it highly entertaining.




I hope the video doesn't get taken down due to copyright issues!

The Lego Taj Mahal: Part 4

Slowly but surely I'm getting there. Two thirds of the base part is now done!


I'm loving the little details - especially the windows. I'm looking forward to the "glass" windows... whenever I get to them.



Wish I could build it this quickly:

Good intentions...

At the end of last year I was full of good intentions... making several resolutions for the year ahead. Well, it's September now and I'd say I've sort-of, more-or-less stuck to them... except for the "more" part of things ("Cook more, craft more, exercise more...") But at least I haven't really done any less.

Except for this last one: "BLOG MORE!".

Darn it. I'm a bit annoyed about it. I can't help but be disappointed in myself. The months have flown by and I'm constantly writing posts in my head, or starting them and not finishing them. And nothing more than the usual LIFE getting in the way. I just don't know how to do it. To be a good mother, to be a good employee, to be a good wife, to be a good housekeeper, to be a good daughter, to be good to myself and to have time for my hobbies... and to be a good geek! Perhaps I demand too much of myself. Something's gotta give (as the saying goes). Friends complain that I don't have time for them anymore. (But really, if friends complain to you when they know how busy you are, how good a friend are they?) And yet, I'm not ready to let go. Of anything.

It's a conundrum. I don't know if I'll ever sort it out. I think it's just ME. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

He would have been 46 today

My eldest brother Arthur, and a young me. My next two older brothers are behind.

The Lego Taj Mahal: Part 3

It's been a while since I've touched my poor neglected Lego. I had it out in the kitchen/dining area for a while. Box on its end, the piece on top of it... Asking for trouble, really. One day Atti and Elora were playing near it and I popped out of the room. Came back and there was Lego all over the floor.

"What happened, Atti?"
"It fell all by itself."
"Oh really? How did it fall?"
"It just did it by itself... Oh. Yeah. Doggy did it."
"So you threw Doggy and he knocked the Lego down?"
"No. It just fell. By itself. With Doggy."
"Uh-huh. Right."

I also noticed that parts of it were haphazardly put back together. Somebody knew they'd done wrong and tried to fix it... and then left it when he realised he didn't know how. Hmm. That boy!!

Anyway, Dan was out last night and the lounge room was in a semi-tidy state so after the kids went to bed I pulled out the box and repaired the damage. And then started building.


TripleJ TV came on so I watched that. Then Doctor Who. And I built some more. It was a good episode. I don't normally watch that show. In fact I don't think I've seen a single episode with David Tennant in it. But I watched it last night. It had daleks AND cybermen in it!


And I ended up going to bed much later than I should have, considering I was up at a quarter past five that morning.

Later in the week I want to build the first two corner pieces. I'll keep you posted.

The newest family member

I've been going for jogs/walks/runs in the mornings on the weekends lately. We have some great bike paths along the river around this area and it's very pleasant early in the morning with the sun coming up and the birds flitting and squawking.

Last Sunday morning as I headed out I saw a little creature bouncing around. I stopped and it came up and jumped around my feet then wandered off to eat some grass. I continued on my way. An hour later I came back and there it was huddled under a car tire, presumably scared off by someone's dog. So I crawled in, grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and carried it home.


We've decided to call him Flopsy. And I took him to the vet on Thursday when we found out that he definitely is a "he". So now he's Flopsy-boy.


He's very friendly and tame. I think he belonged to a family before us. We did put up signs around the neighbourhood but no-one responded after five days. Apparently people dump unwanted pets in the park all the time. It's very sad. But to be quite honest, we weren't really that unhappy that nobody had claimed him!


Except for the cat. She's not too happy. We haven't told her about her bowl yet, either.

Quiet times

Kids, work... it all just takes up time. And whatever's left is spent sleeping these days.

Today we had a sausage sizzle fund raiser for child care. I spent over three hours cooking onions, putting sausages into bread, serving customers. And I still smell like barbecue!

Now I'm tired. The usual state of being at this time of night. Actually, usually at 10:30pm I'm fast alseep. But my plan tonight was to build some Lego (my poor Taj Mahal has taken some backward steps, due to two littlies and a box that was too accessible), watch Pretty in Pink (vale John Hughes, thanks for making my favourite movies) and perhaps blog about our new family member... Well, I managed one of my goals (the movie) and half a blog post (this one)... There'll be more soon I hope.