All in the last week

To the Person who emailed me to see if I was still alive...I sure am! I've had 4 days annual leave and I've been as busy as a bee. I cannot possibly blog about everything that has happened over the last week so I’ll do a quick summary.

Now that I am a home owner I've spent my nights and Saturdays painting, I’ve been walking around with paint on my hands, under my nails in my hair and all over my clothes…sexy! I have no idea why the previous owner had such love for the colour yellow, but that was the first thing to go. The walls upstairs is now a nice creamy beige, it’ll match the new carpet that we are getting put in next week. It's been crazy because everything has to run on the tightest schedule, the painting must be done by Thursday so that on Friday the floor man can come in to sand and polish the floor boards (it'll take 1 weeks before we are allowed to step on the floor - just in time for furniture delivery).

I can see it all coming together now…we're so excited!

This is me painting the undercoat in our study - goodbye yellow walls, goodbye pink carpet!

I could easily stay at home painting all day, but did I mention that my best bud Sarah is back in Oz for 2 weeks! So in between work, renovating and what ever else it is that I do, I've been busy cooking, eating, playing monopoly, going out and catching up.

Thursday - Tiramisu & Monopoly @ Sarah's

Katina, Sarah and I have a Monopoly feud that has gone on for about 10 or so years (currently I am still the defending champion!). Katina wanted to take this title away from me and challenged us to a game of monopoly. The game will conclude next Saturday but so far Mr Westwood is in the lead.

Thursday Night -Bobbi's Amateur Night @ Pure Platnium

We just had to show Sarah what all this pole dancing business was about, it just so happened that Bobbi's was hosting an amateur night. For the record the twins and I strictly do pole dancing for body toning (it's the new pilates!) and only at the school. We spotted a few Australian celebrities before we headed off to Brighton for dinner at 11:30pm.

Friday Day Time- Ladies Lunch

And cook they did, what a great job! unfortunately I accidently formatted my CF card before I saved my photos but I managed to recover a few...some I stole from Betty & Lisa.

Everyone chips in, Sarah makes the gravy, Betty prepares the sides and lisa carves the lamb roast whilst Katina supervises.

Entree

Left: Baked Pastry cups with Ricotta pumpkin & onion Right: bocconcini on tomato

Mains, Sides & Dessert

Left: Green Beans with garlic and chopped Macadamia Right: Roast Pumpkin
Dessert: Homemade tiramisu, Chocolate dipped strawberries

Just like the old times =P

Whilst Sarah and I went to pick Jacky up from the station some one stole my camera and took these photos, How rude!! Because I was using a program to recover lost photos from my CF card, there was a moment where I actually thought that I had uncovered photos by the cards previous owner....I was thinking 'I thought this was a new card?!?! what is wrong with these people!??!' then i realised it was my friends who did it!

On a totally different note check out one side of Betty's shoe closet, there is another side behind the door and if you look closer there is another row of shoes behind the first row.

Friday Night - The Sounds of Motown @ South Sydney Leagues Club

The Concert was awesome! As we were leaving we saw that one of the rooms downstairs was having a Retro night. So the 6 of us decided to stay for a boogie, we whipped out some pretty crazy moves, the running man, the chicken dance (much to the amusement of the local oldies). When the dancers came out on stage dressed in blue lycra and pink hair it was a sign for us to go!

We later headed to the city and I called it a night at 12:00am but the others partied on. Rowena if you are reading this, do you know that your brother Ryan tried to pick up Sarah at Equilibrium!??! he didn't recognise her! I think that you need to have words with him.

For me?!?!

How absolutely awesome!

Kids in the office day came and went and I’ve been back at my desk elbows deep in paper catching up on work. At 10am the mailman arrives with the biggest bunch of flowers from The Flower Man. My bouquet is a mixture of beautiful pink roses, little purple flowers and over a dozen lilies still yet to open.

The card read:

“Thankyou for your wonderful assistance for co-ordinating Kids in the Office day.

From Deacons Partners and Staff”

It's a small gesture but one that means so much, it’s really made my day =P

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4:27pm Oh my Gosh! my HR Manager just arrived and handed me a sealed envelope. Inside was a letter thanking me for going "Over and above what would normally be expected". I now have the choice between a $200 Myer Voucher, DJ's Voucher or a Live your life voucher.

I can't even explain how I feel, I honestly did this not expecting anything in return. All I knew was that if I didn't volunteer to run it, the day wouldn't go ahead and I didn't want the kids to miss out.

If this is karma then I am so grateful that I have made the choices that I have, because after a few tough years 2006 has been amazing!

Kids in the office Day

Friday 14th July
About 3 months ago I was at Matty's house helping set up Vivien's suprise birthday. At that time I told him how the social committee at work needed someone to organise Kids in the office day, I wanted to volunteer but I was scared that I wasn't up to the job.

Matty told me "If anyone can do it you can Em!". Maybe the success of Vivien's party gave me the little push that I needed, but a week later I put my hand up to head Kids in the office day 2006.

So after 3 months of planning, organising registration forms, insurance matters, volunteers, quotes, lining up entertainment, finding professional carers, organising food, lolly bags and much much more! The day finally came.....(did I mention I've been really sick?)

7:30am: Got into work early to blow up 150 helium balloons, set up the cups & saucers and made sure that the fresh muffins arrived for parents during registration.

8:30am: The kids started to arrive! (since when did they make them so small???) There were 41 kids aged between 4 and 10 and we kept them entertained with our hand made activity books.

Me: "Don't forget to write down your name!"

A little girl: "But I can't write"

Me: Oh....."

10:00am: Cool Dan the MoOoogician arrives and hysteria erupts!! He was awesome! And put on a great show for young and old.

10:45: Morning Tea

11:00am: Balloon show, arts and crafts, biscuit decorating & face painting.

Do you know it costs $330 an hour for a professional face painter?!?! I thought to myself forget that! and asked a few of the HR girls to do it.

Instead of decorating the biscuits some kids started to eat the icing right out of the bowl! I even saw a few kids scull the little tubes of freckles that were suppose to go on the biscuits....but I was too busy stopping a kung-fu match between two 7 year olds to stop them.

12:30pm: Lunch

Lunch was a lot harder than expected; a lot of the kids had restrictions/allergies on what they could and couldn't eat. No nuts, no sugar, no soft drink or vegetarian only. So I kept it simple and easy - sausage rolls, basic sandwiches, cheese pastries & party pies. Whilst the volunteers and parents had gourmet finger sandwiches with turkey, snow peas, pumpkin, brie cheese, roasts beef etc. and salads.

1:00pm: Scavenger hunt

To get parents involved we prepared a scavenger hunt for the parents and kids to participate in together. It's a good idea for kids to get to know where mummy and daddy goes every day.

1:30pm: Insect & Reptile show!

We had insects, scorpions, lizards, turtles, frogs, a crocodile

And a big snake! *shivers*

The day wrapped up at 3:00pm and I was exhausted!! Everything went so well... Wow! What a day! I'm off sick today but I have so many thank yous to send out to all the volunteers who helped in making it all happpen.

Down but not Out

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been really unwell lately and still recovering.

I have a lot to report so stay tuned.

Di's Farewell

After a day of carpet shopping and watching Pirates of the Caribbean, Jacky and I headed to the Hills to say a farewell to Di who going back down to Melbourne (for 2 years) to finish off her degree at Melbourne Uni where at some stage she’ll return as Dr. Li.

Di was the perfect host and we arrived to a whole table of biscuits, cakes and chocolates. The casual get together was just what I needed!

I ate so many sweets that I later suffered a sugar headache, but it was enough to get us all fired up for 6 rounds of Trivia. The line was drawn between the teams and the trash talking began....

"Is THAT your final answer?!?!" Ken demands, as Matty G leads his team to another victory.

In this photo Matty was left to answer what he actually meant when during a heated trivia moment he yelled out to Vivien “Rub it for smartness!!”.

During the break Chris went to check out Di's Grand Piano as I settled into her massage chair to listen to him play.

I ended up sitting here for ages. The piano is such a beautiful instrument and a cd really doesn't compare to listening in person. Jy & Chris did a little performance (did I mention they could sing as well?). So thank you for letting me watch (you guys really made my night) Mark Nam also jumped in onthe act.

In the 2 photos below I'm left to wonder what Ken is doing to Timbo, whilst Mark is looking just a little too relaxed.

ahhh the massage chair (I so got to get me one of these!!!)
is it just me or does Viv look a little creepy? =P

Di I'll miss your company! but this isn't goodbye and I'll be sure to catch up with you when I'm over in Melbourne again (I think I'm down for a work conference in November). Take care and call me! More photos Here

Love Em

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In other news a big Congratulations to Johnny & Shirley on their baby boy Ronald Fan, born 10:30pm last night. She arrived at the hospital at 9pm and gave birth 1.5 hrs later! (that's pretty amazing) Mum and Bubs doing well.