My wonderful friends.

You have read this blog and been part of my life, and Aidan's, through highs and lows, through engagement and marriage, moving city, changing jobs, almost everything momentous that can happen in a person's life. Now we are honoured that you join us in this next momentous occasion, and I hope to bore you extensively over the coming nine months by writing about almost nothing else. Yes, I'm pregnant. Four weeks and three days pregnant, to be precise (counting like the doctors do, not from the actual conception). Early days, but I couldn't wait to share the news! We had our first visit to the doctor today, she ran me through all the stuff I can't eat anymore, and said a few other things about hospitals and midwives and blood tests, but I was too busy missing salami to pay attention to the fine detail.

I hope to keep you all updated over the coming weeks, and here is a cool little countdown thingie so you know where we're up to!



Now I'm going to go and stare lovingly at some soft cheeses and wines, until this thing pops out and I can eat them again!!

Ok, the first 2,500-ish words are over at Stace Writes. Enjoy.

In the lead-up to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), my nerves won't settle down. Writing 50,000 words in the space of one month is a mammoth task which I'm not sure I'm up to - especially while working full-time, trying to see my husband every once in a while, and playing computer games. I may have to sacrifice the computer games. And some work. (Not time at work, just doing the actual work. That can wait till December.)

I've actually cheated a little and started writing already. I'm fairly sure most participants will do the same. You see, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to write about; if I could have figured that out I would have just started on a plot outline now, and not started writing properly until November. However, with no real clue... I just wrote a sentence. And then another one. And another one, and so on. So my novel will go wherever the next sentence takes it, with no plan in my own mind. This novel will surprise its writer at least as much as any reader!

Fortunately it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be 50,000 words. If you're unlucky, I might post it (or some of it) here (or over at Stace Writes, my other long-neglected blog) when it's done. If I ever finish it!

Canberra is covered in white.



No, it's not snowing.

The trees are sending out their seeds in a haze of fluff - it carries beautifully on the wind...

What may appear to be poor quality photography up in the top left is, in fact, seed-fluff. (That's a technical term which I made up.) It gets everywhere. Up noses, down throats, into houses and cars.

I've never seen anything quite like it. Although I've seen some weird things.

What odd natural phenomena have you witnessed lately??

Somepeople expressed a desire to see me with purple hair again. Sadly it's a little difficult to tell that it's actually purple in this photo, but I can't be bothered taking another one. Just trust me. It's purple.

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It's a glorious day in this big country town also known as our capital city. And what does a lazy Stace do with a glorious day? She sits out in the backyard (well, what passes for a backyard when you live in an apartment block; that's half of it in that photo) and reads and eats strawberries!

I forgot to close the screen door, and now there's a fly buzzing around inside... at least it's only one. When this town gets hotter, in mid-summer, the air is like a kind of fly soup.


Canberra really can be lovely sometimes. It's the Spring weather that I like. The Summers are far too hot, and the Winters are far too cold. And it's not just the hot and the cold, it's the type of hot and cold. Sweltering heat that makes you wish you were in Antarctica, and biting cold that makes you wish you were on fire. But today, so far, is just perfect. I'm going to sit out in the yard and read some more, and eat those strawberries!

"Ugh" pretty much sums me up this morning. It's Tuesday morning and I'm back at work after a long weekend... my back and hips are killing me, I'm still about three-quarters asleep, and I just want to go hoooome!!!

However, having had that gripe, it was a nice weekend. We went geocaching on Sunday morning, found 4 in one morning, which we were quite pleased about. We did our first multi-cache, too. That's when the original co-ordinates given aren't actually the location of the cache, but a location with a hint to the cache site. Or, as in this case, a hint to the site of another hint which finally led to the actual cache. Lots of fun! And I saw a snake.

Other than that we didn't do much. The weather had closed in again, and was rather anti-outdoorsy stuff. Rain and wind and thunder. Nice weather for staying in and playing computer games, so that's what we did for most of yesterday.

And I've dyed my hair purple again.

As promised, some photos of our Sydney Trip!

The outside of Star City, the casino in Sydney. What can I say? It's a casino. My experience of casinos is limited, not being much of a gambler, but I hear Star City is pretty good as they go... Apart from the really tacky fake rocks and waterfall just inside.

The grand and graceful Sydney Town Hall at the fall of dusk. As you can see, we had beautiful weather while we were there.

This, I photographed for Aidan's sort-of-cousin Steven. He's a big fan of Hummers, and we figured he'd be a bigger fan for a bigger car. Isn't it cool, though??

Aidan putting a geocache back where we found it.