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.

Ok, I haven’t blogged in a while. Again. There are several reasons for this. Donnnnnnnn, firstly, was correct: I have indeed been traipsing. Geocaching is teh uber fun, and takes up most of the daylight hours that I’m not working. Yes, I’m working. My temp assignment has been sort of extended – I’m still at the same company, in a different area of the business, until at least the first week of November. Yay!

Also, Aidan and I spent last weekend in Sydney! Neither of us had been there in years, and never together, so we spent a very nice weekend wandering the city (being in a city again, yay!!!!), geocaching, and generally having a good time. I’m blogging from work right now, so I don’t have photos, but I’ll put ‘em up later if I remember. It was wonderful to be out of Canberra, to be together, to be away from distractions like books and computers, and just “BE”, you know? We really haven’t been able to do that in a long time.

For anybody in Sydney reading this, I do apologise we didn't inform you and try to catch up, but we really just wanted some "couple-time", so maybe next time :)

Aidan has this weekend off too, so we're thinking of going away again, or at least spending as much time as possible out of the house and together. Fancy that - time together! It's something of a rarity these days.

So anyway, I'm at work now. Almost everybody is in a meeting, but the few temps don't go to meetings, so it's really quiet in here right now. The guy who's meant to be training me isn't here today, and wasn't yesterday either, so I really don't know what I'm meant to be doing... I've taken a few guesses, and done some stuff, but for all I know I'll have to undo it when he gets back!

And that's the news. All the news that's new and approved!

Weeeeeeeee I had my first successful geocaching expedition today! Up Red Hill, found two of them, what fun!! Plus a good excuse to get out in the fresh air :)

Ok, update time again.

I have a temp job right now, data entry, which I'm scheduled to be doing till Friday but I think I'll have the work finished by Wednesday... I hope they find something else for me to do, else I'll miss out on two day's pay! Anyway, it's tedious of course (data entry always is), but I'm glad to be employed.

I've finally bought a GPS unit for geocaching. I went exploring with it today, I found the site of a cache but couldn't actually find the cache itself. FAIL! Oh well, next time :) It was fun, anyway, a good walk.

I've been feeling a lot happier. I think I may have been suffering from good old SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. You know, some of these acronyms, I swear somebody comes up with the letters first, and then figures out words for them to stand for.

My mum has decided to run in the elections for local council this year, down in Euroa. That is totally awesome. I'm fairly confident she'll be elected; she's pretty well known and respected; and she's nearly a local, having lived there for 30 years now. (It's a country thing.)

And, in a nutshell, that's my life right now.

I got a job! Sort of :) A temp job, a week's worth of data entry. Yay!!

Dear Diary... Update...

I have job interviews this afternoon and tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's interview, I think I would very much like that job - it's as a receptionist for a recruitment agency, with a view to later becoming a recruitment consultant.

I have stopped eating gluten again. GF (gluten free) food is hard to find, not as nice, and expensive. But it does make me stop feeling ill every day. The illness has been a more-or-less constant feature of my life for the last... I dunno, 6 or 8 years? So much so that I rarely think to mention it or complain about it. But it had gotten quite bad of late, so bye-bye gluten. I'm lucky enough to know the cause, since my dad is also gluten-intolerant and I know from previous experience that going GF makes me feel loads better.

I've been feeling a bit happier in general recently... I think it's a combination of a few things. The weather is getting nicer, it's hard to be depressed when it's sunny and warm (comparitively warm, not actually warm). Also I know I have only 4 days to go in this miserable job. I'm no longer feeling constantly ill thanks to gluten. And I'm looking forward to hearing from CIT to find out whether I got into this course.

And that's about it.

Well, I quit my job on Friday. I gave two weeks notice, so I finish up here on September 5th. Lovely! I'm fed up with taking the same phone messages 6 times over the space of 3 weeks because she's unable to resolve issues immediately. I'm also fed up with being paid late, lied to, kept uninformed, and fed up with the complete lack of organisation or effeciency around here. I'm gone. The boss doesn't need me - she doesn't need an office administrator, she needs a co-manager. She's never here, she's unreliable, she doesn't get things done. She needs somebody to be here and do things. And NO, I wouldn't do that if she asked me to. I am a rat, deserting this sinking ship! (Yeah, we're so broke she can't afford to pay our couriers so now nothing is getting sent to our customers... and she couldn't afford to pay me until a week and a half late... the list goes on...)

So now I need to find alternative employment. This is a bitch of a city for getting jobs, for me. Most jobs advertised are one of three things: IT, retail, or government. I'm not qualified for IT, I don't really want to do retail unless I can't avoid it, and government jobs are all fancy-pants stuff like project management or policy making. You need degrees and contacts and smarminess to get jobs like that, even if you wanted them.

So, whilst I am applying for office admin/PA/EA roles, I'm also mulling over business ideas. Gothic clothing? Sci-fi bookshop? Gluten free frozen meals? I'm also hoping to get into the Diploma of Technical Music at CIT at some point, so should I already be thinking about co-ordinating working hours with school, and find a casual or part-time job? That can probably wait.

My future is once again a blank page, waiting to be written on...

Well, I've been in denial for a little while now, but I can't close my eyes to the truth anymore: I'm gaining weight. I think I'm now about the heaviest I've ever been in my life, at a whopping 64 kilograms. That's 141 pounds. When I walk, I can actually feel my tummy jiggling. My face looks chubby. My thighs aren't nice. Fortunately my fingers are so far ok - I can still get my wedding ring on and off. I've never had to worry about my weight before... I've always been naturally pretty slim.

I think there are a couple of things contributing to this new phenomenom... firstly, as you may have gathered, I haven't been the happiest Stace in the world since moving to Canberra. Depression does tend to lead to more eating/snacking, and for me it also leads to apathy and lethargy. There's also the weather. Oh god, the weather. How do you go for a morning or evening run/walk/ride/crawl, when the mornings and evenings are icy cold?! It's discouraging, to say the least...

So, I think I need to take action. I'm going to begin a bit of a diet - not a fad diet or something fashionable, I just mean I'm really going to pay attention to what I'm eating and when I'm eating it, and be sensible about it. I'm going to put the M&M's I'm eating in the bin. I'm also going to get Aidan to set up his bike with the thingie so you can ride it inside like an exercise bike. I'm going to be an indoor cyclist! I'm going to get back into the daily situps which I stopped doing six months ago. When the weather starts to warm up, I'm going to at least consider walking to work a couple of times a week - it'd be a good 45 minutes or an hour each way, I'm guessing.

Now that's all in writing, you can all encourage me, and mock me if I don't keep to my promises.

I am feeling a very great need to vent about my boss. Are you ready? Go!

She lies, both directly and by omission, to myself and to customers. She also expects me to lie to customers, or, as she put it, "Be careful what you say". This, incidentally, was in response to me telling a customer the truth about the status and location of her own item. I think this customer had every right to know that something valuable belonging to her was no longer in our care.

She never keeps me informed. I hear from our solicitor of changes to scheduling, or that she won't be at work today, and generally I hear too late to be of any use. Last week I was under the impression she was attending appointments interstate, as I had arranged for her previously. I was told, by the solicitor, hours after the appointments, that she was ill and had stayed home. So I had to call the other party and apologise, and make both myself and the company look bad. And today, again, our solicitor has informed me (at 10.30, after I've been here since 9am) that she has appointments and won't be in the office today at all.

She repeatedly fails to pay me on time. Her absence today will mean she won't process my pay as she's supposed to, so it will be at least one day late - probably several days, knowing her memory.

Her responses to queries are incomplete or irrelevant. As she's been out of the office so much lately, my correspondence with her has predominantly been via email. Her answers to my emails frequently do not answer the question I asked, or imply that there was no need to ask it. I would not be emailing her if she'd left the information for me as she claimed she had.

She appears to forget that I am now her only staff member left in this office. One guy got fired a while back, the other is in hospital. So, if somebody calls trying to contact her, I'm the only one to take that phone call. I need to know when she'll be available, I need to know how to contact her; there is nobody else to assist me or deal with urgent queries. I continually have to tell people "She's not in the office, can I take a message and have her call you? Oh, I don't know when!"

Is that enough? As much as I like her as a person, and have some great conversations with her, and get along with her very well on a personal level... she's a bloody awful manager!!!

Yay, I got tagged!! Thanks Elizabeth!

1. What is his name? Aidan, but surely you know that if you've spent any time reading this blog!

2. Who eats more? Ummmm he eats bigger meals, but I snack more (but I'm trying to cut down!)

3. Who said, “I love you” first? Me, kind of... I wrote it. With my finger. On his back.

5. Who drives most when you are out together? I can't drive. So, him.

6. Who is more sensitive? Tough call. I show it more.

7. Who does the laundry? Mostly me, which is fair enough since he works more.

8. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? We seem to switch sides every time we move house...

9. Who pays the bills? Both of us. I mean, it's our money, but I physically do the paying.

10. Who cooks more? Hm. Probably him...

11. Who is more stubborn? Him.

12. Who is the first to admit they are wrong? I have no idea, I don't know that it comes up too often.

13. Who has more siblings? Me, with a grand total of one.

14. Who wears the pants in the relationship? I think we're fairly equal.

15. What do you like to do together? Cook. It's fun when we're together.

16. Who eats more sweets? Me. Trying not to!

17. Guilty Pleasures? I don't feel guilty about anything. Ha!

18. How did you meet? Mutual friend. Party. Alcohol. You get the idea.

19. Who asked whom out first? Well, he gave me his number, and I called it. I guess you could say it was a collaborative effort.

20. Who kissed who first? You know, I don't quite remember. I think possibly I kissed him.

21. Who proposed? He did, but I more or less dragged it out of him!

22. His best features and qualities? Best? There is no worst, so it's all best!

23. Tag some people... I don't know any bloggers with partners who would actually do this... Sorry!

Warning: Christians may be offended by this post. Do not read if you are sensitive about faith. If you read it anyway and get pissed off at me, don't say I didn't warn you.

I enjoy a good, logical debate. I particularly enjoy debating about religion, mostly because it's hard to find somebody who will talk about it openly. But there is one thing that I don't like about debating with Christians. (This is a generalisation, and obviously doesn't apply to every Christian.) They never seem to fully comprehend that they're talking to somebody who does not believe in God, and does not regard the Bible as an adequate source or proof of anything. They use God as his own justification, arguing in circles without saying anything real. They quote the bible to give reasons for their faith. That's like quoting Star Wars to prove that Luke Skywalker exists and has Jedi powers. "The force is strong with this one" and "God loves you" are on equal footing with me. Give me something real.

You see, it's like this: I reckon Jesus of Nazarath probably did exist. Although I'm pretty certain his mum wasn't a virgin in any literal sense. Jesus sounds like a pretty decent guy on the whole, but he obviously stirred up enough trouble to get himself crucified. As did thousands of others in that time and place. In his case, it was probably because he had a mental illness or smoked too much weed and thought he spoke to God. I envisage Jesus as like the leader of a band of hippies (aka apostles), all so doped up they believe everything he says he sees. Then the Romans catch up with him, do the deed on the cross, and suddenly the hippies are missing their visionary leader. Given the human penchant for dramatisation, they begin to tell their friends, relatives, anybody who'll listen, about this awesome dude, totally rad, but the bastards killed him, right?! An outrage, man, it totally sucks. Gradually over time, with hundreds or thousands of re-tellings of the story, people forget the hippies and the pot smoking, and only remember the bits that make them feel good about the shitty life they're leading: heaven, god's love, etc. It'll all be better after we're dead, I'll never have to push out another screaming brat again, or work until my fingers bleed just to feed my family, or see my youngest child freeze to death for lack of a blanket. That sounds great! Sure, I'll believe in a God that'll do that for me, when all I have to do is... what?! No sex outside of marriage?! Oh, fine, I guess it's worth it... Be nice to my neighbour? Sure, in this day and age I'm probably going to need his help, best to keep him on side... and so on. A few more rules thrown in to make living in that time and place a bit easier, and we've turned the whole she-bang into a religion. Several religions, actually. With all the different interpretations and denominations out there, who's to say my flippant little effort isn't just as valid?

Oh. My. God. I can't believe what I just read. Somebody please tell me this news article isn't true. Dude sets up tent near dead tree. Branch falls, causes him severe injuries, his family sue Parks Victoria and win! $6 million. Wow. There is truly no longer such a thing as personal responsibility. If that happened to a friend or relative of mine, I can honestly say I would regard it as a tragic accident. Nobody's fault, except maybe the guy who set up camp too close to a dead tree. It wouldn't even cross my mind to sue somebody! Is it just me who finds that ludicrous? Yes, it's an awful thing to have happened. Yes, I feel sorry for the guy and for his family. But it was an accident!!! Gah!!!

Friday in Canberra dawned cold, wet, and miserable just like the days before. Work was endured, and the ride home was freezing. The car was loaded up, my brother collected, and to the sunshine we headed!

We have just arrived home from a rather glorious weekend in Merimbula. It was the first time in quite a while that all six of us have managed to be in the same place at the same time: My parents, Aidan and I, my brother Brad, and his girlfriend Kim.

The occasion: My father's 60th birthday celebration!

This is the view from our upper balcony, at the rather glorious unit my parents rented. The house was superb: large, well designed, beautifully furnished... the kind of place you could never actually live in, for fear of making it messy. And the view out over the lake... well, see for yourself!

We had brunch on Saturday morning at a cafe by the lake. Several children were frolicking and generally being loud, and we just kept waiting for one of them to fall in... seems like this child's mother had the same thought! (Yes, I blacked out her face, she doesn't actually look like that!)

This is one of the two or three magpies that my parents kept feeding on the balcony. They would actually take food from the hand - the magpies, not my parents. Cheeky little buggers!

Later on Saturday we went to an arcade called "Top Fun", for no known reason, and played mini golf! I tried to convince dad that it was his idea by saying, "Dad, there's mini golf. How do I make you think you thought of it?", to which he replied, "What a good idea I've just had!" And it was, indeed, top fun. Dad won, mum lost, the rest of us were somewhere in between... I believe all us girls were last: I was fifth, Kim was fourth. The boys beat us all hands down!

This, of course, is dad. I still think he looks about 45 or 50, I have trouble realising he's 60 now! He says that next year he'll be turning 59.

So now we're home, and wishing we could have stayed. The drive back was somewhat symbolic of our attitude towards our home: the closer we got, the worse the weather became. It started raining as soon as we hit the west side of Brown Mountain, and continued, and continued, and continued. It's still drizzling here at home, about four hours later. I just hope it clears up by the morning, so I don't get wet as I ride to work!

Religion really is the big taboo. We're not allowed to insult other people's faiths, or show disrespect towards them for their beliefs. Why not? This makes no allowance for those of us who do not believe in a god - I am continually insulted by people trying to make me believe in one.
We were accosted the other day by a lovely Italian man who, I think, was in Canberra for World Youth Day-associated activities. I held my tongue and smiled at him for the sake of my friends, but if I'd been alone I would have told him I was a Satanist and walked away. What right does he have to show disrespect to my own choices by trying to convince me that his option is somehow better?
I would never stop somebody in the street and try to tell them that my belief system will enrich their life. How rude! I simply do not understand why it is acceptable for convential religions to do that, but not for the rest of us. Can you imagine how insulted and shocked a Catholic would be if I stopped him in the street and said, "Satanism is the best way to live"?
It's a double-standard which must be abolished; religion should be subject to the same openness and debate that everything else is. There's no particular reason to protect it from question or doubt; only convention and a fear of upsetting people. Well, I'm already upset, and I question these old conventions!
When something has been done a certain way for hundreds of years, they call it tradition. I call it time to contemporise!