Work has been LOTS better with quite a few reasonable orders turning up (people wanting stuff before Xmas so they can install over quiet time) so my December could be .....reasonable. Unlikely to be reasonable enough to get any bonus, but far better than it has been lately, which is a relief.

And I have had a GREAT evening swing dancing, and I got several compliments about my technique. And tonite one of the quite senior and experienced dancers took me through a slow dance and did a whole set of new moves, and patiently helped me figure it out, and gave me a hug at the end, which was nice.

So Im having a big dose of warm fuzzies right now :)

Yesterday I spent time fluffing around getting the computer sorted, intstalling software etc.

Then off to Mediterranean Foods to not buy Panforte cos they only had the big sizes, but I did get some San Daniele Proscuitto, and a single serving bottle of Prosecco. Onwards to Raewards where I got the HUGEST green grapes I have ever seen, and they are crisp and sweet and divine!

Oderings - to get many more tomato plants, a couple of courgettes and some potting mix. I also got a baby pumpkin plant, just to see, cos I have never grown pumpkins before, and they keep well over winter.

Home to plant the plants, and pot up the tomatoes.

Today I did MAJOR amounts of weeding, and composted and dug over and planted the potato patch. As ever there is still lots of weeding yet to do, but all the vege garden bits are weeded and planted now, the beans cleared of grass so they have sunlight all day, which should help.

The lettuces are nearly at picking stage, the icebergs should be ready around Xmas, and the tomatoes I have are in three diff stages, so I should be good for tomatoes for the rest of summer hopefully. While digging over the potato patch, I dug up some of the last lot and gave to the neighbours, as a 'thanks for keeping on mowing my lawn' which he does voluntarily, and I give them veges or baking now and then as a thankyou :)

Done some dishes and housework, have yet to clean the bathroom (needed to wait til I had finished making muddy splashes in the bathroom sink LOL). Have given oven a quick clean and have large taties in there roasting, its going to be savoury stuffed spuds for dinner.

And I have a TOWERING pile of clothes to iron and put away. But now, I will sit down and watch some TVs :)

One of the hard drives in my RAID array died on Monday - and I took my PC in with the 2x320GB drives I had already acquired, asked for another two and got two new RAID 1 arrays setup - one for all my files and stuff and the second one to put all my camera RAW files on - they are 12MB each so its good to store elsewhere.

And instead of doing a straight copy of the image, I asked for a clean image so I could do a fresh install. Within 2 min of my machine turning on and XP accepting its key, I was on the Net!

And because I *am* anal retentive and keep all my original discs AND the downloaded exe files for the stuff I download - I was up and running with Firefox and Tbird and this, and MS Office is installed and Im downloading SP3 for it.

And half an hour after turning on, I have full internet, email is setup and downloaded and Im all go. I do yet have to transfer over all my bookmarks and emails from my old profile and *that* could be a challenge as I havent done that before, so we shall see.

But I am up, going and connected, which is the main thing, and about to dash out the door to see the Dublin Irish Dance show which was my bday pressie!

Even when I biked 20km last summer they weren't - Im certain of that :)

However - I can Travelling Tommy! and Kick the Dog! and do Travelling Charleston with several variations! And do two different leaps!

If you are wondering what Im on - its adrenaline letdown from my weekend - this weekend was non stop Swing Dancing - the Big Band festival in CHCH coincides with our swing school Hepcat Swing organising two international teachers to come over and run workshops, and also lots and lots of social dancing. With judicious application of drugs, Mizone and sheer bloody willpower I went along, attending everything I planned to, and had an absolute BLAST.

The teachers were FANTASTIC and I learned heaps, got to meet lots of dancers from both NZ and Aussie and dance with lots of new people, and generally have major amounts of fun. You know its been a good weekend when you wakeup with bruises you have no idea how you got them (the one under my left big toenail is most mystifying)

Swing Photos here - on Friday I left work feeling awful - went to the Dr and then home for a sleep - fortified myself and plunged out into the night armed with my camera - I didnt intend to dance as I wanted to save my energy, so I had lots of fun taking photos and recording the event - check out the link for some samples of the action. I took several thousand pix but about 300 were keepers which I passed onto the dance organisers.

Sat was 3 lots of classes that were about 11/2 hrs each, home for a nap and food, then dressed to go out to the Cabaret Ball - again with camera but I got quite a bit of dance action. However I learned the odd fact that swing and ballroom does not mix on the same dancefloor. Imagine swing dancers like worker bees doing their dance within a proscribed space, but each pair is peripherally aware of the others, and collisions are slight and infrequent. Add in giant swans of ballroom pairs who can only go in gliding circles around the floor and seem oblivous to everyone else - ie its 'your' problem to keep out of their way, not the other way around. In the end they relinquished the ground and the Swing Dancers took over. Wicktory!

Sun was 3 more classes, home for dinner and then out again for a more casual and intimate Beach themed party at Hepcat Swing HQ. I got LOTS of dancing in, and had a fabulous time. Lighting was awful so I had to use the flash but got a higher % of keeper images.

Today I slept until lunchtime and only dragged myself out of bed when it turned out we were so short of necessary supplies that I absolutely had to LOL Forced myself to partake in house cleanup and dishes ETC, watched some TV's until a delightful visit by adora_belle and DP and offspring to get a media fix. Out again for the last event, a social pizza night - handover of the last pix to the organiser and home for more TV's

Good news is I seem to have sweated out a lot of the remaining cold, still have some residue but feeling generally much better. And best of all I have tomorrow off!

So I have a sinus infection, and rather inelegant exercises to do to drain my sinus (however they do work to a certain extent which is helpful). I have antibiotics and since I started taking them I have felt less dead, but my cough has started to get annoying (had a massive coughing fit at 3 am)

Generally having trouble sleeping as well which isnt helping, and while I can work a whole day, by the end of it I have no spoons left at all. So there has been Chinese for dinner for the household yesterday and today (and for tomorrow for me as well)

My car has had the radiator tank fixed - cost an extra $100 more than estimated but the Cam Belt is not in urgent need of replacement, so I will aim to get that fixed in Jan sometime and get that taken care of. Give me enough time to save up a bit more to cover the cost. Will have to find out about fixing the rust on the roof as thats not going away and they get a bit toey about structural rust these days!

Bit stressed about work, I have 5 customers who are all govt depts of one kind or another, and with what the govt is doing around central supply control, its entirely possible I will be out of a job within a year. If everything gets centralised it will be handled out of Welly or AK for sure, and if that money isnt coming in, then there is no budget to pay for my income. Which would mean no holiday and no Worldcon for next year, I would need that money for other more important things. I have mortgage insurance but its a stopgap measure.

Yes, a bit stressed :(