You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion
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Watcha Doin' - 2019


To all of us USA reader friends - Happy Fourth of July. Hope you all have a happy and safe holiday and maybe a long weekend too!
I am looking forward to four days off work and to spend some time with my grandson before he has to go back to Hawaii, where he is stationed in the military. He just got back from Okinawa.

Enjoy your time with your grandson, Cherie.

Happy 4 July everyone who is celebrating!
Hope all the e-readers fix themselves. My phone is struggling on, but I ordered a new one. It's getting ridiculous
My fun news yesterday was I was talking to colleagues at our bi-monthly meeting yesterday where they were all asking about my job. I said we were carrying on but I didn't know what was happening yet. One mentioned she was looking for a new opportunity. I know we have a new job coming up, so I got back to my office and checked the internal jobs so I could send her the link if it was advertised. There, on the top of the screen, was my job. I had not been told they were advertising it.
I lost my shit. I knew it was going to happen, as I am acting. I knew was likely to be reclassified to a lower level. But that was all thought bubbles. Nothing had been said to me. No mention at all that we were moving on it. And I had just made myself look like an idiot or a liar to my colleagues as it dawned on me that they had all seen the ad.
But most importantly, the absolute disrespect to me not telling me was insane. And the academic I'm working with (not the one who advertised it I found out, but he knew it was happening) doesn't get it. I couldn't get him to see that it is polite to mention to someone you are advertising their job. I said "Imagine if you came into work and stumbled across your job advertised". "Oh... it's J's fault. She should have talked to you (even though we had a vague conversation about it last week). Things moved fast. I didn't know it went up. We only have a budget of X. We need a FT administrator. This isn't working how it is at the moment." No sorry. Nothing.
Now, I agree 100% with the practicalities of what he said. And I have been on board with them the whole time I've been there. I advise him on his budget. But he didn't get why I was furious. I said "I get this all academically and I agree. But another way of putting it, is this affects my real life as it's my pay you're impacting and changing. You should have told me" Oh. I don't know what you earn (not relevant) and I'm not making assumptions (what?) and ...
Did I mention I work for Eeyore? Eeyore and Tigger are my current bosses. I work in the bloody Hundred Acre Wood.
Anyway. After all this, and I had calmed down slightly I walked into my normal boss' office and told him I was coming back, as I was too old to work for arseholes who can't be bothered respecting me. Well. That solves the whole do I do a job I don't like issue.




Happy 4 July everyone who is celebrating!
Hope all the e-readers fix themselves. My phone is struggling on, but I ordered a new one. It's getting ridiculous
..."
That is wrong on so many levels, Rusalka. Poor you. What an appalling way to be treated.


I think I mentioned this several months ago. My fridge died towards the end of August last year and we were without a fridge for four months while they tried to repair it. We were stuck having to go through the process because we had bought the extended warranty which was good for 3 years and the fridge was only 1 year and a 1/2 old. Eventually we hired someone to tell them what they had to do to fix it and it was finally repaired.
Then, in April we started having issues with it again, just 4 months after it was fixed. They were able to repair it well enough, but a little over a week ago it died again. We were so discouraged. We started to go through the repair process again, but they decided to finally replace it!
We are getting a new one Saturday. We chose a different brand and it was approved. Fingers crossed that it is better quality than the first one.


I'm thinking about taking up my Spanish course again. I hope that if I read over what I did last Summer it will come back to me and I can continue where I left off. It's not very efficient, studying a language 5 weeks of the year, but at some point I will reach my goal of reading a book in Spanish!

This weekend is the last weekend of the course I'm a classroom assistant on. We're all going out with the students for a leaving do which should be nice. Then I've got a few months off doing that until October . Obviously still doing my day job. Today i should be writing a blog post but I have no energy or motivation to do it. I sat in the sun all day yesterday and didn't drink much. I think i must have had a little bit of heat stroke. That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it. So i think I'll go do some reading.

Happy 4 July everyone who is celebrating!
Hope all the e-readers fix themselves. My phone is struggling on, but I ordered a new one. It's getting ridiculous
..."
Pooh to Eeyore and Tigger. They don’t deserve you.


Thank you all for your love and support. It is just nice to know that I am not being unreasonable, and that it is actually super rude and disrespectful.
My boss came in on Thurs on her week of leave to talk to me about it. And while she didn't say sorry as such, although sorry it had happened so quickly (which was a backhanded dig at my normal boss), she did thank me for what I had done and for holding the fort until they hire someone, and that I had done a great job in trying circumstances. Still miffed though.
New week though, so let's see what fun will happen this week.

It's really hard to work for people who are like this. I'm not surprised you almost quit, it is rather soul destroying.
A friend at the pub tonight asked me what the kicker was this time, as I have worked for some disgusting excuses of humans in the past who could not treat anyone besides themselves with an air of respect, and the response was simple. "I am simply too old to deal with this shit anymore. I now know that not all workplaces treat people badly, and that will be opportunities in other places. And the rest of my life is too important to be consumed with work drama and angst."
Now if only I had had this epiphany 10 years ago lol.

Maggie, the signpost declared in kids writing, was the dog who lived in the yard and will probably greet me while I perused the books in the bright purple and bright green painted microwaves. With a robot dog on top. And so they named the library after her. It very much made my day.
I also now realised, that with Maggie's library, the Book Cache, and the Nemerang Street Library, that's a 3.5k loop. And when i get a bit better at staggering, I could get to Bendigo Street, which has two libraries on the street and makes it a 5k loop.
Motivation. Take it where you find it people!
Now I need a backpack I can fit books in while I plod.

Pictures! We need pictures. This library sounds idyllic.


My health has been much better. This time of year is usually easy on me. My one problem is my Psoriasis is being so evil. The skin flares are in my scalp and face,. I think the sun is setting it off. The joints in my hand are really sore. So I apologize for previus post that did not include capitalization. I didn't realiz I was not hitting the shift until qa friend pointed it out to me.
Does anyone other then me get really tired of all the people who feel its okay to approach you with cures? I am really tired of people telling me if you eat this your skin wont be so red, blothchy ,flakey, or irritated. My husbands sister is convinced I need to get more sun. Sun triggers lupus. A lupus flare could kill me. I think she is being a bit passive aggressive
.

I can understand those people are annoying. Not only with cures, but when my sister just had her baby and she was outside with him, strangers also came up to her telling her she should do certain things differently. Mind your own business! If I need help, I'll ask.

I bought a softshell jacket a while ago and though it's good for wind and rain, I was still a bit cold when it was 12C and very windy. So today I bought a fleece vest for underneath. It says though that it's for temperatures of 7 to 10C. I can't imagine staying warm in just a fleece vest when it's only 7C, but on the other hand it did feel very warm (doesn't help trying it on when it's 23C I suppose ;-)).
Anyway, anyone have any experience? I figured I could just do layers and wear either tshirt, fleece vest, or jacket and several combinations of those depending on the weather. I'm only worried that the fleece will be much too warm, especially when we're hiking.

I bought a s..."
I don't have any experience with Iceland, but I did go to Canada when it was cold and I found that layers were definitely the way to go. It's better to err on the side of caution I think. You can always take off a layer or two if you find you get too warm. As for the fleece, I guess you will just have to see how you feel in it when you are hiking. You may find you get too warm with it on but on the other hand, you might not. Does it have sleeves so that you can tie it around your waist if you take it off?

I'm going to a festival on Saturday which lasts until 1.30am so that would be a good time to test it as temperature at night will be about 13C, but then again, what if I get cold? Lol, I really do think too much about the smallest things sometimes..
What temperatures did you have in Canada?

I bought a s..."
Snap! I am heading to Iceland and Norway May next year too, and I am out shopping for clothes atm. I intend to layer, but I’ve bought a down coat at Uniqlo. My mother’s advice was to always have your chest and neck warm. So a thermal singlet and warm scarf are a must. I’m also planning to wear a beanie and to hell with “hat hair”😁. The problem I have in cold countries is the going-in and out-of-doors routines of peeling off layers. No problem with that in sunny warm Queensland. When are you heading to Iceland?

I will put on a fleece hoodie to go out at temps of 6C. It's 13C right now. A couple of hours ago, it would have been a bit warmer because the sun was still out (17C?). I was out on the deck barbequing in jeans and t-shirt and was warm enough. 25C is hot for me - definitely shorts and tank top weather.
Again, it depends on what you are used to. If 30C feels good to you, 13C might feel chilly.

I bought a s..."
That's Canberra winter weather. Layers is the only way to make it work. My go to every day is a singlet, a shirt, and a jumper, with a coat if it's particularly cold.
Make sure you both have a scarf, gloves, and a hat in your bags, that will help you warm up even if you're just in a jumper.
That said, I went out in a tshirt last night when it was 8 degrees to go plod around the suburb. It's amazing how warm you get moving, so maybe less layers while hiking.
Mum visited Iceland in the 70s and had the thinnest woolen jumper from there. I wore it for 10 years in winter until it fell apart. So thin and light, but kept you so incredibly warm. So maybe go shopping there?

You and your currently 23 degrees *shakes fist from her 9 degrees*

You and your currently 23 degrees *shakes fist from her 9 degrees*"
LOl Rusalka. We were in Sydney then Canberra last week. Can’t believe you were in a T-shirt. By the way, we loved the arboretum. It’s going to be amazing in years to come.

Awesome! I was in Norway two years ago. It's beautiful! We leave at the end of July, so just under 3 weeks.
Thanks for the advice everyone!

Oh no way! You should have told me and I would have taken you for a coffee!
The arboretum has some of the best views of the city. Last time we went up there we had breakfast about this time of year. Started all foggy and then the sun broke through slowly making the lake glow. I'm glad it's worked out though, as like the lake it started out terribly. They planted it in the middle of that horrible drought in the mid-00s and something stupid like 80% of the trees died within the year. The second round of planting went much better.
Heh and the tshirt was another motivational tool. If I stopped moving quickly, I began to freeze.

I'm goin..."
We had really cold temperatures in Canada. We were there in the winter for skiing so most days it was only a couple of degrees above zero. I think the warmest we had it was about 9 degrees and that was only for one day. Needless to say, the layers were very useful!

Oh no ..."
Oh yes, Rusalka it would have been lovely to meet you and put a face to a name. Damn. Missed opportunity.



Next time! :D

I am heading to the airport in a couple of hours to pick up my daughter. She is coming to visit for the weekend and I can't wait to see her. :)
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My iPad works well enough but it can't be upgraded to the latest IOS software, and I'm star..."
That is what happened to my previous iPod touch, Janice. I bought a new one just before they sold out of them at Best Buy. Apple is not making iPods any longer because people want all of the stuff on their smart phones now days. I don't want a smart phone with all of the bells and whistles. I don't want to have to pay for the data plan and the back up and all of the apps. I just want to listen to audiobooks on my iPod and update my book status on Good Reads.