/karen/

Nails under your cuticles

Monday, 24 March, 2008

Thursday 13/3/08

Back at work. (*Groan*.) Another bout with Campaign Monitor (*Double groan*.) At least their tech support people were very nice and helpful (even if they still did think I was an idiot). I edited more CHNs, tried half-heartedly to make some progress with The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 15) (hereafter abbreviated to DRB15), had lunch with Guan and Bec in the AFES board room, went to prayer meeting and then product development meeting and then went home.

At home, I tried once again to do the Campaign Monitor import but again it didn't work. I gave up then. Ben and I walked to Newtown and had a very yummy dinner at Hikaru, our favourite Japanese restaurant in Newtown. We ran into Michael L and his dad there who changed their order once they saw what we were having (gyoza dumplings, salmon sushi rolls, sashimi set which came with miso soup and soba noodles).

We got to The Vanguard around 7 but it took a little while for the doors to open. There weren't a lot of people there, though they did manage to almost completely fill the dining section by the time the musical acts came on. We saw a girl named Christa who was pretty good (guitar duets, soulful/folk sort of stuff) and John Columbus (indie rock but their patter was a bit too oh-my-gosh-we're-so-cool-we're-in-a-band sort of thing. I did enjoy their opening number, though, and wished it was on the EP I bought of them). Ben bought me a lemon lime and bitters, and flicked through a music newspaper which had pictures from St. Jerome's Laneways Festival. The air conditioning was up way too high, and we hadn't brought a jumper, so at one point Ben asked them to turn it down. They agreed. Then The Hampdens came on and blew us away. They finished up at around 11:30 and we walked home.

Friday 14/3/08

Late nights are the flavour of these past couple of weeks. We slept in, then went into work together. Once again I tried to tackle the Campaign Monitor problem (no luck) and make inroads with DRB15 (ditto). Elsie came and we read the Bible together, finally finishing off Cash Values.

In the afternoon, we drove to counselling (I fell asleep in the car) which was, once again, sad, but good because it helped us understand each other better. We drove home and I made fish for dinner (and was quite proud of myself because it turned out pretty well). We watched Law & Order: SVU, then I watched House and 50 First Dates and felt myself slowly getting sick.

Saturday 15/3/08

By Saturday, I was definitely sick. I slept for a long time, then spent the day watching lots of TV—Buffy Season 6—while knitting and going through lots and lots of tissues, lots of water and Panadol every four hours. It felt like there was a particularly bad drought in the back of my throat and nothing would parch it.

Ben made risoni for lunch (which we also had for dinner). And then it was time for more sleeping.

Sunday 16/3/08

I woke still sick but I was able to do some computer stuff—work on my blog, etc.—watch Buffy and knit (I finished Season 6) but church was out of the question. Ben went but I stayed home. And then it was time for more sleeping.

Monday 17/3/08

Unfortunately I then woke up at 3:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I was too hot, and when I wasn't too hot, I was too cold. Crazy weather! It's my theory that people tend to get sick around the time of drastic weather changes—when the temperature drops or rises dramatically. This weekend, the temperature had gone up quite a lot so it almost felt like summer.

I jumped on my computer and started doing web stuff, trying to solve some of my EE problems. I managed to tackle the static pages, templates, search box and menus. I quit as the sun was coming up. Ben hadn't slept well either, and was up at 7 for some reason. He took my key and went into work, while I went back to bed and read for a while (Mark Helprin, A Dove of the East and Other Stories, plus American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang), and finally slept for another four hours.

Finally I got up for more computer work (I was able to import my writing blog—yay!) Ben went out to dinner with Duncan F and I ate leftovers and watched Buffy Season 7 (last one! Unless you count the comics.)

Tuesday 18/3/08

Thankfully I was well enough to return to work because I had so much to do. I made a list and worked through it, the goal being to get to DRB15. It didn't quite happen. I had missed Briefing thinking day the day before because I was sick, so I had a lot to do to catch up. I tried not to panic.

Elsie came and we started reading Ezekiel together using the Bible Brief from Briefing #341. Then I met with Tony to talk about Michael Jensen's You and my work priorities for the next couple of weeks. Back to back with that was a meeting for The Faithful Writer which was heaps productive.

I left straight after at quarter to five to do the shopping at Marrickville Metro. I made a vegie stir fry with fish tofu for dinner, blogged and went to bed late. Again.

Wednesday 19/3/08

I ended up waking late—around 10:30 or so. Oh dear. I was supposed to be working at home on DRB15. Well, the good thing about working at home is that you can do it when you want to. I eased my way into it.

Campaign Monitor got back to me about my import problem and it turned out to be a problem on their end, not mine (yes!!! It's not PEBKAC!) Furthermore, they had imported all the data for me and it was all lovely, correct and shiny. Yay! I ♥ Campaign Monitor! So I spent the first couple of hours making the subscription process pretty, updating the subscription forms on our site and fixing up the people who had subscribed in the interim.

I watched one episode of Buffy over lunch and got stuck into DRB15 in the afternoon—compiling and formatting the file, then stitching it together in one long document. I took a break in the afternoon and did some Pilates with the help of YouTube (I quite liked this one [for arms and shoulders; involves weights] and this one [really gives you a good workout]. I was totally stuffed by the time I got to this one, though, and couldn't finish it. And my stomach was sore for days afterwards).

Dinner was leftovers and we watched an episode of Veronica Mars. Then I got back into DRB15 and managed to edit a third of it before it was time for bed. I felt less stressed then; at least I made good progress!

Thursday 20/3/08

Back in the office. Ben and I got in at 8:15 and shared an office. My To Do list started making me nervous again. I dealt with my email, then CHN, Campaign Monitor-related stuff (tidying up the loose ends), Briefing-related stuff and then, finally, You.

It was staff lunch so everyone was in, and we were having Japanese (yay!) I ordered a sashimi set and it was delicious (though not as good as Hikaru). It was interesting observing the different reactions towards the food from different people around the table—some of whom obviously found the prospect of eating raw fish rather gross. I wonder if non-Asians commenting on the weirdness of Asian food will ever not be weird for me.

In the afternoon I pushed on with You, making corrections and inserting comments in places where I needed Michael to look at something in particular. I also met with Tony to talk Briefing stuff briefly as well as talk about the look and feel of You.

We kept working until 6:15 when everyone else had gone. I remembered that I had forgotten to defrost the chicken that morning but I was feeling too exhausted to cook, so I suggested to Ben that we go out for dinner. We went to the dumpling house and had vegetables and dumplings, them came home and watched taped Law & Order and Numb3rs, and the rest of Veronica Mars Season 3 (sad! No more Veronica Mars!) plus extra features. We ended up going to bed at 1.

Friday 21/3/08

Good Friday. We slept in until 11, then got up just in time to watch The Christ Files on TV. I was impressed by the quality of the production and editing, and though that John Dickson did a good job.

I spent the rest of the day trying to import Lizz's blog into EE (it was doing weird things). We had salmon for lunch.

In the evening I went to see Step Up 2 at Burwood Greater Union with some school friends. I was early, so I got tickets and sat in the foyer, scribbling and knitting until they got there. Believe it or not, Step Up 2 is better than Step Up 1—particularly the dancing. This article in the New York Times made me want to go see it: apparently the director had never made a film before (and not for lack of trying; all his projects kept falling through) and then he got this one greenlit because the studio executive was impressed with his passion and determination. The film was cast with mostly unknowns who were really great dancers (so, like Centre Stage, the dancing is excellent and the acting not so much). The guy who plays the principal (Will Kemp) danced the lead in Matthew Bourne's version of Swan Lake (which I glimpsed on TV late one night and felt compelled to watch the entire thing, and then later went out and found it on VHS. I regret not seeing it when it was here in Sydney, but then I think I was living in Wollongong at the time).

Afterwards, we went to George's Café for dinner. I had a very yummy risotto which I shared with Ramya because I couldn't eat it all. For some reason, I ended up giving them a grammar lesson and discovered I knew more about grammar than I thought I did. We ended up leaving the restaurant at around 11:45. I got home at 12:15.

Saturday 22/3/08

Ben woke before me and got stuck into work. (Paid work, not the sort of work we sometimes do for personal stuff.) Josh came over to help him with a problem, but I remained in bed reading for a while (graphic novels that Bec had lent me: Re-Gifters and The Plain Janes. I particularly enjoyed the latter).

Then I got up and made myself presentable, and started doing housework—putting away the dry dishes, changing the sheets, doing the laundry, etc. I spent the day working on more EE things but housework was sapping my energy. Ben and Josh went out and brought back burgers and chips for lunch, then Fish turned up and the three of them went off for a long walk in the national park. I stayed home and mucked around on Facebook and watched some Buffy.

Bec had been making some noise about wanting to see Be Kind Rewind and Ben was keen to see it, as was Fish. We thought it was all going to come together but then it didn't: Bec couldn't make it, and neither could Guan and Mary. So it was just us: Ben, Josh and I drove to Newtown and parked, and met Fish at The Italian Bowl. We had a table right up the back but it was fairly noisy. I had penne marinara and, as usual, was the last to finish.

We still had some time to kill so we went to Cinque for cookies and milkshake, then to the Dendy for the movie, where we ran into Mike and Lil. For a while during the trailers we had no sound, but then it came on and it was too loud. The movie was okay—heartwarming stuff, funny but also a little too silly for me. Still, I enjoyed it!

Afterwards we parted ways and went home. Ben went to drop Josh home and I stayed up and read Good as Lily.

Sunday 23/3/08

I managed to get myself up before 10, had a shower, read my Bible and prayed over breakfast, then got stuck into some serious blog renovations with widgets and feeds. Ben made me mince stir fry for lunch (during which I watched Buffy) and then he left for band practice. I came later with the church cashbox which had been making its homw in our boot for the past week. A lot of people were away. Malcolm preached well on the latter half of Matthew 4 and we had dips and cheeses for supper. Then we came home and I caught up on three weeks' worth of diarising ...

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