home alone

The Boy is entering his 3rd day of being home alone, since he’s lucky enough to have leave this week while I have to work.

So far, as you’d expect, his days have been filled with computer games, net surfing and updating his website. He says he misses me, and that being home without me isn’t the same. However, I don’t think he’s actually missing my company, as such – I think he probably just misses having coffee and food provided for him, and being generally looked after.

101 posts & still standing

Yup, that’s right – this is my 101st blog posting. Not bad going for someone who only started blogging to shut her partner up. I bet he never thought I’d make it this far (see Boy – proved you wrong!).

I think I can officially say I’m no longer “the virgin blogger” – just plain pj in the city.

i might be winning…

I hate to tempt fate by saying so, but I think I might be starting to win the ‘battle of the ants’.

I made bacon for breakfast on Christmas Day, since it’s The Boy’s favourite. The greasy paper towels I’d put the cooked bacon on, and the empty bacon packet, were in the kitchen rubbish bin. I’d intended to change the bag before we left the house to spend the rest of xmas day and night at mum & dad’s, but stupidly forgot. When we got back home, more than 24 hours later, there wasn’t a single ant anywhere near the bin.

I also discovered this morning that The Boy had left an open container of brownies in the lounge when he came to bed last night. Again, not one single ant.

Considering that when we moved in doing something dumb like either of the above would have meant we had an ant swarm within half an hour, this is serious progress.

So there you go. The Boy can mock my attempts at ant-genocide (as he likes to call it) as much as he likes – at least it seems to be working. Touch wood.

go santa!

I have to say Santa was very good to me this year – all his ‘helpers’ delivered great gifts that I’ll get a lot of use and enjoyment out of.

I was particularly impressed by The Boy’s delivery. As any regular reader of the blog (if there are any!) would know, The Boy hates shopping with a passion. I’m sure he’d rather spend 8 hours at the dentist than one hour shopping. In fact, I think the only thing he hates more than shopping is salsa dancing.

But, despite this loathing, he did venture out and found me a gorgeous Christmas present (which I absolutely love). And knowing the time and research he put into it makes it an even more impressive gift.

Thank you bebezinho – you did an amazing job.

Some people are never satisfied, are they?

Last year, our first xmas living together, The Boy was less than impressed by the little star I had on top of the xmas tree. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most salubrious decoration, but I didn’t think it was that bad.

Anyway, I’d had in mind that maybe I’d be good and get something a little nicer this year. So when I was at a sale at the Christmas Heirloom Company’s factory shop a few weeks ago, I had a look at a few options.

Not being religious, I’ve never had an angel on my tree, so I was looking at stars. Then I started thinking that since The Boy is catholic, I should really ask his preference. I sent him pixts of the angel and the star they had and told him the choice between the two was 100% his, or if he didn’t like either then I could look somewhere else. He chose the angel.

So, that was fine – I brought the angel home, and he was happy. For all of 2 minutes.

Since then, he has been bad-mouthing the poor angel to everyone who comes round, saying it’s the gayest angel he has ever seen, and how bad it looks on the tree. Despite the fact that he chose it.

So there you go – next time I won’t give a toss about which he would prefer. If he’s going to whinge about it anyway, I may as well just get the one I like, right?

4 more sleeps…

I do envy people in jobs that let them slack off a bit in the week before Christmas, so they can start getting into the holiday spirit (or even take that time off). Unfortunately for me, my work is always absolutely frantically busy in the lead up to the festive season.

Still, it could be worse – I could be a courier driver. Not only are they flat out at this time of year, but they have to brave the madness on the roads. Mind you – considering they’re big contributors to that madness, maybe its just karma.

my new crusade…

I’ve been on a bit of a mission since we moved, and that mission is to eliminate all ants setting foot on our place. It’s a bit of a losing battle, considering the whole area is rife with them (with a thin layer of soil over volcanic rock, the conditions are ant-heaven). Still, I’m out there daily, refilling the ant-bait stations and fly-spraying anything that moves.

The latest discovery was a load of ants actually in my car. I must have used a good half can of fly-spray on them – we’re now in danger of suffocating on fumes if we drive with the windows closed, but at least there aren’t any crawly things in my poor wee car.

The Boy thinks its hilarious watching me race around with the ant bait and fly spray in my vendetta against all creepy-crawlies, but so long as I can at least keep them out of our house (and my car!) then I’ll be happy.

showing some christmas love

Partners of friends can be difficult to buy for, don’t you think? They’re often not people you have all that much contact with, even when the relationship is long term. Besides, when you’re on a bit of a budget, you don’t necessarily want to have to spend a lot of money on “partner presents”.

My solution to that for the last several years has been home baking. I make chocolate brownies and/or biscuits and buy some nice plates to put them on. Wrapped up in cellophane and tied with curling ribbon, it looks good and doesn’t cost the earth, but is still something that shows a bit of effort.

Since we had a Christmas gathering on Sunday, I spent a good part of Saturday evening and Sunday morning doing the baking (see how exciting my life is in the suburbs?!). This year it was a couple of batches of brownies and loads of cranberry & white choc chip butter cookies.

It occurred to The Boy & I that, since we had all this Christmas baking, it would be nice to do the neighbourly thing and give some to the people on either side of us. We still aren’t really used to this whole “chat to the neighbours” thing, but we’ve been trying to improve. Anyway, they seemed to appreciate it, so I guess we’re learning.

Actually, I suppose neighbours and friends’ partners are similar in a way. In both cases, you don’t necessarily have a lot in common with them or see them very often, and sometimes you don’t even like them that much, but it’s wise to maintain civil relations with them.

how do they do it?

Children really are amazing creatures. How can beings so small and so cute be capable of creating such bedlam, such ear-splitting noises and leaving such a trail of destruction?

I had the annual Xmas get-together with a few old school friends yesterday, which it was my turn to host. The party included 4 young whipper-snappers ranging from 1 to 6 years old. Two of them had just come from a birthday party, so they were already sugar-shocked before they even arrived.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the kids and always enjoy seeing them, but they could definitely teach Genghis Khan and his ravaging hordes a lesson or two. My utmost respect, and somewhat bewildered admiration, has to go to all the parents out there who deal with these little critters 24/7. I’m always completely exhausted after a few hours!

a cure, but only temporary

We discovered one cure for computeritis/internetitis last week – just blow up the power converter. Unfortunately it was only a temporary cure, because The Boy got a new one on Wednesday. Oh well – at least I got a few days with him off the computer and spending more time with me, even if he did spend most of that time whinging about not having his computer…

how many more sleeps?!

How the hell did it get to be only 11 more sleeps until Christmas??? Am I the only person in the world who hasn’t got the xmas spirit yet? Or, more to the point, the only person in the world who hasn’t made even a small dent in their xmas shopping?

Best I get my butt in gear on that, I suppose. Avoiding the malls whenever humanly possible, though – I like to think I’m a reasonably easy-going person, but the crowds in malls at this time of year do bring out the worst in me. Mind you, I never give anyone a discreet elbow-jab or heel-spike unless they really, really deserve it… honest…