I may never win Tattslotto

But I really have won the job lotto.

Speaking to a close friend of mine who graduated with me reminds me just how lucky I am to be working at the place I am now.

I have supportive bosses who are more than happy to teach me and correct me when I'm wrong without putting me down. I have colleagues who I'm sure I drive up the wall with my questions at times, but they never give me attitude or refuse to help.

Sure, there's the odd staff member who's not exactly trying to include me in conversations, but is still professional when it is work related and now improving with their attitude to me once I'd made it clear I can't be bullied.

No family is perfect, but I can't see myself working anywhere else or finding another place better than this. All the tears, worry and stress I'd felt earlier this year when looking for a job, the times I'd cried with rejections and finally, when I made the decision to come here over another higher paying company: it's all been absolutely worth it.

Yes, I still groan when the alarm goes off at 6am and I savour my days off. But if I'm going to be working, there's nowhere else I'd rather be. At least, until I have to work 8 days in a row and on call for multiple clinics in the lead up for christmas..we'll see how I feel in a few weeks time!

Is it possible..

for a car to hate someone?

My car and I don't get along. In the last 4 years of driving my old car I'd only had one small accident on a stationery object.

Since taking over my parents old 4wd and moving up here, in the short 5 months I have had:

• one major scratch, 
• one dent at a shopping centre carpark, 
• one scratch (from some other driver parking too close and hitting my door) 
• and one big accident with my neighbour reversing into the side of my car as I was also reversing out of my carport.

Today as I went to start my car, the plastic part of my key cracked and broke.

Temporary repair with leucoplast at work. Sticky tape just snapped when I tried to turn the key again on my way out!

Luckily the key still works and I can lock/unlock and start the engine.

Nevertheless, I have a feeling my car is trying to send me a message.

What do you think?

It's a cracker of a season!

Today was our work Christmas lunch and Secret Santa exchange!

They also decided to celebrate my birthday at the same time as they discovered yesterday that my birthday was over the weekend, so I felt rather spoilt by the time I left.

Prawns and massive ham for lunch! (Ham not in picture!)

My wonderful boss also made an ice cream birthday/christmas cake! It's vanilla with macadamias, marshmallows, oreos, cranberries and of course, two ice magics on top with coloured sugar balls!

It was AMAZING!

Secret santa was so much fun, I love seeing what everyone gets and hoping that my recipient likes their gift. The budget was $30 max. My Secret Santa was into fitness, so trying to make the most of it I went to the Lorna Jane outlet to see if I could find an item within the budget.

I managed to pick up a singlet reduced to $20 down from $30 something and then headed to Typo for a fancy diary (she was going back to university next year so I thought a diary would be great to get everything organised!). After alot of umm-ing and ahh-ing, I settled on a navy blue buffalo diary for $10. I was very proud that I been right on target with budget. I'm not certain, but I think my recipient liked her gift!

From my secret santa I received a 6 month subscription for Recipes + plus two Revlon nail polishes (Fearless and a Quick Dry topcoat). I am very excited about the recipe subscription, I'm not much of a cook, so I'm always looking for healthy food recipes. Hopefully there's still a few naughty cake recipes in there for me to bake as well!

One of our workmates J whipped up some beautiful Rum Balls and White Christmas for all of us with the cutest christmas card attached. It's so cute I don't want to unwrap them!

Our bosses also gave us each a lovely Christmas card, mine included a message about how they were happy to have me as a part of their work family. I'm a sentimental person and I'm definitely keeping that card, it's so nice to feel appreciated. The included gift cards certainly helped too, haha.

Very spoilt today!

While at work I also discovered my order from Ambient Living had arrived. This was my first order with them, and though we had a few hiccups at the start so I couldn't get my order in time for secret santa, I have managed to get a gift for Mr Kittylove's sister in my order. I have to admit that they did an excellent job with the gift wrapping. I'm very fussy with it myself and they've done a better job than me!

Of course it never makes sense to just order one item, so I got a few gifts for myself.

Jimeale weekend bag, Glasshouse Rio De Janeiro, Glasshouse Leura (gift wrapped) and Glasshouse Tahaa minature

The Jimeale bag made it just in time for my trip to Melbourne and I'm quite pleased with it, I've already started to pack clothes inside! Ninja cat had a wonderful time playing with the styrofoam packaging in the delivery box-he was running around so much I couldn't get a picture of him with it. Whenever he flattened a foam piece, he'd go back to the box to fish out a fresh piece to play with!

How does your workplace celebrate Christmas?

3 days and counting...

Till I go back to Melbourne!

I can't wait to see Mr Kittylove and my family again, it's been a long time now. As much as I love where I work, I'm also getting a little burnt out as I haven't taken a holiday in the 6 months I'd been there. I can't even remember the last time I baked any sweets!

Mr Kittylove's family is also holding an early Christmas lunch so that I could be present. With 3 days left I'm a little behind on my Christmas shopping.

What I have so far:

• Mr Kittylove's sister

Glasshouse Leura Candle (image from candlebra.com.au)

• Mr Kittylove's mum-  No image yet as I haven't purchased it yet, but I am planning to get her a helmet (Mr Kittylove and sister are buying her a bike)

• Mr Kittylove

Peter Alexander Dino-Snore PJ set (image from  peteralexander.com.au)

I also want to get Mr Kittylove something else, but I've been at a loss. In the past I've done the wallet, watch, phone, fragrance, sweater and books. There are so many cool iPhone gadgets around but he doesn't own an iphone. So I've decided while a little boring, he'll appreciate money towards a fancy road bike of his choice or towards fixing up a second hand car when he gets one.  He's been fixing up an old car with his friends and it has him wanting to have one himself as a pet project.



As for myself, things I'm currently lusting after

Peter Alexander Miss Penny Cake Mould (image from peteralexander.com.au)
as well as the other adorable bakeware they have at the moment!

Peter Alexander Alice Nightie (image from peteralexander.com.au)

Marc Jacobs Dot (image from ldnfashion.com)

MAC Divine Desire sets, happy with the pink or coral (image from xocherrycoke.blogspot.com)

Ted Baker Sassey Dog Bobble-Matinee wallet or similar Ted Baker wallet (image from dachshundlove,blogspot.com)

What's on your list?

Why can't every Sunday be Funday?

It sucks to have to go into work on a Sunday, especially when it's your birthday.

But I made do.

The red Alannah Hill belt makes another appearance.
The  sewn on flowers and beads are falling out though with each wear  =(

Back: not the best posed photo, but it'll do!

Of course I put on another top when I got to work!
Since I had to go into work twice today, I thought I'd at least enjoy a nice birthday brunch in between. I might have looked like a loner sitting there eating on my own, but with one of my favourite books to read, I couldn't care less what people around me thought. Some days it's just nice to have quiet time to yourself, and I certainly felt better afterwards!

I'd decided to go to a cafe called Macaron. They made pretty decent food in the past, plus I wanted some macarons to eat as well! Today I picked up a Red Velvet and a Salted Caramel macaron.

My Big Breakfast looked pretty good, but sadly today was a total disappointment. The bacon was nice, but the poached eggs were very overcooked. Both eggs were like boiled eggs masquerading as poached. The chef got too heavy handed with the herbs in the potato hash browns so it didn't taste much like potatoes at all. 

The usually decent macarons were also a bit of a disaster. The shells for the Red Velvet one were soggy and like cake, meanwhile the Salted Caramel pretty much tasted like salt.

I hadn't been here in a few months, so maybe they've changed chefs. Hopefully he's just off on a holiday because if I'm presented with this quality again I will have to take them off my cafe list!

Despite the food I enjoyed sitting around and reading by myself for awhile.

With birthdays on my mind I ducked into the shops to grab a belated birthday present for my friend V.

It got me thinking about birthday presents I'd received in the past and times I'd been horrified but now look back and laugh at.

One birthday 3/4 of my guests gave me a bath set for my present. I wasn't sure what they were trying to tell me, it was either 'we think you need to improve on your personal hygiene' or 'you're difficult to shop for so we resorted to bath stuff'. I still have some of it floating around back at my parent's place!

Another year there was a misunderstanding-entirely caused by a girl who despised me and intentionally created havoc by telling my other friends that I'd only invited two friends to my birthday and didn't want them. In reality my parents told me I could only have 4 people at my birthday, so I only invited my two best friends to avoid picking out of my close group of friends and upsetting them. With all the drama that happened, my parents gave in and said to invite everyone. But at that point the damage had been done. One girl who I'd thought was a good friend was rather vindictive and sweetly handed me the creepiest baby doll I had ever seen. It was like Chucky in a cow costume with eyes that always looked at you.

Isn't it amazing how big a drama it seemed back then in primary school when friends became bitchy whereas now I couldn't care less what she thinks of me or those girls back then. I remember being distressed for weeks back then, but looking back it really wasn't worth all that heartache at all.

This year's another new year and another way to celebrate. Sadly Mr Kittylove is not in town with me, but my old housemate V is going to cook dinner! He didn't want to eat out because he wanted to make sure he ate healthy, he's big on making sure he gets all the food groups in every meal. I can't wait to see what we'll be eating, maybe he'll process carrots into mash and attempt to sneak them into a bolognese sauce again. Whatever he does, it'll be interesting to see how he incorporates it all in, I used to think he cooked for us as though he was cooking for a child, hiding all the veggies in all sorts of creative sneaky ways.

How was your weekend? Do you have any funny birthday stories to share?

Ninja Cat endorses Havs (you can still see his shaved tummy from the surgery!)

What's that? shoes!

Today consitsted of a trip to DFO, the plan was to buy my ex housemate V a belated birthday present. I knew he was after a full sized umbrella (the non collapsable ones) and I'd brought lovely ones at Oroton in Melbourne. Sadly there weren't any at the outlet here. Any suggestions for a good sturdy umbrella would be appreciated!

Being the waste-not person that I am, I wasn't going to waste the petrol I'd used driving to DFO to come home empty handed. So naturally I found something for myself instead:

Boots in northern QLD weather, are you crazy??

I like to think of myself as practical. I wear flat boots to work everyday. I like to be prepared for things such as vomit, pee, diarrhoea, blood, pus, etc to land on my shoes because it does happen every so often. With boots I can just easily hose them off, spray disinfectant and forget it ever happened. Shoe laces would be too difficult to disinfect and runners absorb everything. My co-workers think I'm crazy but I think they're crazy!

I can't wait to wear these. Last pair at the Williams Outlet reduced from $90 to $45! The cushioning is great and heaps of grip on the sole. A vast improvement to my previous pair of boots (Asos flat boots). My old ones looked pretty but had zero support and started to fall apart on the inside lining after just 4 months of wear.

What shoes do you wear to work and what line of work do you do?

Mondays are brutal

They always are. But today was a little different.

Every Monday morning when I walk into work I brace myself for the inevitable chaos. The unexpected walk-ins, the people who call in first thing for problems that they left over the weekend, the late-comers and early arrivers who come in at the same time.

Usually when I look at the appointment schedule I see every 15 minute space filled up from 8-11:30 and then other times even the 7:30-8am time slots too, when I'm not even meant to be available. That's expected of a Monday.

Today was different. Today I had no idea how busy I was going to be, what to expect because our computer network was down. We had no access to any of the pre-booked appointments, any files, nothing. Unless something was an emergency, we could not make any appointments because we don't know whether that time was already taken. When we did make appointments, we had to cross our fingers and hope we were double booked. This certainly made things interesting.

Handwritten consultation notes, handwritten prescription stickers, flipping through a 20 page price list to find one item, relying on clients to remember everything.
"I want more of that eye ointment"
"Which one was it?"
"The white tube!"
"There are 4 other eye ointments that are also in a white tube, do you know the name?"
"uh..no?"

I braced myself for a bad day. Hopefully this would be as bad as things get. Five minutes into the day my first patient peed all over me. I had a change of work shirt, but no change of pants. FYI: scrubbing with wet chux wipes just doesn't cut it. Clearly it was going to be a smelly day and I couldn't be more right. Another hour in, maggot infestation. Thank goodness I forgot to bring lunch, even my tea was making me ill.


If anyone is reading this, I would love to hear about any bad Monday mornings you've had!

I'll leave you with a photo of Ninja Cat looking very feline and skinnier than he was a month ago. You can still see the clipped leg from the surgery he had recently. That's a story for another day. I promise it's a doozy!