Gracie’s Life Experiment

How sad!  I am home, by myself on a Friday evening.  My social life seems to have disappeared (although saying that I do have 3 socials next week, no maybe not having too heavy a weekend would be a good thing).  We have family visiting tomorrow so I’ve been tidying again.  I can’t understand how everything gets taken out from its usual “home” and never gets put back again (till the wife-fairy magics it back from whence it came).  It’s really very irritating.  Kitchen is sorted and laundry is up to date.  Just hoovering to do in the morning and the house should be presentable. 

Summary of the day: No work for me (decided as I had no meetings that I’d take the day off to recover), Bought a couple more Christmas presents online (must make a proper list with hubby when we get time), Bought tickets to go see Avenue Q on Boxing Day

This week’s 10 things are things that irritate Mocha!

1. CATS
2. Hedgehog
3. Pigeons
4. Squirrels
5. Postman
6. Aeroplanes
7. Rubbish Collectors
8. Toys that roll out of reach under the sofa
9. Getting evicted from a nice warm patch
10. Not getting human food!

Most of these annoyances result in large amounts of shouting/barking. She’s a small fluffy dog (Zuchon) yet she barks like a big dog. Also when she’s really riled up she runs on her back paws whilst launching a tirade of barks with no gap between barks kind of “wowowowowowowowww” rather than “ruff ruff ruff”! When she gets a surprise she howls.

Summary of the day: Work, Meetings all day (apart from 12-12.45), Felt absolutely shattered!

So 1/4 of a year’s worth of blogging so far!

Top 5 Highlights of the month:
- Getting our permanent residency visas to go to Australia
- Getting a new credit card  with 4% cashback
- Day trip to Wales
- Becoming proper Winter and snuggling down in the house
- Got a nice new black 3/4 length winter coat

Bottom 5 Lowlights of the month:
- Having loads of student meetings
- Hubby not getting a Head of Physics job :’(
- Being sickly
- Neverending housework AGAIN
- Paying an arm and a leg for bad service

Summary of the day: Work, Only 1 meeting, Got on with case study prep material,  Made Thai Green curry for dinner, Played piano, Went to Tescos for late night shopping 

It’s been a busy week and it’s only Tuesday.  So much stuff to do and less and less time.  Did lots of planning for case studies today.  On reflection I wonder how many times or how long the average human spends planning.  We usually plan the time we wake up, the things we have to do before we leave the house (unless you’re on autopilot in the mornings), the time it takes to get to work and the route we’ll take, various meetings, what we’re going to do in our spare time, even things like making a shopping list, christmas presents and holidays.  It’s like we’re in a constant flux of planning, bound into an eternal plotting sequence.  The funny thing is though that without being able to plan I feel horribly out of control, my brain just does it automatically in it’s downtime (in a similar way that SETI uses your computing power when it’s not being used, my brain keeps itself busy).  My life revolves around a constant state of planning and worrying about things - how depressing.  Sometimes I really do think I could be slightly OCD.  It always entertains friends when we go out for meals as I start to package up the food I have so there’s a little bit of everything on each forkful and at the end there must always be the same number of bits so that no mouthful is unbalanced.  It usually results in me taking longer to eat than everyone else.

Summary of the day: Work, Lots of planning, Had a rather soggy microwaved chicken and mushroom pasty, Rushed around all day, Gave a piano lesson, Did not much else!

I must admit that I do like most TV game shows.  My favourite is probably University Challenge as it actually is quite a challenge (I think I maybe get about 10 questions right in a show).  I don’t really like the ones based on luck.  Deal or No Deal does my head in - like you can “will” something already predetermined to become red or blue.  You have a better chance of “willing” it to turn into a dwarf riding a tiny elephant inside the box.  I used to love Crystal Maze and Krypton Factor.  I quite like the sort of panel team celeb ones (like Question of Sport and Buzzcocks), nice mindless stuff to watch in the background.

Summary of the day: Work, Absolutely no meetings so actually managed to get work done (3/5 things ticked off to-do list), Cooked moussaka, Watched telly, Thought about tidying (didn’t)

I’ve got 6 different Christmas meals from 3rd - 18th December and THEN Christmas itself.  I think I have cunningly avoided having turkey more than once a week.  I don’t think I’ve had so many in one year before.   This year I seem to be part of quite a few different groupings more.  I have a lunch with Mech Eng, dinner with the Research Centre, Archery club dinner, SEIC dinner, NHS dinner, and a Christmas dinner with friends.  Am also contemplating having a buffet/house party at ours too.  Down to my family for Chrismas (more stuffing with food) then up to Hubby’s family for New Year and then an engagement party on the way home.  I’m going to need to do some major exercising in January!!!  Else I shall have to buy 2 seats for my derriere on the plane to Oz!!! 

Summary of the day: Went to church, Helped out with Sunday School, Did washing up, Met up with friends at the Toby Carvery, Rolled back home, Swept leaves out of garden (well as many as we could cram into the 2 composters and the brown bin), Watched Annie on TV (makes me feel about 10 again)

Seeing as we got our visas on Thursday I was too excited to remember to do this week’s 10 things.  So here are this week’s belated ones - 10 things that we really must take with us to Oz when we emigrate.

1. The Dog!! (so expensive - about £2-3k, tempted to shave her and put her in a babygro)
2. The wedding presents (mostly denby and crystal ware)
3. My piano (digital piano and we still have the original packaging), violin and guitars
4. DVDs and CD collections
5. Books (lots and lots)
6. Laptops and PC hard drives
7. John’s Model Railway
8. Wedding dress
9. Various kitchen equipment (electric steamers, smoothie makers, coffee machines,etc)
10. A selection of clothes (prob just pick the larger, more expensive items like ballgowns, Academic gown, etc)

Not bringing any furniture (it’s all el cheapo flat pack that would probably fall apart or be wobbly once it got to the other side of the world).  Unless of course we can find a company who include relocation costs in which case we’ll just pack the whole house up!!  Once we decide when we want to go then we’ll have to start getting quotes, looking for jobs and stuff.  We’re waiting till January to make the decision as there are a number of things happening in our lives that may make the decision either harder or easier (depending on the way they go).

Summary of the day:  Had a nice lie in, Walked into town with dog and shopped in the market, Bought a rather nice 3/4 length black winter coat from Primark (only £25 what a bargain), Went out to Noodle Bar for an archery club social, Went to Spoons for some after dinner drinkies, Came home and snuggled in the warm.

We bought our Nintendo Wii back in June.  At the time I found one in Argos and they had an offer where you got £10 off Wii Play (which included another wiimote) think it was about £205 for the console, Play and Sports.   We don’t seem to play it as much these days but it’s great when we have people over.  We have a small selection of games (Sport, Play, Harry Potter OOTP, Far Cry, Wario Smooth Moves , and hopefully The Simpsons for Christmas).  Wii Sport kept my parents occupied (mostly the golf game).

Strange how there seems to be a big rush for Wiis in the runup to Christmas.  They haven’t been overly plentiful in stock over the year, but they weren’t hard to find over the summer.  If we hadn’t got one, I would prob have held out for the next version of Wii (think it’s coming out some time next year) which plays DVDs as well.

Summary of the day: Work, 2 student meetings, Catching up with emails, Extremely large fish (with some chips and bean juice - I like the baked bean sauce but not the actual beans), Supermarket shopping for last minute stuff, Had a dinner party with steamboat, Played trivial pursuits (I won - w00t) and then Mario Smooth Moves (v surreal graphics).

Got an email this morning and found that we have had our visas granted.  We started the whole process of applying for general skilled visa for Australia in Dec 2006. 

Here’s our timeline for the 136 (non-MODL) Skilled Independent visa:
21/12/06 Applied for skills assessment for me - Systems Engineer (Asco code 2129-79) AU$250
29/01/07 Applied for skills assessment for hubby - Physics Teacher, Secondary School (Asco code 2413-11) AU$450
26/04/07 Application arrives at Adelaide
26/05/07 Application fee taken from credit card AU$1990
18/07/07 Acknowledgement
13/08/07 Case Officer
31/08/07 Applied for Police Checks £10 each
11/09/07 Went for Medicals £450 for both of us
19/10/07 Sent off Police Check scans
22/11/07 Visa Granted

A few more costs for postage, copies etc prob about £50.  Think approx costs is around £2k.  We didn’t use an agent so no costs there and it was pretty straightforward  had no problem putting it all together.

Summary of the day: Went to work, Checked emails - found Visa Grant, Grinned lots, Had meeting at 9, 10 and 11, Went to posh luncheon and stood by my poster, Talked lots and lots, Came home and made macaroni, Tidied the house (bin day tomorrow)

No, I’ve not been bunking off by working from home, I’m blogging about having to take work home to do… due to time going much faster in real life than in GracieK World I have far too much to do and the rate at which I’m doing it seems to be getting exponentially slower the closer we get to Christmas.  I feel like I’m in some bubble that has it’s own time system and waves (or tsunamis) of work keep washing over the bubble and the work-sea level is getting higher and higher.  The longer I take to get out of the bubble, the more likely I will drown in work!  If there were a graph there would be 2 lines - y=1/x (my productivity) and y=x^4 (the amount of work piling up).  I feel a bit like poor ole Donkey Kong and all the barrels are tumbling down ready to make me fall off the conveyor belts.  So worked all day today and got home and worked some more at home in the evening.  Think I’ve got the work to a reasonable state but will have to get into work early tomorrow morning to get more done before my 3 meetings in the morning and a poster event all afternoon.  Now all I have to work out is where my smart suit is (and if it’s clean - eep).  If I can just make it through the next month I’ll be OK.  If I get time tomorrow I must plan my time carefully and write an up to date to-do list.

Summary of the day: Work, work, work, got papercut, work, more work, etc, etc, etc