Tag: Tulla

Gout Treat


I woke up at 4 this morning with a sore toe. Instinctively and probably still sleeping, I trudged to the kitchen to look for the Arcoxia tablets. There were none in the pantry but again instinctively I got out into the car and got a strip of that lifesaver tablets and took one.

When the alarm went off at 5.30 the pain was still there so I decided to give the gym a miss. There goes my planned 8km. I slept in, and when Tress got up and got ready for work, I decided to take the day off sick. The soreness hasnt gone away.

So here I am, waiting for the doctor’s clinic to open so I could go and get a scrip for Arcoxia top-up’s. I need that pain to be totally managed before this weekend, when Tress and I go up to Canberra again. I dont want anything to mess that up.

I have also made up my mind to leave my present role. Preferably however, I want to find a legal or quasi legal role first, before I do. Staying in this role has so tainted my views of ministry and people in it, that I need to get out before my relationship with these people become badly affected.

I was just checking my emails and saw an invoice coming in. He is a retired professional and helping the office manage an IT database upgrade project. If I was in his shoes, I would have done it voluntarily, no questions asked, no second thoughts. Another retiree was to do some “deputation” or representative work in the country. Again at costs to the organisation. It isnt paid work but expenses fully reimbursed. I can only wonder what a week or two driving in the country can chalk up in terms of costs.

Maybe I need to revisit my concept of serving. After all mine is also a paid role, not voluntary. Although I minimise costs by foregoing a lot of entitlements a full time paid staff would have, and have hardly lodged any claims, always thinking this organisation need to minimise its costs. My boss does that too but a lot of other people dont. Almost nothing is done on a volunteer basis without pay or reimbursement.

I dont know, maybe I just need to have a good think about what I am doing, where I am now, what I want to spend my time on, etc. I know I am just not fulfilled. At all. Having told myself to go easy on food and having unsubscribed from stuff like Foxtel, I come home each day just looking forward to taking the little black jedi to the park and let him frolic with other pooches. When the park is used for cricket or footy training like it has been, I get a bit lost and the walking around the blocks thing becomes a disappointment. I’d come home after say 45 minutes and plonk myself in front of the tele for a bit, simplt deplete of anything enjoyable or fulfillng. I’d feel the day had gone by with God knows what achievement or accomplishment. There isnt even the simple satisfaction of having done some work I’d consider fulfilling.

Maybe that’s why I’m sort of happy to just stay at home today, away from the office. Sore tore notwithstanding.

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Weekends, soon to be different


English: Category:Images of Canberra Burton an...
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The VTAC offers are scheduled to be released today. Any hopes of Kiddo opting for a BA/LLB course in Monash have been reduced to a mere theoretical possibility, as she has been really excited about doing the PhB course in ANU in Canberra instead. I have in fact, paid a deposit for her residential college in the Burton and Garran Hall (“B&G”). Tress had also set Kiddo up with a supplementary credit card and got it activated and ready to go. We’re likely to be taking that long hike to Canberra again, around the second week of Feb.

On Saturday, we made a vegetable soup together. It’s a continuation of Kiddo’s cooking lessons. The class took place in between two hefty sessions of cleaning. After the usual vacuuming, Tress, Kiddo and I settled down for some soup, after which I went out and continued hacking down our overgrown Silver Stirling hedges. Well not exactly hacking down but bringing them down from a monstrous 3+ meters to a more manageable 2 meters or so. Earlier that morning Tress and I had gotten up early to get to Tullamarine again – this time taking a young lady doctor from Mulgrave who was going back to Malaysia for a short holiday. We got to her home just before 7, dropped her off at Tulla just before 8am and got to the Vic Market to get stuff for a barbeque we did last night. So all in it was a long and busy day and after prepping the communion spiel and other bits I had to do in church the next day, the 3 of us settled down to a game of cards for a bit.

On Friday we had gone to the Knox for a movie – a very ordinary Sherlock Homes sequel (“Game of Shadows“). It was a disjointed and messy fare and loads of bomb blasts and slow-mo running, jumping and fist fights… sigh.

Last night we had 3 families over for a barbeque dinner. Sort of 3 families – one still has her hubby and kids in Singapore for their holidays, and she had returned to Melbourne early to go back to work. We again finished up late – it was about 12am when we got to bed, and gym this morning was sort of tough.

If it sounds like we’re trying to cramp our weekend, I guess I am. 3 weekends from now, our weekends will be very different. I just want to keep the good thing firing on all cylinders while we can.

Weekend Blitz and Bliss


We saw the sun peeking through yesterday arvo just after 2pm. We were at a lunch but decided we must sneak away. The rain had been belting down all day Saturday and our plans to work the garden had been frustrated. We thought if the weekend was going to see any work done we had to leave that lunch soon, great food and wonderful company notwithstanding.

Jason and Mel have always dished out great meals and company. Generous to a fault, it is always difficult to say no to their invitation. So although we had said they should direct their generosity at other more deserving souls, we gladly rocked up anyway. We thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon which unfortunately we had to cut short if we were to halt the rate at which our little garden was turning into a jungle.

The fact that kiddo wasn’t there made it a little harder as other than the cries of the garden, there was no other reason not to just while away the afternoon over a really long lunch.

Kiddo had left earlier yesterday morning. We drove to Tulla just after 8am and after she checked in we did some quick duty-free shopping and she was off through the gates. We started missing her as soon as we got into the car and left the airport. Thanks to the wonders of modern day apps like “Whatsapp” and Skype however, we managed to chat with her later in the evening, as she enjoyed what looked like a really good dinner in Klang. She’d have plenty of that in the next 2-3 weeks.

Before we settled down to avail ourselves to the modern communications technology however, Tress and I tore ourselves from Jason and Mel’s place, got home and immediately changed into our “working gear”. I ducked out to the local service station to get some petrol for the mower and got back and started working.

We trimmed, cut, mowed, swept, washed and did as much as we could for the remainder few hours of daylight, which thanks to daylight saving and the impending start of summer, lasted till almost 8pm. As usual after working on the garden, a cold one tasted exceptionally good and the Tiger Beer Tress had bought a few weeks earlier came in really handy. It was sheer bliss to sit on the deck, looking at a cleaner and tidier lawn and sipping cold beer. What a way to end a weekend. Knowing kiddo would have a great time over 6,000 km away was a bonus.

 

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