Had my first-ever psychic reading today! I went in a little skeptical, but curious. It was pretty interesting... she said a lot of things I could relate to, actually. I didn't tell her anything until the end of the reading. Anyway, here's the wrap-up if anyone's interested. If you're commenting, especially if you're not normally on LJ, remember your comments are public!

So Ingrid said basically the rest of this year is just getting it over and done with and staying within my comfort zone. It's a bit of a "flat" year and next year will be the year for building things up.

She said my friends are very important to me and I will get a new group of friends next year but keep the old, of course!

She sees health issues for one parent which has been a cause of stress and ongoing worry. She sees a young girl around me who visits a lot, loves music and plays the piano (my niece dances a lot and bangs away at the piano any chance she gets!). Ingrid thinks Eva will start singing at about 6.

She sees me in a job where I don't get to sit down much, which involves service to the community and talking a lot! She later said she sees me dealing with children and later on still said she saw a school surrounding me and could hear the school bell ringing. (At that point I confirmed that I'm a teacher.) My contract's up at the end of this year, which I didn't mention, but she sees me going through interviews (joy) and having an unhappy start to next year trying to get settled with work issues. It will all settled down mid-year but I'll remain busy, and will do some more education or training (God noooooo).

A relationship will evolve naturally and she sees the initials J and S. If I "get over my insecurities" I will have a rock-solid relationship next year, apparently! He will enjoy the great outdoors and cars and long walks on the beach (I made the beach part up).

She said I am having money-related stress now, but that will go away next year and over my lifetime I'll be above-average money-wise. However, this above-averageness entails continuing to work and I "can't just flit off to Timbuctoo whenever I want".

She said I will travel many times outside of Australia over my lifetime and not to somewhere close like Bali. (I very nearly wore a Disneyland shirt actually and changed just before leaving because I didn't want her to sit there telling me she could see someone with giant black ears and a squeaky voice having a bearing on my life).

She sees me moving out of my home and she sees a unit. She sees the number 3 and isn't sure if that's my current address or my future one (I live at # 23). She sees problems with my current neighbours but not to worry, they'll be leaving soon (they have listed their house, wooooooo hoo).

She sees a blueish car and me buying a new car. I have been considering trading Amos in with the problems I've been having lately (don't tell him!)

She placed a lot of importance on Melbourne and said something important would happen there - wasn't sure if I would move there or what. At the end of the reading I told her I was meant to go there in September and it had fallen through and she said I must still get there because it was very important in her reading.

(Edit - oh, and she saw Townsville, which is where all my family's from.)

She asked if I know a "Jan" and described Jane a bit. She then gave me a male name which is the name of a friend's boyfriend (not a particularly common name) and said there would be tears involving him.

She got a "visit" from someone who passed away last year (my Uncle Donald, who died of lung cancer) and said that he was talking about smoking and chest problems.

And finally she said I love purple and have purple cushions on my bed, but I did have purple toenails and a purple handbag as a bit of a clue!!

(Oh, and re the subject line, she really did squawk at me when I called her a psychic!)

Dudes, check it out! I'm ... POSTING!!!

Come on, you know you missed me. Actually, most of you will have forgotten who I am by now. I never expected I'd get so slack with my LJ! But since I haven't been at the office my computer time has been a lot more limited ... and I've been so tired and old ... but now I'm posting!

So today was first day back at work, a pupil-free day which was mostly a waste of time but did include plenty of chocolate. Tomorrow is my first day back with students, and scary but true ... I'm actually somewhat looking forward to seeing them again! 2 weeks was a great break (although 3 would be better, but I'm not greedy).

Aside from that, Dad had a heart bypass in the holidays. It was kind of hideous at the time (well, really hideous), but it's worked out well - he's his old self again, which is nice to see. He's recovering really well, actually, given that it hasn't yet been 2 weeks since the op.

Aaaaaaand what else to report? Well, I'm thinking about potentially possibly planning a Disneyland trip in September, but what else is new? I was thinking I wouldn't go this year BUT flights are really cheap - about $1000 return! It seems foolish NOT to go, really ...

I'm never crossing the dog again.

I decided to go for a swim after an ungodly-hot day at the Zoo, and Ebony fell in the pool, managing to keep her head above water. She emerged this massive fluffy head on a skinny little wet body, and I couldn't stop laughing at her. I then updated my Facebook status about it and even likened her to Sarah Jessica Parker, which I do understand would make anybody angry.

Anyway.

Two minutes later I'm in the shower, and I heard the door slide open. I knew I was Alone In The House, so decided it was someone coming to kill me Psycho-style, which would make me Janet Leigh. Now I've always loved Jamie Lee Curtis, but not QUITE to that extent. Anyway, I turned to see Ebony pushing the door open with her nose and sidling in. She then proceeded to stare unblinkingly at me while I showered, occasionally licking her lips.

I won't lie. I'm a little freaked out ... by a miniature poodle.

I should really be getting ready, and not updating ...

Another weekend nearly over, and I'm about to go to a friend's for dinner (hence the getting ready thing). This week should be pretty good, though - Tuesday, which is normally my most hideous working day, we're going to Alma Park Zoo for an excursion. I actually went there last year while I was on Prac, but that time I had 3 kids with me - this time when I'm actually getting paid for it, I'm kid-free! We had enough parent volunteers that each parent gets 2 children, and my teaching partner and I are left with none. Kinda cool, if you ask me.

In other news, I'm watching an episode of SVU that features GOB from Arrested Development as a paedophile. WOW.

I'm feeling much better than last time I posted. All I have left of my flu (I just wrote "glue" and had to change it, that's odd) is a lingering cough, which I can deal with to be rid of the aches and pains, sore ears and vertigo. I went to Sydney on the weekend, and thought I might have done myself some more damage - we did a jet boat ride, and we got soaked from head to toe. I was wearing a raincoat, though, and even though my top got completely soaked through, I think it protected my chest a little bit. It's all about the chest protection!

Oh, and Sydney was great. I had planned to go Friday morning - Monday arvo, but when I got the job had to change my flights (no, not happy Jan, since it cost more to change the flights than to book them in the first place!) I went with my friend Brooke, who's a frequent travel companion. On Friday night we arrived late and just went for dinner and to explore Darling Harbour a little. Saturday morning I left Brooke, went to the Star Wars exhibition at the Powerhouse and then met her back at the Imax, where I also met 2 people from my message boards, which was heaps of fun. I had to laugh because Brooke and I were discussing the other places we'd been together - Melbourne and Cairns, and I have relatives in both places who we've met up with on our trips. I said "I have no relatives in Sydney", then thought about it and realised that in the absence of seeing family I was dragging her to a meet with people I'm NOT related to! After that Brooke and I went on aforementioned jet boat ride, headed back to the hotel for hot showers, then headed to the Casino for dinner and a smalllll amount of gambling. I hardly got any sleep that night thanks to a bunch of crazy bitches wandering around shrieking from about 1-2am, just as I was starting to drift off to sleep. I have a vague recollection of mumbling "shut up, you whores" in my sleep minutes before actually waking up. Even after they finally shut up I was too annoyed to get to sleep, then woke up at 7! Sunday we had pretty much a full day, so did a hop-on, hop-off bus tour around the city and did a small amount of shopping (Brooke dragged me to the Queen Victoria Building and spent nothing. I spent $250 on Disney collectibles!)

Work is going well - my Principal informed me yesterday that tomorrow morning is exactly halfway through the term. Wednesdays are awesome, too, since I have release time first up (which means I don't need to organise anything until after school starts) and then the entire middle break is taking up with swimming. Second last week of swimming, though :( Oh, I'm going to miss it!!

I'm dripping wet in togs now, and still hot. And it's meant to be autumn!!!

Flu! Arghh. The flu has been going around work, and now I've got it. I started getting sick Thursday night and was hoping I would feel better by the end of the weekend, but despite sleeping half of it away I don't ... I was planning to get a flu injection, but of course I didn't get it before I started getting sick, so now I have to wait till I'm all healthy again.

And now, I need a shower.

I've started the year off with a totally awesome haircut :D Leave it to me to list the exciting things first. I'd had my hair long for a couple of years, so I decided it was time to go snippy-snippy. It's now to above my shoulders, and it feels sooooo much better. I liked having it long, but my hair's crazy-thick, so basically if I washed it in the morning it would still be wet at 5pm, especially if I put it up in a ponytail. If I washed it at night I'd wake up the following morning with wet hair and pneumonia. Now, it dries in 4 hours! WOO-HOO. Also, it's quick and painless enough to just use the new TRESemme hair dryer I got for Christmas (when you say "TRESemme", please use Tim Gunn's voice).

That's about as exciting as the year's gotten so far. Well, I've had fun - a four-day weekend last week, which was awesome and included a trip to Movie World, a family lunch and a lazy day with the relatives at home complete with KFC dinner and Cape Fear on DVD :D Then this week is back to work, and it's Wednesday and I'm suffering some form of shock - I don't have tomorrow and Friday off for the first time in 3 weeks!! And it's past 4 and I'm still here (since the last two Wednesdays have been Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, I've got early marks). Still, I'm settling back into some form of routine, which is good ... I'm excited about getting some time to just read and watch TV!!

It's taken me a while to get around to doing my Christmas wrap-up, so it'll probably be long ... eep.

Christmas was awesome! My sister Raechel woke me by 6.30 and we went into Mum and Dad's room and opened our stockings. Then we showered and got dressed, waiting for our other sister Melanie and her family to come over. We had a big breakfast (pancakes, ham, pineapple juice et al) and then got stuck into our presents. I did really well! My mains were the Coca-Cola bar stools (which I knew about), my Coach handbag (which I also knew about) and a Nintendo DS (which was a surprise. Angus, Isaac, Brooke, Erin, Tegan's mum and Jane's niece all also got one this Christmas!) I also got some books, DVDs, games, makeup and so on. Melanie has been on and on for literally years about how much she'd hate it if people gave her a charity donation in lieu of a gift, so Raechel and I made her up a laminated voucher for a $100 donation to the "Feed the Hungry Foundation" (it was a joke, of course!) She laughed at first, then after we didn't give her her "proper" gift for about an hour started to get a bit concerned and pouty! The girls gave me Peter Alexander "Neopolitan" knickers, Napoleon Perdis bath stuff, a DVD and a Pandora jewellery box - I felt very spoilt.

Melanie, Ross and the 3 kids headed over to Ross' parents' and our aunt, uncle and cousin Amanda came over for a quiet lunch. We'd just barely finished eating when another cousin, Simone, and her husband and kids came over. Raechel, Amanda and I jumped in the pool, soon joined by Simone and her 2-year-old. We had heaps of fun and were in there for over an hour, taking dodgy photos (which I WILL be putting on Facebook as soon as I get some time!) with my underwater camera and generally being silly. By the time we got out heaps of other family members were there. There were, I think, 37 of us for dinner, including 16 kids. We ended up crashing at about midnight, after the guests had left.

Boxing Day was another huge day - 45 guests then, I think. We had a barbecue lunch, another swim and a visit from Santa with gifts for everybody! My "secret santa" gave me a theme park gift card, plus a Movie World notebook and pen. The theme park gift card came in handy because we went to Wet 'n' Wild the next day - we had a 2-for-1 pass, so the gift card exactly covered my entry into the park. After a full day at Wet 'n' Wild Raechel, Amanda and I headed to Hard Rock for dinner. We got mocktails in hurricane glasses which we got to keep, and had a nice meal.

This brings me to Sunday - a "quiet" day. We saw Four Holidays (which I'd already seen, but saw again because that was the popular opinion. It wasn't a bad one to see twice, though) and Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was good. Fish and chips for dinner, then home for a somewhat early night.

Monday was back to work, and Raechel was doing an Open House afternoon where she invited any of her Brisbane friends to drop in. I decided it was a good opportunity to see Tegan, who I hadn't seen since April (she lives in Perth). She came over in the afternoon and we had daiquiris, nibblies and a barbecue and risotto for dinner. It was really good to get to catch up with her, I've missed her a lot in the months since I've seen her! She stayed for about 4 hours, and we chatted nonstop.

Tuesday was Jane's birthday, so after work I came home and had daiquiris (I'm sensing a pattern) with my aunt, uncle, cousin, Mum, Dad and Chel on the balcony before Raechel and Amanda drove me to dinner (it's $15 to park, and I was feeling poor!!) Had a lovely night, and I think Jane liked her gift.

Which brings me to today, and the New Year's Eve party. I'm working till after lunch, then heading home for an early mark, possibly some TV viewing (I haven't read a book or watched a full episode of a TV show since the relatives arrived) and then getting changed for our '80s-themed New Year's Eve party! Yes, photos to follow :D

Once again, a long time in between updates. Life's been too crazy lately! The good news is I'm all organised, with all my presents wrapped (half of them under the tree) and everything clean, tidy, and generally just ready.

I've had a nice week, in the lead-up to the REAL craziness when the relatives embark. My week in point form:

Friday - went late-night shopping at the Myer Centre ("late night" I say, although I was home by 8). I nearly couldn't get a park and considered going home, but ended up getting one on the bottom floor. I then waited about 10 minutes for the lift, and when it came it only fit in about half the people waiting for it. I decided to take the stairs, not quite realising how many of them there were! I was rather hot and bothered by the time I got up to Albert St level. Anyway, I bought some beads for my new Christmas-themed 'Pandora' bracelet, did some window-shopping and headed home, put my bracelet together, got halfway through 'Love Actually' and crashed.

The weekend - Isaac was over in the morning, and Brooke came over that afternoon for massages (at Rainesforest) and to watch Batman Begins and the Dark Knight. Massages were awesome, and afterwards we headed to Earth 'n' Sea for takeaway pizza. Mum, Dad and the 2 of us went on Lights Reconaissance, and we just barely managed to finish Batman Begins in a state of consciousness at about midnight. The plan had been to watch both movies that night, but no way was that happening! We set our alarms for 8am the next morning to get TDK done before it was time for Brooke to head off. Saw Australia at the Dendy that afternoon - I enjoyed it, but thought it was about an hour too long. Mum LOVED it, and she hadn't even wanted to go.

Monday - back to work, and I had to take the dogs to and fro the hairdresser, which was really about as exciting as Monday got. The dogs got bows in their hair. Ebony took hers off as soon as she got into the garage at home, and Jasmine's lasted about 10 minutes longer.

Tuesday - Saw Twilight at Indro with Erin and Brooke. I wasn't sure about it, but I enjoyed it and am even thinking of reading the books! After the movie we went to K-Mart (which was the only thing still open) and ran around like fools for a while.

Wednesday was my Christmas dinner with Jane. We went to Pancake Manor because we hadn't been there in a while, and had a really nice night. I got a JB voucher (to buy 30 Rock - she was planning to buy it for me and they pushed the release date back!) and a cute little plate to go with some others I'd bought.

Thursday night I went to Indro and got a totally awesome '80s shirt for the NYE party. It's huge and pink with a picture of a woman's face on it. It's even big enough to pull off my shoulder for an even more 80-fied look. Hell, yeah.

And tonight? SURVIVOR MARATHON! :D Have to finish off the season before the relatives start arriving.

I'm exhausted. Early nights all week this week! I seem to have made that pledge before ...

Anyway, the weekend was good. Friday night I met up with some friends at the RE for a drink. After a while I started to get hungry, and was contemplating buying some chips when Brooke and I decided to run across the road to Sizzler instead. It was a nice dinner, although Brooke's tooth started playing up so she didn't eat that much.

Saturday Mum and I decorated the tree whilst playing Christmas Carols through my new iPod speakers. Fun, and it looked awesome! I stayed in my pyjamas all day and managed to watch no less than 2-and-a-half DVDs and 2 movies on Foxtel, plus fit a swim in (I didn't stay in my PJs for THAT part).

Yesterday I had Erin and Brooke over for our Christmas gift-exchange. I picked Erin up in the morning, we got Kristmas Krispy Kremes on the way home and then met Brooke at Indro for pedicures. I'd had a nail polish change before and found it to be almost exactly the same as a pedicure, for just over a third of the price. Unfortunately, either I got lucky or they've reduced the service, because it was a lot shorter than the pedicure and less relaxing ... our toes still look awesome, though!

We headed home via Pizza Hut and ate lunch whilst wearing our super-awesome new ruby slippers (we each got a pair), then did presents. I got the best of the lot - 2 Moose Build-a-Bears! They're soooo cute. Their names were Hal and Holly, but I renamed Hal to Noah. I love them!! Erin got the first 2 seasons of That '70s Show, and Brooke got Criminal Minds season 1 and a Harry Potter figure.

We spent a long time in the pool - I'm not really sure how long, but I'd guess about 2 hours. It was that beautiful temperature where you could just hop straight in, and was soooo good on such a disgusting day. When we got out we played a couple of games of Scattergories, helped ourselves to some more Krispy Kremes and then my sister and her family came over. Eva, the 9-month-old, was the source of much entertainment, especially for Erin who had never met her before! After that the girlies headed home and Mum and I settled in for a quiet night and watched Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I still got to bed after 11, for no really good reason, and hated my alarm for going off this morning. I've had too many late nights lately and I'm starting to feel them (I'm old, after all). Tonight I have dinner with an old friend who I haven't seen in 2 years (she's living in London), so that should be good, as long as I can perk up a bit by then!