Greenifying Sydney's Town Hall

Was reading my Energy Matters newsletter and there were two interesting things to note:

1) Energy matters was nominated for a Telstra small business award!  So I quickly lodged my vote in for that one
2) Town Hall in Sydney had solar panels installed on the roof as part of the Town Hall upgrade!  I like that for good use of space. 

You can read the full details here:
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/development/CityImprovements/BuildingsAndFacilities/TownHallUpgrade.asp

Julian the destroyer strikes again - farewell music box

 

Sigh I though this music box would last till Julian was older, and be a momento of his childhood... however, even Julian managed to break it.

This music box was bought by my parents from Austria, and it plays Edelweiss.  It winds by turning the top of the carousel which made it easy for Julian to wind it up and he used to wind it up all the time.  However, when he tried to make it play faster he broke it and now it skips rapidly instead of turning slowly and so essentially it's broken.  Sad face.

So here is a picture of the carousel music box.  I might keep it in the offchance it can be repaired, but if it can't I guess into the heap it goes...

Love is...

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." 

- Sophocles 

This is one of those posts where you feel like getting it all out but you almost wish nobody would read it.  One of those posts that most people would look at and think omg pass this is another wishy washy girly post...

When I was younger, love was infatuation, where the object of my desire occupied my thoughts, 24-7.  I would imagine scenarios where we were together, how we'd grow old together, and all sorts of romantic, snuggly encounters where I wished that my object of infatuation would love me with the same adoration that I had for him.

"Love is friendship set on fire." 

- unknown

Then lust comes into the picture and then physical attraction starts to become what you think is love.  You crave the other person, you want to touch them, you want to look at them.  They are perfection to you and you couldn't imagine anything more desirable or perfect, and then you imagine all sorts of raunchy sexy encounters that make your heart pound and desire and arousal consume you.

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams". 

- Dr Seuss

I realise now that love is not just something that you feel.  The most important thing about love is that it's something that you share.  You can't love someone who doesn't love you back.  People talk about how love hurts.  That's not love.  The hurt is the rejection that you feel because your emotion is not returned to you and you feel empty inside, cheated.  Love is still the physical and the romantic - that's part of the whole package.  The really great thing about love is that you are in it together, and you both have a common goal - to make each other happy.  Love is not about possession, or jealousy.

"We were given: Two hands to hold. Two legs to walk. Two eyes to see. Two ears to listen. But why only one heart? Because the other was given to someone else. For us to find." 

- unknown

What about love for family? Or a child? Or friends?  Those kinds of love I admit are different.  The protective kind.  Where you only want the best for them, hope for the future for them, wish the well in everything they want to achieve.  I only wanted to write today about the romantic notion of a soulmate, the joining of two minds, hearts and bodies to give that uplifting emotion of love.  And you wish that everyone in the world could find their other half, because you can't imagine why anyone would be unhappy if you had that to hold onto.

"Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale." 

- anonymous

Julian advancing finally!

Yay well Julian is finally communicating better!  I was in a bit of a despair because he wouldn't talk, but he now says bye bye routinely and waves, and is quite cute at it, and does say moon (as moo) and says mama sometimes too.  And he points at things he wants and shakes his head no when he doesn't want something.

But the big thing was this weekend I was trialling him without nappy and taking him to the toilet and he was doing really well!  He would hold quite well during the day, though just after milk was always tricky, missed quite a few there.  Today was great, I actually took him outside with no nappy and held him and asked him to wee wee and he did a wee for me! On the grass!  3 times!  And he would sit on the toilet and try to wee if I put him there rather than fight, and if he cries going to the toilet I know it means he doesn't want to go.  Though there have been a few times where I was sure he needed to go and I just ended up taking him to a different toilet.

Black Lab

A long time ago when I was trying to find music for my WoW videos I was looking specifically at Transformers things and didn't like the theme songs that they had, but I read some comments somewhere that there was a really good Transformers theme rendition done by this group called Black Lab.  So I went looking for it and liked it so much that I bought that particular song.  That was the first time I had ever bought an mp3.

Since then I get emails every now and then from Paul Durham from Black Lab saying new songs on site, friend me on facebook, myspace etc... and I never did really go back and look at their music, but then the last email said that one of their songs has been featured in some TV shows!  The Shield and it was on House, which was pretty cool since that's a popular show and would give them heaps of exposure.  Anyway so I went and listened to the song and bought it as well.  Here is the clip here (taken from the Black Lab website)






Though if you ask me, the cover of this new album is rather raunchy - naked chick!  I should have bought the whole album instead of the one song!  Check out this cover.

 So I got bought their new album Two Strangers, as well as Passion leaves a trace, and the B sides... so I'm sitting around waiting for the email to appear so I can listen to my new music! 

Just one of those days

Feel like nothing went right today!  Didn't start of well, I was late waking up to go to the private.  Quickly checked my emails and found that I still didn't receive the quote for my list today so that made me grouchy.  Drove to the private and the road that I normally go on was blocked so I had to go a different way.  In the end I turned up at the same time as the surgeon.  Then I couldn't find my patients and I was anxious about it because one of them was a particularly sickly elderly lady who uses home oxygen 16 hours of the day.  So I didn't get to see any of my patients preoperatively

So she's the first case of the day.  I went to look for her on the ward and she was already down in theatres.  So I was tossing up whether to put a block or not and I thought yes I should and use the ultrasound.  Now I'm not crash hot with the ultrasound and I had some difficulty with it and was about to give it away and just go back to using the nerve stimulator but as soon as my assistant left the room I thought I got it... but when I injected it, it wasn't that convincing.  That was about half an hour of stuffing around.

So we came into the room and her drip half fell out.  I managed to save it and ran to get a dressing for it to stick it down but she moved her hand and it fell out again... so I had to put another drip.

So put in another drip.  Then they didn't put the drape on properly so my patient got all wet and cold and then her ECG fell off coz she was wet.  I couldn't find it and so I had to wait for my anaesthetic assistant to come back to tell me where he'd put it.

Which was another point, today's assistant was just crappy.  Eyes not taped, drips not connected, no blankets on patients so they were all cold...  he did what he was told but I shouldn't have to tell about those things, really.

Julian is a monkey!

My son is such a monkey now!  He pushes the dining room chairs around now so he can climb things - a classic is where he pushes it over to his high chair so he can climb into his high chair.  He has also pushed it over to the benches so he can play with the rice cooker, or the fruit bowl.  Unfortunately he has been trying to climb out of  his high chair too which has resulted in a number of falls.

He is also able to blow!  I was blowing a piece of toilet paper and then he tried to do it as well.  Cute!

Just think he'll be 17 months in 9 days.  I wish he'd start talking!  He only says mama, baba as the recognizable sounds, the other things he says are just nonsense gah, ka, buh noises.