Well, usually I don't blog from work, but today it's really quiet and I need something to do :-) So here I am.

 

It's been a big few weeks, firstly with the fires, then with my car being stolen, and then my mum ended up in hospital (and out of hospital ... and in hospital ... and out again), which is why it's been a while since I updated properly.

 

Firstly, I don't know if I ever wrote about the damage that the bushfire did to my workplace. On Black Saturday night, as we hosed down our house, I had phonecalls from friends, each one telling me one of the following: That my work had been destroyed/that the land next to work was gone, but they hadn't heard what happened to work/that the nursery part of my work was gone/that the offices had been totally destroyed/that the yard was gone/that there was only minor damage ... The vacant block of land next to work, and the house next to the vacant block were both destroyed, but my workplace was very lucky. We lost part of our fence, and a small part of our yard, but otherwise we were incredibly lucky. It wasn't really luck though - my bosses worked their arses off all night, and were on front-end loaders (bulldozers) until 6 a.m. on the Sunday morning, knocking down people's fences and trees, as well as dozing bush/scrub land, to ensure that the fire didn't spread too far. The smoke and water damage to both work and home took a few days to clean up, but the house and workplace is still standing, so I won't complain. I realise lucky we are to still have our house, our workplace. Like my post before said, tomorrow is shaping up to be another horror day, and the conditions will rival those we had on Black Saturday in heat and wind speed. Let's hope that we can get through tomorrow safely.

 

Next ... My car. That's been one hell of a saga ... Well, the insurance company has declared it a "total loss", which isn't surprising. I know that my insurance company was the insurance company that about 75% of people who lost their houses in my area were insured by (did you follow that?!), so I get that they are busy. Really, I do. And, it's just a car. So easily replaced. But my insurance company has been unbelievably slack. For the first two and a half weeks, even though I was constantly chasing them up, they were still not doing anything. It wasn't until I complained (at the END of last week, a good three and a half weeks after the car was stolen), that it was explained to me how busy they were. Which, as I said, I totally get. But nobody told me that to begin with, which is why I got so pissed off. I'm really thankful that I didn't wait for the insurance money to come through to put towards my new car (which I considered doing for the first week, until it became apparent that it would take so. freaking. long.), as the claim still hasn't been settled, and probably won't be for another couple of weeks.

 

So, instead of waiting for the insurance money, I applied for a bank loan, which was approved ... Then I went out and got me a new set of wheels! I ended up going with a 1994 Ford Laser, mostly because I fell in love! It's very tidy, very well maintained and it has low kms. I had a full inspection done on it before I handed over the bank cheque, and they found nothing wrong with it. It's a 4 door, silver dude that I'm calling Leroy. (Get it? First Gibbsy, then Leroy? It was either Leroy or Jethro, and it's not country hick enough to be a Jethro!).  

 

So, the next thing I want to do (probably when I do actually get the insurance money through) is put an alarm system and central locking in the car, as well as a brand new cd player. I dont know whether I'll actually need the alarm system, as being a little newer than my old car (which was an '84, this new one is a '94), it won't be as easy for people to break into (and seriously, how unlucky do you have to be to have two cars stolen?!), but this is mostly for my piece of mind. To be honest, I'm still having trouble sleeping, because every time I hear a car door, or a car starts during the night, I have a little panic attack that it's my car, being stolen again. And the new cd player, is just for me. After a shitty month, I deserve something just for me. Ok ... Something else just for me ... I recently got me a tooouuuch, baby, an ipod touch. (OMG, can I just say, best thing ever. Our cd player at work died two weeks ago, so I have been putting the touch on speaker and listening to it all day at work. Plus I have it on while I'm getting ready for work, while I'm having lunch, and I listen to my fave podcasts every night. Best $300 I ever spent on myself!) You can hook an ipod touch up to the cd player I've picked out, and it not only plays your music, but it also charges the ipod at the same time. It's also got other whiz-bang gidgets and snappy little gadgets and wonderful fancy fuctions and whatnot that go with it/that it does.

 

Well, I do have more to say, but I just realised that I have a meeting after work (in about, oh, twenty minutes time), that I'm totally not ready for yet ... Shit. So I better get going, and do some of that work they're actually paying me to do ... Oops, my bad.