I'm on the mend, but my brain is still malfunctioning. I've been fighting with this post for the better part of an hour and it's just not happening. Hopefully I'll find my way through this soon. In the meantime, I'll go back to reading!

A la Letterman

Top ten ways my body has betrayed me this week:

10. Waking me up in the middle of the night and not letting me go back to sleep until ten minutes before the alarm went off. I thought we were over that!

9. Drying my mouth out and closing my throat thus making me say "CACK" while I was trying to read a very serious report aloud. Very professional.

8. Developing a chest infection which cost me a LOT of money in doctors visits, prescriptions and Hot Whiskey ingredients.

7. Hoarking up a lung. Which I still haven't found.

6. Implementing hot and cold spells with no warning and often at the same time.

5. Producing enough mucus to make me gag and then doing so within earshot of the children. Like they weren't freaked out enough that Mom is sick.

4. Kicking in the ole "feed a cold, feed a fever" habit.

3. Making me wheeze like an eighty five year old fifty a day smoker. Pass me my air.

2. Making me aroused just in case I don't live through this. Dead sexy.

And the number 1 way in which my body betrayed me this week :

Sneeze - wet myself.

My Karma Ran Over your Dogma

Sometimes I wonder if the fates conspire...

I am the kinda girl who can never say never. Experience has taught me that any sort of cavalier assertions on my part will result in my being smacked down off my pedestal quicker than you can say hypocrite.

The penance for last week's post for example, has been that the pump on the boiler system at home has crapped out and we've been without heat for the better part of a week. And then Ireland decides to go cold on me, producing beautiful, but dangerously frosty nights which currently last anywhere between 16 and 18 hours. Pretty serious karma you might think.

But wait, it gets better. I've just been to the doctor where I was diagnosed with a chest infection. He precribed ventolin and antibiotics and told me to be sure to stay warm so that it doesn't develop into pleurisy or pneumonia.

So, I've decided I'm going back to bed. The barking seal on my chest should keep me warm.

Tools of the Trade

It's Friday and in my newly nine to five existence, that is a happy thing. Since I don't want to be Dooced, I'm not going to give you the gory details, but I will say it's been a long five days made longer by the fact that I am the building "snagger" and had to spend a lot of this week chasing builders around to ensure that they didn't run away.

The buildings I work at are new. We took possession in April, before construction was complete as the job was two years behind schedule at that point and speculation was that the guys were trying to get another summer out of it as they'd gotten such great tans the previous three summers.

Now, I don't have an awful lot of experience in construction, but Irish building is a law unto itself. Shoddy doesn't cover it. Criminal comes close.

I expect a huge part of the explanation lies with the boom in construction in Ireland. There are more jobs than there are people to do them. Every guy with any skill has discovered that he can make millions as a contractor. He then promptly bites off more than he can chew and has to hire help. Since all the skilled folks are already contracting for themselves, he ends up with fourteen year old boys and the odd cowboy whose plaster work is more surfable than the Irish sea ever hopes to be.

So, they slap something together and run to the next job. Then, when it falls apart, they blame the architect (or each other, depending on what the problem is) and I get to spend several days per week talking on the phone to their secretarieslashwives. The thing is, I don't really care what the problem is, or who caused it. I just want it fixed. Reasonably quickly.

But while we're on the subject of laying blame, Mr. Heating Man; here's a lil intelligence for you. When you install the thermostat for a room in a cupboard, say in, oh... a completely different room, it will take the ambient temperature OF THE CUPBOARD. That IS your problem. Nothing to do with the architect, the electrician, the boiler man, the joiner or the disgruntled labourer who was reported for setting fireworks off on the site six months ago. Nor is it the work of the wee fairies or the ghosts of the folk who were disturbed when their ancient burial ground was disturbed by this building. This one is your fault. Just move the damn thing already.

I have to cut this post short as the Irish Builders Association has just offered me a position as a heating and airconditioning consultant. Amazing where a little common sense can get you in times like these!

Belly Up

It's been 8 days since my last hangover. I'm counting for a reason. My drinking has given me cause for concern lately and being the product of a pair of practicing alcoholics I am all too familiar with the havoc alcoholism can wreak on a family.

I have an addictive personality and an incredibly active imagination. While the hedonist in me often has a very good time, it can be a scary combination. They say that knowledge is power and I suppose that having an awareness of these things is helpful in that it allows me to change and/or avoid certain behaviours.

I cannot gamble except under extremely controlled circumstances. For me that means having only the money I can afford to lose on my person. All forms of credit stay home. I do not gamble alone. I do not mix gambling and alcohol. If public transport is required to get home, I have to keep that money separate to the gambling money and even then it's not guaranteed that I won't be hoofing it. Best to give the taxi money to a friend to hold.

I cannot do cocaine, period. I did it once and had the time of my life. I have never felt as smart, confident, charming and sexy as I did that night. If I ever did it again, everything I own would go up my nose.

When I started chatting online, I was hooked immediately. I spent every possible moment in my cyber world. I used to describe it as an interactive novel. By the time my son was five he'd had enough. One day he said, "There's more to life than checking your email, Mom." That was a pretty serious wake up call and my children are very important to me, but in all honesty, I still struggle to respond appropriately to the people around me when I'm at the computer.

You know how some people eat when they are depressed? I eat for everything! Sad, lonely, bored, angry, overwhelmed, scared or happy - it doesn't matter what the occasion is, I'll eat for it. I am strongly considering trying a liquid diet to see if it will help me break the habit of stuffing myself.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this today. I imagine it's related to my hangover guilt and shame. Tomorrow, I'll start counting again.

New Address

My apologies for the move. I just wasn't comfortable sharing my supposedly private blog with some of the people that now have access to that address. As you can see, nothing much else has changed.

You can be sure that if you were invited here, I meant it!

Looking forward to blogging on...

In the Blink of an Eye

Well, I totally screwed up yesterday. Remember how I said this blog was secret? NOT ANYMORE!

Not long after I started this blog, I started one with hubby. It's designed to share our expat adventures with our friends and family without jamming their email inboxes with our photos and ramblings.

We'd been on hiatus from our blog for a good few months and several people had recently asked for the address which spurned us into action. We posted a few things and I sent a "Dear Everyone" email to let people know that we were back in the blogosphere. Somehow, it didn't make it to my other (read personal) email account. No problem, thought I and quickly pounded out another, clicked all the friends and family that I wanted to have the family blog and hit send.

It was at that very moment I realized that in my rush I had inadvertently typed the wrong blogspot addy. I slammed the back key, changed the blogger address and hit send. I hoped against hope that I'd been quick enough.

The next day I got an email from a longtime netfriend who asked, "when did you change your name to Shan?"

D'OH!

I then developed Tourette's Syndrome. As a matter of fact, I'm still twitching at the thoughts of my 13 year old niece reading some of this stuff.

Currently, I'm trying to decide whether to shut this blog down and reopen somewhere else. I'll have to decide fairly quickly.

Hallowe'en Revisited

This was the view from our bedroom window on Hallowe'en night.




Have I mentioned that fireworks are illegal here?





Pumpkins aren't, though. This is what you saw when you approached our front door.







Pretty cool stuff and only six days post-event. Man, am I ever speeding along!

Professional Development

Hubby's off this week. This is great for child care but wretched for blogging. He's in the shower now, so in the interest of keeping this blog quasi-secret (read mine) I'll write quickly.

Yesterday I was asked to speak with the project manager and the services manager for the agency that I work for. I wasn't surprised as the two most senior people at our location have been fighting like cats in heat for the past week and the management types were there to help them resolve their issues. I was surprised, however, when instead of asking my sage advice about this particular situation, they asked me if I'd be willing to stay on for fourteen weeks beyond my original contract in order to facilitate a parental leave. I said yes. So, I'm there until April now. Unless of course, Tasmania calls first.

While this is good for me in many ways, in retrospect maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to say yes. I wonder what would have happened if I'd made my acceptance conditional on them sorting out the eejits that are supposed to be in the lead...

In other news, I've been sleeping and dreaming well and often. Lots of heroes, lots of magic, lots of healing. Not sure what that means exactly but it beats the hell out of what's been going on the past few weeks!