Dreams

I was up early this morning to drop Dad off at the station. It was nice to be able to return the favour. It was also good to get out of bed at what is a normal hour for most. Particularly as I'll be needing to be up early for work on Thursday.

The sleeping tablet worked a treat and I managed to sleep uninterrupted through the night although I was a little groggy during the day. I've been told that should pass. It was good to sleep although my dreams were fairly vivid and strangely realistic. I seem to recall a need for a new notebook but have no idea why. I figured it must have been part of my dream. What I do remember from my dreams was waking up in my grandparents' living room - where it seems I was sleeping on the floor. I had to start a new job that day and I was looking forward to it. I got dressed and then I realised that I was in the wrong clothes, I couldn't wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. I had to be in corporate attire. The casual workplace was a thing of my past and not real for me anymore. I woke up then. I felt a bit sad after that dream.

I've been thinking a lot about what I'm doing and I love what I do. I always have. I suppose I worry that I'm getting lost at the moment.

Too much time on my hands. Too much thinking.

I wonder what tonight's dreams will bring

Awake

Well, so much for the daily writing eh! In my defense I did write in my journal, I just didn't blog.

Monday is my new day off and it feels much more normal. It was weird having Saturday as the start of a new week. At least Mondays is the theatre "weekend".

Much like our last day off together we didn't do much. In fact I think we did even less than we did last time. I carefully avoided the coffee table by spending most of the time in bed asleep or, in braver moments, mere centimetres away from it on the couch. The most productive part of the day involved making brownies (pecan fudge) which we proceeded to not eat because we weren't feeling well. We think that the gastro bug that's going around may have finally come to visit us.

Yesterday was shabby. Very shabby. I totally missed the shuttle bus and ended up calling a car to take me into work. We stopped by the supermarket so that I could get some yoghurt to try and settle my stomach and actually have something for breakfast as we didn't manage to stomach dinner the previous night. Happily the symptoms eased during the day. Well, mine did. Gene still wasn't 100% at dinner but he made a good go of it!

My dreams are full on spreadsheets and whiteboard markers at the moment. While it means that I'm sleeping in short bursts it means that I'm awake for a quick chat with Gene before he drifts off to sleep and I leave for work.

Plans for our Europe trip are slowly taking shape...

It's looking like we'll stay in a 3 star apartment about 20 minutes from central Paris when we arrive. Apparently the Metro is really close and Gene's confident he can get us around as he's had experience so I'll be making the booking soon. It allows us to stay in/near Paris for longer.

So far our Paris activities and London activities have had the most thought. We're planning to see Wicked, Cabaret and Spamalot while we're in London. It's probably going to cost us a fortune but I'm sure it'll be worth it!

More details are likely to follow on Monday when we've had some time to think about it a bit more and discuss. Gene got our copy of Europe on a shoestring back from his old villa so we'll be reading that a bit more in the next coming weeks for ideas!

Less thinking more sleeping for now!

Recurring Dream

My recurring bad dream of not having graduated from highschool is back. This generally spells a few days of poor sleep *sigh*. I call it a bad dream because it usually doesn't bother me too much. Last night's was almost a nightmare. I woke up feeling all stressed this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Odd really because I had a really productive day at work and rounded off the day with a nice light meal and the last 6 chapters of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Actually there were somethings which usually make me realise it's just a dream but for some reason I didn't pick up on them so I kept dreaming/stressing. Things like the name of my maths teacher being wrong (for some reason I'm always stressed about maths. I think it's a repressed regret that I didn't drop higher maths and go to maths methods because I enjoyed the challenge). Other more obvious things like my highschool not being attached to a venue like the Victorian Arts Centre in reality... or the $7 self-service bar (stocked with all standard spirits and beers) in the back of the maths classroom. That was $7 for all the drinks you wanted in the 75 minute lesson of course. Oddly the maths class involved flicking through knitting books as well but I was really stressed about having to get good grades and pass with a really high score. Makes me wonder what's going on in my subconscious.

Yesterday I was really excited because when I checked the pidgeon holes at work there was a hand-addressed envelope with my name on it. Funny how little things like that light up your day. On closer inspection I realised that I didn't know anyone who lived at the return address... Anyhow, it turned out to be an invoice for work. On other postal related news my iPod was cleared for despatch from Sydney on Thursday. This makes me happy and frustrated all at once. After all I paid for it and the funds should have all been cleared by the end of last week. Monday at latest after the seller gave me the wrong details for the additional postage. Still, it only cleared Sydney this Thursday. I like to think of myself as a patient person but it's now been close to a week and a half since I paid for the item and the 4-5 working days that the courier is likely to take is going to be extended into at least a week if not more because Eid (three day public holiday to celebrate the end of Ramadan I think) is likely to start on Monday. Then there's another two public holidays (not sure what for) on Friday and Saturday. I'm beginning to think I should have paid the extra dosh to get Apple to send it to me...

Looking over my post today and the last few days it does occur to me that I'm a bit grumpy. I'm really not that grumpy. At least I'm quite happy about most things in my day. Just not the iPod. Or lack of sleep last night.

On a brighter note, Gene & I are about to book our flights to Paris. I just need to confirm some details at work and we should be all good. Our return to Oz from Doha has been booked. We depart Doha on 9th February and connect in Dubai for a Singapore-bound flight. We'll stay in Singapore for a few days to say hi to the folks and dream about spending money shopping there and eating all the local foods (no stomach flu for me this time!). On the 13th February we'll depart Singapore for Melbourne where we'll get to see our friends and family at some point shortly after that! Well, that's the theory anyway. My guess is that we'll land on the 14th February in which case I think we'll have a quiet Valentines day unpacking, sleeping and reacquainting ourselves with Herman.

I must admit 2006 has been an amazing year. For years I'd been saying that I wanted to head overseas to work, go to Europe etc. This year I've been lucky enough to work on two major events, one overseas and I'll be spending Christmas in Paris! What a year!

Well, I think I've managed to succeed with one New Year's resolution this year. This year certainly seems to be an improvement on last year (not that last year was terrible or anything). Now I've got 70 days to learn how to juggle three balls and I'll have completed all resolutions... :)

Mr Sandman

Interestingly the one night in the last few weeks that I didn't read the Sandman as my bedtime reading, I had nightmares all night. Of course this means I'll just have to use toothpicks to hold up my eyelids while I pay the Lord of Dreams his due in reading. Naturally.

As a result of a rather restless night today seemed long.

Dad gave me his spare pedometer which has been fun. We calibrated it on Sunday night when he gave it to me and I had a test run today. It was lovely to discover that I not only made it to the 10,000 step/day target that we apparently should, but have taken an approximate total of *drum roll* 12,347 steps today. This equates to approximately 4.938km for me (because I take little steps being the little person that I am) and a burning of approx 277.5kCal. Sadly I don't think I managed to consume enough to balance that out as I just didn't manage to time my meals well enough and apparently the salad and sandwich just wasn't enough at lunch.
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With an even longer day ahead, this night owl is off on a date with Mr Sandman... Hopefully it'll work out better than last night's encounters.

Inspections and Dreams

Yay for the house inspection going well! Close call though. Gene & I both slept through the alarm this morning. The only reason I woke up was because of my bad dream, but more on that later. So we jumped out of bed, got dressed and was just about to drag Herman to the car when our buzzer rang. It was 10:40am. So Gene stashed Herman in our room with a blanket over him and his stuff while I went to get the door. Our real estate agent seemed about as awake as we were. Looked around slightly disinterestedly and asked if we had any maintenance issues. We conversed and about 7 minutes later she headed off.

Herman's now sitting behind me in his cage eating kibble. I think he likes our room because it's quieter than the living room.

As for the dream I had... that's what's making me feel sick. The last part of my dream involved me trying to take a multi-vitamin capsule but for some reason I just couldn't swallow it and I woke up choking. So now I'm feeling a little bit ill because I can't shake that feeling.

Okay, shopping time now!

Weekend Round Up

Hazzar! Job interview's done and I think it went well. I of course have nothing to base this on aside from a general feeling of having done okay and the fact that they said "don't worry if you don't hear from us soon, we're negotiating budgets at the moment so it's no reflection of how you went."

So yay!

Still loving the free time although it is a little lonely at home. What I really should be doing right now is cleaning since we have a house inspection on Friday morning. However I'm feeling sheepish that in the two weeks I've been keeping a blog I haven't managed to keep my daily writing target for a whole week yet!

I just finished reading "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey based on the recommendations of the guy at the fantasy/sci-fi bookshop that Gene found in the CBD, Of Science and Swords. It was an enjoyable read (I read it in just over a day) and quite engaging. The language was at times a little frustrating. I feel that it takes a great deal of skill to write successfully in older forms of English and have discovered that the word "mayhap" really bothers me. Aside from that I'm looking forward to buying a copy of the next novel in the series. Yes... my name is Sarah and I'm a book junkie.

No buying new books yet though. Gene also bought me a copy of "Ilium" by Dan Simmons which caught my attention because from what I discerned from the back of the novel it's a sci-fi telling of the Iliad-ish. Anyway, I'll undoubtedly blather on more once I've read the novel.

Hmmm, so my last ppppp----pp00000000000000000pppppppppppppppp (sorry I had to fix my keyboard, there was something stuck under the "p" so I had to take off two keys.) Where was I... last post was on Thursday. Well Friday was Gene's day off (yay!) so we did what we had to do, which included staying up late Thursday night watching the last few episodes of season 1 of "Scrubs", then slept most of Friday morning. After we got up we went into town to do stuff which is where the book-shopping incident occurred. Saturday afternoon saw us doing romantic things like cleaning the bathroom together and sharing the wonderful fumes that come with using the fabulous Exit Mould. The house still smells a little of Exit Mould but at least it's breathable. We went to drink beer with Phiby who was in town for the weekend to drink away the thought of further cleaning and it was quite a good night. Naomi made the keen observation that you can tell that we've been in long term relationships for a while when you're checking out who looks dumb at the bar instead of who's cute. All too true that night. There was a guy in a pink polo shirt in particular who stood out. He kept checking out his muscles and glancing over to see if we were doing the same. He also rolled his t-shirt (I can't emphasise enough that he was wearing a short sleeved top here), to show off further. Yep there was some classy stuff out there that night!

I found out that my Uncle Albert passed away on Friday night about 6:30pm so Mum's back in Singapore for the funeral. It's kinda silly but I was having a nap around that time and just before I woke up my old dog Ziggy who I grew up with trotted up to me in my dream and gave me the "pat me now damn it" look and I woke up feeling much less grumpy than I had been and feeling somewhat comforted by the dream. Then Dad called to tell me the news. Timing...

Well if I'm not going to clean right now the least I can do is eat. I've got to work on not falling asleep during the day. I'm just struggling a little because I'm not excited about the whole cleaning the house thing and I'm looking forward to reading my book!

Hungry now. Going.

Today has seen a record twelve hours sleep for me, with two short breaks - one at 04:00 to speak to Mum and Dad in Egypt and the second at 09:15 when I let the dogs out. I was hoping that the more sleep I got the more likely I would be able to walk normally again. It worked for all of two minutes before the blister from the liquid nitrogen the doctor applied to my foot started to sting more than I cared to have it do. I take it the ibuprofen has worn off...

I just woke up from a dream where I rode with Gene and Anthony to this decrepit looking place which looked like it was a warehouse in a former life, or at least trying to be so. We parked our bikes (if that's the term for just putting them out of the way) and for some reason chose not to lock them up. (Down the gravel laneway we headed up there was a pub which looked like an old Bridie O'Reilley's but had a cream upper floor, "The Rose and "something I can't remember", looked good if a little empty, there was a small group of people entering as we passed). After heading up stairs my company changed and I was with different friends, Rami and Treens and a few others who didn't really stand out. There was a bar upstairs (there's always a bar) and as with bars in my dreams it was dimly lit with a predominantly blue light with the flicker of small tea light candles glowing at each of the small tables adding warmth to the atmosphere. I was about to follow everyone into the back section to get to the actual bar when I saw that the act was about to start. It turned out that my highschool had some sort of review thing there and Beth, who looked an awful lot like a young Treens started to sing. I'm fairly sure that there were at least two songs that some how merged into one, "Unforgettable" but a swing style. I remember closing my eyes in my dream and swaying to the music. I was really getting into it. Each time I opened my eyes there was a different group of small children doing their school-dance-performance-style moves which really struck home the whole school performance thing. When the song finished there was applause and it was a beautiful moment. Then I woke up.

It's warm in the house at the moment. A sign that it's been a beautiful day outside while I've been curled up asleep in my darkened room. I have the nagging suspicion that either my hayfever is worse up here (I'm feeling lousy and sneezy) or I've got a cold... but I'm not feeling too bad. Just a husky voice and the sneezes. It's hard to tell. I should probably start on my hayfever stuff again.

Gene came to visit me last night and that was wonderful. We lay on the couch and watched TV and had dinner together. I was thinking of heading into town and surprising him at being home except it's 17:47 and he finished work an hour ago... The thought was there. I might head in anyway.

I probably should mention that we live together most of the year, Gene and I that is (pardon any poor grammar). I'm just house sitting at the moment while both my parents and I are on our respective holidays - the difference being I'm not in Egypt. He's had to head back into town for a few nights because of work. We spent the night apart and apparently neither of us slept well and then he came over the next night. It really is my turn :)

On that note, I'm going to attend to things in the world of the living for awhile. Feed the dogs... work out why I'm the only one who seems able to call the landline and get through... visit my man... the usual ;)