GAH!

Right here, right now, I think I would give my right arm just to be able to sniff the wrapping of a box of Red Tulip after dinner mints.

Or one of those mint slices from downstairs.

Or a peppermint aero bar.

Or those crunchy peppermint chocolate bars.

Or Arnotts Mint Slice

Are we seeing a pattern here???

It's like... you know...

Why do people keep sending me discount e-vouchers for clothes shops????

How many times do I have to say it???

I AM ON A SHOPPING BAN

That’s just cruel.

It’s like taking an alcoholic to a bottle shop.

xoxox

What the heck is going on with the traffic in this city?

I had to drive into work today (I missed my train from all 3 possible stations) (shut up, don’t harass me, I am already cranky enough at having to pay $30 parking) and was gobsmacked at the idiots on the road. Personally, I blame the Mexicans – they come up here and drive like they are still in Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide (tick as appropriate). Bear in mind that I am not actually knocking any of those places, its simply that every state has things that their drivers are cr*p at, for example, Qld drivers cannot merge for love nor money. They are officially sh*te at it, but Queenslanders also know that no one else out there can merge, so they expect it. But now all these drivers from other state are bringing all their bad habits to Qld roads and the result is gridlock.

It’s like my idea of hell.

You see, I suffer from road rage. When I was younger, I actually used to sometimes get out of my car and abuse people. That didn’t happen very often, but it did happen. Usually though, I just screamed vicious insults (mostly with the windows up, so I wouldn’t offend anyone with small children), or punched the steering wheel. I stopped doing that when I realised that in addition to being possibly a little unreasonable and scary, it was just plain bad form and sometimes, people carry knives or guns.

I can’t remember how many times I have momentarily wished for a gun.

Nowadays, I have calmed down a LOT (no, really, I have) and tend to content myself with swearing under my breath or in a normal tone of voice. It’s not too often that you will find me punching the steering wheel but it does happen every so often. This morning was one of those times.

If I could remember to use the horn more often, I probably would feel a lot better, but when I need the horn, I am usually so outraged and so busy swearing that I forget where it is (yes, on the steering wheel, leave me alone) and by the time I find it and hit it, the idiot who upset me is long gone and the only person who gets the s**t scared out of them is the innocent bystander, and that’s hardly nice, is it?

I can’t help being an aggressive driver, god knows, I have tried. I seem to be calming down as I get older, but I still get irritated very easily. That’s just a part of my personality, I think. I am easily irritated even when I am out from behind the wheel. The only good thing about it is that I get over it just as quickly.

My sister pointed out to me once that its actually a lot healthier to let it all out by screaming and shouting and I think she’s right, I will probably never be one of those people who suddenly snaps and walks into a building with a loaded gun and shoots 30 people. I will walk in there and scream at them, possibly even throw things (staplers, usually. So if you upset me, lock the stationery cabinet) but I wouldn’t kill anyone or even wish death on anyone.

Except the f**ker who made me miss that really long set of lights this morning because she was too busy applying her mascara.

That b**ch needs to die.


xoxox

Someone needs to make chocolate / peppermint yoghurt that actually tastes good. I don’t mean a chocolate peppermint whip, or a mousse, or a dairy dessert, I mean, a yoghurt.

And it needs to be low in sugar and no more than 1% fat, please.

When I get sweet cravings, I normally have some black cherry yoghurt (that and lemon meringue are about the only types I eat) but I’m getting a bit over black cherry yoghurt at the moment and am really craving a chocolate peppermint slice from the café downstairs.

This is made worse by the fact that someone actually bought me one so I now have it sitting on my desk looking at me and calling my name.

It’s like water torture.


xoxox

Once again, I am on tenterhooks today.

This is very annoying.

Someone mentioned I need an 'Off' switch.

I think they may be right.

xoxox

Fuck off and die.

No. Not you. Everyone else can though.

I am having a shit day.

I’m in a shit mood.

I want sex and I know it’s not going to happen.

And judging by my current insatiable craving for red tulip after dinner mints (which I don’t even have any of), it’s entirely possible that I have PMT.

Given my current frame of mind, I might be in for a long day, but the people I work with are in for an even longer one.


Update: 10.58am

I no longer want to kill people.

I do however, really want a hug.

I'm feeling all sooky now.

I disgust myself.

I still really want some bloody After Dinner Mints though.


Update: 11.47am

I just came back to my desk from a break to find a box of after dinner mints on my desk.

I looked up and cheating ex was watching me, I sat down and checked with my friend who sits next to me and she confirmed that he put them there. He must have heard me telling her how much I would kill for some right now.

Funny – easy as that, I don’t want them anymore.


Update: 2.13pm

Annnnnnnd we're back to the hormonal surge that is running through my veins screaming ' I WANT SEX NOW!!!!'

I am in a much better mood though.

That's quite nice.

Oh my goodness me!

The good news just doesn’t stop!

K2 might have to come back home and LH is looking at travelling here with her when she does!!!!

It’s all so exciting! I’m almost bouncing off the walls today! I have missed the girls so much its ridiculous, so I’m all giddy at the thought of getting to see them again so soon!

Fingers crossed…

xoxox

Spoke to Sleeping Beauty last night about when we can move in together and it looks like she won’t be ready until early January.

This is both good and bad.

Good because it means I have a chance of getting through the financial holocaust that is Christmas. Christmas actually wouldn’t be so bad if I was capable of actually sticking to a budget for presents and if I didn’t insist on buying myself something for Christmas each year (so that I am guaranteed at least one present that I totally love) but I am a stickler for tradition….

Bad because it means that I am at my folks until then. This means that my current maintenance level irritation with my mother and her nagging is probably going to reach explosive proportions by then. I must keep reminding myself that its coming from a good place and she means well.

Remind me of that regularly, will you, please?

xoxox

It’s also just been confirmed that Christmas this year is at my sister’s place down the coast which is quite exciting – my brother and his wife probably won’t join us. I will miss him and of course my niece, but no one in the family will be crying about not getting to see her.

xoxox

I wonder if K2 and LH will be here for Christmas…..

Remember to breathe!

B is engaged!!!!!!!

Very exciting stuff!

She called me last night from China (she & her fiancé have been living there for the last however long) and we spent about 2 hours catching up and talking about wedding stuff - the engagement party is towards the end of Jan and the wedding is in March!

She is getting her dress made over in China before she comes home – she was talking to her mum about it and her mum has decided to fly over there for a couple of weeks to help her choose fabrics/style etc.

They are having a small wedding – no bridesmaids, no groomsmen etc. Frankly, I’m still amazed there is going to be a wedding! She has always been strongly anti-marriage (her parents had a bad marriage, which put her off the idea) but her partner comes from a family that has to be seen to be believed (the family that plays board games together, stays together!) so he was never going to be happy with anything less.

It’s just such a spin out.

I’m so excited!

Can you tell?

What the hell am I going to buy them??

And more importantly, what the hell am I going to wear ??!!

When did that happen?

Me: Ok, I’ll plan for that.
C: You and your planning!
Me: I don’t plan everything!
C: Giggles, you’re a planner now, deal with it.
Me: But-!
C: Deal!
Me: I'm not, am I ???
C: (silence)
Me: When did that happen?? I never used to be!!!
C: Ooooh … maybe around about the same time that you became a control freak?
Me: Really ??
C: Ya!
Me: Ohhhhhh….. oh…. Well, we both know where that came from.
C: Yeah, pretty much. But ever since, the more out of control you are feeling, the more anal you get about forward planning… and the more bl**dy lists you make!
Me: Whats wrong with lists???!!! I like lists!
C: Gigs, a lot of people don’t make lists at all, a lot of people make incomplete lists, a lot of people make lists and lose them, you make the most comprehensive lists known to womankind and then check them off, point by point.
Me: Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing??? ….. And I don’t follow them when I’m shopping! Not even when I am grocery shopping!
C: Shopping is like the one exception with you. And the reason you don’t follow them when you grocery shop is because you see one ingredient, get inspired and PLAN a whole meal /menu around that ingredient and then run off to buy the things you need to make it.
Me: SEE! THAT’S SPONTANEOUS!
C: Twat.


That's the third person to give me shit for forward planning in the last 3 days.

I may need to have a think about this.

Dumbfounded

I came back to my desk after a break (from doing nothing) this afternoon to find an email sitting in my inbox from cheating ex -

"You don't like me very much any more, do you"


I sent back "No"


Then I got one that said "You never talk to me any more, I remember once you drove half way across town just to give me a hug because I was down... I miss that"


I sent back "You can't have it all your own way. I got tired of giving and getting nothing back. It was a long time ago and I have moved on. In all honesty I don't think we had much in common to begin with and we have even less now"


He replied with "I'm sorry, i didn't mean for it to come across that way. If you think we had nothing in common then what was the attraction?"


I said "It was a long time ago and it really doesn't matter anymore. I suspect my honest response to that question wouldn't reflect too favourably on either of us. Let it go. This conversation is over."


He came back with "I'm sorry"


I ignored it and logged off for the day.


He never ceases to amaze me.


And not in a good way.

Traumatised

Pills, swimming in the pool, playing with my nieces, going to the beach and other shenanigans (not necessarily in that order, either) made for an exhausting weekend.

I would cheerfully kill for some sleep right now.

Kill, I tell you!


And our department is getting audited today.

Loooong Update

Good things –

My daily hug quota is through the roof.

I got 4 full body slam style hugs yesterday and another 3 today.

I have already established contact with all my referral contacts in other departments who I can trust to do the right thing.

I found a couple of apartments online that I really like today. I should be out of mum & dad’s place very soon. Thank goodness.


Not so good things –

Cheating ex came up behind me at the lights this morning as I was standing there half asleep and hugged me (copping a good feel while he was at it), before I even realised it was him. What a way to screw up my morning. My skin literally crawled for the next half hour at least. I can't wait to have a shower tonight.

His current manager is a bitch with a big mouth (yep, even bigger then mine) and she informed me today that on Friday he will be the one to sit down with me and run over the changes to their department (his dept and mine work very closely together). If she didn’t have such a big mouth I could explain to her why that is not a good idea but I don’t really want it filtering, distorted, through the call centre. One of my friends works in his area and she warned me that it was going to be him that did it before the bitch came to see me. My friend tried to get the job but the bitch wouldn’t let her as she knows this girl and I are friends. I might try to have that meeting take place on the floor rather then in a meeting room.



So on Monday I rocked up for training. What a crock.

4 ½ weeks all up – 1 ½ weeks of induction training then a week of product training, followed by 2 weeks of buddying.

All in all, a month of hell.

Monday morning was spent walking round the 3 floors we have in that building, learning where all the teams are and so forth (ie. All the shit I already knew).

Everywhere we stopped there would be squeals and gasps followed by people running over to hug me and say ‘Hi’. I did learn though, that the words ‘Giggles is back!” when said in a sibilant hiss, carry a looooooooong way in an office environment. It was like watching a colony of meerkats, actually. Very funny. And surprising. I was looking forward to seeing everyone again but had no idea that they would be so happy to see me. It’s a nice thing to be liked. It’s not the be all and end all, but its better than a kick in the pants, that’s for sure. Warm fuzzies all round.

The afternoon was spent with me bored out of my skull. I don’t even remember what The Trainer was talking about as I totally zoned out.

Tuesday was all about compliance. It was scheduled to take the whole of Tuesday and part of Wednesday. I didn’t even bother reading the training, just went straight to the assessments and passed them all with 100% correct in roughly 3 hours all up.

While everyone else in the group continued with training, I went and listened in on some calls.

Amusingly enough, the person I was sitting with (The joker) was someone that I actually trained back when I was in the team originally. Listening to one call as he tried to explain something to a woman who didn’t (want to) understand what he was telling her, I was sitting there hissing “Say it like this!” Sure enough, it worked.

He got off the phone, looked at one of the seniors and demanded to know what the hell I was doing in training. Especially in view of the fact that they are well below FTE at the moment and are getting totally fucking hammered.

I walked back into the training room at the end of the day and the trainer asked me how it went. I asked when I could get back onto the floor. I pointed out that it was a total waste of her time to have me there, it was a waste of my time to be there and it was a complete waste of company time and resources to train me in things I already knew.

So off she went to talk to my manager about how soon they could get me out there, my manager started laughing and when TT asked her why, she said that she had been wondering how long it would take me to get the shits and start demanding to be allowed to get on with it.

Then she did a little jig of joy.

So today I completed 3 more pieces of compliance (IT hadn’t loaded them onto my profile yesterday and it was only when I asked if we didn’t have to do those ones anymore that they went looking and discovered that actually, yes they should be there. Idiots.) which took me a grand total of 15 mins and then spent the rest of the day surfing the net, wandering round the 3 floors talking to people and generally faffing around.

I couldn’t get on the phones as IT hadn’t created a phone sign on for me yet.

It was a very long day.

Tomorrow is the corporate day (what to wear!!!) and then Friday, I have a brush up on product changes and department process changes and then I will be back into it.


The joker is the teams current referral king.

Time for me to show him how it’s really done.

Heh.

More unasked for advice.

On Thursday was a bit of a mixed day - I was on my way to visit C when work called & asked me to drop in to sign contracts etc, which I was quite happy to do.

When I got there, my manager was away from her desk so I was just chatting to some of the team while I waited. As I was drifting about the office, I looked up and who should I see heading straight for me but cheating ex.

That was a fun conversation. Not. Mercifully brief, as the person I was waiting for got off the phone a couple of minutes after he walked up to me, but still longer then I would have liked.

He managed to look at my face twice, I think – the rest of the time his eyes were glued to my chest.

*sigh *


Anyway, my manager and her manager were so excited to be told I was in the office that they instantly abandoned the meeting they were attending and came running up to see me. It was rather amusing – I looked up and they were on me, big hugs all round.


From there I headed out to C’s place, finally made it there, played with her little boy until he was exhausted, put him to bed for a nap and then we settled in for a good long chat.

Her new husband came in while we were cooking dinner and joined in the conversation, I bathed the terror then we all had dinner (which was awesome – I remember when that girl couldn’t boil water without burning the fuck out of it) and then we headed back to the lounge room where her hubby settled in front of the tv and she and I kept catching up.

(This is where the unasked for advice comes into it.)

You know how normally, when 2 girls are catching up, the guy (/s) will tune them out and either talk themselves or (if alone) watch tv???

Her husband looked like he was watching tv, but he was actually listening to us. (Sneaky). More to the point, he was listening to what I wasn’t saying, not just what I was.

Mid conversation, he turned to us and said “He’s just not that into you”

C and I stopped, looked at each other, looked at him then back at each other.

“I’m sorry” he continued, “but clearly, he’s not. And lets face it – I’m a guy and clueless as I am, even I can see that”

C and I looked at each other again.

C immediately changed the topic.

Way to weird me out.

I hate unasked for advice.

Ack

So at about 4.15pm on Friday, I re-registered my car.

At about 5.40pm, I got a speeding ticket.

*sigh*

My consolation??

Before I came around that corner, I was actually doing about 110.

Stupid place to put a 60 zone anyway.

Bite Size Pieces…

My family are so happy to have me home that they don’t even mind that I delayed telling them.

xoxox

My nieces have grown SO much.

xoxox

It’s terribly sad to come home with my dog not here to greet me.

xoxox

There is something manifestly unfair about the fact that my 4 year old niece can spend longer in the sun without burning then I can.

xoxox

I know why I normally avoid sunlight – I burn like hell, very very quickly. Damnit.

xoxox

G (4 year old niece) decided that she wanted to play with a toy that E (3 year old niece) was already playing with. She tried to take it off her and of course tears resulted, I waded in and took the toy off them and said neither of them could have it. Close questioning revealed what had happened so I gave the toys back to E and made G explain herself and apologise to E, after that, I went back upstairs and G sat on the ground crying.

I was halfway up the stairs when I heard E say to her sister “Oh get up and stop crying, there’s much worse things in life to cry about then that for gods sake”

??!!??

I nearly fell over laughing - can you imagine what they will be like when they are 15??!!!???

xoxox

Words of wisdom from my sister –

“If he’s not making an effort in the first 10 weeks, then you’re screwed... fuck him off and walk away ‘cause if he can’t manage it then, he sure as hell isn’t going to in 10 years time and that’s no good to you at all!”

xoxox

I so have to join a gym.

xoxox

Before I left my sisters place, I went through her wardrobe and collected about 17 pairs of my shoes, a couple of hand bags, some shirts, a couple of jumpers and a few books of mine that she had.

I was so happy to see those shoes.

I am really looking forward to getting home and seeing the rest of my shoes again. That’s my plan for the rest of this evening – I will sit in my room and try on shoes.

Kind of sad, I know, but it works for me…