Catastrophic Hard Drive Failure

It's only been a week but it's felt like a year.

Last week the hard drive on my aged laptop suffered a catastrophic failure. Died. Kaput. While I do back up to an external drive it may have been a while since I did that. Oh dear.

So I have spent a week completely away from the cyber world. It was sort of weird. I used the paper version of the yellow pages a lot, I RANG people, I talked to people FACE TO FACE, on purpose. Actually, it was quite refreshing. I even bought a computer the old fashioned way.

I had been putting off buying a new computer because I just couldn't be bothered with all the research. Yet faced with an urgent need it was surprisingly easy. I rang Dell, ordered a box.with.the.lot on Friday afternoon and it was built in the US and delivered to my door this morning. Voila. All done.

If only I had done this a week earlier and I wouldn't be faced with the loss of my entire contact database and three months worth of photos.

Bling

I don't think I've mentioned yet that I am 2 1/2 weeks away from a BIG birthday. Well biggish anyway. Lucky me, I will share this momentous occasion with the Federal Election this year.

When asked what I want for this birthday I've said to Firegazer that I just want to spend money on whatever takes my fancy between now and the 24th. So far I've bought clothes and shoes. No handbag yet, but I've still got 2 1/2 weeks.

This means no real surprises, but hey the shopping is fun.

So it was lovely to get a surprise gift this weekend. Domestic Goddess and her family visited from Melbourne on Saturday and Sunday and while they were here gave me the beautiful necklace above. This necklace was made by Domestic Goddess. Isn't it amazing? She makes the most beautiful things. I'm currently trying to convince her to get an Etsy shop.


Edited: It's such low light here today that none of the photos of this beautiful piece really show it off to good effect. Will keep trying and post a better photo soon. Mx

Oh for a decent-sized changeroom

Once a year my friend SC and I cruise the "Ladies Fashion" floors of DJ's Elizabeth St Store in Sydney. We decide in advance what one item of clothing we are looking for and proceed single-mindedly in one direction around each floor picking up anything that vaguely meets requirements.

After a full (clockwise) circuit of one floor we take our haul to the change rooms. We are not interested in returning to the floor at any point so we arrive with anything upwards of 15 items, convince the attendant that the 4 item limit is simply ridiculous and proceed to climb in and out of dresses until we find one we like

So here is my gripe. I hate tiny squished-in change rooms.

Growing up I would often visit a dress shop ("frock shop") owned by my mum's family that had real change rooms. These were huge curtained off areas with large mirrors and excellent lighting; hanging space for at least 20 items; a chair or two and shop attendants whose mission in life it was to rush out at get a different size, different colour or a seamstress to take up a hem. The big change room is all about you.

Small change rooms force you to step outside to either be pounced upon by an over eager shop attendant who tells you how fabulous you look or you are completely ignored by a lady whose job it is to hand out numbers. Small change rooms are all about them.

Give me a large airy change room and an interested (but not pushy) attendant willing to comb the floor for additional clothes and I am a happy customer who might just push my credit card a little further in appreciation of good service.

Where are the best/worst change rooms you've seen?

Trick or Treat!

Each year one of the families in our street organises our annual Halloween Trick or Treat. A notice is sent to all houses with a balloon attached. All children are invited to meet at a designated house at 5pm and those houses that wish to be visited by Trick or Treaters place the balloon outside their front gate.

This year about 15 children participated. We spent an hour traipsing from house to house, the highlight of which was meeting "Professor McGonagall" (a former school teacher) who had the children in fits of laughter and handed out the most beautiful hand made bags of lollies .

A lovely excuse for a meet and greet in our neighbourhood.

Ballet Mum now Sews Costumes

One of the mums at our ballet school is a Bridal designer and she and another mum give up a month of paid work to design and direct the sewing of costumes for our annual concert. These are no hastily hashed together pieces but bridal quality garments (with the exception that fasteners are velcro rather than buttons and zips). One of these mums opens her house twice a week for mass sewing bees.

This Tuesday I went along to see if I could help in anyway thinking I might be given some gluing or perhaps simple hand-sewing. But no. When I realised that one volunteer who had never used a sewing machine before was assigned to one of the overlockers I knew that my gluing days were numbered.

I came home with the job above. Thirty metres of trim to make for the Russian National Dance costumes. The trim is black ribbon, sewn onto gold ribbon with gold lace trim sewn to each side. Thirty metres. I'm going cross-eyed, but isn't it beautiful!

How do I find the time? I don't know but with two fundraisers to focus on at school and all the usual gumf that goes on I definitely need a drink at the end of the day.