gemisht

Well its that time again - Saturday. How do they get here so fast?? Its been another week almost and so much has happened.

So now onto Smiley Saturday - which is the brainchild of Lightening. She has  instructions here if you have never done a Smiley Saturday post and want to know how.

Its been a tough, busy week here, but doing a Smiley Saturday post is great because it makes me stop and think about what has made me smile, rather than dwell on the negative, and that is always a great thing.

•  Tiger had his last cricket game of the season today. They won the game by 1 ball - yes 1 ball. And they won against the school that my Dad and brothers went to - nothing like a bit of friendly family rivalry LOL
• Whilst Tiger and his teammates were playing their last cricket game, the Mums indulged in a Champagne breakfast, complete with champagne, strawberries, rockmelon (canteloupe for overseas readers), cheese, croissants - plain and chocolate filled, muffins and almond and apricot crispbreads. Mmmmmm yummy and good fun. Oh and in case you’re wondering, the champagne was diluted with orange juice and we didn’t even drink a whole bottle, but it made for a fun morning.
• We have just ordered Daisy’s new leotard for her to compete in gymnastics competitions. She has recently started extra training on a Saturday afternoon and loves it. She is excited about it and grinning from ear to ear - me, I’m not so sure whether to smile or fall down from the shock of the cost of a leotard and tracksuit. No, seriously, I am grinning from ear to ear for her.
•  DH had a major breakthrough this week - he came home one night and told me he was cross. Now at face value this might sound awful, and certainly not worth smiling about, and thats understandable. But it is worth smiling about, because it is the first time in a long time, if ever, that he has vocalised something like this to me - normally he clams up and won’t say a word. So, you can teach an old dog new tricks
• I actually did this post on Saturday, not Monday like last week. Things are looking up.

Thats about it for this week. I hope that you have had at least one thing to smile about this week. If you need some inspiration, pop on over to Lightenings and she has this wonderful Mr Linky thing set up so you can read everyone’s Smiley Saturday posts - there should be some inspiration there somewhere.

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No, not a person, a bracelet. A charm bracelet to be precise. If you read Bettina’s blog, then you’ll see the one that she got for her birthday. Or you could go to the Pandora website and have a look at the different ones there(click on the links to see lots of different ones).

When it comes to birthdays, some of you drop subtle hints, or leave lists of things that you would like for your birthday and hope that you get something on your wish list. Me, I went a step further. I took the kids to the local jewellers store that sells Pandora and showed them exactly what I wanted. Then I told them that when they came shopping with their father for my brithday present that’s what I wanted. That and only that. Oh and I also mentioned it at Christmas time too so that there was no chance of the rest of the family being unsure either. In case you weren’t sure, subtlety isn’t one of my strong points.

So DH and the kids went shopping and outdid themselves. DH bought me the bracelet

and a charm from each of the kids. This one frim Tiger

And this one from Daisy

This is where the problems start. Because it was my birthday DH wanted to make sure that he had something to give me rather than an IOU. So he bought an 18cm bracelet. Which fits me but doesn’t allow enough room for the charms. So, I need a 20cm bracelet.

I have been waiting for 3 weeks for a replacement bracelet. The jewellers can’t tell me when it will arrive. They told me that I wasn’t bound by my order for the larger size so if I could get the bracelet somewhere else then that was fine. The bastards won’t give me a refund. So I am stuck. And cross. I have to get it from them and wait.

I am amazed that Pandora are unable to tell the retailers any kind of a time frame for when the stock should arrive. It seems that because their bracelets are popular they can bask in their own glory and not worry about their customers. We just have to wait while the popularity inflates their ego. And they don’t respond to emails either.

If I could get a refund i would go and buy a different brand. Come to think of it I could, the jeweller stocks at least one other brand. And give Pandora the flick. Because I hate when businesses treat their customers like idiots.

Edited to add: Just before I published this I rang the jeweller again and they still don’t have the bracelet in stock, no idea when they are due in and I am not obligated to buy from them just because I have ordered from them. I told the girl on the phone the whole story again and she is going to talk to the store manager and see if they will do a refund for me. I’ll keep you posted.

 Edited Again: The jewellers have just rung back and they will give me a refund. Yay, victory. So I will start investigating where I can get the bracelet.

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Smiley Saturday is the brainchild of Lightening. If you would like to see other Smiley Saturday posts, then pop on over to her place. If you want to know whats involved in Smiley Saturday, or want to do your own post, then have a look at this bit of her site.

I was going to do this on Saturday but I ran out of Saturday, or I lost it somewhere, let me know if you find it will you :). So, then Plan B, do it Sunday, that’s OK, only a day late right??? Wrong, ran out of Sunday too. Then all of a sudden its Monday. Ooops, still haven’t done my Smiley Saturday and I really need to as there was lots to smile about.

So here goes.

Last Sunday was Tiger’s 11th birthday. Although DH and I told him he couldn’t celebrate until 11.04pm as that’s when he was born, and by that time all 11 year olds should be in bed, so he would miss it. He looked horrified until he realised we were joking. We had his party at a new local venue, Laser Tag. He originally wanted to have a pool party at home, but we had pool problems so this wasn’t going to happen. Anyway, I digress. Take 11 boys, 2 girls and a laser tag venue and what do you have - a fantabulous birthday party.

The kids had an absolute ball. They had 2 15 minute “missions” where they were divided into 2 teams and had to win against the other team and each other. As well as the missions they were given tokens to play the game machines beforehand. For the older ones there, the pinball machines were the only things that looked vaguely familiar.

They were fed pizza, soft drinks and chocolate cake as well. I don’t think that it gets any closer to kid heaven than that, does it? The kids had a great time, the parents that stayed thought that it was cool and I was happy as I had nothing to do other than turn up at the allocated time. They even did the lolly bags for me.

There was 2 classic moments though and both involve Daisy. The parents were up on the viewing platform which is raised up from where the kids were during the missions, and had fine wire mesh to stop people falling or things being dropped. Daisy “shot” one of the Mums, who very quickly pretended to collapse onto the wire. Daisy watched her response, then looked worried and said “Oh, sorry” to her.

The second was when Daisy looked at her score sheet for the first mission. They were in with some other kids so there was 20 of them for the first mission. She looked at her result sheet and saw 20/20 and was so pleased with herself that she got 100%. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what it really meant. If she’s happy, then who am I to burst her bubble.

Another source of smiles during the week was the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I am getting a grip on the workload for Uni. It all seems to be falling into place a little more this week.

Oh and for major smiles and huge achievements this week - a friend and I went to another girlfriend’s place to help her with pre-inspection clean up. She is recently separated and found out about her first rental inspection in 3 years. Needless to say, she went into a tail spin. Her biggest concern has been getting the edges of the grass trimmed as she has not been able to start the whipper snipper. Nor have a few other people that have tried. Its very obstinate. So on Friday, the other 2 had a go at starting it and not surprisingly, it didnt start. So while they got the stand by one going, I had a play with all the buttons and bits and pieces and guess what???? It started!!!!! After the three of us finished being gobsmacked and picked our jaws up off the ground, then the other 2 asked me the hard question - “How did you do that????”. Ummmm no idea really. I had to do it another time to work out how I had done it. Needless to say, K now had written instructions so that she can start it herself. And you know the best part…. not getting it started, but empowering a friend to do these things on her own as and when she needs to. That really makes me smile. And I’m betting that the girlpower will make Lightening smile too. Cause she knows what I am like. The only issue that I had was the fact that my chest and underarm-area muscles were really sore from pull-starting the crazy thing. No wonder I normally leave that sort of thing to DH

So lots to smile about this week. I really hope that you had lots to smile about too. And if you didn’t, then go and do something now that makes you smile.

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Guess what??? I got my first Blog Bling. How excitement. In fact, I have 2!!!! I am so chuffed. So, I guess you want to know what they are. Sorry its taken me so long to post these, but it in no way reduces my appreciation of these awards

The first one is this from Lightening:

This award originated from Me And My Drum.

“Earlier this year I was tagged with the blogging tip meme in which the tip I offered was “Be the Blog“. That phrase stuck with me because I think that really sums up what a successful blogger does. And what I mean by successful is that they make it their own, stay with it, are interactive with their readers, and just plain have fun.

Since then I’ve been thinking about creating an award of my own, but with so many out there, it’s hard to find a niche that remains untapped for recognition. So I said, “What the heck?”, and decided to shape the phrase into an award called (you guessed it): Be The Blog. “

Thanks for the bling Lightening, its really appreciated. Except you will notice that I went with the Purple Passion (luv that name) rather than the Pink. I love pink too but the purple went a little bit better with my colour scheme. And thanks for the great comments about my Blog.

Now I guess I need to find someone to pass it on to. I would like to pass this on to Anonymum. I know she doesn’t do memes, but I am sure that she would accept an award. Now, why Anonymum???? Because I think that she really is what this award is all about. And she and I have had some great late-night chats over at the Aussie Bloggers Forum.

Now for the second Bling. This one came from Bettina.

Thanks Bettina and its an honour to be included in a group like this. And its truly a pleasure to know you. Now to pass this one on. Iwould like to pass this award on to Lightening. She really is wonderful, she writes great posts, she makes me smile and she has given me so much encouragement from the day I mentioned that I wanted a blog, through the whole process of setting it up and launching it. Thanks Lightening.

I really hope that the 2 people that I have passed these awards onto haven’t already received them, but if you have at least know that you have been thought about :).

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Ooooh, I’ve been a slack blogger. Real life interrupted my online life. Sorry

Its been a busy couple of weeks here, with more than the usual being thrown at me. For a while there I was doing OK juggling everything, but then I dropped one ball, then another, then all of them. Ooops, back to the beginnging and start again for me.

Have you ever had one of those days/weeks/months where you seem to be coasting along OK and then all of a sudden someone pulls the rug out from under your feet and you have no idea which way is up anymore??? Well, thats been the last few weeks for me. In no particular order the following things have conspired to keep me away from my blog:

• Uni started and I am trying to re-jig my routines to make time for study
• One of our employees resigned and finished up last week
• Some major deadlines at work
• Tiger’s birthday and party (he had a great day and the party was a hit with all)
• Problems that I have found at work since the departure of the above mentioned employee.

Now it feels like everything is back on track for the moment so I promise I will be back sooner rather than later.

Thank goodness someone put the rug back for me……..

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Here it is Saturday again. Where have the days gone? It’s been another busy week with Uni starting, Daisy had her first ever swimming carnival and just adjusting to a new routine all making the days fly by. But its been another great week.

The two top reasons to smile this week are again the kids and their achievements. Daisy went in three races and managed to come third in her backstroke. She was given a ribbon for her effort and that made her day. Tiger had cricket today and for the first time, his team won. By 9 runs. And they scored more than 60 runs, not the usual 20. He plays for his school in terms 1 and 4. The teams change at the beginning of each term so this team is still getting to know each other, but they are already working really well as a team and today’s score reflects that.

Another reason to smile is that I have survived the first week of Uni. There hasn’t been that much happening but it’s a milestone. There’s more to this, but that’s another post on its own.

Lightening did a review of my blog over at Lightening’s Blogworld which was wonderful. Thanks for a great review, although I am the first to admit that there isn’t much to review yet. I’m working on that I promise.

So, another great week here with lots to smile about. I hope that you had lots to smile about.

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For my first Smiley Saturday I have a few things that have made me smile this week. I guess its been a good week for me. I hope that everyone else’s week has been at least 10% as good as mine:

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Lightening tagged me for the 7 Random Things about Me meme a couple of days before I launched my blog. She gave me the option of doing it in her comments or saving it for when the blog was launched. I took the latter option as I thought it would be a good chance to let you know a bit more about me.

So here goes:

1. I have my forklift licence. And yes, I do drive the forklift at work, although I haven’t been on it for a while. We bought a new one and I don’t like it as much as the old manual one. Maybe because the old one was made the year I was born.
2. I can’t cook pasta. Well, I can cook it, but for something that is supposed to be a quick, easy meal, how come I always end up feeling tied in a knot and doing something wrong, and a huge mess in the kitchen. It’s not my specialty.
3. My left foot is a full half size bigger than my right. Makes shoe shopping hard.
4. I can’t sleep on the other side of the bed. Even if I have the bed to myself. It just feels wrong.
5. When I hang the washing on the line I work my way around anti-clockwise.
6. I can only wear one perfume, White Linen. Everything else that I have tried causes an allergic reaction.
7. I can’t eat Octopus, I am too scared that the suckers will stick to my mouth, or even worse, my throat. I do love squid though, it doesn’t have any suckers on it.

So now for the rules:

*Link to the person that tagged you

*Post the rules on your blog.

*Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.

*Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

*Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Seeing as I am fairly new to the Blog world, I am not going to tag anyone for this, and I think that the ones that I would tag have probably done this meme at least once anyway. If you haven’t been tagged for this one and you would like to do it, then consider yourself tagged and go for it.

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Finally, its here. I have a blog. This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, but there were a few hiccups along the way. So for those who have been waiting in the back stalls ever so patiently, thanks for waiting.

Once I decided that I was going to start a blog, I was going to go with one of the free ones. Then I started to hear from a few people about moving their blog to self-hosted and the work involved with it. And in some cases, a lot of work and a few problems along the way. I heard enough about it that I decided to jump straight into the Blog world and get a self-hosted Wordpress blog. I would like to say a humungous thank you to Snoskred for setting up the blog, including the theme changes and header graphic. She has also installed all the plug ins, which is all included in her Blog Hosting. And I may be a little bit biased, but I think it looks gorgeous. Thanks Snoskred for all your hard work on this and your patience.

There are two people who have really encouraged me to do this, Lightening and Kelley. Thanks for all your help and encouragement with this. And again for being patient with me.

I am a Wife to DH, Mum to Tiger and Daisy and working 4 days a week. I am also starting a Uni course this year, studying Accounting. Better late than never I think. I have been doing the accounts and admin side of things since DH and I started our own business 8 years ago. So I have a bit of practical experience but now want to learn the theory behind it all.

So now I guess you’re wondering why the blog title is “My Amazing Adventure”. Whilst trawling the internet looking for inspiration for the Domain name, I came across a quote by Helen Keller: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing”. As you can see I have used some “literary licence” and changed it a bit. I thought amazing sounded better than daring.

Whilst I don’t agree with the sentiment at face value, I think that it says a lot about our attitudes to life and what we are doing. Although most days life feels a little mundane, doing the same things over and over again, day in and day out. But I am working on an attitude change. No guarantees that I will make it though.

Oh and now you’re asking “Why Gemisht?”. Well it took me a while to find something that I was happy with for the domain name. Every time I thought of something that I was happy with, I felt that most of them could in the future be a bit restrictive. At this stage I am not aiming to fill a niche, other than being a personal blogger. So I didn’t want something that may restrict me in the future if I did decide to aim for a more specific niche with my blogging. So, I looked up miscellaneous in other languages, and came up with gemisht, which is miscellaneous in German.

So there you have it, the story behind the Blog Title, the Domain Name and a little bit about me. I am really not sure where this Blog will lead, other than it will about me and the things happening in my world. Thank you for visiting and I hope that you enjoy it here. There will of course be more posts soon, and there may be some small changes to things around the place as I *find my feet* in the world of blogging and Wordpress. If you experience any problems whilst you are visiting, please leave a comment for me, or use the contact page, on the menu bar at the top.

I look forward to seeing you back here soon. Thanks for visiting.

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