Creaks, cracks and stuff

When will the winter end? I don’t know why but this winter has seemed to drag on. Maybe it is because we have had quite a few weekends lately with unsettled weather and I have been keen to do something active outside like fishing, swimming, tennis, etc but didn’t want to gamble with the weather. Fortunately, the weather was really nice this past weekend and I had a surf on my wave ski.

On Saturday I started to work on fixing up some of the creaks in the upstairs master bedroom, which is directly over our guest rooms downstairs. I used the circular saw to increase the gap between 2 floor panels that I thought were rubbing and cut through a screw that I didn’t notice. Ended up with about 10 bits of tiny screw shrapnel embedded into my left hand fingers. Had to dig some bits out with a needle. Fortunately I had my protective glasses on. But unfortunately, the floor is still squeaking so I still have some more work to do.

Jasmine went to a friend’s 10-pin bowling birthday party on Saturday afternoon and James went along also to play with a mate who was the birthday girl’s brother. That night James’ mate had a sleep over at our house and Jasmine stayed over at her friend’s house.

On Sunday a mate of mine from work called and invited me to go surfing with him down at Rainbow Beach (Coolangatta). The padded seat on my surf ski had come off last time I used it so on the way down I dropped into Bunnings to get some contact glue. My wave ski was inside the car with the rear seat down. While applying the glue to the wave ski I shuffled it forward to get better access and managed to crack the car windscreen beyond repair in the process! Best quote so far is $185 to replace the windscreen. I still ventured down and had a surf. The water felt a little cool at first but I had no trouble staying in for a couple of hours. The waves a really good down there and you get a long ride before the wave closes out. I really enjoyed it. Had a go on my mate’s surfboard but getting up quickly into a standing position was too taxing on my back so I will stick to riding the wave ski.

Lani and I manage to watch a couple of DVDs on the weekend. ‘Crash’, which was OK but the racial tension throughout the movie made it frustrating to watch. We also watched ‘Saw 2’, which once again was somewhat gruesome in parts but quite a thrilling movie with some cool twists. The first scene is somewhat gruesome but the whole movie is not all that way. I recommend it.

Today, I worked from home because James had another really bad allergy reaction yesterday but with plenty of sleep/rest and Claratyne (anti-histamine) has been able to rapidly recover this time. Jasmine also had some allergies after playing with a dog on Sunday and acted it up to stay home today also. Jasmine is quite fortunate that she is generally quite healthy but craves some sickness attention from time to time. We dread that one of these days she will actually be quite sick and we won’t believe her.

Lani is still going along strong at Westpac but she doesn’t like the customer contact despite the fact that her managers have said she is good at customer service. She is hoping to get some back office work eventually. While working at the different branches and talking with other staff she has mentioned the kids and people have been shocked to hear that they are 9 and nearly 7 years old. Everyone seems to think she looks around 22 to 25 years old. I remember when we first got married someone reckoned she looked below the age of consent. She still carries on he youthful looks 14 years later.