Miss Frou Frou has entered the building...

Well, I'm back... not sure for how long... but am here anyway...

To any of you still checking in occasionally I have no excuses for not posting very regularly apart from the fact that I haven't felt the need to say much of anything.

What's been happening?

Working for the man... Well - I had a job interview early December, that didn't pan out - which is probably not a bad thing... but it's left me in a bit of a quandary - I feel restless and unhappy about some elements of my work, and there are lots of opportunities out there at present, BUT I love the team of people I work with and while there are days when I could cheerfully throttle others around the place, the team make it all bearable. I know I could go somewhere else, possibly earn more dollars, and also find a role that would reduce some of the stress I'm currently under...

But I'm wondering what is important... the fact that I've found a little niche for myself, working with a group of people I love and respect, who appear to love and respect me (on my good days) and tolerate my eccentricities and histrionics (on my bad days). Or the need to have a job that fulfills me in a way that my present one doesn't completely... and run the risk of finding the job, but not enjoying the people quite so much... (sounds a bit like my eternal quandary about men!)

God bless rest you merry gentlemen women...
I had a quiet, contemplative Christmas/ New Year that has rolled on into most of January. Lots of reading (2 to 3 books a week), watching TV (catching up on shows from 2006/2007), sleeping and even some quilty things...

Wherever I lay my hat, that's my home... it looks likely that I will need to find a new home sometime this year, as my landlords have decided against offering me a new lease, as they are thinking of selling. I got very, very depressed at this... this is my 4th year here, and it is very much my home. Initially decided if I have to leave, then I want to do it on my terms, and got even more depressed looking at what passes for decent, affordable housing around here. But discussing this with friends have decided to just wait and see what happens.

The Queen of stuff... Have spent the weekend sorting through my 1930s reproduction fabrics partly because I was inspired by stumbling across this post on the Happy Zombie - hooley dooley I'd love me a stash like that says I... then realised I've probably got close to a stash like that already! Have well over 200 different 1930s reproduction fabrics -let alone all the other fabric I've accumulated.

Now, considering Ms.J. has twisted my arm painfully (yeah right) to go along to a Dear Jane workshop and maybe start one of these suckers, I figured using 1930s fabrics might be the go, if I had enough of them (ha,ha, ha...).

But seriously, my fabric obsession seems ever so slightly out of control... I don't even know what I've got anymore... so, progressively working my way through and sorting and folding seems like a good idea... and maybe culling?

moar funny pictures
Am also doing the same with my book collection... with 7 full height bookshelves groaning under the weight of books, I'm going through and being ruthless... have I read it? Yes. Do I want to read it again? Yes - then keep, if no - dispose. If I haven't read it yet do I want to? No - then discard!

If I am going to have a move, then I need to get organised so that I'm not taking anything with me, that I don't want or need. I've still got boxes from the move 4 years ago, that haven't been unpacked!

A room of her own... Well, I've got a whole house, but have also got organised and bought myself a decent desk, chair and a new monitor and keyboard. I am currently churning out a suite of policies and procedures for work. Churning being the operative word... have been more productive this month in this area than I had been all year - I think primarily as I've been set up with remote access at home, and encourage to spend a day a week at home working, which is blissful without the everyday distractions of people popping in and phone calls.

I've discovered I can be quite disciplined with this working from home thing... hoping that when the current mad spurt of work is over I can roll that over into being disciplined to do some creative writing of my own.

The writing of anything for pleasure has gone by the wayside at present, too much professional writing happening to even get into the right headspace... another reason why I've not been posting much.

And so it goes... as for personal stuff... I'm good. Nothing momentous happening, just enjoying myself, probably being a bit more solitary than I normally would be at this time of year, but not unhappily so... though I'm busy organising a sort of birthday bash for mid-March which looks like being fun - dinner and dancing with some mates, and generally making mayhem!

Oh well.... need to get back to fabric folding... catch you later...

I hope I never....

As I've been a bit of a slack-arse with both posting and keeping up to date with friends blogs I didn't realise that Karina had tagged me to do a meme and tell you 5 things about me I've never told before. Karina put a great spin on her meme and revealed 5 things she's never done... so I'm going to do the same but with a twist 5 things I hope never to do... or never to do again!

One: Work early morning shifts
My ideal job would be a job that started at midday... actually last week I did a couple of days where I worked till 8.00pm... it was bliss. Even though I started work at my normal time, I got so much work done between 4.00-8.00pm I am seriously thinking of asking if I can change my hours so that I work till 7.30pm (at least during the summer and daylight savings). Can't work till 8.00pm as I discovered last week at exactly 8.00pm the alarm activates... frightened me half to death...

Gone are the days where I will willing start work at 7.00am (unless I can work in my pj's!)

Two: Stand on the observation deck of any high rise building
I've discovered it's not heights I'm afraid of so much... it's falling. I can look out the window of a plane, can even stand at a lookout and look off into the distance... just don't ask me to look down! Famous at a previous workplace for going green at the gills and almost fainting when the electrician climbed over a guardrail and balanced precariously while trying to change a light globe. Equally as famous for refusing to walk into a training room with floor to ceiling windows in the high-rise Rialto building and then collapsing in a shaking heap when the trainer tried to reassure me by pressing his entire body against the glass.

I think in a previous life I was the virginal maiden sacrificed to the gods by being chucked into a volcano!

Three: Go to see the Monster Trucks, Car Racing, Motorbike Grand Prix et al.
I knew it was luuurv with Boomerang Boy when I agreed to go to the Monster Trucks with him one night instead of going for a walk to see the Christmas Lights along the Boulevard... sigh...

To make matters worse... he then proceeded to spend the rest of the night roaming around with his best buddy, turns out I was invited along to keep his mate's heavily pregnant girlfriend company so the boys could go watch their toys and dream....

Three: Internet Dating (those Lonesome Losers websites)
Conversation with the Nature Boy today about the ridiculous real estate prices at present that went off on a typically strange (for us) tangent:

MFF: I will probably rent for the rest of my life as I won't be able to afford to buy a house.
NB: Yes, you will.
MFF: Only if I find a man who wants to keep me in the style I wish to be accustomed to!
NB: Well, that'll happen too!
MFF: Do you think so?
NB: Yes!
MFF: I don't think that's very likely... in order to meet someone you actually need to leave the house!
NB: Well, eventually... but you could meet him and get to know him online
MFF (shaking her head furiously): Seriously... no way... the last guy I met online told me he had to leave early even before I got my coat off... and then ended up staying around for 3 hours, paying for my dinner, telling me he had a great time and would like to see me again and then a week later ringing me and saying he would like to stay in touch but he was pursuing other options and by the way he had found himself strangely aroused by me, had I been trying to arouse him and had I been aroused too!
NB (laughing): That is kind of weird...
MFF: That's the thing, he seemed so normal too... I think it's me... I bring out the odd in people
NB: Yeah, I can relate to that... (laughing)

Five: Go camping...
Back in the day when I advertised in the personals, probably a good 80% of the men who responded to my advert after telling me their name and occupation and the suburb they lived in told me they liked going camping! There was one memorable guy in his voicemail who said in a fairly decent Sylvester Stallone/Rocky Balboa voice 'Ummm... I like going fishin' and campin'... and ummm... walks on the beach, and ummm going to the movies, but I 'specially like fishin' and campin'...'

Before anyone yells at me... I realise that there are lots of people who like camping, including some females... but not this little fat duck! My idea of roughing it is a 3 star motel! And I once told Peter Rabbit that I really liked the great outdoors... as I watched it out the window on my way to the bed and breakfast!

I also told him earlier in the year, when he suggested that cuddling up in a sleeping bag was romantic, that I wasn't adverse to sharing a sleeping bag, or a tent for that matter... the man of my dreams will pitch that tent in the middle of the living room or better yet the penthouse at the Hyatt.

Things I have learned... in no particular order of importance...

• Drooling and dribbling and sighing 'oh my god, look at the size of his hands' is probably not the most appropriate response when being introduced to the very cute, but very young (28) new guy at work...

• I am not much of a team player... I love working as part of a team, as long as no-one else is doing MY job...

• I do not delegate well...

• Working 10-12 hours days for 3 weeks in a row in order to have a week off kinda defeats the purpose of having a holiday...

• Particularly when you then go back to working 10-12 hour days on your return...
  

• Telling men that you need to mother-proof your house prior to a visit has them thinking of p0rn and a drawerful of goodies... and their eyes glaze over...

• As does telling them that you are going on a d1ck-free weekend with your girlfriends...
  

• Having slightly hairy legs on a girls away weekend is probably better than attempting to shave said legs at midnight in the bathtub when you've spent the previous 48 hours doped up to the gills due to back spasm...

• Legs bleed a lot...

• Starting belly dancing lessons is probably not the smartest thing to do when you are in the middle of a full blown fibromyalgia episode...

• People think it's funny that the one body part that gets injured after belly dancing lesson number one is your ANKLE...

• Keeping quiet about the boobage and bum cramp after your first belly dancing lesson is probably not a bad thing...

• Men, want to talk to me and feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings with me, which is lovely...

• Feeling comfortable enough to shut up and just jump my bones on occasion would be even lovelier...

• Despite the fact that I often make reference to being a little fat girl, and my humour is self-deprecating, I actually like myself, a lot...

• Which is probably just as well, as it becomes clearer every day that my world and the rest of the planet are often slightly out of kilter and it's likely to be a long while before a lovely man tells me to shut up and jumps my bones...

• Just as well I'm an optimist... someday my prince will come... sigh!

Sorry... you know what they say... if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all... well... that's why I've been so quiet...

Lights, camera, action....

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Don't you wish sometimes that your life could be like a movie? With all things resolved satisfactorily at the end of the final reel...

I love the movies, it's only recently that I've realised that not everyone else is as obsessive about them as I am... well apart from ... that is.

Have been a movie nut since childhood, probably cause my Dad was, though we only went to the movies once a year when I was little. My aunty used to send us all $1 for Christmas, and we'd go into the city and see a movie over the holidays, and have a choc top each, and then go to Coles Caf for a pie and peas, and if the family was really flush with cash and Dad was in a generous mood, maybe waffles and icecream and then walk up to see the Myer's windows. The movies were either the latest Disney film or the latest musical, so we saw Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Oliver, The Sound of Music, Cinderella, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Love Bug. We stopped going at Christmas when we all got the age that we wanted to see different films, though from that point on, I went to the movies a lot with friends.

At High School (1975-1976), we had activity day, were kids could pick some activity they wanted to do, i.e. basketball, horseriding etc. My gang of mates went to the movies, pretty much every week! I saw Sunshine, The Way We Were, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The Trial of Billy Jack, Rollerball.

And then one year the principal organised a film festival at the Valhalla, when it used to be in Richmond. Some films were mandatory, some were elective...I saw everything, 26 movies in 5 days... Twelve Angry Men, Sunday Too Far Away, Chinatown, Henry IV, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Fearless Vampire Killers (aka Pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck), Paint Your Wagon, A Night at the Opera, Sleeper... I was as sick as a dog by the end of it with flu, but it was bliss...

I don't get to go the movies as often these days, but am still pretty obsessive, either borrowing DVDs or buying them... I've never paid more than $15 for a DVD but am amassing quite a collection of them, all films I've seen and loved. Last week I bought: The Sure Thing, 10 Things I Hate About You, Willow, Big Trouble in Little China and Pride and Prejudice.

I wonder what my DVD collection would say about me (a lot of the movies listed in the link on my blog are in my collection)? Maybe I need to do a Movie Monday, like Mez's Music Monday... a Froufrou review of a couple of films that I love and why...