Blogger Friends

Firstly I just want to make a comment about comments (Pat this is for you m/f).  I have comment moderation happening on this blog which means I have to approve any comments rather than them just going straight onto the blog.  This is a hangover from when I used to get nutters reading my old weight loss blog and making strange and nasty comments that just upset everyone.  I get an email and I have to actually come to the site to approve them and I don't always get to it right away.  So that is why your comments might not show up for a day or two.  I think I'll disable it actually as I haven't had one unpleasant comment for years now.  I love my blogger friends.  I am cautious about who I befriend online after being hurt and let down by some nasties in the past, but since having this blog I've met some truly wonderful people who are part of my daily online life now and who have been such a surprising support to me in good times and bad.  So to the few of you, and you know who you are, I love you and only hope I can be as good and true a friend as you have been to me.  My old mum famously once said that online friends "aren't real".  Well maybe we're all figments of each others' imagination but I'll take it!
I'm still crook with this silly cold, felt decidedly off colour yesterday and took to my bed in the afternoon.  Phill reckons I'm run down because of all the menopause crap but that doesn't make any sense to me.  Emmy has a cold too so I guess we just picked it up somewhere.  I'm sitting out in the loungeroom at 4.30am having been woken by my own coughing.  Phill was supposed to go to Newcastle today for training but weevils in the wheat somewhere put paid to that.  Don't ask, it's a freight train thing.
My darling children actually left the house on Monday.  Yes I was shocked too.  They walked down to the shops and did some Christmas shopping for me.  They'd been saving up their bits of pocket money and came home laden with bags then went and wrapped up some presents and put them under the tree.  I was so proud of them.  Sometimes they seem so self absorbed, which I know is normal for teens but then they will surprise me with their kindness and care of me.  They didn't shop for Dad yet as "he's so hard to buy for".  Welcome to MY world kids! 

Phill put up the lights out the back yesterday afternoon.  It looks like a bloody Indian restaurant out there but it's festive and hopefully annoying our ever vigilant neighbours on that side.  We had a bbq and sat out there for a long time last night talking and laughing and listening to (quiet) music.  Phill had a few wines and got teary over his sister.  I encouraged this, as I think it's good for him to talk.  He can still barely believe she is dead and I was the same when my brother was killed.  Because I didn't see him very much it made it harder to believe he was gone.  Still is sometimes and it will be ten years on New Year's Day.
So the Christmas tree has a pile of wrapped goodies underneath it.  We got the X Box out of lay by yesterday as Target had a deal that saved us heaps by switching over.  Kate's stuff is ready to post off to her which I will do today.  I don't know how some stores stay in business.  Josh really wanted this game, he wanted it for his birthday actually but the release was delayed and after much research found that the games shop in Wagga would have them by a certain date.  I had to go to Young last week and found the game on the shelf at Big W for twenty dollars less than the game shop was selling them for. 
Phill lost his wedding ring a couple of years back (well he threw it in the bin after a fight if you must know).  He has had a couple of substitutes in stainless steel and tungsten but I wanted him to have a gold one like the original.  I finally got his ring size and we looked at gold rings at Prouds in Wagga.  Our original wedders were 9ct.  We found one at a good price and enquired about how much for the upsize and it was like $400 extra!  I looked online and got him one for less than the original Prouds price.  It was made to order, arrived really quickly, beautifully presented and we both love it, it's the style I originally wanted when we got married but they didn't have one in stock and we settled on another one.  I don't wear my original wedding ring now either, although I still have it in my jewellery box.  When Em was going through her bower bird (stealing) stage, she took it and hid it and I went and got myself a new one, a shaped band with three diamonds which is really pretty and fitted my engagement ring better. 

Josh has become an overnight internet star it seems with his comic website.  He is a very talented drawer of cartoons and made a website and acted on my advice on how to promote it.  He suddenly has fans everywhere loving his work and it's cute to see how excited he is.  I'll put a link up here soon, but it's a kid thing and I don't think us grown ups get it.  They are both pretty net savvy and know all about predators etc so I'm not too worried.

Phill was threatening to take the kids out to Temora today, fishing or on the boat or something.  Hope he does, I could do with some alone time and they could certainly do with getting out of the house and out into the fresh air (with sunscreen!).