Calendar pictures

For the last few years I've been making a calendar each year for my Mum, using iPhoto - it produces such an amazingly professional calendar! Sometimes it's just family pictures for her, sometimes, if I've had a 'photographically interesting' year(!) I do one for me too. I made a 2011 calendar for me at the end of last year, with lots of photos from my 2010 overseas trip. Of course I forget what I've put on each month's page, so it's always nice to turn the page to see the new photos - and it was such a treat to turn to December the other day and come upon the page above! From the time I spent with one of my bestest friends, Wendi, in the Algarve, Portugal, where she lives. This page does sum up what a great time we had (and that's not even including our separate trip to Marrakesh!)

Class yesterday afternoon was great - although I was dismayed to hear they are closing for Christmas a week earlier than I had thought! I'll have to try and get a couple of classes in during the week as I can't go next Saturday ... Talking about yoga and calendars reminds me that a few years ago I found a wonderful calendar from an Ashtanga studio in the US. It was really nice in that the pictures weren't only of really advanced practitioners, but also some beginners. Never found another one - it would be lovely if someone did put one together ... (hint hint!!)

And I've been having such a good time at work lately, getting my head around Drupal, learning (or starting to learn!) about Panels and other Drupal-specific stuff! So nice to be able to spend some time on stuff that really interests me!!

waiting for the storm

Hot hot day here in Queensland! We have been 'promised' storms and rain by the weather bureau later today/tomorrow. Really hope they're right - it's 34degC today (and we're still officially in mid-Spring!) and when I walk across the grass at the university, it's crunchy! I hate it when it's so dry that happens ... Usually we're complaining about the humidity here, but I don't think I'll complain about it again for a while!

Yoga was (of course) incredibly hot yesterday! Someone asked me a couple of days ago if I knew of Bikram yoga and I said that's aka Hot Yoga! Well, I think my ashtanga class qualified on that count yesterday ... :)

That 'someone' was a good friend of mine back in Brisbane on a visit for her sister's wedding. We used to work together a few years ago.  She and her then partner moved to London for his job (with Apple). We met up at a Vietnamese restaurant we'd been to before - it was so nice to see her. I'll see her next year when I'm in London - it's starting to become a real prospect!!

At work I finally got the revised eLearning website up last week. I'd had to make changes to it to include stuff about the Blackboard 9 upgrade which is consuming my work life these days! I've been doing so  many things I've never done before since I changed jobs ... really great! One of these has been helping one of the trainers to run 'What's new in Blackboard 9' courses, and I believe I'll be doing them on my own next January/February.

an unwanted bath

an unwanted bath
Originally uploaded by tlong

My Google homepage has (among other things) a list of photos of cats recently uploaded to Flickr. Just look at this one - I couldn't resist posting it here. Never seen a cat and a rat together like that!

And talking of cats (and cat-owners) - guess who was climbing up a ladder in the middle of the night trying to entice a very naughty pussycat down from a tree! Yes, it was me!! Jedda pussycat (or kittycat as she's not 9 months old yet) only goes outside on the weekends, and never at nights. But I had to go out to visit a website client and then onto yoga at about 2pm yesterday and of course she was nowhere to be seen. And when I got home around 6.45pm, ditto! I kept calling her, to no avail.

Finally at about 10pm when I went onto the back verandah to call her yet again I heard pathetic squeakiing (she's good at that!) in the distance, and eventually after much wandering through the undergrowth with a torch, I realised she was above my head and spotted her! But would she come down? No, of course not! I brought a ladder around and climbed up a bit (only halfway) but it was never going to be high enough and she wasn't going anywhere. I gave up for a while and when I came back again she had of course gotten herself down quite happily and was still 'busy' outside! Very naughty pussycat!!

This post is full of cat-stuff - in case anyone cared, I managed to fix my MySQL issues, upload the CMS website, fix a few email problems and my client is happy! And I have ordered a new Macbook Pro - Yesss!!

(And of course, yoga was wonderful, as always!)

mySQL hell!

Spent most of the weekend fighting with MySQL and phpMyAdmin! They have won so far! I'm trying to do something very basic and obviously missing something, but it's pretty frustrating! All I want to do is move a CMS-MS (that's CMS Made Simple!) website I've been developing for a client from the test area on my website, to the area on the same host where I host websites. And can I do it ... ?!?!!! No!! I have moved the files of course, but it's the database that I'm having problems with. And restrictions with usernames ... sigh! I'm sure when I finally manage to do this it'll all seem really easy, but right now it doesn't! This is the first CMS site I've done, so I guess there's bound to be a bit of a learning curve - just wish it'd straighten out now!

Did manage to escape this mental turmoil and go to yoga class on Saturday afternoon ... which was really nice! I'm still struggling to find space in my day / workspace to practice during the week. But I managed to practice in the gym last week, which although somewhat odd, was OK! There I was squished in between various gym machines and people lifting weights ... :) I've asked around at my workplace and the consensus is that it's most unlikely there are any empty offices that I can use, so this is the best alternative I can come up with!

Yoga and the 5 Rhythms

I've been collapsed at home today (Sunday) after quite an amazing afternoon/evening yesterday. Went to yoga class in the afternoon which was quite lovely. Not that anything wonderful in the way of breakthroughs or progress happened - probably the reverse as I still haven't sorted out a new practice schedule since changing jobs (and time available). But it just felt so good to be 'in the slot' of practice - doing the sun salutes and just following the series through. I had to leave early because I was supposed to be somewhere at 6pm, and the teacher had started talking to everyone about pranayama, or the basic beginners' pranayama that he teaches and we do at the end of asana practice. I had to get up and go in the middle of all of this which felt a bit awkward, but couldn't be helped.

So - where I had to be at 6pm was at a 5 Rhythms dance! I'd never heard of this before, but a friend (Ross) invited me to one being put on by his yoga teacher. Basically it's a dance 'practice' founded by someone called Gabrielle Roth, where you dance to 5 different rhythms - flowing, staccatto, chaos, lyrical and stillness. 20 minutes for each rhythm. I wasn't sure what to expect but it was wonderful! I would have thought I'd have been pretty tired having just done about 1.5 hours of yoga, but I didn't sit out any of it! Most of us did kind of treat the last one (stillness) as a sort of savasana, lying on the floor, but still I have to say I was quite amazed that I was able to keep dancing without any thought of sitting down for a while!

However, today is a different matter! I was quite tired, and when I got back from doing the shopping (and visiting the library) I was quite content to have a slow quiet afternoon! Mind you, I'll still fighting with uploading my CMS website to a test server - unsuccessful to date! Hoping to get some (more) help from the user community, who of course are mostly in Europe/USA and so in bed when I'm awake, and awake when I'm asleep!

Post-Easter holiday

A nice Easter holiday ... I took a couple of extra days and am now just back at work. This is the first break I've had since all of the emotional upheaval that I guess inevitably comes when a whole group of people you've worked with for many years are made redundant / split up. Somehow it seemed a much more significant event than if I'd just resigned.

My Mum came up from NSW (she usually does for Easter) and we had a nice family time. Went to visit one of my cousins on Easter Day - she's just moved into a new house at Mt Tamborine - about an hour's drive south of Brisbane. Very pretty there, up in the hills (Gold Coast hinterland) but also very green and wet! It rains a lot!! We had a big family lunch there with 4 generations (including an 8-week old baby, great-grandnephew of my mother).

On Monday a friend from many years ago came through Brisbane for the day - on her way from a wedding in Melbourne and a Great Barrier Reef holiday in Cairns, back home to L.A. We knew each other when we both lived in London a long time ago, and since then have met up every few years. Talked (and ate, and drank wine!) for hours and hours, so now we are both fully caught up on what's been happening in each other's lives!

I also spent quite a bit of time on one of the two websites I'm developing. It's mostly finished now - just whatever changes/updates that are requested. Next weekend I'm going to meet up with the client for the other website, to move that along too.

And this evening I'm (yet again!) picking up my yoga practice and going to class.

Week 2 - a little tired!

Last week I sailed through with heaps of energy, but I'm a bit more tired this week. I guess it's to be expected - will take a while for my body/circadian rhythms/whatever to get used to the new situation. But that's OK. My cough is also getting a bit worse, which doesn't help. I've got some antibiotics but am holding off taking them until I'm sure I need to.

One thing I'm really missing is yoga. Last week I managed 2 practices. This week, nothing so far! I'll go on Saturday but I can't see any other options. I've already got to get up really early - not going any further (or earlier) down that track. And I just don't have the energy when I get home. When I was at the other campus I practiced at lunchtime - there were heaps of spare rooms around, and we also had a weekly yoga session with 2-5 others. Here - this building is a rabbit warren but I don't think there's much spare space. Anything that doesn't have people in it has piles of computers and parts and cables and so on!

There is, however, this Unifit system where the gym is available for one hour at lunchtime to staff whose departments (mine included) pay for their staff to attend. After Easter I'm going to sign up there and see if they'll let me do my yoga practice there in the gym. Not ideal, but the best (possible) solution I've come up so far.

Weekends have been taken up with work on 2 websites! Never rains but it pours ... One of them is my first CMS-based site. I'm using CMS-MS and am getting the hang of that. The other one is a static one, that's come out of an Arts grant that a friend applied for. She quoted for a website as well as everything else. This is 2 Artists books, so will have lots of images etc.

And I'm really pleased because I'm going to be able to get a new laptop from the proceeds of these two websites. My existing one is over 4-5 years old and is just soo slow. It's a Mac Powerbook, and I've been using the later Intel-based Macs at work for years now. The difference in speed is amazing. But it's not just the comparison - there is definitely something wrong with the Powerbook. I'm making sure I back up to an external hard drive every night, just in case of disaster! Just have to hope it lasts out for another month or so!

Yoga at last!

Yes, I made it to class last night. I guess it hasn't been that long, but it seems like ages! Because I'm still coughing quite a lot I decided to only do 3 of each sun salute. And then I just felt my way back through standing, and up to navasana in sitting. I was tired but it felt so good!

I did feel sorry for the people around me though. Class was packed and I was coughing quite a bit! But maybe I'm being over-sensitive / self-conscious ... that's probably true!

Got home (to a complaining kitten wondering when she was ever going to be fed!), had a quick dinner and was in bed by 9.30pm! I was exhausted! And slept like a log - it was hard to wake up this morning. But I'm feeling good, and ready to do yoga again at lunchtime today - as it's one of our work yoga days!

Other news - content for edition 6 of the foame poetry website is flowing in, and it's on track to go live on St David's Day (traditional publication date because the person who set the foame site up is from Wales!) Another website that I quoted on, and which we did the graphic design for about 6 months ago, has finally been signed off on and should be ready to start on in the next week! And there's yet another website waiting to be done after that too! So I should be very busy in my so-called 'spare time' for the next couple of months!! Lucky I really enjoy this sort of work ... :)

Things are looking up!

I'm definitely feeling better today! Still coughing but apart from that, things are good! Have spent the weekend working on websites (current and upcoming) and watching the cricket. Hoping (fingers crossed!) to get to yoga tomorrow.

And as requested, here are a couple of photos of Jedda, taken today.

Goodbye to my Porta-cath

And I hope not to see you again, or at the very least not for a loong time! Yes, it's coming out - tomorrow. I have to be admitted as a day patient, but it's done under the wonderful 'twilight sedation'. That means no anaesthetic (which I hate!), I don't remember a thing and feel fine afterwards! I'm not allowed to drive, so I'm getting myself to the Wesley Hospital (where it's happening) by taxi and train (the train station is 4-5 minutes from the hospital) and Lorraine is picking me up and bringing me home. Then back to work on Friday.

Went to yoga on Monday, having missed it on Saturday as I went to a video event at Amaroo (which was lovely). Boy was I stiff the morning after yoga though! Even though I did that Rodney Yee DVD class on Friday. Shows how much that did for me (nothing!) I'm doing yoga at lunchtime today, but am not sure how I'll go in our Friday lunchtime video group, as I'll have stitches from the portacath removal the day before. But I'll just see how I go, what feels right.

The little website I was working on has now resolved itself and is up, thank goodness. So I now just need to explain to its owner how to upload the word/pdf files via the cPanel so she can make them available via her blog.

And ... I've been starting to think about getting a new kitten (Abyssinian of course). I had a look on the web for local breeders and sent off a few emails enquiring about availability etc. Didn't get any replies, so sent more emails further afield (like Sydney and even Melbourne). And then I thought to check my Spam folder on the weekend, where I found replies to all my emails!!!

So now I've 'ordered' a kitten from a local Abyssinian breeder, who is expecting kittens to arrive at the end of September. Which would mean I'd be able to pick up my new kitten shortly before Christmas (they keep them for 12 weeks before you can take them away from their mum). It is quite exciting! I still think about my Mieke but I just have happy memories now, the sadness has gone. And I think that by Christmas it'll be well time to have a new little friend living with me!

Holidays do energise you!

I came back from a week away last weekend, feeling energised and ready to take on lots - re-start old stalled projects (eg the garden!) and everything. And after a week at work I'm still feeling good which is great!

We had the 2nd meeting of our book club on Thursday evening - this time it was held at my place. A few people couldn't come but there were still 5 of us sitting round the fire and having a great time talking about Life of Pi. It was really interesting how different people picked up on different things and glossed over others! I guess when people read, it is to a certain extent filtered through our own life experiences and likes/dislikes. 3 people had made notes and/or printed stuff off the internet, and two of us (me and Georgina!) had read the book weeks ago and that was all! But still it turned out we all had lots to say, and it was a very enjoyable evening.

Today we had our lunchtime yoga group at work. I normally do my ashtanga practice while the others follow a video. But this time, for some reason I decided to join in with the DVD they were playing - one by Rodney Yee. It was quite fun to do for a change, but I'm not going to make a habit of that!

Still haven't quite finished that little website I was doing. Somehow the domain name has gotten 'lost' - floating in the ethers somewhere! I originally registered this on behalf of a client, and then a couple of months ago I transferred it to the client. Or so I thought! Now it's not in my name at the registrant place, but not in the client's name there either. And when I do a whois search, it is still in my name!! Hopefully this farce will get sorted out very soon!!

Doctor's visit and other stuff

Today was the day I went for my 3-monthly appointment with my doctor ... rather than repeating it all, you can read about it on my lymphoma blog. Suffice to say I am pretty happy about things!

I managed to combine the doctor's visit with a work project meeting in one of the uni's coffeeshops - Wordsmiths. I'm part of a small project team that is trying to write/develop clear accessibility approaches, based on the WCAG v2.0 Accessibility 'Principles'. These are much clearer than the W3C's V1 targets, but are still quite difficult to comprehend! We're doing this initially for our workplace TEDI (Teaching & Educational Development Institute), trying to apply them to different roles within TEDI- eg. Graphic Designers, Instructional Designers, Programmers. Now we've won an internal grant from the uni's diversity/disability committee to do this, which means we're going to have to take the next step (!), run training sessions for different groups within TEDI, and also present it as a 'seminar' with the university's annual Teaching & Learning Week, sometime in November I think.

This weekend I'm going down to NSW to spend a week with my Mum. We've got a pretty busy week lined up, with various family members coming down on the weekend, a visit to Sydney on Monday, and on Wednesday we're going on a bit of a road trip to Mudgee, to visit some friends. That should be really nice - we'll be there for 2-3 days. Then back on the following weekend. I will be taking my camera so should have some nice photos to share ... :)

websites and stuff!

Well, I didn't quite make all of my list of things I was doing last weekend. Ended up not going to yoga class, and instead went earlier this week. As it was even though I'd felt fine all weekend rushing around, on Monday I was quite exhausted, had to leave work early and even found myself going to bed at around 8.30?!! Unheard of normally! However, that did the trick and I've been fine since then. Though I'm planning a quieter weekend this time, that's for sure!

The website meeting was good - I am going to do a simple one-page site for her as a placeholder, and later when she gets time to work on the main content, etc, then I'll re-do it. And I've also got another meeting next weekend about another website that should definitely go ahead. I've already done a (yoga) website for this person, and she's much more business-like! (Won't be a yoga one this time, but one for her new consultancy business.)

This is all probably not that interesting, but I do use this blog as my diary nowadays, and I guess life can be quite normal and subdued sometimes! On that subject (blogs) can someone tell me what's happened to Vanessa? (aka Mindbender blog)? Did I miss something? She (or her blog) has disappeared ... Just wondering, that's all <grin>

busy weekend

I've got a really busy weekend coming up! Tonight I'm off to a 'Friday 13th Trivia night' at someone's house - she's got 35 people coming!! (Help!!?)

Then tomorrow I'm getting my hair (such as it is!) cut. And yoga in the afternoon, and from yoga class I'm going straight to my aunt's for dinner which will be nice. And then on Sunday someone is coming to see me in the morning about a website she wants doing. And finally, in the afternoon I'm going to the inaugural meeting of a book-club! Should be interesting - as long as they don't want to read romance-type novels, or really really serious ones either!! But the first book we're going to read is The Life of Pi, which I haven't read yet so that should be good!

So ... that's my news, hot off the press on a Friday afternoon!

Mosaic and stuff

Well, I had lots of fun at the mosaic workshop, though like many things it's not as easy as it looks! This is what I've done to date. Still more mosaic to go on, and then grout. I'll post another pic of the finished item. god knows what I'll do with it when it's finished, but it's something to get started on!!

And the smaller mosaic at the top of the picture - there's a good story attached to that! When I was a kid we lived in Libya (my dad was in the British Army and we were posted there for a year). We lived in Homs, and just down the road (or mediterranean coastline) was a ruined Roman city called Leptis Magna. My sister and I learnt to swim there, in the rockpools. The sea had receded since the city was a functioning port city. Anyway, we used to swim in the rockpools with masks on. And in the bottom, in the sand there were all these bits of tessarae - the bits of mosaic that the Romans had used to make mosaic floors. The mosaics had been broken up by the sea I guess. So my mum still has boxes of these that we collected as children. And she made the little pot-stand (can't remember the actual word for this!) in a craft class a few years ago, using some of those bits of what had once been part of a Roman mosaic!!

What with all the running around, getting tiles, safety goggles, glue, etc. I didn't end up having time to get to yoga on Saturday. I realised I'd forgotten to bring my mat with me anyway, so perhaps I subconsciously knew that would happen?! Anyway, I went yesterday evening, which was good. I haven't been going to the classes during the week for a while now. It's just easier for me to go on the weekend - considering that it's a 45 minutes drive there.

At work I've been trying (with the emphasis on 'trying'!) to learn Joomla. A content management system. There are 2-3 websites coming up that I'll be working on that will need to go into a CMS, and we've sort of decided that Joomla is the way to go. I can get some of it, but the template file that incorporates all the CSS, and actual graphic layout of the site ... it is just doing my head in! Luckily someone told me about a place that sells a sort of 'kit' that includes an hour-long video explaining everything, and a Dreamweaver extension to use. And even more luckily, my work has agreed to buy it! It got very good reviews on the Joomla website, so hopefully it will help me get my head round it all!

Healthwise everything is good, although there is still the tendency to put any little thing that happens under the microscope and think, what is this? is it something I should worry about? ... etc etc! I guess that sort of comes with the territory nowadays!! I am trying to wean myself off reading so much on the web about lymphoma nowadays, not visiting the discussion boards very much or anything. For a while I felt compelled to read everything every day, but I'm trying to be more 'normal' !! I am still on a couple of email lists, and do follow up on things that sound relevant to my situation. But it feels good to pull back somewhat from all that. :)

Why am I so busy?!

Had to make the decision last night not to be part of the choral recording that my choir is doing in a few days time. I just seem to be so busy at the moment and there's heaps of music that I either don't know, or else am very rusty on. I can't see when or how I can do enough rehearsal to be able to do it ... Ah well, there'll be another concert next semester that I'll be singing in.

Why am I so busy? Well, one of the reasons is I've been asked to update a website that I did years ago. It's one for an organisation I'm involved in ... shan't put the URL here as I'm not proud of the site anymore. For one thing it's laid out in tables (shock, horror!) instead of purely CSS. Anyway, it's taking a lot longer to fix up than I thought it would and there's pressure to do it asap. And this is of course all being done in the evenings, after I've been at work all day, then gone to the gym on the way home. Apart from that - I guess I've just been taking on a bit more than I had been and, particularly if I don't go to bed early enough (ie. by 10pm) I end up getting tired ... and grumpy with myself!

Anyway, I just needed to clear the decks a bit! This weekend (Sunday) I'm going to a mosaic-making get-together with some friends which should be great! I've always wanted to do some mosaic, and so I'm going to have fun! I'm either going to do a plant saucer/platter, or a large square pot rest. I'm restraining myself from launching into big complex projects before I've done anything! It's been hard, but ... :)

At yoga class last weekend it was wonderful to meet up with a woman who'd gone to live overseas last year, and had somehow heard about me getting ill and sent me some sweet emails at the time. She is back on holiday and I had no idea - so it was lovely to see her walking in! We had a nice little chat. She told me she followed my blog so she knows what I'm up to - hi there Daniele if you're reading this!

News from downunder

Well, I guess it's way past time that I posted again ... And just to put us all in the mood, here is my gorgeous pussycat Mieke, doing what she does most of the day, snoozing away!!

I've been pretty busy helping a friend put up the 4th edition of her online poetry website, foam:e But now that's done - uploaded the files last night.

I've also got some more website work - a couple of astrology websites! Wendy, the graphic designer I work with, joked that we might specialise in doing new age websites, as there's another similar one to do waiting in the wings!

Yoga is going good ... went to class on Saturday and had one of those practices where everything seemed great. Got lots of attention from the teachers and new things to try (in poses I've already been given). Those sort of days don't come all the time - sometimes I'm just dying for the class to come to an end (especially on a Saturday afternoon/early evening!)

I've also started going to this women's gym (Curves). I lost a lot of weight a year or so ago, and I really feel the need to 'tone my body up' a bit! I also need to build up my upper body strength (for yoga) and I'm hoping I can do this here to. It's just circuit-training - 30 minutes on various machines, plus 5-10 minutes stretches at the end. (Which I am religiously doing to make sure I don't lose flexibility!) And 3 times a week - on the way home! I may up it to 4 times a week - see how I go.

I guess if I had a 6-day a week yoga practice I mightn't need to do this, but the fact is I don't! One class a week, plus self-practice (at work) 3 times a week - that seems to be the most I can do ...

Seems good - I'm hoping for good things! (I do better when I'm pushed, rather than having to push myself!!)

Busy busy busy ...:)

The last 2 weeks have been sooo busy at work - I just come home and crash out in front of the TV or head in a book. Uni Semester 1 starts on Monday, and typically lecturers leave it till 3 (or less) days before the start to suddenly announce they want all these Blackboard websites created! To top it all, the person I work with has been sick for the past 3 days, and the casual we were getting to come in, rang in sick too! So I was there all by myself yesterday, half the time on the helpdesk phone helping out people who hadn't thought to request their courses yet, and the other half frantically trying to churn out their course profiles in html ... sigh!!

At least it's the weekend. Yoga class this afternoon - hoorayyy! I just managed to find time to do a few sun salutes a couple of lunchtimes during the week, apart from that it's Monday since I last did a proper ashtanga practice ... Ah well, life happens, and yoga is just part of my life. It just has to fit in with what's happening.

Getting back to websites - I'm finding it easier and easier as I go on to use CSS and not use tables for layout. I resent it when I have to use tables (time constraints!) And my freelance webdesign business is going really well. Last year I don't think I did any new websites - just maintenance on various ones. But it's only February now and I'm working on one new website, plus I've got another 2 new ones lined up! Great!! I'm also doing my friend Angela's poetry ezine - www.foame.org. It's a yearly thing - this is the 3rd year. The new issue goes live on 1st March ...

on my iPod: retro 60s music from Heartbeat