Sit down! I have some excellent news. That's rare! I spent the bulk of this afternoon talking to my dear friend from The Netherlands. Where did I ever get to know her, you might ask? Here. FT can be such a platform for meeting great people. In our case we're just buddies (it could never be more than that) but it was the best afternoon I've shared for a long time. I love FunTrivia, you know? In all of my business I've never had the opportunities I find here. Bravo to an afternoon talking to someone who speaks English better than I do. You continue and you revel in it. You stop and you die.

Congrats on the car sale, SilverMoonsong. I have an old one that doesn't run sitting in my yard. For some reason I can't part with it, though. That car got me through some very fragile times. But how many cars make sense, I guess. Probably time for the junkyard.

ren, Send me a plane ticket and I'll be on my way over! And sue can meet us there. I'll buy lunch.

gats, that's wonderful! I should pick up the phone and try calling you again, but when I have tried calling, you are always online.

Late at night; all the wildlife at my house is asleep. It's been a pretty good day, even if it did drizzle all afternoon.

Tomorrow morning I start back on my set painting job. Mixing more paint. painting more stones. Some need to look like rocks, others need to look like stones. I see rocks in my sleep and my knees are getting calloused from crawling up on platforms and balancing behind catwalks. After I finish creating realistic stones and rocks - why, then it's time to mix more paint and start blocking in various types of bushes. Yep. There's my week at a glance! I'm sure everybody is overwhelmed.

Gats, I'm glad you got to spend time with an old friend. In my own way of thinking, there's nothing like a good heart to heart with someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway!

And congratulations on the car sale, silvermoon. There's nothing like having an unused car sitting around tying up one's finances! I have been in that spot several times.

Yay! I just celebrated one year being employed with Aflac (the insurance company with the duck commercials). I love my job as a publications editor at Aflac Worldwide Headquarters, and I look forward to many more years here! (And in four more years--tenure!)

Congratulations from the heart, LW2! There is always something about having your own desk that makes one feel as though they've made their way in the world.

I know you'll continue to do well - why not? It's a job you love and I'm sure you are very good at it. You should go celebrate tonight!

Don't know quite how to categorize this, good or terrifying. Today's the day I start my Board exams (ICSE) (along with kaushik_twin), so as you can guess, I'm in a bit of a state at the moment.

Here's to a post next May when the results come out.

It seems like good days are abounding around here! That is excellent to see indeed!

Well done, littlewoman2! I'm sure you'll get that tenure, no problem. And Shrivats - both you and your brother have such big brains. I strongly suspect you'll both do well on the test. And SilverMoonsong...if you ever want to call and I'm on line just IM me real quick and I'll shut this thing off in two seconds flat. I really should get off this dial-up, yes? Especially as how I spend a LOT of time on - line and that shuts my phone down entitrely for hours at a stretch.

Yesterday was my favorite day/night of the year. I love Super Bowl Sunday but I love Oscar night more. Last night was an interesting show! African Americans winning half the acting awards (about time!) and littler movies overtaking the "big shot" ones. I root for the underdog always. Never mind that all my bets lost. Luckily, I didn't wager much .

I'll keep that in mind, gats!

Okay, this highlight is actually from last night.

I went to a pub to catch up with some friends.
And then I suddenly saw a really good friend whom I hadn't seen for ages. That would already be a highlight, but the funny thing was, because we had not been in touch for a couple of months, I had assumed he returned to Scotland (where he's from) and he had assumed I returned to Germany... but, no, we both are still in Melbourne.
So that was one of the best surprises ever.

It is chilly and rainy here this morning as I suspect it is in much of the midwestern states. That is the low part. Odd for me, since I generally love rain. I also miss my best friend who moved back to Washington a few years ago. This is usually the kind of stuff I would force her to listen to.

The high part of the day will be that I feel good and don't have a headache! [ A real blessing when you have to go somewhere and be productive ]

I am happy to be alive. My kids are healthy , smart and funny -I am amazed. They are handsome children, too. [A nice bonus, I guess.]

My monitor, while not doing well, seems to be hanging in there after all. We thought it was all over, Saturday morning. Still some life left. [ Even though you guys all turn purple if the thing runs for too long!]

Maybe I get to re-finance my house this month! That means we could rebuild the fireplace and finish the attic, turning this into a showplace. [that is if the show you're watching is The Waltons ]Not to mention a decent monitor. Gen has one picked out that does everything but make coffee.

What is everybody out there grateful for? Even if it's a small thing.

Someone asked that question somewhere a while ago and it made me think of a number of things I was actually grateful for at the time, so I was also grateful for the question. I'd also suggest it was worth a new thread here, as it may get a bit lost in this one otherwise.
At the moment I have a list, some the same as last time, some new. Besides my family, very small now but pretty close, friends and house, I'd add I'll be eternally grateful for passing all my numerous courses, as at the time I was pretty marginal on all of them (should I have given that away ) but I always got the hang of them in the end, and they led to me being able to do some very fulfilling and satisfying jobs in the past, and my current self-employed work in particular. I mustn't forget my car (which was 12 last year) without which I'd hardly go anywhere.
Then my cat, who like the others before her has always been my most loyal friend. The woman who comes to clean my house every two weeks who stops my tide of junk taking over and means I can always move around and keeps it looking good. And of course Funtrivia, which is my second family now, maybe not literally but that's how it feels. As well as on-screen I've met a number of members, and have made many new friends off-screen as well, though we're too far apart to meet as yet.

My high of the day is actually a bit late, as it was on Friday (4 days ago) but I wasn't sure to mention it then as it almost felt like tempting fate. I'm sure some people have read my ambition to be on TV. Well last year I was, but only for 5 seconds and had the talking bits cut out. This time I was filmed at home for a six part series on the supernatural, while hypnotising a client (his third session) who believes he was abducted by aliens. This is supposed to be shown worldwide on satellite at the end of the year, but as it was the first day of filming the video itself won't be ready for me to see till August or so, and the programme a few months after that. I don't know the success rate of TV productions in getting them on air, which is why I was concerned about tempting fate, but the session itself was fascinating in its content, and we were both interviewed along with a visiting scientist who accompanied the client. I was also filmed at the computer as I am now, and he filmed around the room for atmosphere. I will have to keep my mind off it now till later in the year, and will of course let everyone know as soon as I hear about the schedule. The low of the day was when I woke up for a moment at 9am and saw thick snow covering everywhere (first time for maybe 2 years) and expected it to be postponed as the client was coming 50 miles, but the relief when I woke up later to find the rain had melted it all was incredible!

Be sure and keep us all posted, satguru. That would be amazing for you and us, too!

I am fighting off a cold, evidently. I took a slug of Nyquil, which is my answer for most of life's more turbulent situations. Now I am waiting to fall senseless to the floor - but with no sore throat. I hope that happens soon. I really need to sleep this off so I can go paint more rocks.

My FT birthday nears! The 20th of this month, or thereabouts, I think.
Actually I was on a bit before that. 4 years! What a great ride it has been! And, for the record, if any of you pull back on me I'll be sorely disappointed. I'm sick but I'm not dead just yet. Funny how I think you won't do that. Many do.

Low point of my day:
Getting trash to the curb. What an ordeal! I fell flat on my face getting it done. Twice! But here I remain. No reason to fret about a bloody nose. There are worse things. Anyway, Happy Birthday to me! 4 years! Thank goodness for them all. And thank goodness for you, too! How "lover-ly" it has been. And tomorrow will come, right? No bleeding. No more pain. No peculiar arrangements for memorials. It will all go on. I insist it will. Sorry about flapping so.

Argh! You all got off easy on the length there. I thought I was being longer, but it wasn't too bad. So much to say. Such little time.

Edited to clarify whatever in the heck I'm trying to say...

Gats, you never fail to make me smile. Mondays are usually horrible for me, but today I got off work early, had a nice lunch with a friend (made homemade fudge for him to share with his 9 year old daughter), and then came here to read your post, and even though I wish I could do more for you, you still make me smile. Thank you.

It is a good thing to prompt a smile! Much better that than a grimace, I guess. I'm glad I give a giggle to you,
SilverMoonsong. If those can be shared amongst people then there is nothing wrong in our goofy world. Well, at least it makes the strangeness of it easier to swallow. And you make homemade fudge? Yikers, put on that apron, girl. A taste of that again would be a treat indeed.

Oh, and my anniversary date on FT is in May not March. Got my "M" months confused there, by the way. Sorry. My life is governed by confusion these days. At least I'm still not a Republican! How baffling would THAT be?

I want to wish everybody a most cordial St. Paddy's Day [a big deal event in this Irish - Scottish family! ]

Can't wait to finish my current huge mural project and start on another. Not to mention commission paintings for people. {more fountains, quail and - dare I say it? - rocks and stones} It may turn out to be a busy spring for me, after all, if I can just keep my eyesight on an even keel. That's my main concern right now.
It would be nice to hear about how everyone is doing these days!

My high for the day was after opening what seemed like an ordinary looking letter, I discovered I'd won the prize for the best quarterly article in the National Council for Psychotherapy journal. I've been writing for them for about 4 years, and didn't even realise there was a quarterly prize, and this certainly kept my ambition to write for the mass media going after getting nowhere over the last few months of trying.
The article was a response to a number of others I've read saying counselling is basically a waste of time, and I wrote a list of results from my own 13 years of practising to show it wasn't. It was clearly a case here of preaching to the converted, though it'll encourage everyone to push their own successes to the doubting public, and I really hope I can get it published somewhere it may even change a few minds next.

Congratulations, David. All your hard work has paid off. May you continue to write new and inspired material in the years ahead!

This isn't really a high of today since I didn't find out today. But I haven't been on since I did find out, so it's going on

I'm graduating from University in July, and I finally know what I'm going to be doing next year. A few months ago I applied to be an English Language Asssitant in Austria for 10 months, starting September. I got the job!! So I guess that's the highlight of my day, week and month!

There hasn't been a low point of my day yet. It's only 9:45am. I wasn't planning to be up for another 15 minutes, but I was woken up an hour ago by drilling downstairs

What an exciting winter job to look forward to, Beee. Good for you!

Meanwhile, back here in one of the flyover states - I wish the wind would stop blowing! The trees are all greening and tiny sprinkled wildflowers are here and there in my front yard. But it's cold and grey.No grilling for me tonight, unless things change in a hurry.

The thought of poor Sue and her tragic week also has me deep in thought. Having lost one of my folks, I know it to be heartbreaking, let alone being seriously ill at the same time. God help us all.

Today my grade 10 Board exams - the most important/hyped exams I have given so far - got over. Finally a year of utter boredom has come to an end! This is definitely post-exam euphoria at its best.

Two Highlights and one lowlight over the last few weeks Firstly, I finally finished scanning hundreds (no exgeration! ) of photos into the computer, so we don't need photo albums any more. It took a long time, but fun to do, as it reminds you of good times! Secondly, still enjoying going to the local gym, keeping myself as fit as I can!
Lowlight of the past few weeks is one of the only (as far as I know) websites where you can play Clue (Cluedo to our English friends) removing Clue without any warning. They are updating the website so I am hoping Clue will return shortly, as I have made many friends on that website too!

What a lovely new photo, Jane! [I wouldn't embarrass you for the world - which is probably what I'm doing now ]

After thinking I had completely recovered from last weeks cold - here I am again. Sore throated and clutching a bottle of nyquil in one hand with a cup of hot tea in the other. My energy level is still fine, which is a plus. But I can't go out in the rain and fog to do what I really need to do, so I'm at square one.

I sure hope everybody is having a great week. Spring will be here to stay, soon. I for one cannot wait!

Hi everyone,

Sorry for not posting for so long but I've been kind of blue about posting on the net. Please forgive me for not being part of the group, as I do like it here, just so much going on in my life right now and hard to find the right balance.

A high for me this week is this: My two year old nephew said my name! I asked him on the phone who I was and he said it! :-)

My low was flunking a test last week! Yikes! I was so disappointed in me and the fact there is no extra credit allowed in this class. But I talked with the teacher about it today and she encouraged me to do my best and if I was between grades, she'd consider what's been going on in my life. Relief!

Bee, does your library have internet access? Are there online (library subscribes) journals? Or at least an online catalog you could look up books and be ready when they open the door after break? I hope you find the books you need!