Automaton

I started a new blog as a convenient spot to write down my 'ten things I'm grateful for' every couple of days - and blogger thinks it's a spam blog and has locked it until a real live person has reviewed it and decides that I am not a spambot!! I've never been perceived as a possible threat to the workings of the internet before. How thrilling.

Things have been a bit nuts here. Saturday really started when I worked until 11pm on Friday night - instead of leaping nimbly from the couch o' slumber to work out, cook, vacuum etc I slept in until eight o'clock (bliss) and then lingered over a cuppa and a magazine until nine, when it was time to pick Noddie up from her sleepover at Nanny's (see bliss, above) and go to J's Nan's 90th birthday brunch. The rose of the sleepover is not without thorns, however: Noddie always stays up late and is Over Excited, not the best for a crowded noisy gathering of rellies. The brunch dragged on and on and we got home again at quarter to three, giving me an hour and three quarters to transform the place from its usual squalor to a vision of loveliness in readiness for the gathering of the clan in honour of my Mum's 70th birthday. I also had to make and decorate a cake worthy of my esteemed mater, and tend to the horribly ill Spousal Unit (barking bronchitis. We expect to be quarantined by the Biosecurity Health Response team shortly. We are looking forward to it). It's a good thing daylight savings didn't start until Saturday night so no-one saw that I hadn't even vacuumed (shock horror). Guests: 12, including the in-laws. Drinks: several. Party: great fun.
On Sunday morning I hosed the place out, propped the Spousal Unit on his recliner in front of some car racing, and went out with Noddie to catch up with a friend of mine down from Sydney. After lunch and a bit of gazing at Art Deco masterpieces, Noddie hit the wall with a splat and slid down it with an ugly smear. To be fair, the exhibition should have been labelled "unsuitable for children": after all, what is a platform with a chair on it but an invitation to climb up? And there wasn't really any harm in her crawling under the jewellery cases, they looked perfectly sturdy.
Then it was Monday, and the work and kinder week began. I'm putting together the jigsaws of Masters applications for next year, which is taking a bit of time - I'm applying for three courses, which means getting certified copies of three sets of eight pages of academic transcripts plus my passport, plus three statements as to why I'm applying for these courses. Because I want to and you're near my house is about 291 words short. Good thing I'm an accomplished bumph-spouter, no? Then I had to line up academic and professional referees to sing my praises on multiple bits of paper (stamped addressed envelopes attached). Let's just say there's a lot of unfolded washing piling up. But I have been exercising. Every day. Go me!

More anon, folk in a flurry!