Today has been frustrating, so I am just hoping things will improve as we travel forth into this new year. Sore back. Sore behind the left knee. Right ankle jabbing every now and then. Sure it could be way way worse, but it all serves to keep me away from my happy place. If this is the future -ie. my body systematically malfunctioning - why not put me on the scrap heap now.

Also. For some reason last night I got it into my head to upload a vaguely amusing mpeg that the girls took on the digital camera. (read: pretty ordinary quality.) Blogger now has a video uploading capacity, right? Bzzzt. It got stuck half way through uploading last night.. and again this morning.

I know! YouTube! Bzzzt. It got stuck half way through uploading. Three times.

Vimeo? It uploaded. You beaut! Then it was 'converting'.. At one point I got a friendly message about the delay in the converting process. Now I don't get that message - I get nothing. I don't know if it's a dodgy broadband connection at my end or what.
[A few hours later I get an 'almost' done message! ie. it's finished converting and will be ready to watch "soon".]

It hasn't been beach weather since we got home on the 29th. While fortunately we haven't been melting like our compatriots in other parts of the country, it has been windy and even a bit squally, and the ocean way too rough. So our grand plans for spending this 'interim' period at home doing the beach thing has backfired.

And we are now leaving earlier for our trip down south so as to spend another two nights with Marc's mum (and to give my S-I-L and her a break from each other.. the knee op recovery has been more slower and more frustrating and more painful than either anticipated.) My idea.. but it doesn't actually make me happy.

Then on Saturday it will be onto my family, which is probably the major reason I am tense. Hyper-tense. I would rather not have to go, frankly. Between now and leaving on Thursday I have to decide what to give my nephews 'for christmas' after my suggestion to my sister that we do something different to presents this year (like have the boys come and stay here - for a beach holiday - so the cousins can spend time with each other..) went down like the proverbial truckload of bricks. Seems she thinks the cousins 'get a buzz' out of giving each other gifts, even though each year it's only the aunties who rack their brains over what to get (and one auntie tends to "suggest" what I should get, and even "offer" to "pick it up" for me if I think I can't get 'it' .) From the 8th December to the 18th she'd had no time to consider my emailed suggestion other than to say she was too busy and too stressed in the christmas lead-up... and when I said don't worry, just thought my idea would take the stress off both of us re shopping, she suggested vouchers or cash.

Anyone care to pick the flaw in the argument here? ie. just how do the cousins get a buzz out of exchanging envelopes with a voucher or cash that they have had no input into buying?

And when we get to my family, my mother and sister will most likely give me boxes of chocolates that I don't even like! And I don't have a bloody clue what token 'gesture' to get them.

My mother rang today, and the subject of photoshopping came up, so I told her that our 'christmas photo' this year had actually been photoshopped by Cait. "Oh right', she said. "Well, I had said to Dad that it wasn't as good as their usual one."

I bit my tongue and didn't say "Get.. somethinged" like I felt like saying.

Tomorrow I have some last minute shopping to do - including second hand wetsuits for Alison and me, so we can go canyoning next week. Just like me to leave it to the last possible day. (In my defence, prior to christmas I thought I had till Friday for extra shopping.) My big problem is I am just not in the headspace for packing for 3 different 'stays'.. including making sure we have all we need to go canyoning...

Hopefully tomorrow I will be in a better mood! But somehow I doubt it. Maybe ask me how I am after this weekend, once we are in the Blue Mountains, and the family visit is over and done with. (And my back, knee and ankle miraculously stop hurting!!)

**********
10.45pm. And YouTube comes through. Oh yeah.

Labels: grumpy