Yesterday was a traumatic day. We have been waiting for days now for a letter from the Dept of Immigration letting us know whether James’ visa has been extended another 3 months. Every day I’d check the mail and there would be nothing. We were both getting really worried.

So yesterday after a final check of the mail - resulting in nothing, James called them to find out what was going on. His visa expired the next day and they still had his passport. Apparently they hadn’t even looked at it yet and a decision had not been made (this is after having the application in hand for 10 days). So the lady let him know they would definitely call him back later in the day.

We waited until half past three and because the phone lines closed at four, naturally we thought it best to give them a call back. This time she told him that he had been put on a bridging visa until they knew the answer. At this stage we were both stressing beyond belief. What would we do if the answer was no?

About an hour later they called back. I stood in the doorway watching James, trying to get a clue about what his expression meant. Then he said the words.. ‘So it’s approved?’ and everything turned around. He hung up and told me they said it had been approved and he would receive his passport and letter in a few days. Oh my god, you can’t believe the relief and how happy we both are. Now James and I get to spend Christmas together and hopefully the rest of our plans from this point will work a little better now.

So happy now!

Does anyone else sing crazy songs about their cat? Or should I say, to the cat? Mine has enough to release his own album. A kitty christmas remix. All the old and cheesy songs re-done with Simba taking center stage.

Themes such as - We built this kitty ( to the tune of We built this City, of course- Starship), What you gon’ do with all that cat? All that cat inside that fur! ( Humps - Black Eyed Peas) and his own self written piece (ok I wrote it) which goes a little something like - Get outta toooowwwn… Cattley! which has been revised a few times according to what the cat is actually on or in.

I can’t believe I just admitted that…

I know it’s kind of strange. Why would you want to open an IE window while you have Firefox? I love this new extension and it comes in handy in two ways for me. Firstly, when site designing or installing new plugins it’s nice to be able to check they look ok in the majority of mainstream browsers. This saves me the trouble of opening IE seperately.

Secondly, some sites still don’t support Firefox and I often find myself without the ability to click a form button or the page just won’t load to where it’s supposed to load. Sadly, for these sites, I need to open IE to view them. That’s where this extension comes in handy, it opens right there in your Firefox browser.

You can download it at Mozilla Update. If you’re using Firefox 1.0.x, you will need to download an additional package also.

When James first took on the Thursday late night shopping experience in Australia he spent the evening in bemusement. The shops are open until 9pm. Oh my god.. that’s really late (said with sarcastic undertones). Apparently in America, or at least in Beaumont, shops are open late almost every night - some of them 24 hours. This is a bit bewildering for one who can’t find a place to get bread past 4pm on a Sunday.

Shopping was about the gathering of ingredients for the evenings meal. If I just did grocery shopping like a normal person then every night come 6pm might not be an epic game of Jeopardy - catergory “Things we might like for dinner”. Of course that led to the pet shop where I made strange baby talk at a cute black labrador puppy. James left wanting the puppy, I had to be strong! Then off we went to buy a christmas tree.

This christmas is going to be a bit of a mess for me I think. I’m going to have to move house somewhere come mid to late December so I can’t really put anything Christmasy up. We bought a little fibre optic tree and put it on the table in the main room. It’s very cute and fascinating to watch. Both of us were transfixed on it for quite some time last night. I was trying to figure out how it worked, it’s weird. It’s easier that way then we don’t have the hassle of pulling a big tree down again to move it. I just hope I’m actually in the new place by Christmas :\

It’s funny how if you put up your outside lights or any type of decoration, the rest of the streets lights and decorations start popping up all over the place. It’s like a crazed addiction to tinsel.

If anyone has ever watched the early work of Nine Inch Nails they will instantly know where I’m heading with this. Reznor’s videos - particulary those of the Happiness in Slavery suite, are not exactly something to sip tea with your grandmother over.

These clips are raw, provocative and extremely disturbing. If you are easily offended, wait.. omit the easily bit, or have a weak constitution, I really don’t suggest even thinking about watching any of these. There’s gore, torture, nudity, well.. there’s nothing even mildly censored here. But perhaps that’s a good thing and perhaps that’s the point I’m trying to make.

The whole premise of Happiness in Slavery is summed up in a quote from an intrigueing article written by Terry Hickman.

I love the bolded section. The fact that the “I” is constantly struggling to be part of a “we” society. Human’s try so hard to be different, to be apart from the crowd and yet by doing so, make it harder on themselves and eventually more painful when it comes to existance. There is indeed a fascination with pain. Whether it’s through deliberate self-infliction (body piercing, carving, tattooing and branding) or a constant internal suffocation and decline in worth, there’s something intrigueing about the need to feel something outside the acceptable.

Hickman also makes mention of past generations. Of the constant struggle to avoid pain, hardship, want or discomfort but that this generation seems to see through all that, even push it’s boundarys. Perhaps trying to match the outside pain with the torment of what they feel on the inside.

Reznor creates an enraged visual metaphor for the grinding down of the human soul to serve society’s purposes. He suggests that happiness, not its pursuit, but its very concept controls you. And if that’s true, what then are we left to pursue?

I’m insanely busy lately. Everything has happened all at once. I have a bazillion bills due, applying for houses to live in, applying and going to job interviews, trying to get this house sold and packed up, organising James’ visa extension and praying everything goes ok with ALL of it. Wah!

I wish I could fast forward a few weeks and make all of this in between stuff go away. It’s really frustrating. Buying a house was the biggest mistake I’ve made to date and it’s really messed me up. The whole idea of owning my own home was one I thought would make me happy but it has done the very opposite instead. This has got nothing to do with the actual act of buying a house being the cause of all my distress; the ex is the cause of all my problems to date.

Peter, who plays the part of the “ex” lied to me about certain aspects of the house buying procedure. He held on to that lie for over 6 months. He went behind my back, lied directly to my face and then did it again.. in fact he did it three times, this was even after I’d given him many second chances. He made me believe that finances were taken care of in respect to particular house enhancements (the house needed to be re-painted, carpeted, new lights etc.. basically completely re-decorated), but they weren’t taken care of and when it came to paying the guys for the services, there was only the money I’d been saving to actually pay the mortgage that could be used. This left me with nothing and a constant debt on the mortgage from day one.

Nothing was the same after that. I couldn’t trust him. I tried so hard to understand but I couldn’t make sense of it. If you loved someone, what reason would there be to lie to them, to put them through so much distress and pain. He watched me night after night, stress about the money situation and still he told me everything would be ok (knowing full well that nothing would be ok and that we were going to be in trouble) There was no comfort when I cried. He distanced himself from me, was cold and refused to admit that he had done anything wrong. He even tried to pin it all on me at one time.

I knew then that there was nothing left. That I didn’t love him and wasn’t sure whether I really ever did. Once you can’t trust someone anymore, everything becomes a question and everything they say is suspicious. It falls apart.

I’m still bitter about the fact that he left me with all the mess to clean up. He wants no part in the financial aspects of this house now, he’s left it all on me as well as all his other messes he left behind. I’m getting over it slowly but even now it’s hard to trust anyone. James is a gift from heaven and I couldn’t imagine ever being without him. The differences are amazing. He is genuine, and caring and sincere. He understands me and listens to me. I often wonder wether some relationships are put to us just to get us from one path to the next and were never supposed to be permanent. Maybe I needed to go through all of that to get to James.. I don’t know. I’m just starting to realise how lucky I am, even after everything I’ve gone through.

When I was at the pharmacy today I spotted these low carb chocolates on display advertising all over them, the guilt free factor. I browsed the nutrition chart and noted that it only had 327kj per serving (around 4 squares) which I considered pretty low. So being the chocolate lover that I am, I promptly lapped up their evil advertising.

I’ve eaten about um, 8 squares now and I WAS feeling good about the eating chocolate with no consequences until I decided to compare it to Cadbury’s yummy goodness. Holy hell.. this empower stuff has more calories AND more fat than the Cadbury chocolate (and Cadbury doesn’t taste like pants. Ok well, it’s okayish but after a while you get that “I’ve just been medicated taste”)

It has less carbs, and is suppose to be low GI but what’s the point if the calorie content is higher? There isn’t one and now I’m going to go and find some real chocolate that puts this horrid carb free chocolate-like substance to shame.

If you like word games, there’s some nifty ones over at east of the web that will keep you busy for a while.

Here’s some random fun I decided to partake in, found it while visiting Christine Why don’t you have a go? See what you come up with?

Ok so here’s the deal - Go to Google Image Search and type in the city and state/province of the town where you grew up, no quotation marks. Then select the picture you like best from the first page of results and post it on your blog. Here’s mine:

Next do the same with the town where you currently reside. My result:

Next your name, first and last, but no quotes. My result:

Next your grandmother’s name. My result:

Next your favorite food. My result:

Next your favorite drink. My result:

Next your favorite smell. My result:

Lastly, your favorite song. My result: