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Hi all, this is just a quick and lazy one to let youse all know that I'm back in Blogland after having 6 year old Sapphire all to myself over the school holidays (Love Chunks was in Chile); a week with Love Chunks back in Adelaide before he then headed off to Melbourne; where we two gals have just returned after spending the first of his two weeks with him.....Stay tuned for more specific blogs about our experiences (and my irrelevent thoughts) soon.

Meanwhile, this quick style of writing has been borrowed from Daffy's blog at: http://gossipmonger.info/ - well worth a look, if only to put you off the idea of building a house from scratch....

What I was doing this time 10 years ago: October 1995 - I had been married to Love Chunks for eight months and we were living in a weather bureau house in Darwin. When not at work or lying under the air conditioner, we were in our pool, looking at the distant lightning hundreds of kilometres away, swatting mossies and listening to the romantic sounds of the frogs calling to each other in the garden. Love Chunks reckoned the frogs were croaking out "Bonk Bonk Bonk", which was rather appropriate really.

5 years ago: October 2000 After five years of living in Melbourne, our house was up for auction and we were about to drive back to Adelaide on the Saturday and start our two new jobs on the Monday. Moving vans were transporting our stuff to storage; and we had the 1.5 year old Sapphire, dog and various suitcases crammed into our car as we headed to my parents' place 80km out of Adelaide. The exhaustion, nervousness and exhilaration is coming straight back as I type this.

1 year ago: October 22 2004 Living in Adelaide, paying off a mortgage on a house I love, easing Sapphire into her first term of 'reception' at school and working my entire being into a state of burned out, sleepless, migraine-ready, irritable bowel, teeth grinding, stomach clenching state of STRESS that I thought I was doing really well in ignoring........

Yesterday: Watching 'Walking on the Moon' in 3D at Melbourne's IMAX theatre with Sapphire, taking her the Children's section of the Melbourne musuem, shopping at the Queen Victoria market (a Chinese good luck cat with the waving paw and a lasered horse in a chunk of glass for Sapphire); having salmon and squid cooked by my brother for our dinner; scoffing down chocolate and mint mud cake to celebrate said brother's end of plumbing apprenticeship, watching Survivor and crashing out in their guestroom.

5 snacks I enjoy: Chocolate in every single conceivable permutation, Farmers Union Feel Good Iced Coffee, moist muffins (not those big dry ones that have made muffins about as fashionable as 1995 nowadays), chocolate chip biscuits and (in my reluctant acknowledgement of savoury tastes) - salted roast cashews.

5 songs I know all the words to: ABBA - everything they ever recorded; The Saw Doctors - pretty well everything from 1991 to 2000; Hoodoo Gurus (everything up to 1991); Midnight Oil (1982 to 1993) and V Spy V Spy (1985 to 1990).

5 things I would do with a million dollars: Same as Daffy - Pay off the house, Invest some for Sapphire's education, Buy a cool car, Go on a holiday, Give some to charity and friends

5 things I would never wear: Stilettos (I like being able to actually walk), bikini, mini skirts(not any more, not with legs so veined they look as though I've got tartan tights on), short shorts (see previous comment) and low-cut jeans (my stomach needs to be reined in, not set free)

5 bad habits: Picking at the skin around my fingers until they bleed, worrying about 'what I'm going to be when I grow up', lacking self confidence, going overboard with things until the point of exhaustion and being impatient with Sapphire

5 favorite toys: The DVD player (with surround sound), our laptop wireless computer (a joy to write, think and work on), Sapphire, Milly the dog and whatever good book or magazine I happen to be reading at the time.