Another Valentine's Day...

So another Valentine's Day is just about over and done with :-)

DH actually gave me this lovely plant the day before my colonoscopy to cheer me up while I drank 'the evil brew'

This year, I took DH out for breakfast at our favourite local cafe. We breakfasted well; my Eggs Benedict was delicious as was DH's omelette. 

After breakfast I got a little Valentine's gift from DH...

I love fresh raspberries but at $7 per punnet, they are just an occasional treat...and I got 2 !

Naturally I wanted to sample those raspberries as soon as we got home...plus, blueberries, blackberries and a chopped up banana...yum!

My hair appointment yesterday had to be postponed when my hairdresser had a family emergency to attend to, so late this morning I headed off to my rescheduled appointment.  

Our next outing was at 5pm...my little great niece, Lucy, was celebrating her 5th birthday with a pizza dinner at a local cafe. This was the family party...I believe there will be a kids' party next weekend! 

There were 15 of us, so lots of people were left out of the photo! Lol.

Blowing out the 5 candles...

DH and I gave Lucy a musical jewellery box with the little ballerina who pirouettes around when the box is opened...and some 'diamond' jewels made just for little people. It was a great hit and I'm sure that the little ballerina is exhausted as she seem to dance constantly through out the evening! Lol 

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post. After an evening of drinking rather yucky stuff, the routine procedure next day was a 'cinch', lol. Everything was okay and my doc wrote in his report that '...this is a reassuring result for Maria.' And so the next one will also be in another 5 years...sweet! :-) Talking of sweet...

I rarely eat sugar these days but I must say that the lemon jelly that was allowed when on the clear fluids part of the preparation, certainly made drinking the yucky stuff, a lot easier. 

Just a photo...

My evening today is all organised...

And my tomorrow is also all organised...

Normal blogging will resume shortly! Lol. 

Are you guys still here...?

That was the question I was asked last Tuesday as I passed one of the hairdressers from a neighbouring shop in the walkway behind the the block of shops where the office is.

In a previous post I had described how my DH was the Returning Officer for a state electoral district in the State election here in Queensland. I have been working as an election assistant in the office. This role entailed clerical duties as well as 'working the counter' for the 2 weeks of pre poll where people could come to our office and vote before the election. Pre poll centres have always existed but this time the service was advertised more in the media and even in social media! Consequently the pre poll staff were 'rushed off their feet' so to speak.

Saturday of last week was election day. DH and his staff, worked all weekend, as the close of polls on Saturday at 6pm is just the start of lots of work in the background. Scrutineers for the political parties watch us in the office as we count  the pre poll votes. The polling booth staff bring in all the equipment they have used after they have counted their ballot papers. So bags of 'stuff' soon filled up the office...and as for that cardboard...it seemed like mountains of the stuff! lol.

This photo shows the backpacks which contained the laptops that were used by the Issuing Officers in the polling booths. This use of technology was a 'first'!

From Sunday morning, absent (declaration) votes from our district (these are votes cast by people from other districts in Qld who voted in this district this election)  are packaged up ready to be sent to the districts from which such voters came. Now our district also gets packages of envelopes from all over the state, containing ballot papers to be included in the count. When people vote outside their own district on polling day,they are not marked off the roll at the time of voting.

I got reasonably adept at putting the sticky peel-off labels on the courier packs :-) two of us got 86 parcels ready to go out by early Monday morning.

When the envelopes are back to the voter's  district these envelopes have to be checked off one by one via the computer and the voter is marked off as having voted.
(Please note...image taken from a training booklet; not a real person! lol)

There are hundreds of these envelopes, plus postal votes that get counted after the election.

The bin soon filled up with these tear off strips!

So my many and varied tasks during this last week have been, packaging up envelopes ready for the Toll man (the courier service used) to pick them up, photocopying pages of figures from polling booths, counting and check counting ballot papers, *counting counting counting, opening envelopes, checking voters off the roll, making cups of tea for the boss, working out the Notional Two Candidate Preferred Count,cleaning up the table where the urn sits, filling the urn, answering the phones.

I also removed string from the pencils that had been used in the polling booth voting screens...

Helped sort the bags of stationery items used by polling booth staff...

And that cardboard 'mountain'? My lovely BiL helped DH take it to the recycle drop at the tip...

* We count the envelopes before we open them; we count the ballot papers that we remove from them...if these don't balance we count again! We put the envelopes into bundles of 20 and the ballot papers into bundles of 50. We use a lot of rubber bands!

Only one more day of work for me and I can go back to being retired. So goodbye to this work mobile phone which completely flummoxed me at first...I hadn't realised how much I'd forgotten how to use this sort of phone since I got a smart phone 3 years ago! It was a sharp 're learning' curve in that first week! Lol

Friday Night with Friends...

The first Friday of the month when bloggers from all around the world work on projects and then share/show and tell, via a blog post. Thank you to Cheryll for organizing this monthly event.

There hadn't been much crafting going on around here in the last 3 weeks and earlier in the evening, I didn't think I would have enough 'get up and go' to do some last night. But by 8.30 I found that 'mojo' and worked on that poor neglected cushion cover that I had started back in December. 

The last photo I had shown of it was taken at Sunday Stitchers on January 18...still lots to do at that stage, as hardly any centres had been stitched in.

In the first week of working in the election office, I stitched in my lunch break, filling in the squares in the middle of the hexies. But after that first week, it got too busy to stitch at work, and at night, I was too tired. 

Last night I finished the sewing in the triangles on the 4 side edges, so only have the corner triangles to do. 

Now those white centres 'jar' the senses a bit don't they? 

That's because they are only meant as a background...

These sweet little hand dyed lace motifs will be stitched in place...

The lace comes from an Ebayer called Wattleinspireyou. This lady, Robyn Everson, 'rescues' old/vintage lace (lots of old tablecloths only suitable for cutting up) and unpicks the motifs and sells them to crafters. Sometimes they are sold as is, in the white and off white, but sometimes, the motifs are dyed...and the colours are gorgeous.before I retired, I bought a number of lots from Wattleinspireyou and they have been very useful. Robyn's Ebay site is here.

DH and I have our first full weekend off in 3 weeks now so there is a good chance I will get that lace stitched on and maybe even start assembling the cushion cover...yes I know I have to catch up on neglected housework! Lol. But stitching is 'food for my soul'! Lol

Hmmmm...

A little while ago my cat, Mr Eduardo went missing for 36 hours or so... But turned up safe and well, albeit a bit 'jumpy'.   He's been staying inside since then with little trips outside in the last few days. 

He loves to sleep on a little table we have in our room...

So this morning when we couldn't find him inside, I just assumed hat he had jumped out of our bedroom window in the night. I expected him to be at the side door howling to get in...but no! 

 Maybe he was sound asleep on the cane lounge on the veranda?

No, not today...

I walked around the outside of the house, calling out to him...nothing!

I went back inside the house and walked around calling out to him...nothing. Reluctantly, I made breakfast and continued getting ready for work as DH wanted the staff to start at 8.30 this morning. 

We were so busy at the office today that I didn't really dwell on where Eduardo was...just a few times I pondered whether he would come home.

I was the first home this evening and as I put the key in the door, I could hear Mr Eduardo meowing...he was inside the house!!! So where was he hiding, this cheeky boy of mine? Tonight I will close the doors to the spare bedrooms as I suspect he may have been hiding in there! Lol

He particularly loves the bedroom where DsD1 sleeps when she comes to Brisbane...as soon as she drives off, he makes a beeline to that bed....but I had checked there this morning...hmmmm, lol! 

(In this photo Eduardo had retaken possession of 'his bed' after DsD1 and  partner, Dan, stayed with us last Christmas) 

Oh well, at least he is safe and well! 

My new recipe book...

Before I start telling you about this new book, just let me check whether there are any readers looking for the Grow Your Own Blog Party? Some lovely people have dropped by and introduced themselves...you will find the GYOB post here. Don't forget to leave a comment so you can be in the Giveaway Draw...drawn February 15.
To be honest I've never been interested in those '4 ingredient ' recipe books, as I thought that sometimes the ingredients chosen were not always as healthy as I would like. But having said that, I have been working with a former colleague of DH's (from their Commonwealth Public Service days) and M brought along her copy of the 4 Ingredients recipe book for Diabetics, for me to have a look at.  M has been a wonderful help this past month as I learn to make meals and snacks which are suitable for DH. My main challenge is to help DH avoid 'spikes' in his sugar levels and to get the mix of carbohydrates right. I looked through the book during the lunch break and decided that I would buy a copy.

That night I checked out the usual online booksellers that I use and ended up buying an e book version from Booktopia. Naive me thought that it would upload into my i books reader...but I was directed to install the Booktopia reader...so now I have iBooks, the Kindle App and this new one. 

Very quickly, I had the book on my iPad...

There are stacks of recipes to try...M has told me her and her DH's favourites...those ones listed at the top of the screen photo are highly recommended! 

There are 3 recipe books in the 'Wellness' series...and these are written by Kim McCosker only...the original books were co-authored by both Kim and Rachael Bermingham.

Heh heh! I was thrilled to see so many recipes using sweet potato...I love kumera! And with the rain we've had in Dec/Jan, my sweet potato plants are thriving :-). Where other vegetables suffer with the heat and insect pests, these plants 'look after themselves' really. 

Pizza boxes??

The previous state election (in 2012) I wrote a few posts about what happens behind the scenes in the pre poll centres. I thought that I might repost some of those photos that I took to illustrate that old post.

Firstly though, a photo from last Saturday night after all the Supervisors from the 16 polling booths in this electoral district brought into the office all the resources and equipment that had been used that election day...
Our office got a rather cluttered look...

Note those cardboard boxes that look like rather large pizza boxes??? Let's have a another look at them...

Ta dah! Look what they unfold to make...

Voting screens for the polling booths! In the next photo you can see/glimpse the diagrams that help people unfold them and construct the screen... 
Another 'cardboard' pile in the office on Saturday night! 

There would be some readers who would remember the old wooden voting screens and the old wooden ballot boxes...nowadays it's all cardboard!
On Tuesday afternoon the 'cardboard dump' in our office will be heading off to the recycle section at our local tip...
(Generation Gap! One day during pre poll, I directed a young voter to the 'voting screens' (the correct term for that little private place people go to to fill out their ballot papers) to fill out the ballot paper I had issued to her...she went looking for computer terminals. Oh dear...maybe one day?)