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Author: Kris

  • Amazing Race

    I foresee a lot of whinging about the last episode of The Amazing Race, but I’m at peace with it, really.

    Goodbye, Nerds. I’m really not sorry to see them go though. I never really warmed up to them. Yeah, it was great seeing nerds on TV, whatever, but they were just so stereotypical and non-threatening that I found their inclusion a little insulting. I wanted to see them kick ass. I wanted to see them use strategy and cleverness more than they did. (Which prompts me to comment that, in my opinion, Boston Rob was actually the nerdiest person to play the game. Whether or not you agreed with his strategy, he worked the mental side of the game more than any other player.) Which also reminds me, I don’t think that reading comic books and being good at puzzles makes you incapable of competing at something physically. (Says the girl who got up early this morning to go running with her very nerdy husband.) I resent the attitude that smart people can only excel at intellectual stuff and shouldn’t be expected to be able to kick a ball or win a footrace. That just annoyed me about them. We were just supposed to like them automatically because they wore glasses. Or maybe it’s because I’m a self-hating nerd. (Reminds me of when my parents finally got me a Cabbage Patch kid and she had glasses, which were presumably supposed to make me feel better about myself. Instead I just felt like a big nerd with a big nerd doll.)

    I’m still liking the hippies, by the way. Yeah, the constant fake Italian accent is getting a little grating, but for the most part they’ve had fun the ENTIRE race. They don’t seem to get stressed and they’re not outwardly mean to anybody. They’re running the race I WISH Dave and Lori had run. And hey, Lake and Michelle are kind of amusing! I wouldn’t mind seeing them in the top three.

  • Mother’s Day Classic

    All this training finally has a point… I’ve officially registered to run the Mother’s Day Classic in five weeks. I’ve opted for the 8K run, and what’s more – Snookums is going to run it with me! I have no idea what kind of time we’ll do together, but I’m just so stoked to be doing something like this with him. I know we can do it. The event is to raise money for breast cancer research, so if you’d like to help out you’re more than welcome to sponsor us. (We don’t have to raise any set amount so I’m not going to give you the hard sell. Just let me know if you’re interested.) The course is actually the same one I ran as a 5K a few years ago, down through the Domain and around Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair. Anyone have any preparation tips for us?

  • Busy Weekend

    We’ve had a very busy weekend.

    Saturday…

    • I went to the Inner City Knitter’s Guild meeting.
    • Snookums got the final component for his kegerator and hooked it all up. He then dumped out about 90% of his bottled homebrew stock, reckoning that quality is better than quantity.
    • I cleaned out our fridge, pantry, and cupboards, throwing out everything out-of-date and wiping them down.
    • We did at least half a dozen loads of laundry.
    • We finally organized our office, unearthing carpet for the first time in a year.
    • We took two massive suitcases of clothing up to the Salvation Army store. All the fat clothes are gone now!
    • We made about a dozen trips out to the recycling center, dropping off hundreds of beer bottles, cardboard boxes, and other assorted junk. As the Snook put it, “we could’ve filled a dumpster.”
    • We went out to dinner at Mylos Greek restaurant in Glebe. Yum!

    Sunday…

    • I went for an hour-long jog. Felt pretty slow though. (Must’ve been the Greek food.)
    • Amy came over to serve as Cat Taxi. Dr. Amy Jones got her annual injection and had her mystery bald spot inspected. Unfortunately the vet was stumped. It doesn’t seem serious though.
    • All four of us went out to Rhodes to the big IKEA. The Snook and I had planned to get a cheap futon… but Amy talked us into this. (We actually got a denim cover. DENIM! It’s so wonderfully daggy.) We also got four shelving units and a shoe rack.
    • While the boys took the furniture home, Amy and I went shopping. She got a new dress and I got two pairs of SIZE FOURTEEN jeans. *dance of joy* I also got some Easter supplies for my little brother’s visit.
    • We came home and assembled all the furniture.
    • I spent some time trying to finagle the angle of CouchCam so you can see both couches, but it’s just not happening with this crappy little camera.
    • We made a lovely chicken pot pie for dinner.
    • We registered for a RACE! (More on that in a minute.)

    So I think we’re pretty much set for the Royal Visit. The Garbericks are getting here in… holy crap… like five days!

  • The Great Egg Debate

    All right, let’s settle this. Poll’s down there on the right. You know what to do.

  • Annette Rocks

    I know you’re all on tenterhooks waiting to hear how our new cleaner is working out (after the whole Nurgul debacle). I’m happy to report that Annette ROCKS. Our kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms have never been more hygienic. Last night I had the happy experience of repeatedly finding secret, non-obvious places that she’s cleaned that I didn’t expect (like under the sink, and around the silverware drawer, and on top of the water heater). I feel like Jerry Seinfeld (except that Annette hasn’t stolen any tchotchkes). The only slight weirdness is that we get the feeling she’s trying to, uh, correct certain things that we do. Like, we normally keep the eggs out on the counter. Yet when Annette first came, she put them in the fridge. Okay, we’ll keep the eggs in the fridge. She moved our rubbish bin in the kitchen; I guess she thought the new place was better for it. (We’re lazy so we left it there.) Yesterday’s discovery was that she’d switched off a bunch of the power outlets in the house. (Australian outlets all have a little switch next to them. I have no idea why; it’s probably some safety thing.) The kettle, the toaster, the microwave, my hair dryer… all switched off. I guess she thinks we’re a fire risk. And lastly, I went to heat up some chili in the microwave last night, and I suddenly realized that the bread was missing. We usually keep our loaves of homemade bread in the microwave as a soft of poor man’s bread box. I searched every cupboard in the kitchen til I found it, carefully wrapped up in clingfilm, sitting in the fridge. She must keep everything in the fridge at her house.

    So overall she’s working out awesome. (She also says that Dr. Amy is a fine cat, and that Nurgul was talking out her ass.) And I can live with the little idiosyncrasies. I like to think that she’s giving us subtle life lessons. Sort us out, Annette! We can use all the help we can get.

  • Just what I suspected…

    Just what I suspected all along… It was the Snook that made me fat!

  • Trail Note

    I headed off to the track again last night despite some misgivings about the warm, humid weather (it was, like, 85 yesterday!) and my level of congestion. I didn’t do too badly though. I remembered my pedometer/timer this time so I can state with confidence that I ran eight kilometers (twenty laps) in 53 minutes. That equates to a speed of about 9km/hr, and a 10K time of 66:15. Not bad! My 5K split was 32 minutes, so I did slow down a bit towards the end. (I don’t think my speed dropped; it’s just that I started taking walk breaks.) I’d say that this was actually a pretty comfortable pace for me. Is that a good thing though? I keep remembering The Biggest Loser a few nights ago when Bob kept telling the contestants that he wanted to push them OUT of their comfort zones. But without the trappings of race day (or a running partner with a faster pace), I find it difficult to push myself to that degree. As it was, I considered continuing on for the 10K, but my legs were dead and my left shin started feeling sore, so I decided not to kill myself racking up the miles. It’ll happen.

  • DietBlog

    I did have a loss! A teensy one. 100g. Which means I basically stayed the same for the second week in a row. I’m actually really positive about that. I mean, I’m so close to goal anyway, and the ultimate objective is not to lose weight for the rest of my life, right? It’s to get to my desired weight and then STOP. So the fact that I’m discovering how to balance my lifestyle can only be a good thing. I would still like to lose another kilo this month (only so I can enter the Slimmer of the Year competition) but I’m trying hard not to get caught up in how long this process takes.

  • Marianne Models

    Yay! Remember the cardigan I knit for my friends’ daughter Marianne? Well, Staci has posted pictures of her modelling it! This is the best part of knitting something for someone else, seeing them wearing it and liking it.

  • Phil!

    Me: Noooo! Phil from The Amazing Race was in Sydney today signing books and I missed it!
    Snook: He wrote a book?
    Me: Yeah. It looks like some kind of self-help thing.
    Snook: Skivvies for Fun and Profit?
    Me: BWA HA HA!

    Note to Americans: Down here “skivvies” refer to turtlenecks, not underpants. That confused me for a long time.