The sun continues to rise

Well, a lot of 'doing' this week, which is good news. I can tick some things off my ever-growing list. Managed to polish off a few articles and even conduct some interviews for the next deadline, which is a whole week and a half away.

Spent Wednesday afternoon in a bunch of meetings starting with EFIC, which was basically a client pitch to try and secure them as partners for Dynamic Export, followed by a shorter one with AIEx, which was basically a rundown of the new editorial structure.

After those I went to the Freeline copyright meeting having taken the slowest goddamn bus to Glebe EVER (to make matters worse, someone behind me spent almost the entire trip coughing on us all). Then I spent the rest of the evening talking to Linda, the committee convenor, about all sorts of things. She has quite an interesting story, it covers her migration from South Africa and some of the trials she experienced when she started freelancing here. And I thought I had it tough in 2005!

The week was over pretty quickly, mostly because it was a short week due to Anzac Day but also because I had a lot of things to do and not much time to do it in. I spent Anzac Day transcribing a marathon interview I did on protecting IP and making chocolate. And then cleaning up after my chocolate-making episode.

On Saturday the sun was finally out en force (can you believe that it rained for 12 days straight? why do we still have water restrictions?) so I decided to get out and about. The plan was to go to Dick Smith and drop off my used printer cartridge and buy a couple of laptop accessories and pop into Aldi and Vinnies on the way home.

En route I decided it was best to go to Vinnies first because if I bought perishables at Aldi, I wouldn't be able to browse for long. I was in there for two hours trawling the racks for winter clothing. I found quite a lot of good stuff, causing me to shell out an unprecedented $88 (for a charity purchase). Anyway, I was in Vinnies for so long that by the time I reached Dick Smith it had closed, so I went to Aldi and forgot to buy apples.

I'd also planned to spend a couple of hours crafting my IP article (due two weeks ago by a non-existent contributor - Lynn Elsey must die - and guess who has to substitute?) but instead I did some laundry because the rainy weather had caused a sizeable backlog and I read the paper instead of staring at a screen.

My sister picked me up and we went to my parents' for dinner. It was in honour of a visit from my German uncle. I'm not technically related to him any more because my mum's sister, who was his wife, passed away some years back and he now has a new wife whose name I can never remember. Anyway, I ate too much at dinner and spent the rest of the night playing Wii with my cousin.

This morning my sister drove me home (she's staying for the next couple of days), the car laden with parental gifts. My dad recently bought a new massage chair so I've inherited his old recliner (still in peak condition) and the massage pad he used to use. He also passed on his old mobile, which is four years old but still younger than mine (five years old) and not falling apart. My mum finally relinquished her Tupperware soup container, which is more valuable to me than words can express.

I spent the late morning finding a place to put the recliner in my ever-shrinking apartment, tidying up my phone contacts and trying out the massage pad. I even got to take down my washing because the sun continues to rise and dry my clothes.

And then I got to work. Cleaning the kitchen floor. I had no idea how filthy it was until I cleaned it and saw its true colour.

And then I wrote an article about protecting IP internationally, watched two episodes of Black Books series 3 with my sister and decided to go to bed instead of iron my expanding brood of wrinkled clothes.