Welcome back. Its been a while. I've been so busy that I've barely had time to scratch myself let alone anyone else or even blog, but I promise things look like they will calm down in about two weeks. Until then, blogs might be a little brief, but I will try and post more frequently. Anyway, I have a very, extra special reason for posting today.

IT IS DW's BIRTHDAY!!!

YAY!

Whoo Hoo! YIPPEE!!

DW is "Dearest Wife" for those who have just joined us. I'm not going to say how old she is but let's just say we'll need a pack of 35 candles next year. Unfortunately I have to work today, otherwise I'd be home right now, pampering and doting and probably annoying but definitely well-meaning and looking after... I'm not sure how to end that sentence now. Anyway, you get my drift. Why not take a sickie, you might type, though you may have spelt it "sicky". That seems wrong and off-topic to me. Did I mention that I have a LOT of work. I am acting-pseudo-quasi-temporary-silent-manager, I'll have you know.

So, no time off work for me. But that is not to say I didn't do a little pampering this morning. And you can get your mind out of the gutter, it was just bacon and eggs, juice and coffee (instant). Also, I tended to the kids during the night, which is no small feat, though they do have small feet. Princess was fine and slept all night but Little Man woke up at 11:30pm and went back to sleep at 1am, woke again at 3:30am, back to sleep at 4:15am and up again at 6:02am. By the time he went back to bed, it was time for me to get ready for work. And make breakfast.

"Enough about you! What about DW?" I hear you type. You type loud. All of you. Well, presents are a tricky thing. We've spent an amount of money doing up the bedroom, which is coming along very well, mostly thanks to DW's excellent taste and uncapped budget, but she has been feeling guilty about spending too much money. I should point out that she has not actually spent too much money, she just thinks she has. Or at least she worries she has. DW does worry more than she ought. The bed, originally a dark chocolate brown, has been transformed into a pastey, ghostly white with little streaks. Fortunately, this is the special metal-bonding undercoat and will be covered by a kind of white. It isn't white, but rather some sort of hog-white. Actually, not the whole hog, just the bristles. Now, you may be reading this thinking, the guy is an idiot, but it is true! Not the idiot bit. At least, not only the idiot bit. There is a white paint which is not white but hog bristle. I don't know who names paints but I have some difficulty with some of the concepts. Cherry and Yellow Rose invoke some kind of familiar image. But Early April Dawn and Seeding Marsh don't really tell me anything. I personally can't tell the difference between Early April Dawn and Late May Dawn and most of the wintery mid-morning colours look pretty much the same also. Maybe if I lived in a marsh, I might have some idea what it looked like when seeded, or is that what you do when trying to grow a marsh. So you can imagine the look on my face when asked if I thought we should go with a 1/2 strength hog bristle water-base enamel or would 1/4 be enough. I've got no bloody idea.

I try to follow, I really do, but every so often I hear "I hope you'll like it" and I say "I'm sure I will." Which is true. DW does have very good taste. She does spend time pondering colours and these weird names make sense to her. Actually, I think it is kind of like naming for the purpose of subsequent identification rather than necessarily revealing anything about the colour. Early April Dawn is a kind of purple. Anyway, she has worked very hard to come up with the perfect scheme. Only, it keeps changing and evolving the way paint doesn't, so I'm not sure what we are going to have yet. Chances are I won't be able to tell the difference anyway.

Probably the best part of all this is that DW is actually getting the chance to stretch her creative muscles. She is doing something for herself, despite the look of terror on her face whenever I say something like "I bought a print for our bedroom wall - it'll blend in perfectly. Its a nude." She has really enjoyed experimenting with colours and textures and she may well have missed her calling as an interior decorator, you know, if they were female, Grace not withstanding.

So, my birthday present to her has been the bedroom. Not that I didn't want to get her something else, she wouldn't let me. Not that that has ever stopped me before. I buy presents for her from the kids. Princess got her a copy of Sense and Sensibility, which is kind of ironic given the source, namely, Princess and my own good self. Little Man has promised to buy a game to go with her new laptop which I got her a couple of weeks ago but she doesn't know which one she wants yet. Apparently Princess was shocked and dismayed at the lack of presents DW received this morning and wept for minutes, praying to the god of presents, whom she calls Santa, to give mummy more presents. DW explained that she had received other gifts such as the bed, but they don't count, according to Princess, because they weren't wrapped. Packaging doesn't count either it seems. Did I mention that Princess told several of her friends and possibly her kinder teachers that her daddy can burp loud enough to shake pictures off the wall and trigger nearby tsunami early warning systems? Its just not true. The pictures were all about to fall anyway and she doesn't even know what a tsunami is. That's just a little aside.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. DW's birthday. Today marks the occasion when she has officially travelled around the sun a whole one more time than she had last year. It is her day to feel extra special. Because I can't actually be there today, we are also going to celebrate on Saturday, with a movie-going-to and a nice dinner. I feel a little bad that I can't make her dinner tonight but I fully intend to make her a wonderful meal on the weekend. Hopefully she will get the idea that we, her family, are very grateful that she lets us come with her on these little jaunts around the sun and look forward to many more. She's pretty damn cool and colour-savvy.

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: Hmmm. D'Oh! Oh well. Hmmm.