This is my desk, in my office, which I have to say is my favourite room of the house. Just being in this room makes me feel happy. The pics on the wall are from Ikea and they are pretty ;)
I have three lamps on my desk, and I would love to add more of them. I got the green one for my birthday in June. I have a small lamp obsession going on. I was never allowed to have the lamp I wanted when I was a kid – the pink and the green lamp are exactly what I always wanted. They used to be really expensive but they’re not these days, and given the choice I would have 2-3 more of them around the house. ;) You can also spot a glitter lamp there if you look carefully. I find it quite distracting at times because I love sparkly things.
I also have a daytime shot of my desk. There’s a couple things different, can you spot them? ;) Put in a comment to say what they are, if you can see them ;) The tree that you can see in this shot is actually the only remaining tall gum tree in the whole estate. It’s huge so I am always worried it will get struck by lightning when there is a storm This whole place used to be trees like that. Now, it is houses, and plenty of them.
As you can see, the houses are not too far apart from each other. That’s so the homeowner can have the biggest house possible on the block of land size they have. The neighbours are actually really quiet but they have a labrador and sometimes he barks a lot.
Environmentally, these kinds of housing estates are a nightmare. They’re not real good for a few other things too. It probably wouldn’t have been my first choice as far as a place to live, however when we moved up here there wasn’t a lot of choices left. It’s also on the same street as my parents house, and a less than 2 minute walk to them, which is handy when you want dinner but don’t want to have to cook it yourself. ;)
We do have a small backyard. The front yard is bigger but the reason for that is there’s a medium sized slope in front of the house – you can see the across the road house is set a little lower. I don’t dare drive the car up the driveway and into the garage, it is a feat beyond me. It’s ok because I never have to, though.
As far as location, this is one of the best as far as closeness to work, also closeness to other places like shopping and the main street and the fast food places. I currently live closer to a Mcdonalds than I ever have before, it’s less than 2km away. It doesn’t make me go there any more often. Oporto is right next door to them and their fresh chicken burgers and potato mash and gravy are simply divine.
Speaking of food, my partner tells me he went to the cafe near work today and they charged him over $10 for a burger and a milkshake. That’s outrageous! What is even more outrageous is that he went there, when there’s been a *boycott* by our staff on for about 4 weeks now of this cafe. I shall have to have words with him. The reasons for the boycott?
The cafe is the only place within walking distance of not only our store, which generally has 30-60 staff on any given day, but it is also the only cafe within walking distance of 10-20 other stores. As such, they really have no competition unless you want to get in the car and drive. And boy, do they hold us to ransom over it. Except for on the weekends.
Every Saturday and Sunday a different local volunteer group has a sausage sizzle in front of our store. One week one of the women who worked at the cafe is there with the scouts. She was told by the woman who *owned* the cafe, not to serve bacon and egg rolls! How dare she tell any volunteer group what they can or cannot do? But the woman felt like she had to, because she works at the cafe, so no bacon and egg rolls from the scouts anymore.
One of the staff members went to get a drink and a packet of chips, it came to $5.05, she gave them $10.05 and wasn’t given any change. She spoke to them about it and they flat out refused to check their till. So she said to them – tomorrow when you do your till and see it is $5 out, you’ll know it was me, but it’ll be too late, I’m not coming back here anymore.
And the final straw for me was – we ate there 4-5 times a week, it always cost us over $20 between the two of us and sometimes almost $30, (when a bowl of soup and toast is $7 and a coffee is $4 you can see how) she never, ever offered us any discount at all (yet expects us to give her discount when she or her staff come to our shop) and I would often order soup but not want the toast, but she always charged me the same as if I’d had toast with it. Like hello, at least make it look like you’re being fair? Then she goes and puts all the prices up. And not just a little rise, either. Some things went up by a dollar or more.
So now, we have to drive somewhere to get lunch or be organised enough to bring it with us. I don’t mind that – and it is actually cheaper. But I did enjoy the break from work, sitting down at the nice cafe and watching the traffic go by. The extra $90-100 a week is nice to have, though. I can buy more DVD’s with it. You can never have enough DVD’s, right?
