Everything Snoskred

parent

Australia : Land of hippies and flakes?

9 Comments Posted on July 9, 2007June 2, 2015 by Snoskred

One of my favorite Aromatherapy tricks involves putting a few drops of peppermint oil into the morning shower, once the hot water is hot. I buy my peppermint oil from Coles, it’s about $5AUD. My American friend Sephy had never *heard* of Aromatherapy. How is that possible, I wondered? Until I suggested to him to purchase some peppermint oil, which seems to be an almost impossible thing to get in his country. That’s bizarre. If you’re American and reading this, can you mention where you might be able to get these products other than online?

Here in Australia, you can buy pure essential oils at every supermarket I have ever been to. You can buy them in *most* chemists and health food stores. You can buy “fragrant” oils (note, not necessarily pure essential oils and there is a difference) at almost every $2 store and bargain shop. Incense you can also buy almost everywhere. We also have a lot of products on our shelves which incorporate Aromatherapy. Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, body lotions, etc.

Some of the products I love to use in the shower that involve Aromatherapy are the Aveda products. These came to me as a surprise during a hotel stay a couple of years ago.

Aromatherapy is quite a complex and diverse field and I’ve been studying it for a few years now. I found a few great online resources if you’re interested in knowing more

– Aromaweb – Lots of great articles, worth a read.
– A world of Aromatherapy – has a good oils a-z section which gives quick info on the oils and what they do
– Essential Aura Aromatics – has a lot more detailed info on each oil.

Does the availability of Aromatherapy oils all over the place mean Australia is a land of hippies and flakes? Or does it mean that Aromatherapy is a valuable thing that works? What do you think? :)

aromatherapy, Aussie Culture, health, shopping, Snoskred hearts

Heartbreak leads me to Stumble..

9 Comments Posted on July 5, 2007June 2, 2015 by Snoskred

I’ve been a busy bee the last 24 hours or so. I’ve been using my StumbleUpon toolbar to “stumble” all the blogs listed under “Blogs I read daily via Google Reader” and “Australian Blogs Community” in my sidebar. So if you’re in there, you’ve been stumbled my friends. ;)

The reason I have been keeping myself busy is.. I had a major disappointment yesterday.

You may recall back in May, I wrote about my heart being broken when a house in the place I want to live turned out to be too small. I don’t usually like to make the same mistake twice, but yesterday I did it without even realizing it. Last Tuesday when we went looking at houses we’d seen this one that looked like it might work for us. It was very close to the beach in a quite peaceful area. I called the real estate lady and asked if we could arrange to look at it, and we made it for Monday next week.

I was pretty excited because it looked big enough to fit all our stuff in, and it was solid brick – many of the homes where we want to live are weatherboard or generally beach shacks you couldn’t live in during a winter. Sephy fired up Google Earth for me and he sent me a photo which had me daydreaming of beach walks every day taking my camera with me.

The house is somewhere in this pic. ;)

By the time the other half got home from work, I’d already mentally packed all our stuff and moved in to the place. He had received a phone call from the real estate lady saying she had been in contact with the owners and they’d had a bad experience with cats and they wouldn’t accept us as tenants, so there was no point even looking at the house.

I was completely shocked. The next thing I know my eyes started to water all on their own and I was bawling. It sounds stupid to you guys I guess, but there is such a strong urge in me to go and live near that bay. After the tears, I started to get angry. Our cats have never done any kind of damage to a house. They have cat towers, they are desexed, they don’t pee on the carpet, they are well looked after. The worst they might have done is fur up a curtain, but that comes out in the wash.

Even worse – the current tenants clearly had young kids. So if I’d had kids instead of cats, it would be fine. I don’t have human babies, I have feline ones, so I can’t live there. It seems to me this is discrimination, and completely unfair. If they said to a couple with kids, sorry you have kids, you can’t live here, imagine the outcry!

Funnily enough it happened almost exactly two months after the last time.

“There’s nothing like work for getting over a disappointment” from Memoirs of a Geisha. I have to say, it really works. :) I’m feeling a lot better already. And it benefits all you guys in my sidebar as well because you might see some traffic from Stumbleupon now.. I hope you do. ;)

house hunt, mistakes I made, move to the beach

Karma. Or why it’s bad to be bad.

9 Comments Posted on July 3, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

In my work life, I’ve had to work for people who weren’t related to me from time to time. Working in family businesses does a couple of things for you.

– You tend to work a lot harder overall, because you’ve got a personal stake in the outcome
– You generally trust the people you’re working with because they are family
– You get out of the habit of watching your back because you feel (right or wrong) that your family has it covered for you.

I started out working for family when I was 13. That continued until I was 20, when the family business was sold. A manager who was not related to me was put in. I soon found he was a smarmy evil person only interested in career advancement. I was sent into the head office for 6 weeks, then sent back to my old store where he was now the manager. My first Saturday working for him, he sent me home to get changed. At head office, the staff were all told to wear jeans and a t-shirt for weekend trading, to make the customers feel more at home. He did not believe in this view. I returned dressed like I was about to take over the Presidency of the USA. And I took my time about it, because he’d made me very angry.

Working for him was not very much fun. He was the biggest ass kisser I ever met to anyone above him but the staff below he treated like dirt. He forgot the rule of do what you’re told.. He was fired soon after I told head office about the Saturday thing – several months later during a training session. I actually was kind of joking about it, but I’d made very good friends with the main boss and he had sent out a memo about this Saturday thing stating the dress code, and he was NOT happy with this manager going against his express wishes.

The second boss I had who wasn’t family didn’t know who I was when he hired me. My Dad had actually given *his* Dad a start in the industry. After sitting down and filling out the paperwork, I thanked him for hiring me even though I was the daughter of… The look on his face was horror. He said “Excuse me” and ran off to call his Dad right away. When he came back he had clearly been told that he couldn’t fire me having just hired me, so he was all nice again. He’d already made the decision to keep me on a couple of weeks then get rid of me. Two weeks later, I was politely shown the door. Two months later, his store figures were terrible, and he was replaced by head office with a new person not related to him in any way. He ended up going back to his Dad’s store with his tail between his legs.

What he didn’t know was, I was always loyal to my employer, just like I was loyal to any family employer. I think that was the major concern – I had several family members working for opposition stores. Whether he thought I was going to “steal” information or something, I don’t know but he misjudged me completely and karma bit him in the ass for acting like an asshole, not just to me but to many other people.

I wasn’t out of work for long. The next place I went to was a mobile phone store. I’d always sold mobile phones and had in fact won many awards from Telstra (our major phone company) for being mystery shopped in the past. The store I went to work for was a Telstra store. There’s about 200 of them in this country, they’re everywhere. This one was owned by a family business but they also had several other Telstra stores around the country, so I was in a store with a manager.

Managers can be excellent, or not. This one seemed to think every day was time for him to take time off without ever telling anyone where he was going. He’d open the store in the morning and then go out for coffee and a cigarette. That generally took an hour, putting him back in the store around 10am, where he would get on the phone and sound intelligent for all of 15 minutes, at which point he would duck out for morning tea coffee and a cigarette. This event usually lasted between 1-2 hours, at which point it was time for lunch. Lunch led into afternoon tea. He’d return to the store about 5pm for closing and general staff chit chat. By the end of the day he would have spent maybe 2 hours in the store, if we were lucky.

I worked pretty hard there, and the deal was you worked for three months full time on probation without being paid your commission. When they ended your probation, you were back paid all the commission. I had racked up a princely sum (especially for mobile phone sales, where you get maybe $5 per phone) which was enough to put a deposit on a house. Over $10,000.

The day came for the ending of the probation, and I was told that things weren’t working out, and they would not be employing me further. I felt like I had been hit with a truck. What was worse, was the guy LIED, saying he’d discussed issues with me. He’d barely discussed the *weather* with me, ever. He was never in the store long enough! I was so angry. He told me I was no good at my job blah blah blah. I left completely shattered.

However I did get a nice new shiny job earning a lot more $$$ working for Telstra who at the time were an excellent employer. He did not fare so well. The family behind the business decided to sell all their stores except the one he was in. They moved their head office into that store. That guy can’t even go to the toilet without it being noted now. No all day long coffee breaks, no long lunches, and he has to actually work!

Some months later a very good friend of mine at Telstra went to work for the same company. I warned him and told him what happened to me, in fact I begged him not to go there. He was a fantastic salesperson and worth much more than they would pay him. After three months, he was also told seeya later, he got in touch with me, we found out this was actually something they did to a LOT of people in order to make more money. My friend reported them, last I heard they were being investigated for several things. I should have sued to get that commission. He did get his, after taking them to court.

I do believe that Karma does come back to bite people in the rear eventually. Sometimes it might not be in this lifetime. I’ve not been a perfect person in my life and I have seen the Karma due to me actually come to me in some of the things I have been through.

I really wish that more of us explained the concept of Karma to our kids, because maybe there would be a little less unpleasantness, a little less bullying, a little less of the things that go on in school. Many of the people who were unpleasant to me in school have seen that Karma come back to them and I am sure if they knew then what they know now.. they would have chosen a different path. I would have chosen differently myself.

Hump Day Hmmm, life lessons, work

I think I thought I saw you try..

1 Comment Posted on June 30, 2007 by Snoskred

When I go to sleep at night, the road back from from the place I want to live flashes before me. Big tall trees on either side of the road but it’s like I’m flying so fast, they all blur. And my fear is, something’s gonna jump out in front of me and I’ll hit it. The faster I go, the more things I see threatening to jump out. I know I have to keep going. Moving forward.

I am not a perfect person. I am many things, and germophobe is one of them. You know those people who can’t go out of their house because they’re scared of germs? I’m not there yet, but I can see there from here. Germophobia is different for different people.

For me, I have trouble with –

– door handles
– sponges, teatowels, tablecloths
– food preparation – things have to be clean, clean chopping boards, clean knives, clean utensils
– needing to have clean hands
– people sneezing in my presence
– germ overload when I touch too many dirty things I begin to freak out
– getting to a place where I throw my hands in the air and say “I can’t deal with this” (such a place might be called germ overload)

I am in the process of making positive changes in many areas in my life, and today I have taken a big step towards a goal I set myself recently, which is having a cleaner house. You see for me, it is easier to live with dusty surfaces than to clean them. Cleaning becomes a big deal because if I am going to do it, I want to do it 100% all the time but I don’t have the energy to do this. An Olympic athlete does not have the energy to make things as clean as I would like them.

I have recently decided this all or nothing approach is a really bad idea. ;) Spending 8 hours cleaning one bathroom is really not for me and in the past, it has been easier for me to just throw my hands in the air and say “I can’t face cleaning it” than to do a “lesser” job.

Carl Jung said – “We cannot change anything unless we accept it.”

I accept that I have a problem with cleaning. I accept that I am a germophobe. I accept that it is better for things to be somewhat clean than absolutely spotless or very unclean.

The serenity prayer says “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.

I cannot magically snap my fingers and make myself a non-germophobe. I have to take baby steps towards making things better, and I have the courage and will to do this. I can create positive change. I cannot solve all the problems in the world, but this I can work on.

So recently I accepted that wiping things down with an anti-bacterial cloth once a week was a good idea and a positive change that I could make that would help me get to a place where I wasn’t throwing my hands in the air, unable to act. Over the past couple of weeks I have spent some time cleaning things obsessively.

3 days to do my bookshelves, come on you guys, that is NOT normal, it is not like I have an entire library here, there’s two book shelves with a total of 24 alcoves in them. Not only did I clean the shelves, I cleaned each book, each ornament on the shelves, all the picture frames, anything nearby. Obsessively. They are now spotless, and this means I can just wipe the shelves over, wipe the books which are getting dusty. If I do that once a week, I’ll feel a lot better.

Today I tackled the difficult subject of the bathrooms. I have been putting it off. The other day the other half said to me that he had no idea how someone who claimed to be a germophobe could live with such a bathroom situation. They were filthy. I said this germophobe could not live with having to clean these bathrooms. Whoever designed them is a real idiot. There are many spots for germs to hide. To clean the vanity tops usually takes me 2 hours alone and it is backbreaking because of the height of the darned things. They were designed for very short people.

That’s not even getting into cleaning the toilets. There’s not enough anti-bacterial hand wash in the world for me to cope with that. So I’d rather put it off, and put it off, and keep putting it off until I can’t take anymore.

When one does put in the hard yards and does the work, one feels a real sense of accomplishment. Now, I intend a quick wipe over once a week, and then I won’t have to do this evil backbreaking hours of work chore because it won’t get that bad. The trouble is having stuff on top of the vanity means you have to move all that stuff when you want to clean it. That’s what was stopping me from cleaning the bookshelves for so long. Too much stuff in the way which I’d have to move, and clean. I’m thinking a box with a lid would be a lot easier.

I just went into the bathroom before to wash my hands, and took great pleasure in the clean surfaces. I have to remember that when I start to think I can’t reach this goal. I can reach it. I know I can. And who put can’t in my vocabulary? I don’t like that word. Will not, sure. May not, fine. Do not, okie dokie. Can not – it has to be one of the previous three.

I’m so tired. I’ve been up since 7:30am and most of the afternoon was spent in a cleaning frenzy. I’m going to sleep for hours. ;) Tomorrow it’s weekly wrap up time.

germophobe, life lessons, music

Do you really want to vacuum?

5 Comments Posted on June 30, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

Would it surprise you to know that for the last hour and a half, I have been sitting here, reading blogs, but at the same time vacuuming my bathroom and bedroom? How is this possible? Am I a witch? Is it a kind of magic? Oh yes. Roomba magic. Click on any of these images for a larger view.

To some this might seem like the ultimate in laziness, but if you stop and think for a minute nobody likes to vacuum and there are those among us who are physically not able. When I used to work in retail I sold a lot of these to people with arthritis, people in wheelchairs and elderly people. I also sold several to local businesses who wanted to be able to keep on top of their vacuuming without having to be a slave to the vacuum.

Me, I have two cats. Until you have lived in a house with two cats you really have no idea just how much hair they leave around. Roomba is my salvation, especially at moulting time. Many people with pets bought these and came back to let me know how much they love their Roomba.

You can work it however you want. How it works here is every morning I put Roomba in a room, hit the “max” button and shut the door. Max means, he cleans until he runs out of power. When he’s done, he makes this sad little beep, it sounds sort of like an electronic “uh oh”. When I hear it I go clean him and put him back on the base station so he can get recharged. He leaves little trails so you can see where he has been. Over the course of an hour in a room, he generally hits every spot on the floor and cleans it. These pics are from a room he was in for about half that time, he’s not done there yet, but I wanted you to be able to see the trails.

When he’s done, I usually take him to where the large vacuum cleaner is sitting (always plugged into the wall) and give him a quick clean out. You only need to clean two spots – the little dust chamber, and the pull out filter. It’s easy and painless.

This is what he picked up this morning. He generally picks up this much each day from whatever room I put him into. So you can imagine how much dirtier the house would be without him. I refer to Roomba as a he, The Other Half calls him a She. How interesting! ;) If you don’t have doors, Roomba comes with two “virtual walls” where a signal is transmitted to him and he thinks there’s a wall there, so he won’t go past the doorway.

He works on tiled floors and carpets as well as lino/vinyl and wood floors – without scratching. He does carpets especially well because he has the little carpet brush on the bottom. I adore him. The kitties are not so sure, after an unfortunate incident where he stole their tuna. And put it all over the kitchen floor. Note to all – make sure any cat or dog or other animal food is NOT left on the floor while Roomba-ing. Just a handy tip to prevent you having tuna all over the place.

As apparent by the tuna incident, Roomba is not perfect. You will still need a normal vacuum to make it easier to clean Roomba when he comes back to base. Once every 4 weeks or so you’ll have to drag the unwieldy big vacuum out to do the corners and skirting boards. You need to roomba-proof your rooms, make sure he can’t suck up any cords.

On the other hand there are so many good things about Roomba that outweigh the not good. He is also quite short so he can clean under things you wouldn’t normally get to with your vacuum. Roomba is not cheap – in Australia you can generally pick one up for between $350-400.

Do you need one? That depends. How much is your time worth? Would your house be cleaner if you vacuumed it for an hour a day? Do you want to spend that kind of time vacuuming or would you like a robot to do it for you? Do you ever wish for a genie to do your housework for you? ;)

I should mention, this is NOT a sponsored post, this is just me telling you about something I love. If and when I ever do write a sponsored post, I will make that VERY clear to ya’all. ;)

Home, kitties, yay

Drive it like you stole it..

Leave a comment Posted on June 29, 2007 by Snoskred

I got a phone call about 2:30pm. I was actually in the middle of a West Wing episode at the time. The caller said “10 Minutes” and I hung up the phone and raced off to get ready because I knew what that meant. 10 minutes later, my Dad pulled into the driveway for the last time in his old car. Well, not like old, it was only 3 years old. But today was the day it was going back to the dealer, never to be “ours” again.

During the time he had it I had only driven it twice and both times broke speed limits but fortunately for me did not get caught. It was a Ford XR8, and it had the power. That’s why I didn’t drive it more often, because it could have tempted me into being a very bad individual while driving on the back roads. Or any road, really.

Saying goodbye to a car is not an easy thing. The Other Half and I have recently talked about the possibility of saying goodbye to our car, and that car has been many places with us. The side mirror is a very good friend of mine. We’ve only driven 50,000kms in it, over three years, but when I close my eyes I can see images of many travels from the perspective of looking out my side mirror. I feel like I’d want to keep that part of the car. I know that sounds utterly insane. ;)

However, saying hello to a new car is a very easy thing. This new car is *beautiful*. It truly is a work of art. It’s sitting in Dad’s garage as I type this. It is very low to the ground, and the car dealer said to us that it’s inevitable that the front of the body kit will scrape and get cracked. The old one on the XR8 did. He’s got a guy who fixes it easily if you want it fixed, but he figures it’s a fact of life, live with it.

That is the one thing holding me back from saying to the other half yes, let’s get the new car. The person I was when we first got our car wasn’t the nicest of people. I get pretty angry over anyone careless enough to even look at it the wrong way, let alone go near enough to it to scratch it. When they really damaged our side door as I wrote about here (my side door, so each time I get in the car I am reminded) the more I think about it, the more I realize I probably would have really damaged that person who left the dent in my door if I had turned up when they were doing it. It still manages to fill me with such a rage. I’m not sure I’m meant to be such an angry person.

In other news, today is the first day of the school holidays, and please can everyone pray for rain for the next 2 weeks so those people across the road won’t interrupt my peace. This afternoon the kids across the road started up with a soccer ball on the road in front of my house and I have just realized, it’s two weeks of school holidays with them constantly out there making noise, and I’m still stuck in this house. I had hoped we would have moved by now.

The idea of watching one West Wing each day was dead in the water on day one, as the first episode meant the second had to be watched, and the second definitely meant the third had to be watched. I was in the middle of Episode 3, and I’m going to finish it now, and then off to bed. ;)

cars, moving on, The West Wing

Like A Rat In A Trap..

Leave a comment Posted on June 29, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

While we’re all getting naked here, or at least I seem to have been, I feel there is something I need to mention. Telling you this is not something I ever intended to do.. but I think I should be honest with you now..

I don’t sleep like normal people.

There. I said it. Now we can all move on, right? Err, probably not. What does that statement – I don’t sleep like normal people – mean? How did it happen? Is something the matter with me? I’ve asked myself that many times but never found an answer other than it is possible that I am actually a vampire, without all the teeth and blood sucking stuff. I prefer the night time. I function better at night time. To try and stay on a schedule which involves getting up at 7:30am and going off to work has always been a nightmare for me.

I have been struggling with this situation like a rat in a trap, for years now. I ask myself when am I going to stop struggling, and just accept? It’s not like I am working right now. I have no reason to keep banging my head on this particular wall, other than the disapproval from my Mother. Which there is a LOT of.

Being on the night time schedule actually works out ok for The Other Half and I. I’m awake (or waking up) when he gets home from work. I’m awake when he gets up in the morning. I go to sleep when he leaves. I sleep while he’s at work. It also works out ok as far as the Internet is concerned.

I sometimes seem to function best on a up for 16-18 hours then sleep for 7-12 hours. Right now I’m apparently stuck on a 12 hours awake then my batteries run out and I sleep for 12 hours, and the 12 hours I am awake seem to be the daylight hours. It is almost as if the daylight sucks more power from my batteries like some rabid power tool.

Wednesday and Thursday morning this week, at 5am my brain woke up. When my brain wakes up, it is like a marching band just turned up in the bedroom. Going back to sleep is impossible. I could lie there and toss and turn but I’d only wake The Other Half up. So I get up, quietly put together some warm clothes, sneak out of the bedroom as quietly as I can, turn on the coffee machine, turn on the computer.

When I am on the night-time schedule, this could happen anytime between 4-6pm. I might not wake up till the other half actually gets home from work. On Saturday nights we go to dinner and I may have only been awake for an hour. I never tell my Mother because if I did she would go all berserk and stuff. I just pretend like I’ve been awake all day, and this meal I am eating is not breakfast for me.

This week I am worried I might not even make it to dinner time. I have to try and stay up longer today just so I can go to dinner tomorrow and then my batteries can run out after I get back.

This is yet another reason I do not want to bring people under the age of 18 into my life. Well, it’s not exactly normal, this vampire-esque lifestyle I prefer.

I’m looking forward to the day I can simply say – that’s the way it is – and stop fighting it. I hope that day comes soon, but only I can say that to myself. The Other Half and I have already talked about it and we’re agreed that I should stop fighting it.

In other news, I heard that my Dad’s new car has arrived and he should be picking it up today. I wish I could share pictures of it with you my blog friends but the paint job is pretty distinctive, a bit too recognizable.

I might have a bit of an arty day today, considering I am now back to only one West Wing episode a day.

embarrassing stories

Offensive words and the Aussie way.

13 Comments Posted on June 25, 2007February 28, 2015 by Snoskred

Aussies reading this, I need your input and comments. ;) Recently during my blogging chicks commenting challenge, I found myself breaking my own commenting rules. Specifically – “If you’re seeing red, get out of there fast – and as politely – as possible”.

A very judgmental blogger had stated that they would not read a blog if it contained swear words, and stated that they felt anyone using swear words basically was a bad writer incapable of expressing themselves in any other way. Them’s fighting words to an Australian – at least they were to me.

Living here in Australia I hear swear words all the time, it’s a fact of life. There is not one single word that shocks or offends me. Not even the C word. In fact I know people who use that as a term of affection. If one was offended by these words, you would probably find life quite difficult here in this country – Aussie readers, do you agree?

At the same time I have recently changed the way I do things here at the blog with regard to swear words. I put a * in them. This is something I do for the readers, not for me. That is because I do understand that some people are offended by these words.

So over the past few days while I have been cleaning my bookshelves (a job I finally finished) what this blogger said has been bugging me. I’m not going to link to the blog because I do not feel she deserves the traffic.

To write off everything a person says because of the occasional swear word? Isn’t that akin to writing off everything a person says because they are {insert one of the following – black, white, yellow, pink, gay, lesbian, heterosexual, republican, democrat, right wing, left wing, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, is my point made or should I continue?}. So I am a “swearer”. So I am going to hell. Or something. That doesn’t mean I am somehow “lesser” or my words have any less meaning.

I won’t lie to you guys (and Christian readers, please do not be offended by this, read the whole thing before you get upset) – I have struggled with this commenting challenge. First of all, it’s the blogging *chicks* and I’ve had some really terrible experiences with women during my life time. So the reality is, women scare me. Mostly. :) And I say that being female myself.

The other thing I have struggled with – many of the blogs belong to people who are Christian. I have always been somewhat scared of the apparently very religious after some bad experiences with the religious in my teenage years. The Christians I have known have never acted like true Christians – they preach, but do not *practice*.

I used to be Baptist. I used to go to church. The trouble was, the church I went to was more like a social group with cliques and some of the people were extremely nasty. It put me off church and Christians so much that I’ve never gone back. Since then I have often felt people who believe in God are as alien to me as people who believe UFO’s are coming to the earth to collect them.

I respect the right of everyone to worship whoever they choose, don’t get me wrong, but I do find it difficult when people are very judgmental and impose their religious views on others, especially in the areas of topics like a politics, sexuality, a womans right to choose, and the worst of all in my opinion, the religion where parents refuse to let their very ill children have blood transfusions which would save their lives. It’s an alien concept to me that you could care more about a religion than your flesh and blood child who is dying in front of your eyes.

I had a moment of panic at the start of this challenge when I opened up the first 10 blogs and the majority of them were Christians. But I’ve stuck with the challenge because I have found points of commonality with the people – even with the Christian people, several of whom I have now added to my google reader. Had you asked me at the start of this challenge would I be able to find Christians worth adding to my google reader, the answer would have been NO. Probably with a swear word in front of NO, too. :)

There’s blogs on the Australian Blogs Community that I struggle with because they have a very different point of view on some topics to what I do. I’m still willing to hear what they have to say. I listen to people who consider themselves left wing and right wing. I am incredibly tolerant in so many areas. Even I am surprised by how tolerant I am, from time to time.

What I have trouble tolerating are people whose minds are closed – who won’t listen to others and who will never change their opinion even when evidence suggests they should. This is why I have trouble with people who identify themselves as “right wing” or “left wing” when it comes to politics, because they seem to blindly support one side or the other. I’m a person who supports the side that is *right* and that means I can swing from one wing to the other in a heartbeat.

My blog has 5 hits for the F word on Technorati. Google comes up with 23 but it counts several of these more than once. If that negates everything else I have ever said here on the blog for some people, then so be it. ;)

As I go back through my posts I will be editing swear words to have * in them. I apologize to any readers who may have been offended by my using these words in the past, and I do intend to use * in them in the future. It’s not because of that very judgmental blogger, it’s because I do respect and care for my readers and I do not want to impose my swearing on them. I know not all of them come from a place where the F word is as common as hello.

Sephy posted on this topic today also, these two posts tie in quite well together.

I meant to write about interpretation today but it didn’t happen. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my act together on that one.

Australia, commenting on blogs, feed readers, mistakes I made, women

The power of positive thought.

2 Comments Posted on June 23, 2007February 27, 2015 by Snoskred

In various discussions around the interweb lately, I’ve realized that I’m a pretty lucky person. Fairly early on in my life, I have learnt some life lessons which have been useful in helping me get to the place I am now. Many of these lessons are going to stick with me and I can build on them as time goes by.

One lesson I learnt by working in call centres is the power of positive thought. Outbound telemarketing is not an easy job. You have to be able to get yourself into a mental place where you can handle people saying no to you constantly. Rejection on such a massive scale can really get you down. You need inner resources which most people do not have and find difficult to get.

Most important of all, you need to be able to put the past behind you and move on. Not past from years ago, past from the last call you made. When you were told “no” and you hang up the phone, you need to be able to say “The next one will be a yes”. Otherwise you won’t be able to make that call. And when you get a “Yes” you need to celebrate that and build on it. In an average 5 hour outbound calling shift, we would average 20 calls per hour, and only ONE of those would be a yes. That means 19 people said no. If you took it personally it could mess with your head in a major way.

So one of the tools I used constantly were Dream Cards by Leon Nacson. I didn’t use them in the way intended by the author, though. Each day at the start of a shift, I would shuffle the cards, close my eyes and pick one from the middle of the pack. That card would be stuck to my computer screen. The cards contain positive messages and I found that by having the card there, I would find myself reading the card – which is essentially *thinking* the card. Here’s a picture of the cards, so you can see the kinds of positive messages they contain. You’ll need to click the thumbnail for a larger image. :)

And I found that each day, whatever card I seemed to pick out was exactly what I needed to think that day. I don’t know whether that is destiny or just pure luck. For example – I would pull out “I am free from agitation and tension. Nothing can provoke me.” on a day when the people I spoke to would be trying their best to wind me up. I had that card on my desk on the day a customer told me that wind power was bad for the environment because “it takes the wind out of the air”.

These cards got me through some really hard times. I am so grateful for that. I recommend you get your own set but if you can’t find them or can’t afford it, you can just write down a positive thought and put it on your desk.

When I left call centre work I got out of the habit of using these cards, but a couple of months ago I put them back on my desk and each day I shuffle them and pick one, which sits at the bottom of my computer screen. Next to a piece of paper that has sat on my desktop for many months now – sometimes taking the high road is no fun at all.

We often do not realize we are sabotaging ourselves. The “tapes” in our head play constant negative thoughts. Until you stop to listen to what tape you are playing, you cannot begin to make changes and play a more positive tape.

For more on the power of positive thinking, you may want to read this article – Mind your thoughts.

I also use I Can Do It cards by Louise Hay.

call centre, life lessons, moving forward, negative thought, power of positive thought, taking the high road

A night at The Sydney Harbour Marriott

2 Comments Posted on June 21, 2007June 2, 2015 by Snoskred

I’d like to do a bit of a review of one of the hotels we stayed at – the Sydney Harbour Marriott which is a true 5 star hotel. After staying there, I can really say I had never stayed anywhere which was 5 star before.

We booked through wotif.com.au which we have been using for some years now. The package was this – $309 *Revive Package* Revive yourself by sleeping in the Marriott Bed! Deluxe room with 1 King size bed, includes Bvlgari bath pack and wine take away, Buffet Breakfast for 2, Valet parking, access to health club with indoor heated pool and late checkout of 2pm.

On arrival at the hotel, we were greeted by the Valet. We’d never used valet parking before and yes, I am terribly possessive of my vehicle so this was a bit scary for me. However, the staff member who greeted us instantly made me feel at ease, asking about our luggage and what we wanted to take out of the car and saying he would have it sent up to our room. We entered the hotel lobby and just walking in there put a big smile on my face. It was beautiful. I did not take photos because nobody wants to look like such a tourist in the hotel lobby, but it was *worthy* of a photography session.

We were quickly checked in, given a room on the 27th floor, and whisked away by the elevator – which, I might add, was also stunningly beautiful. I can’t describe it. I wish I could. We did not realise at the time just how lucky we were, because we’d been given a room that was fairly unusual. Once we got inside and I shut the door, I was able to see how unusual it was.

As you can see, there are only two rooms on each floor shaped like this. Excellent Feng Shui, in my opinion. I’m sorry the pics aren’t the best, we took them with the camera phone and please note we took them in the morning after sleeping in the bed, it looked much neater than this when we arrived!. Here’s a view looking towards the desk where The Other Half set himself up (with broadband internet I might add) for the stay.

And here’s a view towards where I set up my laptop in this amazingly comfortable wing chair.

My pictures don’t really do it justice, ya’all. And to not have curtains, to have shutters! What a BRILLIANT idea.

So, after a walk around Sydney we returned to the room pretty tired and thought we’d have room service instead of go out to eat. The menu was not cheap, but there were many excellent choices there. I ordered a chicken salad sandwich and they had mashed potato on the menu as a side dish you could order with any meal, which I really felt like. So odd, but delicious. The other half chose pasta. It arrived fast, and was really delicious with big serves. We thought about dessert, but chose not.

While we were waiting for dinner, I took a shower because even though it was cold and raining Sydney was still quite humid, and then we got on the subway, which is fantastic but makes one feel quite not clean, especially a germophobe like me. The toiletries supplied by the hotel were scented with lemongrass, and absolutely heavenly. I’ll admit I am a shower snob. I like good water pressure, and I like a shower where the designer has actually thought about what happens when you shower. I hate it when water goes all over the bathroom floor. This shower was very well designed, the water stayed in the shower. As it should! The towels were a little on the small side, but there were plenty of them.

The other half took some long exposure shots of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the window of the room. Click for a bigger view. I thought dinner was good, but I had no idea of the breakfast delights that awaited me.

Knowing you have a late checkout really takes the pressure off when it comes to morning. We didn’t wake up till 9am, and then I lazed around for a bit while the other half showered. After another scented shower from heaven and a quick hair drying session (the wall dryer was 1500 watts, not 1200 like every other hotel, makes the job a lot faster) we wandered out to catch the lift to breakfast, which was buffet style in the Icons Brasserie. When we got there, quite a queue of people were forming to be seated – looks like we caught the rush, we thought.

I should first mention, I don’t really do breakfast. If at home, I’m lucky to have a bowl of cereal once a week. A hot breakfast is out of the question, except for the occasional Sunday. My parents like hot breakfasts on the weekends but I never got into the habit. I’d rather a cup of coffee. Maybe a croissant.

Buffets can be nightmares. People vying for the best food. People who won’t get out of your way. Some places I have been, you are reminded of pigs at a trough. Not so at the Marriott. There was plenty of room, and the buffet was divided into sort of sections, to make it easier.

On the bar, there were all the fruit juices. I’m a big pineapple juice fan but there were 5 flavors to choose from. I went and got us both a glass of juice, and then a staff member asked us if we wanted coffee, of course the answer was yes. ;) The Other Half said lets eat, so we wandered off to look at the buffet. The choice was incredible. I can’t even remember it all, because I was so stunned by the fact that at the end of the buffet, they had a little section with an egg cook and a pancake cook. I wasn’t really sure what the deal was with that, so I got some scrambled eggs and bacon from the buffet and returned to my seat somewhat amazed. I finished my plate and before you could blink a staff member appeared and asked if they could take it away.

Intent on investigating the egg cook situation, I asked the other half if he wanted pancakes, so I could stand there and watch what was going on. On closer inspection, it appeared you could go there and order what you wanted, they would make it on the spot for you. Fried eggs? Poached Eggs? Boiled Eggs? Omelette? With stuff in it? They had every filling you could imagine there. Pancakes – plain, with blueberries, with fruit in them, crepes..

The urge for an omelette took over, and I forgot all about the other half’s pancakes (a good thing too because he’d gone back to the buffet and filled his plate a second time) and ordered myself an omelette with capsicum, mushroom, shallots, and cheese. That’s what the guy in front of me had, and it sounded so good I ordered it too, and then the person behind me chose the same as well! You just stand there and wait for them to make it, when they’re done you hand them your plate, they put your freshly cooked request onto it and you walk away.

As I’m going back to the table, I realise I had not even noticed a lot of what was on offer because I was so shocked by the egg and pancake situation. I spot what can only be described as an alcove of sweet things. It was like a large bookshelf, filled with continental breakfast bakery delights. Danishes. Doughnuts. Croissants. Friands. Muffins. Next to that was the cereal station. On the other side of the buffet was the toast station, with many toasters and an alcove full of Beerenberg Jams. My favorite!

When I got back to the table I was offered the juice of the day, which was Guava and Pineapple, and that was lovely too. My omelette was delicious beyond my wildest imaginings. Can you tell I really enjoyed my breakfast? :) We both did, actually. We stayed down there for an hour, sampling many treats from the various sections and stuffing ourselves to the gills, I won’t lie to you. ;) I didn’t want to leave, and neither did the other half, but we were so full we couldn’t just sit there watching everyone else eat. Though, I considered the option because the people were fascinating to me. A real cross section of tourists from all over the world. Accents from every corner of the globe were coming to me as a surprise and as we sat there so many people were enjoying themselves as much as we were.

I was also enjoying watching the staff. They seemed to work together very well, and they all seemed very happy, which I found unbelievable. Hotel service jobs must be no fun, in my opinion. People can be really nasty, I know that from retail and I imagine they have customers who are quite troublesome. Yet they all seemed as if they were enjoying doing their jobs and having fun doing it. I had to give up the staff-watch after I found just to look in their direction meant they kept coming over and asking if I needed anything. :)

We wandered back to our rooms and as we got off the elevator we noticed the aroma of lemongrass from everyone’s morning showers had filtered out into the hallway. It was aromatherapy heaven. Then we relaxed for about an hour before making the decision to get packed up and on our way. I collected the remainder of the heavenly toiletries to take home with me, wishing I could buy them ;) We took the quick pics you see above and headed down to check out.

Our car was returned to us exactly as we left it and I thanked the valet who drove it up so heartily I think he was surprised and gave me a beautiful smile. In fact all the staff gave us beautiful smiles, the whole time we were there. It’s not till they’re missing that you notice the absence of smiles.

Now I know why my sister doesn’t do less than 5 star. :) I’d certainly like to do it again, and most hotels won’t meet up to the wonderful standard set by the Sydney Harbour Marriott. The one down side to our stay was, we think the springs in our bed were broken. Hotel beds must get an absolute thrashing and I reckon some kids must have been jumping on this one. I’m not one to complain, it was just a little noisy when turning over, and I liked everything else so much I don’t really care, but I did write a note on the comments form to let them know. I’m sure the hotel will fix it, they probably already have. :)

Just in the interests of disclosure and to prevent confusion, this was NOT a paid review in any way. We paid to stay there ourselves. But if any hotel wants me to come and stay and review them, here is my contact page, I’m happy to oblige ;) As long as you know I’m going to tell people what I really thought of my stay there.

5 star hotels, Happy Snoskred, reviews, travel