Put on your party shoes, paint the town ... green?

Work Christmas party tomorrow night! Jeff and I work together, so we are both double-invited! Always a pleasure to go to these events - the boss enjoys good food, and MAKES good wine (Gentle Annie boutique winery, look it up), so we always enjoy the night.

This year is special.

First, it's on a boat.

Second, we have lots of female employees this year. It's been a good year for recruitment. Naturally, all the tech women had a meeting today to discuss the important issue of - what to wear! We agreed to go for dresses, as elegant as possible.

I nipped out to my fave clothing shop at lunch time, not expecting success, but found a terrific silky green dress. My favourite green too.

But I don't have any suitable shoes. Really not a big shoe person. I do have these sort of silver flats that are very comfy. But they don't match at all.

So I whipped out my tiny bottle of Golden Paint's "Green Gold" and gave these shoes a quick green makeover. I'm delighted with the results!

Happy Birthday John!

It's John's birthday today, and I made HIM a card too. Had to make it last week to get it in the mail.

I had fun colouring this with Copic markers.

Happy Birthday John!

Happy Birthday Emma!

Emma's birthday - and that's a nice opportunity to make a card. What would she like, a pretty one? A funny one? One with a pun?

Actually she's so nice she would say nice things about anything sent to her, so I decided to indulge and make a SUPER GRUNGY one!

I've used my Belgian stamps, some new Aussie stamps by Kaiser (fabulous backgrounds), and some Stampin' Up ones too (the bird, eggs, bug and cage). And that grid-patterned tape is Japanese Washi tape, which I brought back from Paris! I'm sure you can get it here now, but THIS is from Paris.

Best of luck with the freelance writing, Emma!

Snail Pellets - STAT!

Got home late on Saturday and tiptoed into the kitchen for a glass of water. THIS MONSTER was at eye level. An icky, urky, ooey, gooey, SNAIL (one of many, I might add) all over the glass door that leads to the garden.

All on the outside of course, but still...

It was hard to recover and get to sleep...

Jeff comes out of the tunnel

We are almost done on the Eastlink ride!

About to start the Eastlink ride

Destination Ringwood

Yes! We managed a good long bike ride, all the way to Ringwood. There's a new Maccas here so we get a treat, refill the water bottle, and head home. Well done boys! One day we'll manage it with less treat and more ride.

Release Ninja!

I work at a software company - we write awesome software that cable TV companies would use. This week was a release week - we spent all week testing, fixing, and preparing everything. The dude who comes to the fore in Release Week is Kai, who actually builds the release.

Now, a computer program is made of heaps of bits, and many people work on them. And we keep every version of every bit. So at release time, someone has to pick out which version of each bit is set to go right now. That's Kai. It's not straightforward, because people are making last minute changes, and some are working ahead on the next version already.

We decided Kai needed a great title. "Release Manager" was taken - that's a whole different job, negotiating with customers about who wants what feature, and when. Management. Yawn. Kai needed a way more exciting title for his interesting IT job. So he's now the :

RELEASE NINJA!

I made him a card, and Jeff and I game him a little present - the ninja in this Lego set is called Kai!

An otter

Not running in this year's Melbourne Cup.

An armadillo...

... Missing the Illo - it's running in the Cup. We're at the museum, by the way.