FQ1: Share a health or beauty tip! Mental health tip: make time for your brain. Don't give all your time away to other people and activities - save some space for your brain to just *be*. Let your brain sink into that space and let it go where it wants without reining it in. It'll work better for you at other times knowing it gets a break too. Beauty tip: It's pretty obvious that I don't *have* any beauty tips or I'd be better looking. Having said that, I can recommend a range of skin care products that deliver even, soft good looking skin that are a pleasure to buy and use. Origins. And they smell devine. Their hair range is good too. FQ2: Share a computer or electronic gadget tip! Computer tip: it's not a tip so much as a reminder. Working in an office with a certain person who shall remain nameless due mostly to the fact she annoys the living crap out of me no matter where in the world she is: save your work. Save it when you open the file and get into the habit of ctrl+s'ing after every few minutes. You won't get RSI and I'll never have to hear the "Word just crashed and took all my work with it." I think that's right up there with "the dog ate my homework". Again, not a tip but I'm in love with iPhoto. I love that it opens when I connect my digital camera to the computer, sucks all my photos down and saves them in chronological folders, and deletes the photos from my camera's memory. It does a lot of other stuff to and it's such a great tool. FQ3: Share a travel or transportation tip! meh I don't have any tips. I am tipless. This reminds me though - I don't know about you but I always seem to end up on an flight in the seat in front of a small kid. Oh yeh, there are crying babies on the flight too, but they're in the seat in *front* of me. The annoying little kid who likes to kick his feet against the my seat is behind me. Ask my kids, they'll tell you how I much I hate that - they'll also tell you how i can deliver a stinging slap to the legs of anyone kicking the back my seat without having to stop the car. One long flight and in the dead of night while his parents slept soundly/had passed out beside him, this young boy kicked my seat until I woke up. And kept kicking it. I leaned over the seat to see the 7 or so year old boy slouched and bored in his seat banging his foot against the back of my seat and I asked him, in my very nicest voice, if he could please stop. And he did, for the 30 seconds it took for me to settle myself back into my seat. I turned around and asked him again, this time, a little bit firmer but still being kind to please stop kicking my seat. Again he stopped until I was out of sight and back in my seat, just long enough to be lulled into a false sense of security when he started again. kick. kick. kick. kick. kick. kick. This time the face that came at him from over the seat made him shrink down flat and wide eyed "DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM??" my very best not-loud-but-my-temper-just-snapped voice. His eyes were *huge*. "STOP.KICKING.THEFUCKING.SEAT". Success. I think I heard him crying but I was too busy drifting off to sleep. FQ TIPSTER: Got a tip for a classic or vintage CD, movie, TV show, or book we might have overlooked? Last Friday night I watched the Marx Brothers in Animal Crackers and, it's bloody strange. Factor in the fact it was made in 1930 and it becomes positively bizarre - especially Groucho's asides to the camera. "We must remember that art is art. Well, on the other hand water is water isn't it? And east is east and west is west. And if you take cranberries and stew them like applesause they taste much more like prunes than rubarb does. Now uh...now you tell me what you know." "quote, unquote, and quote." "Tell me, what do you think of the traffic problem? What do you think of the marriage problem? What do you think of at night when you go to bed, you beast." "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. The tusks. That's not so easy to say. Tusks. You try it some time. As I say, we tried to remove the tusks. But they were embedded so firmly we couldn't budge them. Of course, in Alabama the Tuscaloosa, but that is entirely ir-elephant to what I was talking about."

FQ1: What's a new food or drink you've tried? How'd it go? DRINK: After drinking all the Export Gold beer and typical of 3am, we went looking for more booze to drink and for some unfathomable reason, my brother thought drinking my aunt's Muscat would be a good idea seeing as she had found it "hard to find" here in New Zealand. Honestly, I'm sure we didn't mean to drink the _entire_ bottle. Besides which it wasn't very nice. Like extra old nana's sherry. Very raisin'y and by the time we were an inch from the bottom of the bottle, very sickly. FOOD: Falafels aren't new to me, but I've never had a 'home made' falafel, always part of a middle eastern platter of dips and goodies at Bodrum or someother such restaurant. When I stayed in Rotorua, my cousin Kristy made falafels and salad and it was *so* delicious I made her show me how so I could have it when I got home. Mouth wateringly good! FQ2: What's a new television show or movie you've seen or book you've read? How'd it go? TELEVISION SHOW: I don't watch television all that often, but I did see a new show screening last Thursday night. An Australian offering called, "Strictly Dancing" and it was just horrible. I don't know if I thought it wouldn't be horrible I mean, it didn't surprise me that it was horrible; maybe I was expecting to be surprised it was good. There really is nothing on TV. BOOK: Friends have recommended a few books to me lately. Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks read okay - good, in fact. Bit "boys own" for my tastes, but I'll try another before I decide to continue with his work. Amy was given The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger for Christmas. She's finally finished it (she kept having to stop because it was too sad at times, she said, but she loved it) so I started that last night. MOVIE: I saw a bunch of new films at the cinema over the christmas break. The last movie I saw was Phantom of the Opera while I was in Wanganui. I wouldn't recommend that to *anyone*. If someone suggests to you that it's the last movie _on_earth_ STILL refuse to see it. You're better off cleaning your oven or or alphabetising your socks or staring at dirt or contemplating why Phantom of the Opera survived the celluloid disaster that wiped every other movie off the face of the Planet. A cockroach of a movie. FQ3: What's a new place you've been to or web site you've visited? How'd it go? NEW PLACE: the Sargeant Gallery in Wanganui - it's such a beautiful building set atop the most beautifully curved concrete steps - I really need to go back and photograph those steps - they had perfect step feng shui. WEBSITE: Flickr isn't new, but I have added a new contact to my list of photostreams I like to look at. I don't know who Carr*e is but I sure do like her artwork. FQ NEW: Do the new! What's something new you've been wanting to try but haven't? What's stopping you? I've been thinking for ages about this, and it's not something new I want to try, but old that I want to revisit. Making the old new again. Things I *used* to do like.. quilting, and drawing, and having a long term, loving relationship. Making the old new again - no need to reinvent the wheel, but it sure could do with some inflating. And what's stopping me? absolutely nothing!

FQ1: Describe your morning routine on work/school days, from the time you wake up until you leave. I work from home. On a *good* morning (which has been lately and for the last few weeks) I wake up at about 5:30am. I look at my clock and think "yay, it's 5:30am I don't have to get UP" and roll over in my bed and snooze back to sleep. This is when I dream the dreams I remember. Then I wake up again and look at the clock and notice it's 5:58am and I think "sweet, 2 minutes before the alarm, I'll switch it OFF" and do so, rolling over once again and dozing back to sleep. Next I wake and it's 6:23am and I am happy because I need to be up and dressed by 6:30am so I get up, check my email and pull on some clothes. Simon's amazed when he arrives (on the mornings he does) to find me up and dressed. I drop him off at work and come home by 7am to eat a plate of cereal/instant porridge and a cup of tea while I check my email and round the "traps" online. I will work from about 7:30am until I hear the toot of my walking buddy Sue at about 8:15-30am. We drive down to Bucklands beach and walk the length of it and back - about 40 mins then back home again. That's why I'm often in the shower at 9:30am! By the time I'm dry, dressed and have a cup of coffee in my hand it's 10am and I set down to work my day. this would have been an awesome FridayQ back when I worked in my last job and often slept in. My mornings resembled those of Mr Bean when he's late for work panicing to get to the ferry by 8:15am. FQ2: Now describe your morning routine on NON-work/school days (weekends, holidays, etc.). Sunday mornings - I LOVE sunday mornings. I wake without an alarm - several times as I do on weekday mornings but I'm much happier about the "going back to sleep" part. on the 3rd or 4th waking, I haul my laptop from beside the bed and snuggle down to check email, see who's online/inthe chat room etc. If there's no one, I might doze off again. If there's someone, I often grab a coffee and come back to chat. After a while, either way, I'll probably blog and read blogs and all sorts of internetty things. There're usually friends online Sunday mid-morning as the aussies wake up and the nightowl americans/brits stagger in drunk *not looking at anyone in particular Amoeba* and watch movie trailers *love movie trailers* I get out of bed about 11am/12am/1pm and then do other stuff. Hell though sometimes i just go.back.to.sleep!! I love sundays. FQ3: And finally, describe your night-time routine before you go to bed. Night-time routine is 'net centric too. again because of the time differences, staying up late catches the good chatters - with Brisbane being 3 _whole_ hours behind at the moment, staying up late is sometimes rewarded with Phet showing up. Barb's usually around from the States and Fishboy is sometimes on MSN from Sydney. Sometimes Rosie pops on before her bedtime. Every night before I go to bed I clean my make-up from my face, tone and moisturise, brush my teeth and hair then climb into my pyjamas. sometimes I might shower before bed but mostly that depends on how cold it is and whether i need to warm up or not. SO, yeh, night routine is chat, coffee, chat, coffee, blog, chat, tea, cleanse/tone/moisturise, brush teeth, pyjamarise, bed, not sleep, not sleep, get up, hot milk, internet, wander around, bed, sleep. FQ Fantasy: You've won 100 million dollars in the lottery! Re-write your morning routine one month from now! Every day'd be SUNDAY!! Except in a month I'd have *hired* someone to bring me coffee in the morning and have more pillows to snuggle against. Plus, I wouldn't have to logon to chat with anyone, I'd have them flown *in* to brunch with me on my own small island in the pacific. Fresh mango, good coffee, and warm temperatures.