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If so, I reposted it on robynswriting.com

Here we are again, back at the hot spring resort.  We are taking three days off, without the kids this time, and are doing ‘fun stuff’ for us. Soaking for hours in steaming hot then freezing cold hot spring water. It’s such a rush to jump from one to the other.

Right now I’m in the cafe downstairs where they have wireless connection. :-)  Unfortunately, just prior to Chinese New Year, it’s RENNOVATION TIME.  Oh, and CLEANING.  We’ve moved room once already, they decided they’d bug spray the floor we were on, and we’ve been subjected to all sorts of handyman sounds–drilling, electric stapling, hammering.  It’s the time of the year when you deep clean and fix everything that needs fixing.

Aside from that, it’s been nice and relaxing. I always see the months from the end of October (my birthday) till the end of January vacation as a long, relaxing, gain weight and eat unhealthy stuff time.  Now, the end of vacation, my resolve is to lose those two kilos I gained, and eat and live a healthy life.  Starting tomorrow. (Today is the last day of my mini vacation…)

We decided to try to go to Australia for my 50th birthday, next October. That’s a long-term goal, but it would be FUN.

Not much else to say right now.

Oh, and Vince too (but shhh…don’t tell him I posted it.)

This is what happens when I send Peter off on a business luncheon without me. Looks like fun. I think the people organizing it had a lot of fun on our behalf in any case.

We’re taking the kids down to Hualien (East Coast) for a couple of days. There’s a big amusement park there (not my favorite, but the kids love them) so we’ll spend a day there, and then take some time to look around Taroko Gorge.

Maggie and Gabe, and Paul, Joy, and three girls are all coming too, so it should be fun.

Today we went with Paul, Joy, Leigh, Emma and Kristiana to a Hot Spring/Spa in Jinshan.  Yes, happy spa days are here again.

Think of it. It’s freezing cold, perhaps even raining too, and you are submerged in toasty hot spring water.  First of all there are numerous purported benefits to soaking in a hot spring–depending on the type of spring water–and it’s so warming and relaxing.  It’s better, I think, than a hot bath. Part of the fun is the rapid change from hot to cold to hot.  There are hot pools, where the water ranges from 37 to 42 degrees, warm pools, around 35 or so, and there are the cold pools–usually around 17 degrees. My favorite is to get hot, hot, hot then go jump in the 17 degree cold pool. I tingle all over, it’s an amazing feeling.  Then, once I’ve cooled down I go and plunge back into the hot pool. I tend to do that again and again.

I still remember my first hot/cold experience. We had friends who had a shack at the beach, can’t remember where exactly but it was near a big pipe-line that pumped up iron ore from the West Coast of Tasmania.  Japanese workers had helped build the pipe line, and they had lived in the shacks on the beach.  Behind this particular shack was a sauna room.  Fire heated smooth rocks sent off thick hot steam when doused in water.  We’d sit in the little room for as long as we could, then we’d race down to the water’s edge and plunge in. I don’t know what the temperature of the water was, Bass Strait was always pretty cold.  It was my first hot-cold-hot experience.

It’s total fun.

And it’s just the beginning of winter here.

PS-Checked on line, mean water temperature of Bass Strait was reported at 15 degrees during the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, end of December.  And I used to swim in that!

is posted over on robynswriting.com

If there’s anyone who hasn’t made the switch over to that site yet, and who is interested in reading that story, well…it’s there and not here.

And I have another chapter about ready to post. I really shouldn’t post about writing here, as I have a writing blog created for that express purpose. But I can’t resist.

I have maybe two more chapters left to post on that novel, and then I’m going to move into edit mode with it. Brutal edit mode. I sent quite a few of the earlier chapters through an on line critique group, and got awesome feedback. I’ll probably do some radical edits on especially the beginning of the novel. I heard that type of thing is fairly standard.

By the way, did you know that a common saying amongst the world of writers is that you need to write one million words of crap before you write anything publishable.  One day I’m going to sit down and figure out how many words I’ve written. Probably 500,000 plus with Whispers, Denith novels times three, and Armageddon’s wake. Then another 50,000 with my latest NaNoWriMo novel.  Unfinished novels that are just sitting there…maybe another 100,000 total.  Short stories and articles probably 20,000.

That’s not a million words now, is it?  I wonder if all those messages and advisories and newsletters I wrote count. Probably.  Anyway, I’m up to about 670,000 words just with what I can remember and that’s only fiction writing. I’ll get there one day.

Oh, blog posts and web site updates also count in the million words too. It would be interesting to see how many words of babble I’ve posted.

Anyway, to bring this back to the point of the post:  Writing is posted on robynswriting.com.

I’m learning how to use Joomla to set up a web site.  It’s fun. Pretty easy to use. I’m testing out a site on my computer at present.

Have an idea to turn my writerzitch blog (which, incidentally, I am aiming to update more often) into an actual Web site.

I like the look of it, like working with it, and it has more options than a blog. Blogs are fine for updating, but if you want to add serious content it seems to me that an actual Web site might be more useful.

I should add that to my New Year Goals. Create and maintain a Joomla Web Site, that actually has useful information in it.

Wait for it…  It’s paid massages.

I don’t know where this idea came from, but let me tell you about it.

Chris, Gabe, and Krikki have their ‘classroom’, which also doubles as hangout room, in what I call the dungeon (and what others call the basement.)  It’s a…basement. Concrete walls, underground, no windows, scary steps to go down into it. It’s warm in winter and cool in summer.  There’s ventilation and now we have pretty good lighting. Set up with desks, chairs, big round red cozy chair, bookshelves and it even has a teacher’s desk.

We started the takeover gradually, early December when it got too cold and rainy to walk outside and up to our other ’schoolroom’. It needs to be better set up, and that’s something we’ll focus on now that the madness of Christmas and New Year is over.

Anyway. The dungeon is now also the massage parlor.  Signs adorn the fridge, and the dungeon door, advertising massages — back massage, head scratch, arm massage, foot massage all with a price listed, and — now this really got to me — all done while listening to Abba.

There’s ambience, cushions, scented candles, a mattress to lay on, and Abba playing in the background.

Apparently the massages aren’t too bad.  I heard someone came down for a massage just so they could listen to Abba (yes, they were over 40.)  And they’re collecting a bit of pocket money. Mercenary little things, they are, heh.

Never a dull moment when you have kids around.

I’m not sure where the Abba trend came from, perhaps because we all watched and LOVED Mama Mia. That could have done it.

Anyway, if anyone wants to stop over for a massage, I’ve heard they’re fairly good providing you don’t mind Abba.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any photos, so here’s a couple of recent ones.

And look what was sitting outside our living room the other day, on a lamp-post.   A snake eagle.  Lots of them around apparently, and they’re obviously not that difficult to get fairly close to.

I had one.  Remember, we played ‘Guardian Angel’ game, where you do good deeds, buy little odds and ends and the whole thing culminates in a grand Christmas present on Christmas Day.  Well, I had an adventure with mine this year…

I knew mine had a sense of humor.  I received a dog’s hind quarters for a hook, the tail was the hook. Cute. It appeared in my room one day. (Note: Not a real dog, mind.)

Then there was the awesome cheesecake hidden in our shoe shelf.

I had an idea…seemed like Aussie humor to me.

Today was the grand opening of Guardian Angel presents. I might miss a few steps, but first of all was a glass bottle, filled with water, with a small balloon floating at the top, for both Peter and me–meaning our ‘Guardian Angels’ combined forces.

I opened the bottle, sipped the water (hey, it might have been Saki) then opened the balloon. Inside was a note, I can’t remember what it was…something about closing my eyes and looking up at a fish.  I looked for the fish, but couldn’t see it (I missed the step of closing my eyes…)  Eneway…the Guardian Angel gift-giving moved on.  While I was wondering where the fish was, ALL OF A SUDDEN I was bombarded with hundreds of little tiny balloons falling directly on top of me from the balcony upstairs.  A big balloon fish floated down also.  There was a note in the fish…

“If the name of this gift you can discover, A toblerone you will uncover. (Look inside my belly.)

Inside the fish’s belly were clues. If I guessed what the gift was, I would get it…

The clues were:

Holy Primary

A pair of grumpy celibates

Acolytes on a dreary day

Two Enuchs on a bummer.

At this point I’m tempted to leave off and let you guess what the gift was.

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It took time to figure it out. I had to just sit on it for a while and look for the constants. Want to know how I figured it…

Holy; celibates; Acolytes; Enuchs — sounded to me something like a Catholic Priest or Nun…

Primary (think primary color); dreary day; bummer; grumpy — sad, upset.

Sad Priest.

Blue Priest.

Blue Enuch.

Sad Enuch.

Blue Nun!!!

YES…. It was Blue Nun.  A wonderful gift-set of two bottles of Blue Nun. My favorite wine when I was seventeen and every year since, (thanks to Kenny’s introduction to it many years back.)

And what a wonderfully, funny, intriguing, puzzling, gift.

Thanks, Mike May and Liz.

Yes, I know, we’re leaving it till very late in the month.  Claire was the first, she shopped to her little hearts content last Sunday.  Chris shopped yesterday. And today Peter and I are going to do our final shopping.

I’m impressed with how well the kids did.  Chris even totalled up all her purchases, deducted the amount I said I’d cover (we’re co-buying some gifts) and presented me with an accounting  complete with how much money she still has on hand.  See, all those math lessons are useful after all.  (Chris is a great one for “why do I have to learn all this, I’ll NEVER use it.)

I’ve had many memorable experiences Christmas shopping with kids.  I remember one occasion when all the money went on one gift for one person, and mum and dad had to bail out a rather anxious little child by giving them ‘just a bit more, but don’t spend it all on one person.’  Then there was a time one of them bought some delightfully edible chocolates for a gift, which mysteriously disappeared before it came time to wrap the presents.  They go out with lists of what to buy, come home and realize they’d forgotten two people.  Or, and this is the best, they decide to buy themselves a Christmas present :-P  We’ve had lost money, lost presents (how that happened, I’m not sure), lost lists resulting in impulse shopping with rather odd results.

And we’ve had what I call pyramid shopping. It goes something like this.  They’re in that big department store or shopping center with what, to them, is close to a small fortune.  They feel generous and splurge, getting the best of whatever was on their list. Halfway through they realize that their money is going a little faster than they thought, they have bought half their presents but only have one quarter of their alloted money left.  They stick to buying what’s on their list, but get the cheapest items.  Finally they have two presents left to buy and a pitiful amount of money left to spend.  They scrounge around for something to get with that amount–anything, it doesn’t matter what, as long as you can wrap it.  We used to tell them to leave Mum and Dad’s present buying till last.

This year they made realistic lists, decided how much to spend on each item and stuck to their budget, worked out ‘deals’ such as “Mum, why don’t we spend a little bit more and buy this, and say it’s from both of us.”  (Incidentally, Mum likes that idea.) And they came home with change, some ‘holiday money’ for themselves.  Excellent.  They’re growing up.