Can’t wait to pick up the car tonight and take it for a drive, I really missed it, especially when it comes to doing the grocery shopping, the Beetle has a tiny boot and the Pajero is normally covered in sand and mud!

I’m going to drive it to work on Friday, number 2 son wants to meet his girlfriend in the city for a day.  Not sure if number 1 son will be coming with us as he’s on school holiday camp until Thursday.  He’s doing Bubbledome – 3d Computer Animation and Game Design, it’s his first day today, I hope he enjoys it.

Husband is not enjoying the very wintry weather we’ve been having, he can’t fly in the wind and rain, so he’s getting very frustrated.  They were 4 weeks ahead on their course, so he’s not lagging but it’s very annoying.

Quote of the day:
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. — Mother Teresa

I restarted my Celebrity Slim diet this week, all the weight I’d lost for graduation has been pled back on and then some!!  I’m very disappointed in myself as I’d done really well.  Hey ho, I lost my motivation once grad was over, so I had to find new motivation.  My best friend is getting married on 19th February 2010, so that is my new motivation, plus, I don’t want to look like a whale over summer!

So here’s my stats for this week, hopefully, I’ll be able to track the figures going down

• Weight: 154.5 lbs
• Neck: 13.5”
• Chest: 39”
• Waist: 32.5”
• Hips: 40”
• Thighs: 23.5”
• Calves: 13.5”
• Arms: 11”
• Forearms: 9.5”

I’ve started swimming again, I haven’t been for nearly 3 weeks and boy did I feel that yesterday, my calves are really aching today.

I’ve started going after work, so I leave work at 4, go for a swim and get the 5.17 train, home at 7.30   The pool at the hotel is pretty small and I find that at that time of day, it’s quite busy.  Yesterday there were 5 other people in there.  I was in there swimming laps and I can’t believe that people come in after me and start doing lengths!  You fit in with what the other person is doing – dolt!  I’m quite looking forward to my swim this afternoon, it’s nice to take some time for me after a busy day.  Then I get to sit on the train and watch a movie before seeing the family – it’s not all bad.

I started the new job on Monday – it was very odd, working for the client.  I have settled in pretty quickly which is great.  it’s only an 8 week contract, so I’m immediately on the look out for the next contract.  It is hard being a freelance consultant, there’s not always positions around when I want them, hence the mess we got ourselves into.  Hopefully, I’ll have plenty of time to find the next one and there won’t be a gap in my employment.  I found a job on our local job site which would suit me don to the ground, I applied for it today, just hope they get in touch.

Software Tester – exciting OSS Project Environment
- Established Company with a unique application stack and an exciting project delivering measurable business improvements and capabilities.
- Great project with clear goals and strategy for success.
- Help to establish best practices using Agile methodology with new team, environment and stack.
****** is a ******-based Mobile Tech and Marketing Company, doing business in Australasia and America.
We’re looking for a motivated and successful test analyst with the following attributes:
- Experienced with Web App Testing (+ Web API testing ideally)
- Develops and executes clear robust tests plans
- Export in manual and automated web testing techniques (selenium or similar)
- Great understanding of Internet environments i.e. XML/HTML/AJAX/JSON/CSS etc
- Good understanding of data testing techniques
- Agile/XP/Scrum compatible (story-cards, test-driven development, short iterations, release planning)
- Mobile device testing experience would be great
- A problem solver, rises to challenges
In return, we offer a chance to work in a great environment, on products with a huge business value, in a well supported agile team environment.

Fingers crossed, the position sounds ideal, though the location is a bit further than I’d like.  We’ll have to see what else comes up in the future.

Husband is doing well, had his first supervised flight in the Sioux, he’s got his solo coming up in a couple of weeks, though the training programme has been running too fast and they’re ahead of themselves, so it look like that might get pushed to end October/early November. 

The boys are great, they’re both looking forward to a sleepover  at Church on Friday and school holidays start then too, so they’ll both be home for 2 weeks.

The project has been struggling quite a bit lately and is massively over budget – hence my contract not being renewed – I’m really pleased that I get to see the project through to release.

Had a great Yum Cha yesterday with  everyone on my team, I tried quite a few new things, I drew the line at chicken feet though!

There were some particularly lovely things, I really liked the bbq pork steamed buns.

It’s tribal happy hour at the O’s Mess tonight, the boys are babysitting for the other  Officer’s kids.  I won’t be leaving here until 4pm and traffic will be heavy seeing as it’s Friday night – everyone seems to head north on a Friday, so I’ll be lucky to get to the mess before 7.  I won’t be dressing up, by the time I get there, everyone will have had a few drinks and no-one will notice!!

I’m not sure if Husband is dressing up, only one other member of his team is going and it would be pretty shabby to have a Sioux Tribe with only 2 members – can 2 be considered a tribe??

I’m staying away from home again tonight, but I’m booked into a rather nice hotel and in fact, for a change, I’m quite looking forward to staying over.  I’ve brought all my pampering stuff and my manicure set and am going to give myself a pedicure after a nice long relaxing bath.

I’m also looking forward to tomorrow evening, I have to work out how we’re going to get the boys up to base for 5pm, I was hoping Husband would pick them up but he has a squadron meeting 3pm-5pm.

To the client this means they mitigate the risk, to us, it means we’ll keep our cars and the house – OMG!

And it’s not groundhog day because I’m going to go home tonight to see husband and celebrate that we can keep our life.

And it’s not groundhog day because I’m not sleeping in the car tonight – or tomorrow night!  Tonight I get to sleep in my own bed and tomorrow I’m booked into a hotel – albeit a very reasonably priced hotel, it still means I don’t have to sleep in the car.

Friday we’ve got an event at the Officer’s Mess and we’ll be staying on base while the boys will babysit for mess members.  And on Saturday, we shall do nothing but a little gardening and maybe husband can go fishing

Life is looking up.

Work, swim, get scared to go to sleep, overcome it and then bed down in the 4×4.  Wake a few times in the night, alarm goes off at 6.30, get dressed really quick, pop upstairs to use the bathroom and brush teeth.  Leave underground car park and head to multi storey car park.  Leave car, walk back to work, repeat.

I slept a bit better last night, I only woke a couple of times as opposed to waking every hour.  I parked on the other side of the car park last night and it was much brighter, even though I was wearing a sleep mask, I think that I would have slept better if I was over the other side where its a bit darker.

After my swim last night, I went back to work, had a sandwich and then went down to the car to  rearrange my sleeping area.  My bed is made up of a foam mattress with an opened out sleeping bag on top, a sheet on top of that and 2 king size winter duvets.  If you read yesterdays post, you’ll know that I absolutely baked and spent most of the night before kicking off duvet after duvet.  Whilst I was swimming, I had a brain wave, so after my sandwich I put my plan into action.

I removed the dark brown duvet cover off one of the duvets and then folded the 2 duvets into shapes that would fit under the mattress.  I put both duvets under the mattress and removed the sleeping bag, I remade the mattress with the sheet directly on top and put the sleeping bag over the top.  I then put the dark brown duvet cover over the top of the sleeping bag.

Bearing in mind that with 2 duvets I overheated like crazy, I thought just having the sleeping bag and duvet cover would be fine – nope, still too hot.  in the middle of the night, I kicked off the sleeping bag and just slept under the duvet cover.  I’ve learned my lesson, tonight it’s just going to be me and the duvet cover.  What’s the bets I’ll be cold?!

Fingers crossed for me today, hopefully I’ll hear from my current job if they’ll let me go work for their client, I’ll be devastated if they say no, I have nothing else on the horizon.  My line manager thinks it’ll be a good idea, it just depends on what his boss thinks. 

We need to make a payment for the cars today so that they receive it tomorrow, I don’t really want to do that if I’m not going to get another job as we’ll lose the cars anyway and we’ll be $1440 out of pocket.  That $1440 will cover a mortgage payment.  So I’m hoping for some news one way or the other on the job with the client so we can make other decisions.

My project manager has been great and has said that he would recommend that I go as it will mitigate the risk from the client’s end.  So, here’s crossing fingers and toes but trying not to get my hopes up – as they’re normally cruelly dashed.

I’ve taken quite a battering over the last couple of weeks I’m praying that I’m coming out the other side now.

And on a lighter note, new series of One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl started this week, will have to get husband to download them so I can watch them on the weekend.

We decided that staying in the office wasn’t an option, so we thought we’d try the 4×4.  It’s a short wheel base version, with 2 doors and when we folded the seats down and I could just fit.  Husband came up with the idea of removing the seats and when they were out, I fit very well, in fact, I had room to stretch out.

We got one of the foam mattresses from the roll out beds and folded one end down so that it fit perfectly in the back, I put a sleeping bag on top and a sheet on top of that.  It started to look quite cosy.  Husband told me about a time he had to sleep in his car and he said that it was really, really cold, even in the middle of summer, so we planned for it to be cold and loaded me up with duvets.  I had 2 king size winter duvets and 2 pillows.  By the time we’d finished, the car looked really inviting and snuggly!

So I drove the 4×4 down yesterday and had a good trip, it normally takes me 1.5 hours in the Beetle, it took 1.75 in the 4×4, not bad at all. About 5pm, I went and picked up the 4×4 from the car park and parked it up under the building I work in.  Collected my swimming things and went back to work for an hour.

Here’s the really weird parallel (and there are lots of these in my life), I went for a swim about 6.30, I’m a member of the health and fitness club at a 5 star hotel which is opposite my office and I go there for a swim every night.  I can’t afford to stay there, so I sleep in my car. I enjoy having a swim, spa and sauna, followed by a really hot hotel shower. Oh the irony.

After my swim, I went back to the office to have a skype chat with Husband, it’s so nice to see him when I’m away, though I think it makes me miss him more.  I feel incredibly guilty that we’re in this position and it’s not fair on Husband that he should be studying for his rotary licence and having to worry about our finances.

About 9pm, I ventured down to the underground car park.  I sat in the drivers seat of the car for a while, then I phoned Husband and told him I was scared, can you really blame me, based on the previous experience of staying at work??  He was really sweet and talked to me for a bit until I felt that I could take the leap – literally, over into the back of the 4×4.  Once I was in there, I was fine(ish!).  I still have to get out of my work clothes, but that turned out to be surprisingly easy.

I snuggled down in all my duvets and phoned Husband back.  We spoke in whispers for a while, until I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open and then said a tearful good night.

Well, you know we planned for the cold?  We really didn’t have to, it was pretty hot down there and I was wearing pj bottoms, tshirt and pj top.  I was uncomfortably hot, so I removed one of the duvets, then still hot, I removed the pj bottoms, still hot, I removed the pj top.  I finally managed to drop off to sleep, but I kept waking up because I was so hot.  In the end, I was sleeping half in and half out of the remaining duvet, but still too hot.  I’m definitely going to have to rethink this for tonight.  I woke up a few times with a start, I don’t know if I was actually hearing noises or dreaming them!

My alarm went off at 6.30 and by 6.45, I had dressed, been up to the bathrooms for my morning ablutions and was back in the car and off to the super early bird car park.  The 4×4 will live in there until about 5pm, when I’ll go and pick it up and rinse and repeat.

So Friday night we normally go out to the Mess, but this week, a guy who was on Husband’s senior Wings course was having a house warming party, so we thought about going to that instead.  We knew everyone who was going to be there, so it made sense, though you can imagine after the day I had on Friday, I wasn’t really in the mood to party.

The party started at 7.00pm, but Husband and I went to visit some other friends, still in 2 minds whether to go to the housewarming or not.

In the end we decided to go and Husband popped home to pick up some alcohol – it would have been rude not to.  We arrived about 9pm, people were pretty much sozzled before we got there.  Two of the guys off Husband’s Wings Course were there, they didn’t seem to be too bad. I found out later they’d been drinking Vodka since 6pm.

I had a few drinks, Kahlua, Vodka and Cola, my favourite – Black Russian.  Husband was drinking  beer.  And everyone was having a merry old time.  Then some Army guys turned up and they were already pretty drunk, they kept taking the mick out of the AirForce guys saying things like “I want a lift into town in a helicopter”.  I was outside when one of the Army guys was saying this to one of the guys from Husband’s Wings Course (we’ll call him John) and I told the Army guy that he’s talking to the wrong person, Husband’s colleague is a fixed wing pilot and if he wants a go in a helicopter, he’d have to wait for my husband.

John caught hold of my arm and said “I’ll escort you.”  I thought he was taking me to see my husband, how wrong was I?!

He took me around to the front of the house and proceeded to tell me how much he liked me and how he wished I wasn’t married.  OMG! Now he said quite a lot of things and it culminated in him asking me for a kiss!!  WTF!  We have to bear a couple of things in mind here:

1. He’s 17 years younger than me!
2. He’s one of my husband’s closest friends (they spent the past 2 years together on Wings course)

There is absolutely no way the feelings are mutual and I was pretty shocked to be honest.  Though, this isn’t the first time he’s done it, he said something similar at graduation, but I put it down to the alcohol and nothing has been said since, so I thought it was a one off.  How wrong was I?

I tried to tell husband about it, but he just laughed and didn’t take me seriously at all.   So yay, unwanted attention, losing my job, my cars, my house, my self-respect and my lifestyle, I’m not sure I can handle this.

We saw John on Saturday and he didn’t seem to remember it.  Spoke to husband about it a bit over the weekend and we’ve decided that we’ll say nothing this time, but if it happens again, he’s going to be told to back off, which is great, because I’ll seeing him on Friday at a party at the Mess – not looking forward to it