Thanks goes out to Sarah for tagging me. I had no idea what I was going to post about this evening… so, now you get an inside look at iTunes deeleea style… and I don’t have to drum up the creativity for a post at midnight…

Total Volume of music on your computer:
2.45gb, 530 songs, enough to last 1.5days

The last album you purchased was:
Everyone is Here: The Finn Brothers (a download, not a cd or tape!!)

Song Playing right now:
None He Lives in You:Jason Raize/Tsidi Leloka (Lion King Soundtrack)

Seven songs you've been listening to a lot recently, from several genres: All loved and listened to reasonably recently. Not necessarily A Lot.

This Gentle Hum: The Finn Brothers. – Pop
Your Smiling Face: James Taylor – Folk
Whenever I Say Your Name: Sting and Mary J Blige – Pop
Presto: Dominic Miller (as written by JS Bach) – Classical
Crazy Faith:Alison Krauss – Bluegrass
Politik:Coldplay – Alternative
He Lives in You:Jason Raize/Tsidi Leloka – Soundtrack (Lion King)

So, there you have it… Consider yourself tagged…

Honolulu beckons… As such there will be a definite tightening of the purse strings affecting the following…

1. Voting on Big Brother
2. Attendance at movie premiers (and non premiers)
3. The new desk (sigh)
4. Store bought espresso on the way to work this is a tough one… a really, really, tough one…
5. Some of my usual brand products at the supermarket
6. Breakfast at Ground Zero on Saturdays
7. Chocolate in the afternoons (this one could have other benefits)
8. Geek magazines
9. International phone calls on a whim… sorry Mum… your turn to call me!
10. Out of town weekends ok, so I don’t usually.. but even if I wanted to? No go…
11. Dinner at Ribs and Rumps or elsewhere…
12. Wailing with Jonah…

Well, it has been proven true that good things come to them that wait. I have been waiting 3 months for a package from my secret blog exhange buddy Impossible Jane!!!

Now, don’t you go getting hard on Jane because I have had to wait. I have not been waiting on her… no, I have been at the mercy of the US Postal Service and their surface mail services… enough said..

So, having got to the point of despairing altogether (becuase this is the 2nd package I have been anticipating from American Shores that hasn’t been apparent, the other a ‘this fish’ t-shirt has never arrived, though it as ‘been sent’ twice) the furthest thing from my mind on arriving to work today was an email from the receptionist saying “There’s a package from America here for you”

Baby, I ain’t never moved so fast…

Here it is…

And before you wonder why it looks all dusty and brown… Let me say I also wondered… I thought it might have got mistakenly sent on a cargo ship to Iraq or… that it had been infiltrated with some kind of fumigant from Australian Customs…

But no, on closer inspection the dust was hmmm…. fragrant…

like… Chocolate… mmmmmm chocolate….

This was because the contents of the box included all the fixings for a great hot choc (Hershey’s cocoa powder and marshmallows) and sadly a very pointed item had pierced the box, and the cocoa jar, and thus the cocoa had spread abroad… In a trail from Rhode Island to Sydney…

All is not lost… The contents were in fine condition underneath their chocolate coatings… and included:

Cadbury Fruit and Nut (the only) Chocolate… the American kind, which is different from the Australian kind, which is different from the NZ kind (my favourite) and was very tasty and a valuable cultural experiment in the differences between the same product in different places and which has mysteriously disappeared… I suspect ‘the boss’ Ed..

Whoppers – Hmmmmm more chocolate and never before tasted… 3 boxes!! Yay!!! I can see I shall have to take security measures to ensure the same chocolate thief doesn’t find them and nick off wiv ’em too.

Picture Postcards of Providence, Rhode Island. Even the name is gorgeous!

Butter Popcorn!!! Will have to hide that from Flick… she is a demon for popcorn and if she found out it was from America it would be like fighting off the Tazzie Devil to keep it from her…

As mentioned… hot chocolate fixin’s… Bring it on… just in time for winter!!! Can’t wait to see how many of the ickle tiny marshmallows fit in my mug…

Finally two RI specialities… Mayor’s own Marianra Sauce… which I will be serving with gnocchi for dinner tonight… (The bottle came with it’s label amended to include prison bars … I believe there is a story behind that which I am hoping Jane will put in the comments so we can all hear about it!!!)

and a pack of Kenyons Old Fashioned Cornbread and Muffin mix. Now, this is the piece de resistance as far as I am concerned…. good old fashioned American Cornbread is ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS!!! Jane, how did you know??????

Can’t wait to try it out… I haven’t found anything like the real thing since I came back to the Antipodes in 1991!!!

So, thanks a bundle Ms Impossible… The package was TOTALLY worth the wait!!!

And I am still in bed… Which in and of itself is not to be despaired of, except that it is 1.30 in the afternoon.

If it is any consolation it is that I was working. I did sleep in of course, surfacing only at 10am. Highly Unusual. But I sat on the Brick family babies last night and as I came in at midnight I think such a sleep in can be excused. [I think the lady doth protest too much]

The Brick family and I have known each other for close to 5 years. That means the youngest was 2 when we met… Yikes… they are getting quite qrown up and before too long they will have outgrown a babysitter!!! Since the business got underway I given up sitting on babies for all but the Bricks. So the occasional call out of the blue is welcome for pocket money and a good catch up. Chen and Couch came over last night while I was working to look at Chen’s photos from Europe…

Jealous.

Enough to get my act together and commit to going to Honolulu for the Next Big Thing in September.

Next Stop Budget City…