Hubby and I had the opportunity to travel to China for work, so we jumped at it. We also managed to squeeze in some time in Hong Kong and Macau.

Three amazing countries, but really one. Hong Kong and Macau are both Chinese territories but they are run as Special Administrative Regions (SAR). Despite being Chinese territories, travel between them is still international, with customs and immigration to be cleared each time.

They all have so much in common, but so many differences at the same time.

We started off in Shanghai – what an amazing city that is. Words really don’t do it justice. It’s big, its loud, it’s busy and the people. OMG the people. There are 18 million people registered as living in Shanghai but there are a lot of people who work there that are registered as living elsewhere in China, which means the population can be as high as 21-2 million. That’s the whole population of Australia in one city. I struggle to really grasp the concept of so many people in one place. It is also beautiful and I am still feeling entranced by it. I would go back there in a moment if the opportunity arose again. Fingers crossed it will.

We then travelled to Hong Kong which is another amazing place. Still busy, but not nearly as many people as Shanghai and being a passenger in a taxi there isn’t nearly as scary as in Shanghai. The traffic is a little more “disciplined”. There is so much there to see and do that there is no way we could cram enough in in the time that we had there. Again, I would go back in a heartbeat. There is an amazing mix of Chinese and English culture and architecture. And possibly one of the most beautiful cities at night.

Macau is different again. It has a lot of Portugese influence, in the food (Portugese tarts to die for) and the architecture in the old part. It is also aiming to become the next Las Vegas. The casinos are amazing. Think of Las Vegas and that is what the Cotai Strip in Macau is becoming. The buildings are huge, the lighting on the building and inside is amazing and the sounds of a very flamboyant city was something to behold.

The 7 days went too fast, with so much to discover. We were busy every day and the pace was hectic. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. On top of the exhaustion from the busy schedule, we flew home overnight from Hong Kong and sleeping on planes is not something I am good at. Never have been, and I’m sure I never will be. This is where the struggling comes in. I have been feeling like a stunned mullet from the time we got off the plane on Monday and trying desperately to catch up on missed sleep and overcome the 3 hour time difference. After my first decent night’s sleep last night, I have been feeling a little better today but still struggling and very foggy-brained.

I have so many photos to share and I haven’t been able to concentrate enough to download them from the camera and upload them. I have just over 600 to go through and sort the good from the bad and the just plain ugly ones. I promise I will post them soon and more about what we did and what we saw whilst away. I can’t wait to share the photos that I took with my new toy.

Sorry I missed last week’s installment but the long weekend in NSW (combined with the start of daylight saving) really threw me out of routine.

So today I have a couple of videos to share with you, both of which were emailed to me by my brother. I hope they make you at least smile. The first one is definitely straight out of the “what were they thinking” files and the second, well that’s pretty much the same. I hope you enjoy them both. After you have watched these, hop on over to Moe, Mark and Michael and see what they have posted for laughs this week.

First of all some quotes for you, then a video, because laughter really is contagious. And make sure you turn the sound up.

Enjoy and have a great week. After you have had a laugh here, be sure to check out Moe, Mark and Michael to see what they’ve got on offer this week.

I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: – ‘No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.’
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible
- George Burns

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.
- Victor Borge

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
- Mark Twain

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
- Socrates

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
- Groucho Marx

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.
- Jimmy Durante

I have never  hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
- Alex Levine

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.
- Rodney Dangerfield

Money can’t buy you happiness … But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
- Spike Milligan

Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was SHUT UP .
- Joe Namath

I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap.
- Bob Hope

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it..
- W. C. Fields

We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.
- Will Rogers

Don’t worry about avoiding temptation.   As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill

Maybe it’s true that life begins at fifty .. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out..
- Phyllis Diller

By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he’s too old to go anywhere.
- Billy Crystal

And the cardiologist’s diet: -  If it tastes good spit it out.

I have been doing some research and found some videos promoting some “have to have” products. I’m off to order mine cause I know that I can get them online, or at least on the TV shopping channel. Hope you enjoy the videos and have a great week

Check out what Moe, Mark and Michael have on offer for Malarky Monday too.

Maureen, Mark, Michael and I thought that we would all start the week off with some laughs for everyone. So here is my contribution to Malarky Monday.

Its the episode they never showed on TV. Enjoy

It was the first day of trading for our business.

I remember the feelings on that day as though they were yesterday. Excitement, nerves, uncertainty, trepidation and wondering what on earth we were doing but so excited about it that it somehow cancelled out the nerves, well some of them anyway.

That first day was strange. We had sub-leased some warehouse space and a reception desk from another company. We had bought ourselves a computer and on the way in on that first day I bought 2 second hand office chairs for $30 each. What made it strange was that every other job I had ever started I had been taking over from someone who had resigned or an existing job had been split up because it had become too much for one person.

This time was different though, there was no-one to take over from, no pre-defined jobs that needed doing, just phones to answer and that was about it.

As the days went on, the phones started to ring more, people wanted quotes done and then placed orders. We started to invoice people for jobs and then get paid. Then we had to pay our suppliers. And I learnt to use MYOB, one step at a time. Until then, I had never used anything like it and I had no idea about anything at all accounts related. We started with nothing other than a small amount of money. We bought our first forklift after 1 year of trading and moved into our own premises.

So, now 10 years down the track, Hubby and I are still working together, the business continues to go from strength to strength,  we now have 4 staff plus Hubby and I. We have a freestanding building so we don’t need to share the driveway, especially on the few occasions that we have to load semi-trailers. We have a forklift that isn’t the same age as me

It has been an amazing journey so far and one that I hope will continue for a long time to come. Part of me can’t believe that we have come this far, but I know that we wouldn’t have set out to do this if we knew that there was no chance of us making it this far.

For me its a huge achievement, I guess because of the other things going on at the same time as so much uncertainty about the future – little things like having your second child. For us, its a huge achievement too. Hubby and I have been working together for 10 years and we are still together and still happy.

To my husband – thank you for taking the leap of faith, thank you for taking me with you while you took that leap and congratulations for everything that you have achieved over the last 10 years. You are amazing and I love you.

For me, this milestone comes hot on the heels of starting to realise another dream – to study accounting. A dream that 10 years ago I didn’t know I had.

For anyone wondering whether to take a leap of faith and live your dreams, I say go for it. But go for it with your eyes open and you will succeed if you really want to.

Sorry I have been gone so long, it wasn’t intentional. So much has happened, I’m not sure where to start, but here goes hopefully in some kind of “coherent” order:

We had to move the business. Emphasis on “had to”, it wasn’t something that we had planned to do. Hubby and I had been looking at new premises since January and there wasn’t a lot around the size that we needed so that was hard work. We finally found an awesome place which is a brand new, freestanding building, which means that we have the whole place to ourselves and don’t have to worry about blocking the driveway when we have trucks there. Fantastic.

The worst part of the move – organising new phone numbers, internet access and getting the phone system moved over as seamlessly as possible. The telephone and email are critical when it comes to running the business so a lot of work on my part went in to making sure it all worked. In theory it should have. The reality was very different. We had the old numbers diverted to the new numbers and I put vacation messages on everyone’s emails so that people would get some response rather than just nothing at all. Then it all went pear-shaped. There was a problem with the phone line at the exchange so the phone numbers weren’t working – people were ringing the old number and instead of being diverted seamlessly there were being told that the number had been disconnected. UGH. Then the line hunt (where the calls automatically “hunt” for a free line for incoming calls) wasn’t working either so if someone in the office was already on the phone then new calls seemed to the person ringing us, to be ringing out when it wasn’t even ringing at our end. BIG UGH.

Then the new modem developed gremlins and decided every now and then to not work. with no rhyme or reason as to why it wasn’t working.

After several phone calls to both the phone and ADSL providers, we seem to have everything working now, a month down the track. But to say it was stressful for me was an understatement.

With Tiger in his first year of high school, term 1 was really busy – extra workload, extra homework, more after school things going on. Add to this me working extra hours in the build up to the move and after, which meant we were all distracted, busy and stressed out.

I think that almost all of term 1 this year should be written off and we can start again now at the beginning of term 2.

There have been a couple of other things going on, but they are posts in themselves so you will have to wait for me to reveal all.

And that theme that I was working on, I have been doing bits and pieces on it and its almost ready. I hope to get it activated here soon.  Although I have exams for Uni next month and a fair bit of catching up to do (not much Uni work was done due to stress/distraction of the move) so don’t hold your breath cause I don’t want to be responsible for anyone going blue.

I’ll be back soon with another post, I promise. Be gone with you maintenance mode, be gone !!!!!!!!!

I have had a few problems after changing my hosting – note to self – when changing hosts and doing a backup of your blog and necessary files, don’t leave them on the desktop of your computer and make sure that the backups etc have worked before you pull the pin on the old one. Bloody blondes, can’t be trusted.

After many hours days weeks of anguish and stress, it seems I have finally got it all to work. No mean feat let me tell you. A few times I thought that I had it right but then it all went pear shaped. I needed to slow down and go through the processes very methodically so that nothing got missed.

With several tabs open (about 15!!!!) in Firefox and at least one Filezilla window open, along with emails etc, I was chopping and changing between cpanel and FTP, as well as retrieving emailed files. It was scary for a while but I made it. And I have learnt so much, even in the last couple of days. I almost think that it was worth doing for what I have learnt, let alone the satisfaction of knowing that it all finally worked.

The only thing that I am not sure about is my feeds. So if you have come here via one of the feed readers, please let me know in the comments. I don’t know if its something that will fix itself in time (hopefully not too long) or if there is a major error somewhere that I need to fix.

Oh and because I wasn’t breathing whilst being so stressed about breaking my  blog, I completely missed my blogging anniversary – it was February 10.  12 months – where has that gone????

Its been a great year and I have really enjoyed blogging and getting to know so many other wonderful people. Here’s to another year or more of blogging and getting to know more bloggers and read their blogs.

He certainly wasn’t a lap cat, he was fiercely independent but loved being close to us. Quite often he would curl up on the lounge next to us when we were watching TV, or if I was home during the day he would just sleep somewhere in the house, appearing occasionally for some food. He had a load of personality and was great fun to have around. He was a mixed breed, but more than likely mostly Russian Blue with one parent probably a tabby as he had as I called them “tiger stripes” where some of the fur was darker than the rest.

Every now and then he would go out after he had dinner and not come home. A couple of times he was locked in a store room under the neighbour’s house and we could hear him meowing from our back yard. We just had to wait for the neighbours to appear to unlock the room so he could get out. Other times he would be at the door in the morning waiting for us so he could have breakfast. Wednesday night he didn’t come home – nothing too unusual about that and I wasn’t about to stay up all night waiting for him to come home. Thursday morning he wasn’t at the door waiting to come in when I got up. That was highly unusual. I went out the back to listen for him meowing from the neighbour’s store room. No sound

I went through the house to make sure he hadn’t been locked in a room by mistake. No sign of him.

I was worried by this stage but really had no idea where he could be. I had to be at the dentist at 9am so the kids and I rushed out of the house at about 8.45 and still no sign of the cat. While we were at the dentist I left my phone with Tiger in the waiting room as I was expecting a call about a delivery that we were getting yesterday.

Unfortunately our neighbour rang while I was with the dentist. She thought that it was me on the phone and not Tiger. She told him that she had found Ruski and that he was in their front yard and that he was dead. Poor Tiger was in the waiting room by himself and he told me later that he was very upset but he didn’t think that he could come in and see me. We left the dentist in a rush as we had to be home for the delivery. Tiger told me he had to tell me something and I put him off while I paid the bill. We then ran over to the shops to get essentials like bread and milk and while I was paying for the things we had bought, Tiger told me about the phone call from the neighbour. The three of us in a huddle and crying in the middle of a small, local shopping centre.

Ruski looked very peaceful lying on the grass in the neighbour’s front yard and he didn’t look at all like he had suffered so I am grateful for that. We had no idea what happened to him, but after talking to the vet today she said that its more than likely that he had been hit by a car and probably had internal damage. She also said that from the way that he was lying that he would have died quickly and fairly peacefully too. There is some comfort in knowing what probably happened, especially because he was so young and hadn’t been sick.

We have laid him to rest in our back garden and we will get a plant to put there to remember him. The kids are finding it hard, as I am too, and DH. But we will be OK, once we get past the shock of it happening and the initial grief.

If I had just one wish it would be that I could spend just one more minute with him, a chance for me to say goodbye to him properly. The hardest part is that it was so unexpected and it’s this that I am struggling with at the moment.

So, rest peacefully Ruski and know you will be missed. A lot. Thanks for the smiles, the laughs and just being you over the last 4 years. We all love you.