Dirty Hangman at Cottosloe Beach

After a fantastic brekkie at Sassy's on the Swan with the ladies, which had us talking mostly about babies and marriage (how scary, we are offically old!), two of my fantastic girlfriends (and bridesmaids) and I went to Cottosloe Beach to bask in the late afternoon sun. We of course were wearing sunscreen, after all we are responsible, and old, and trying to preserve our skin! Ok we are not old, we are only 23-24, which is actually young. :)

So at the beach we chose a great piece of Cottosloe grass, suncream-ed and settled into a few hours of relaxing and chatting. It all started off well, until one of the lovely ladies looked up towards the large limestone wall and was greeted by a man (of around 40) with short short short loose loose loose shorts on, and a little suprise hanging out (if you know what I mean). It was horrifying, and really embarrassing for us, and well...him, except that he had no idea he was showing the world his goodies. As one of the girls said, it is like a car accident, you know you don't want to look, but you just have to. For the whole 2.5 hours we kept finding ourselves looking, periodically, even though we didn't want to! D**n that human need to look at things you're not supposed to.

It gets better, the couple next to us were getting very friendly with each other, and they were both wearing bikini's. Our partners would have killed to be there! What is it with men and l**b**ns?

And now comes the sad part, there was a really pretty young girl leaning against the earlier mentioned limestone wall, who was sniffing paint fumes out of a drink bottle. It was heart breaking to see. All alone, and after a few hours of it she didn't even hide it as she was so out of it. What can you do in a situation like that? You can't very well go up to her an confiscate the bottle and spray paint, and there was no one of authority there that we could tell, no cops and the lifeguards were long gone. It was horrible, and I know all three of us haven't been able to get that vision of her laying on the grass out of our heads. :(

Well after that sad note, we did manage to keep our spirits up with a few rounds of raunchy hangman, haa haa I haven't played hangman since I was in primary school (with decidedly less raunch factor)! :) Oh dear, the immaturity! :)

Damn those Nitpicking Genes

I don't know about other women, but I have this unbeleivable fascination with nitpicking, which is completely subconscious. I wish I could stop doing it, as the fiancee has a shitty and closes down whenever I do it and my conscious mind doesn't want to expose him to the wrath that is nitpicking. And I know that it is bad, but it must be a genetic disposition in all of the women in my family. Damn those Nitpicking Genes!

I know that I am capable of controlling my subconsious and crazy nitpicking genes, but it does require a lot of concentration!

The stupid thing is that often the nitpick is not even about something that actually happened or didn't happen, its like my brain just invents subjects to nit pick about. The reason I am writing about this is that after some un-ruly nitpicking last night, my fiancee blew his lid (understandably) as the thing I had nitpicked about was one of the said imaginary situations. And now he is still shitty at me, I can't stand it when people are angry at me, I hate it, it makes me squirm. I always want to grab the nitpick out of the air and shove it back in my mouth before it gets within his earshot. But unfortunately I cannot move at the speed of sound.

Somebody help me to stop nitpicking, and just let real and imaginary things go! Because really, in the larger scheme of things I know that the small stuff doesn't matter.

Feeling a little over-whelmed?

Last night I went to an AGDA (Australian Graphic Design Association) Function. It was about micro businesses, or small business with 1-3 people in them. It was choka-block full of interesting information, experiences and projects by three designers who ran Micro design business'.

I walked out feeling so inspired, and so in awe of what they had been able to achieve by themselves! I also walked out feeling like I had so much to live up to! So many people have told me that I have what it takes to make this work, even senior designers have, but there is always this lingering feeling inside of "What the hell are you doing starting your own business?!" and "Are you a nutter?!"

One of the speakers even indicated that you have to be a bit of a nutter to take take a chance and start your own business, so I guess that I am definitley a nutter. So yeah, I am feeling a little over-whelmed. I am almost looking forward to the Wedding being over so I can concentrate on building this business properly and have time to get into the nitty gritty details of it all. :)

The Pizza Box that Just Won't Let Go

A few weeks ago the fiancee and I ordered Pizza Hut, which although we normally avoid we ended up having to order as all of the other good pizza shops were unavailable. So after eating it, and feeling terribly sick from the grease afterwards we disposed of our pizza box responsibly into the recycling bin.

A few days later the recycling went out, and all was emptied except the pizza box which was clinging to the bottom of the recycling bin. So the pizza box went out again this week in the recycling bin, and yet again the box remained! Now I know what you are thinking...'the box is stuck to the bottom with grease, or wedged in there'. But it's not, I checked and shifted it around!

So my story (and I'm sticking to it) is that the pizza box is either in love with us and/or our recycling bin, or that it is sitting there as a reminder of the unbeleivable bloating that was felt by the two of us after eating it, teaching us that Pizza Hut, no matter how hungry you are, is not worth the bloating.

Its like Eddie Murphy says about the chunk of sh*t in his 80's comedy routine Raw, "What does that chunk want?"

"Hey you...pizza box...what do you want!!"

Wine, Spaghetti and Freezer Defrosting

Last Sunday one of my closest and dearest girlfriends returned from overseas, she has been a travelling mirage for 9 and a half months, and I have missed her almost uncontrollably. Whenever I was falling apart I knew I could count on her and she knew she could count on me. She is fabulous, gorgeous, kind, caring, supportive and I know that she has my back in any situation.

We had a lovely Friday evening of wine, spaghetti, long chats and freezer defrosting. See, I can count on this amazing woman to have my back on EVERY occasion, including freezer defrosting! My fiancee was digging at the ice at the front of our freezer that was preventing us from shutting it, when she stepped in with the egg flipper and the tenacity of an ice mountain climber. In fifteen minutes flat my freezer was a 3/4 bigger, and I could fit all of my fish, crumpets, mince meat and steak into the freezer with no troubles what-so-ever. :)

Like I said, she is the gal who always has my back, she's the egg flipper in my freezer! :) (mmm that sounds kinky!)

Bomb Threats and Vogue

I was sitting in my office this afternoon, innocently working away, when all of these cops rocked up out the front of my building. I work in Fremantle, so at first I thought someone had been broken into. But to my suprise they came to my office door and told me to get out of the building as there had been a bomb threat!

I just closed up my laptop (which contains my entire life!) and grabbed my handbag and I was outta there! I looked around before I left at all of the lovely design books that would be soon to be exploded and tried to think of how I could get them all out of the building in 3 minutes. Unfortunatley I had to leave all of those lovingly crafted books and do a runner. :(

The police blocked off the whole street and evacuated everyone, and we found out eventually that someone had called the transport company downstairs from us, told them there was a bomb in the building and that we had 30 minutes to get out!

On the upside, nothing ended up exploding, so all the lovely design books are safe and sound. I spent a couple of hours outside on the street with my laptop, and when that ran out of batteries, I went and bought a Vogue magazine. When spending time evacutated from your office reading Vogue has a good calming effect I find. :)

So now I am sitting in the office hoping that the phone rings again, so I can go back to the grass and finish Vogue! Just kidding! ;)

Seperated Parents

Isn't it funny how being a kid in a broken home never really leaves you, and you never really get to stop dealing with it day to day. I know you just have to get over it amd move on, but boy, when it crops up it really knocks you around emotionally, just as much as it did when the s**t first hit the fan.

With my parents it always comes down to money, and it sucks because no matter how much you try to avoid it, you always end up getting stuck in the middle. You find yourseld defending each of your parents to each of them, and creating a web of bullshit to justify each of their actions, when all you want to do is say "F**k it, you guys deal with it, I don't want to know about it!" Unfortunately it can't work like that, particularly when you are planning a wedding that parents are helping pay for. Which is so much of a help, and you really appreciate it, but at the same time you almost wish that you didn't have to ask them for money, because you know that one of them or you is going to end up in tears about it.

Fun fun! Interesting how the kids don't get a choice in the seperation, but they are the ones worst affected by it. The parents always have someone to hate and blame (each others) and the kids...well they have no one to blame...so they blame themselves.

Prying my eyes open with Coffee

I have discovered that there is an exact formula to me waking up in the morning, the most important of which is coffee. I foolishly thought I could make it this morning without coffee and now it is 10:30am and I have had to make myself a delicious cup. :)

My morning formula includes; a shake from my fiancee "the alarm has gone off, get up!", then rolling out of bed into the shower, peanut butter toast, then coffee (sweeeeeet coffee). I am addict, just like so many other millions in this world. I am a fan of the flat white, no suger please! There is only a requirement for sugar with me if I am having a short black/espresso. I haven't quite worked myself up to being able to chug a short black with out a solitary teaspoon of sugar.

My mum took me overseas for my 21st present and we spent 2 weeks in Italy and 1 week in France. We loved the coffee in Italy, the cafe's were a combo with the bakery, so you could get some pastry goodness and a fantastic short black. They actually call a cappucino an American Coffee, as it is not a regular coffee in Italy. So in our effort to live the culture of Italy we chugged out short blacks daily (with a hidden sugar).

My first Bridal Flip-out

Last week, I got decidedly emotional over some paper and envelopes, and place cards. I think that this was my first bridal flip-out, and boy it must have looked funny to everyone but me. I don't know how my fiancee kept a straight face when he got into the car and I started bawling, about paper! The fact of the matter is that the paper was fine, it looks great! But it wasn't what I had exactly envisioned and the paper lady was a total bitch to me, so that didn't help my emotional state. My fiancee had to drive the car home because I couldn't see through the tears.

Then on the weekend, said paper would not work through the laser printer, putting us a day back in sending out the invites. :( Not happy Jan! But at least my fiancee was there as a calming influence, he sorted a company to print them out for us and guillotine them for $16! He is my hero :)

Traffic Light Conspiracy

Today I fell victim to the famous Traffic Light Conspiracy! Where you have to drive from Victoria Park to Fremantle down Canning Highway (one really long road) and you get every single red light! I have never had an experience that bad before with the Traffic Light Conspiracy, most of the time it let's you get at least one or two green lights, but OH NO, not today. Today my 20 mijnute trio turned into a 40 minute trip, that is a total of 20 extra minutes spent waiting at traffic lights. :(

Damn you traffic lights, YOU WILL NOT BREAK MY SPIRIT!