My Screaming Friend

I have not seen the lady who likes to walk down the middle of our street yelling for a while. She likes to wander down the middle of the traffic, singing and yelling to no one in particular. She once exposed herself to everyone on the street, I was one of the unlucky few who had the privelage of viewing the scene from my balcony as I was watching the sunset and sipping some wine.

I wonder where she has been for the past month?

"I want your chicken dinner!"

"I want your chicken dinner!" This was one of the first things that I heard when we returned from our whirlwind tour of Perth this weekend. Yelled from a passing car outside out apartment, a little random.

We just came back from a whirlwind tour of Perth, for my sister in laws engagement party. It was an absolute ball, totally exciting, totally exhausting and full of many emotions (all good ones of course!).

It all began with a very early morning on Friday, where at 5am outside our apartment, awaiting a taxi, I was mistaken for a pr*stitute. Oh yes, I am serious. A stylish woman, wearing a trench and designer glasses was mistaken for a prossie and her husband holding their suitcase was mistaken for her p*mp. I suppose in our area the only people really out on the street at that time of the morning fulfill these certain "job description".

Our flight was delayed a bit, and we both sat in the airport thinking the obvious, "we could have had 40 extra minutes of sleep". The delay wasn't to bad though, we enjoyed some lovely juice, coffee and raspberry and pear bread, and the inexcusable sound of Japanese business men hocking up their phlegm into the airport bins. Charming!

Our flight over was...well...not good. We were on a small plane, in old uncomfortable chairs, hence we had no sleep, and endured a flight that seemed to go on forever. Happiness was restored when we landed, and were met by my husbands family. It was so great to see them again, and I was honoured by the request to be the maid of honour for my sister in law.

It only got better from there, we had a great lunch with her fiancee, his brother, all the bridesmaids and my mother in law. Then wedding dress shopping with all the gals. Then I had the pleasure of sneaking up on both my parents, my brothers, and my circle of girlfriends throughout the weekend. I was also able to meet the most beautiful baby in the world, one of my very dear friends daughter. When I saw her I felt an incredible warmth inside me. She was a little angel, and I couldn't keep my eyes or my hands off her the whole time I was visiting. Her Mamma is so beautiful and I have never seen her as happy as she was holding her beautiful daughter. It was a dream come true to see them and a huge highlight of the weekend, along with the big engagement bash on Saturday night. it was the usual huge family crowd, and it was great to catch up with all of them, and hear one of my father in laws great speeches.

We headed home this morning, leaving Perth at 11:30am, saying goodbye to the family all over again, and all my girlfriends earlier in the weekend. It was tough to do it all again, but at least this time we knew we had a home to go to where we were comfortable and happy. I already miss them all, but I know that we have made a good decision coming here, I just feel like it's where we belong.

Mermaid...it's what's for dinner

Haa haa haa, check this out!

roses

Cars on fire

On Monday last week as my morning bus was making its way down Broadway, I looked out the window to see a burnt out car on the side of the road. I don't think I have ever seen one before, right out there on the street like that. Broadway is a pretty major street, kind of the similar to the West Perth end of Hay Street, that kinda thing. No one else on the bus even gave it a second look, or even a first for that matter.

The next day (Tuesday) I looked out for the car, and it was stuffed with a heap of blown up, colourful balloons. I wish I had had my camera with me, it would have made a great shot. The burnt out Holden, with no windows, full of balloons.

By Wednesday it was gone.

On Thursday on the way home from work, I had left a little late, I looked out the window onto another part of Broadway to see a car parked on the street. It was engulfed in flames. Fire trucks were gathered around it, hosing it down. Police cars blocked part of the road. I couldn't help but stare at the comotion until the bus had passed so far that I could no longer see it. No one else on the bus even took a second look at it, they had a simple glance and then went back to their newspapers, books and mp3 players.

I don't know whether I will ever get used to seeing things like this. Like I will never get used to the drug addict passing out on the street, as I frantically call the cops and an ambulance, who never turn up. (P.S His friend came instead, though she looked almost as bad as he did.)

Doing our bit for the environment.

Since we have been living in Sydney we have barely used our car. We use it once a week to do the groceries and also when we pick up/ drop off our numerous visitors at the airport. Today the fuel light came on in the car on the way to do the groceries, and we both tried to remember the last time that we filled it up. My husband remembered doing so just after Christmas on our way to the New Years Bash, in country New South Wales. I remembered doing it in January, after dropping one of our mates at the airport. After discussing at length we realised that mid January was the last time we had filled up the car! No kidding!

We have done about 410 k's in two and a half months. Crazy huh! We catch public transport almost everywhere we go, and we walk... a lot.

We have become very kind to the environment since we came here. Very, very kind. We no longer have a garden, only a solitary Aloe Vera plant (Amy the Aloe), so we use a small portion of the water that we used to. We hardly use our car. We don't power heating or cooling, except for a solitary fan when the humidity becomes unbearable. In the evenings we use a singular lamp to light the living room, with its energy saving globe, and we rarely inhabit other rooms of the house at lengths that require a lot of light. We always turn off lights in rooms that we are not using, I have been guilty of turning lights off in rooms that I leave, even when my husband is still in them.

Last but not least, my husband is a recylcing nazi. He recycles everything you could possible recycle. He even rinses and leaves to dry each piece of recycling (apart from the newspaper) so that it is super sparkly and clean for the recycling company. Not that is will be like that for long after it is mixed with the rest of our building's recycling, non-rinsers the lot of them! (snorts in disgust) But you gotta give him credit for at least trying to smoothen the recycling process.

We participated last night in Earth Hour. I was so committed that I did the dishes to candle light! How good is that! I don't know how seriously a lot of people in our area took the whole Earth Hour concept, as there were people with heaps of lights on, heaps and heaps. Even the terrace house across from us that "supposedly" support the Greens. Oh, yes! I saw you people with your Greens poster out the front, and ALL OF YOUR LIGHTS ON!

I suppose the only thing that we are guilty of, is leaving our tv, dvd, sound system on standby, and my husbands computer. Also, occasionally I put my laptop to sleep, instead of turning it off and unplugging it. Not bad, though we are constantly trying to do better.

Porridge

I have been making a lot of porridge lately. Dad has always made us kids porridge, for as far back as I can remember. He makes the best porridge, with lots of muesli! It's so much better with muesli as well as oats.

Everytime I stand infront of the stove and make our porridge, I think of my Dad, and how he taught me to make it just right. With the right balance of each of the ingredients, spooned into the saucepan. Then after it's served, adding a raw or brown sugar sprinkling to the top of it. Mmm yummy.

At the time you learn these things, you don't realise how special those moments are. When your parents teach you something, that becomes a tradition through out your life. Treasure the moments.

Farts and Marriage

Husband: Oh dear god! Do not breathe through your nose!

Wife: You are so lucky that I have a cold. (As she walks away from the stench at the couch to clear the table) Else you might be signing some papers about now.

Husband: Oh my god, my nose is burning!

Wife: Well you brought it on yourself!

Tulips

On the weekend I bought some beautiful tulips, the same ones that we had at our wedding in the bridesmaids boquets and at the reception. They are a lovely brilliant orange with yellow tips. I love them. They are so perfectly rounded and structured, they are living even after they are cut. They continue to grow in the vase, like the cream ones in my boquet that grew about an inch during our wedding day. They also continue to react to light after they are cut, they sleep in the dark and open up when exposed to light.

Hard to beleive that we have been married almost a year.

Bus trip turn around

A few days after my bad bus experience post I had a great bus day! The morning didn't start that well, the guy at the newsagent still stared right through me, and my first bus driver did manage to drive into the trunk of a tree! Oh yeh, I am not joking! But that resulted in a lovely walk to the next bus stop with the little 75 year old lady who was sitting next to me on the 'tree' bus. She was visiting her daughter and was heading to central to go on a little day trip to meet a friend. She was sooo cute!

On the way home from work that evening I met another lady, she was wearing the same perfume as me and was visiting a friend in my subhurb. I also met a little old couple who required bus advice, which I am not that good at giving, but I managed this one well as they needed the same bus mine. The old guy was born in my home town and grew up on Rottnest Island! His Dad designed this open air cinema in the middle of Perth, that has now been torn down. We had a lovely chat on the way home, and I was actually dissapointed to get off the bus, when I normally rush of there like a drug addict running from the cops. (Too politically incorrect? Ok maybe, I'm sorry. I have been trying sarcasm on for size, I think that in the right scenario's that it fits.)

Colour my Betty

Two posts in one day! It must be Christmas!

I stumbled across this on the Mighty Goods online store, which has some hilarious wares. At first I couldn't beleive what I was seeing, then it all sunk in and all hell broke loose on the hilarity front.

Make sure you hang on this site long enough to read all of the clientelle endorsements. My paticular favourite is, "I didn't know I still had a Betty, thankyou for reminding me..." (Haa haa haa haa)

(P.S. Betty is such a polite name for a woman's anatomy, much more polite than my cheeseburger label.)

Terrorism Finger Puppets

For when you require that great political gift for someone special.

Find them here at mossonline.com

My public transport journey…

AM

• Usually begins by missing the green man at the traffic lights and waiting a whole cycle before I am able to cross.
• Moves on to trying to buy a “travel ten” from the newsagency, and perhaps the daily paper. From a man who appears to be blind and doesn’t see me standing right in front of him dangling the paper and a $10.00 note. He could also try smiling once in a while so he seems more like a human being and less like a terracotta warrior.
• Continues with me standing at the bus stop, either being sprayed by a high pressure hose seeking to remove last nights vomit from the sidewalk, and/or being harassed by the possible owner of said vomit as he looms in front of me and try’s to crack on to me. Me responding to his dribble by saying, “I do not want to talk to you” Sounds cruel I know, but you have to cut him off at the pass because if you smile politely he may follow you to work.
• Then I get on the bus and stand like a sardine, pressed up against a rather unattractive male who attempts to look down my top, or read the newspaper over my shoulder. If I am lucky enough to get a seat it will be next to a high school student yelling at her girlfriend down the phone, “Oh my God, did you see what Chantal was wearing yesterday? Oh my god, we so can’t talk to her anymore.” (Please tell me that I didn’t sound like that in high school!)
• Another passenger yelling at the bus driver, for no reason other than they haven’t had their morning fix of coffee yet, and the bus driver didn’t think to read there mind and stop when they didn’t physically push the stop button.
• I then depart bus A and head for bus B, which I squeeze onto amongst throngs of uni students. Though this trip is getting easier the further into the semester they get, and realise that they don’t want to go to uni anymore, or don’t want to sit in that lecture. Yay for me!
• Get off the bus and grab a coffee before getting to the office and scrubbing the public transport germs off my hands. “Aaah, get it off, get it off, get it off, get it off!” (aka Eliot from Scrubs style)

PM
Usually much of the same, yet in reverse, but sometimes deviates slightly to involve the following:

• Bus driver not letting me and a 75 year old man on the bus because he has decided that he doesn’t want a full load, and also can’t be bothered opening the front door for us, only the back one to let people off. (this happened today)
• Large man with no elastic in his tracky dacks, singing on to his very loud portable radio (think he may have had a few screws loose if you know what I mean?) poor guy I felt sad for him, radio is probably his only friend. I stopped feeling sorry for him when he exposed his large butt to me as he alighted from the bus, and I “Vomited in my mouth a little.” (aka Dr Evil style)
• Speaking of vomit; realise I am beginning to feel a little car sick on the bus, and can’t figure out why, realise that a previous passenger has left a little vomit present at the back of the bus that has not yet been cleaned, stench is nauseating. Perhaps it was the same guy from the morning.

Luckily you do find enough nice bus drivers, passengers and non-butt exposing people on the public transport system that keep you from stopping taking the bus.

Snakes on a what now?

Occasionally my husband makes me watch action films, often bad ones. Let’s face is most action films are bad ones. There have been a few goodies, like Bad Boys 2 was ok, the most recent James Bond I found enjoyable, in fact I like most of the James Bond films, and so was Fifth Element (actually I love Fifth Element).

We made a visit to the dvd store on the weekend and after some browsing time, he wandered over to me (meekly) with a dvd in his hand, which one you ask? Well it was the mutha of all cr*p action films, Snakes on a Plane. When he showed me the title my entire body cringed, like it never had before. Not unlike the kind of cringe you may experience when you watch something really embarrassing happen to someone, like when they have a giant booger hanging out their nose and they don’t know it. I felt embarrassed for my husband, who was standing in public with it in his hand, recommending that we watch it (poor guy). I also I felt incredibly embarrassed for the people who made it, cause even though at the time it seemed like a money maker, just how many people are going to take them seriously now? Come to think of it, there are a lot of people out there who love sh*t movies like this, so the producers will probably be able to make something of a similar floor scraping calibre, and manage to make another truckload of cash. If only they were donating that truck load of cash to a third world country instead of buying themselves a new Mercedes, I might be more inclined to go and see more of their cr*p movies.

So Snakes on a Plane more than lived up to its reputation, as you have probably guessed by now. It was cringe worthy from beginning to end, and the song in credits, well that was the absolute icing on the cake. Which was possibly the most hideous thing that my ears have ever had to experience, even more horrible than Paris Hiltons contribution to the music industry.

The only highlight for me was seeing Samuel L Jackson, Which made me think of Pulp Fiction, all the great scenes that Tarantino constructed, how great the character development was, and how d*amn funny and memorable it was, (I have already begun forcing Snakes on a Plane out of my consciousness). I am still a little confused as to why Mr Samuel L. Jackson agreed to be in this film. Was it only to say that totally forgettable line, “I am sick of all these *beep *beep snakes on this *beep *beep plane!” (rude words are replaced with beeps so I don’t get kicked off blogger). Perhaps they should have cast Michael Jackson in his part, I definitely would have seen it at the cinema then, if only for the laughs alone. They could have had one of the snakes flick the end of his nose with it’s tongue and knock it off, like a chip from a porcelain tea cup.

For all the smokers out there...

For all the smokers out there, this site is worth a look. The Art of Quitting

Long ago I was a little bit of a smoker, what I mean by that is that I was in a foreign country and I smoked whilst I was there, in café’s, on the train, in super markets, in the snow, whilst drinking coffee in Amsterdam. It was all very romantic, but in the end I came home, and I decided to stop. I haven’t smoked in ages, years now and I will never smoke again, it was a romance for a while, but it wasn’t meant to last. Also how romantic is it to wake up one day and have self inflicted lung cancer.

There is something about France…

There is something about France and all that is French (well maybe not all) that I find so attractive and enjoyable. I just finishes watching a movie set in France and it made me want to listen to Edith Piaf a much loved and admired French singer, who became a sort of icon I suppose for the French. I was introduced to Edith’s music by my Mum’s partner, and I love to pop it on and listen to her and imagine that I am sipping hot chocolate in Paris. Not that hot chocolate is particularly French, but I loved sipping hot chocolate when I was there, after visiting galleries with my Mum. Other things that I love about France are the galleries, the architecture, the history and even the people (well most of them).

My favourite movie ever is set in France, though it is directed by a Polish director. Trois couleurs: Bleu by Krzysztof Kieslowski is a magic film about liberty or as we mostly refer to it; freedom. Check it out, and whilst you are there watch the other two in the series Trois couleurs: Blanc and Trois couleurs: Rouge.

Aah, I want to go back to France for another holiday. I should learn the language first though, I am sure I would like it even better then.

International Women’s Day

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, so I thought that I should write something on this poor ole blog which is continually not being updated, due to me taking advantage of the rights and privileges that I have as a modern woman. I read an article today in the Sydney Morning Herald about women’s lib and how so many women fought for equal rights and opportunities for women in the workplace, in politics, in family life, and within society. It was a great article, and one of the things that shone out for me now is that women seem to be able to do everything, and achieve great heights in everything through pure dedication, and hard slog. We work hard to get where we want, and when we get there what do we do? We keep on working towards the next goal.

I know that in my group of girlfriends there are all high achievers, who seem to be incapable of not working hard every day of their lives. They constantly seeking perfection in all they do. They are amazing and fabulous women, and I am so lucky to have them in my life. But we all seem to have one thing in common, working so hard that we rarely give ourselves a break, and creating new dreams, goals and aims to live up to replace the ones that we have achieved. Are we incapable of resting a minute to reflect on all that we have achieved, and congratulating ourselves?

Sometimes I look at my life and I think, when will all this striving and working come to an end, when will I get to that place where all my goals have been achieved? It seems that keeping my house spick and span, having a first class honours degree, running my own business, freelancing, working part time in a studio, eating healthy, looking healthy, exercising, feeling great, looking great, being happy, striving to be the perfect wife, daughter, sister, friend, cousin, designer, woman is not enough?! Instead of just being happy that I can achieve all of the aforementioned things, I create these new goals in my head like; learning foreign languages, doing an PhD in Design and Fine Art (cause one is just not a high enough achievement), affording a great house in a great suburb, making a comfortable nest egg for a future family etc etc etc. This list grows every day, as if I didn’t have enough to achieve and manage already.

Maybe I just need to slow down, and stop adding to the list for a while, enjoy what I have achieved to date, appreciate where my decisions and hard work have gotten me, be satisfied today instead of dismissing satisfaction because I still haven’t achieved all tomorrow’s goals.

So this is my challenge to all who read this; take a minute to breath at the end of your day, and reflect on all the fabulous things you have done during the day, and all of the days leading up to that day. Remember all the goals you have already achieved, remember all of the great decisions you have already made, all of the hard work you have already done. Allow yourself to enjoy the satisfaction.

It’s like winter

It’s winter today in Sydney. Blustery, windy, with a slight chill on the breeze that is sometimes soft and sometimes buffeting. This city always has a way of making you feel insignificant, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Back in Perth, you can often feel as if you know everything, you know everyone, you can expect that it will be a sunny day the next day. But this city is humbling, it keeps you guessing. There is such a huge and dense population that you often feel dwarfed by the rush of people that come at you when the train doors open, and by the totally unexpected weather that makes you regret your choice of floaty summer tops in February. Then you sit at home in the evening, in jeans and a comfy sweater, you stare out the window at the rain and remember how much you love snuggling on the couch in winter. That’s the power of this city, it keeps showing you the things you don’t expect when you don’t expect to see them.

That distinctive smell…

I love walking around in Sydney. It’s like being at the theatre. Lots of colour, sights, great outfits, cute people, young people, old people, sad people, happy people funny people, and… that smell. Eeewww, what is that smell?! It reminds me of…poo, mixed with body odour, mixed with urine, mixed with vomit, mixed with stale alcohol, mixed with… god knows what else. A very pleasant walk can so quickly turn into nostril burn, gagging, and the need for a paper bag.

Maybe it’s just the inner city suburbs, the ones that suffer the immense influx of people all the time that have (in parts) this unbelievably disturbing smell. There really is no other way to describe it, other than it being totally disturbing. I can’t even really describe it in words, there are simply no words for that smell that so often turns a glorious walk into a rush to the nearest public restroom. Though the rest rooms may be just as bad.

What is happening to the young women of Hollywood?

I tend not to pay too much attention to Hollywood Starlets and other famous people. I don’t mind the odd flick through a Woman’s Weekly at the dentist, or the doctors, most of which tend to be several months old. But this week, it has been a bit hard to avoid the images of a desperate looking Britney Spears. A normal reaction might be to dismiss the news and not give it a second thought, which is probably what I would normally do. But the images of this poor young woman have been really haunting me. I can’t help but feel sorry for this poor girl, it seems as though she is just not coping with the complexities of her life at all.

It seems like she has lived almost a full life in her young years, having a successful career at a young age, being a party animal, getting married, having kids, and getting divorced. All in such a short amount of time, perhaps even a normal person could not cope with this.

Another, Lindsey Lohan, who also seems to be heading further down the road of a breakdown, and the recent exposure of the general oddness that was Anna Nicole Smith’s life. Clown make-up, drugs whilst pregnant? If this is true, I find this extremely scary.

Nicole Ritchie, who seems to be getting skinnier and skinnier at an alarming rate. The Olsen twins, I don’t know which, but one of them seems to not be coping well with the pressures of her life.

It seems that fame and money is not in fact the perfect scenario for these girls. Although the glamour of their lives, the red carpet, the dress ups, the money may have seemed worth it, perhaps these girls are just not able to cope with it all, or maybe it is not even what they really want for their lives. Who knows? Only them I suppose. I just hope that they recover from whatever it is causing them so much pain, and that other young women take note of their mistakes and try not to follow in their footsteps.

Every time I see this young girls, I think, “Thank goodness my life is not like theirs, I am so lucky”. I am not rich, I am not famous, but I am extremely happy, and in the grand scheme of things that is all that matters.

So I have officially returned...

So I have officially returned from the dead. Well maybe not the dead, but the constancy of 16 hours a day of work, all day, almost everyday. I have started my new part time job at a studio (which I am loving) and have been busy, busy, busy putting out several other print jobs for my own clients. Hence, the lack of writing seen here in recent times.

January was a great, but exhausting month and the beginning of February has been the same. I am hoping to be able to settle a bit more now, and have time to actually wash my hair and cut my toe nails. As I am convinced that people around me are beginning to think that I am incapable of personal hygiene. It’s funny how the little things just fly out the window when you get busy, like my anal-ness about the cleanliness of the apartment, the emptying of the over flowing washing baskets, the ironing of the shirts so that my husband has something to wear to work. You are thinking, “Why doesn’t he iron his own d*mn shirts!” The reason is this, when I see him iron a shirt my skin crawls, because he is not doing it properly d*amn-it! There is a system involved in ironing a shirt to perfection and he doesn’t use the system, and I can’t teach him “the system”, because no one can implement “the system” quite like I can! Now you are thinking “That poor guy actually chooses to be married to this crazy lady?!” Yes, yes he does, because he goes to work looking glorious in perfectly ironed shirts.

Now that I have been blabbing about “the system” I can’t even remember where I was heading with this entry. That is how passionate I am about “the system”. So I will move on to the perfection that has been our Saturday morning so far. It has involved; a glorious sleep in; several glorious coffee’s, sitting on the couch watching J-TV, reading Harper’s Bazaar, Notebook, Instyle, and the newspaper; staying in pyjamas till you reach the point of feeling guilty that you are still in them, when during the working week you would be taking your lunch break about now. Aaah, glorious!

Snoop Dog

My husband's response to news of a Snoop Dog concert:

"If I want to hear someone mumble incoherently for an hour, I'll go talk to the people in the park*"

*Note: We have a few choice characters hanging out in our local park.

Sooo Stressed

Have you even tried having a part time job and tried to run a business (which is putting out a huge publication and various websites and brochures) at the same time? If you have, I feel your pain! If you haven’t, seriously, save yourself the heart palpitations and skip it all together. It’s not worth it!

I am having a lot of fun at the moment, but I have absolutely no life! See, I am a worrier, I worry about everything. I am not kidding. I worry that a total stranger might walk up to me see a speck of dirt on my top and judge me as being an incompetent human being. So, this whole ‘so many things to do at once, multiple deadlines, working days and nights and weekends’ thing, it is becoming a little too much for my head and my little heart to deal with.

I think the key is to stop thinking about it, and just DO IT!

Aaaaaah stresssss!!!!

Significantly Slack

I have been significantly neglecting the old blog in the last few weeks, or week, in fact I cannot even remember how long ago I wrote. I do have many, many, many good reasons why, beginning with a constant stream of great visitors (who have been thoroughly distracting in a good way), me starting an new part time design job whilst still managing my own business (where I am currently designing a very in depth publication). So yes, I have been extremely, extremely busy, the last week working days and nights to get on top of the workload.

On the up side, I have really felt like I have settled into Sydney now, and I feel at home in my environment, at home, at work, and in the greater areas that we visit regularly. I am really beginning to feel like we belong here and that we can make great things happen for ourselves here.

We have begun to take a deeper look at property now, as we feel confident that we may actually be able to afford something nice over here, not like the crazy market in Perth, where we were convinced that we would be renters forever. Even though property is expensive here, we feel like we will end up being in front, and better off than if we had decided to buy in Perth.

I have really enjoyed going to an office several days a week, interacting with fellow designers and advert guru’s and contributing to a team that gives you feedback for the work that you do. I am having a great time, and I am so glad that I decided to take that step into part time work, even though it inevitably means that I will be flat out most of the time with work, often during evenings and weekends.

So yeah, all is good and I am not dead, and now that I am settling back into routine I will be a little more reliable with this.

Happy Aussie Day to all, hope you have a great day with family and friends. Party on, and think of us watching the fireworks spectacular at Darling Harbour.

She cracks me up...

Now I know it is a bit slack to link to another person's blog instead of writing an entry yourself. But this girl, she rocks my blog reading world. She is a hilarious writer and never fails to dissapoint. So if you all want to add another blog to your daily reading, choose this one. (She is a designer too!)

See it here. Her last entry is a blast, the last paragraph is my fav, nothing like the love of a realistic man.

Ok, so I know this is my third post for the day but...

Ok, so I know this is my third post for the day but...cool things just keep happening. Actually, let me rephrase that, wierd things keep happening.

Earlier today I went for a walk to the post office and on the way a man passed by me, he was readjusting himself (if you know what I mean). Now I don't have a problem with a little 'readjustment' in certain circumstances, like not when men are talking to me or looking at me, but doing it in a hidden corner with a timing of around .2 of a second. But this guy, well he had his whole hand in the trousers, was heading straight towards me on a busy inner city footpath, and the 'readjustment' lasted about...however long it took him to walk 50 metres. Which is waaaayyyy longer than the previous .2 second time limit. I was horrified!

Just now, actually about ten minutes ago, a woman stood directly under my apartment window and dropped her dacks in the middle of the footpath, on a busy Friday night, in a street filled with people. Then she yelled "I am going to vomit!" All I could think was, 'Please, please, please go away, as I don't think I can take seeing your g-string clad a*se as well as your vomit'.

Now I didn't think I was really prudish, but after being exposed to 2 counts of 'readjustment' by both men and women, one involving naked a*se, I have decided that I am a total prude. Though, I am looking forward to the Madri Gras in March, thought any 'readjustments' there I expect would all be made in jest.

I know this sounds insensitive...

I know that this sounds insensitive...but...God there are some dero's in our area! I mean, seriously we live in a melting pot of dero!

Buds

Sunlight

The Funniest Photo I have ever seen!

This has to be the funniest photo I have ever seen. What a shocker! What do you think he's thinking about? I bet something along the lines of, "Man I look hot in this off the shoulder number, this oughtta bring in the ladies!".

I was searching for images for work and came across this one when I searched for 'Male' 'Portrait'. The picture is called "good guy in Siberia", let's hope the both him and the photographer are frozen before they make any more photographic evidence like this!

Happy New Year!

After only a couple of minutes home I hear my first siren, and after an hour or so my first domestic dispute since returning from our New Years trip. Aah the serenity. There’s nothing like a nice afternoon filled with sirens, screaming and smashed glass to make you feel right at home again.

Happy New Year to all, hope that you had a hoot of a time and didn’t have to bad a hangover yesterday.

Barking & New Years Eve

Every night at about 10pm a group of people stand in the park across from our apartment for about 2 hours and let their dogs bark at each other. The dogs bark and bark and bark, for TWO HOURS! All I have to say is FFS why don’t you just take them off their leads and let them kill each other! At least then I will be able to sit on my couch in peace and then lay on my bed and sleep in peace!

I love dogs, I am a dog person, I wish I had a dog, but we live in an apartment and that would just not be fair on the poochy. But if I had a dog I would put the d*mn thing through some training so it doesn’t bark for TWO HOURS every night. Another thing! How about not walking the d*mn dog with all your friends and their d*mn dogs at 10PM at night! How bout that?!

Well…now that I have that off my chest, I hope that everyone has an amazing New Years Eve! Just make sure you don’t build it up too much, cause if you do, you will be disappointed, expectations are a fungal rot on a New Years Eve. Instructions are as follows; go with the flow, say yes to everything (except cheating on spouses and drugs), drink and be merry, make sure you kiss someone you love at midnight!

...not very xmassy

"You may not want to go into the bathroom for a while"

"Why's that?"

"All that rich Christmas eating has caught up with me"

"Oh God...can you put the fan on or something"

"Well it's not really pongy, more just looks gross"

"Well, that's what the flush button is for love"

"Oh yeh"

God, He/She

Yesterday, I met with my God mother in the city for a catch up, I had not seen her in about 2 years so it was nice to have a bit of a chat and catch up on what both of us had been doing. She has always taken her position as my spiritual guide and support very seriously, and always asks me how my faith is doing. Well, well, well, that is an interesting question as I recently got married in a garden by a celebrant, with no mention of religion what so ever. So obviously I have not turned out the perfect Roman Catholic that perhaps my parents originally intended. Not that my parents are ridiculously active in the Roman Catholic Church, my mother definitely isn’t and my Dad is more of a fan of the Anglicans.

She is really a lovely woman, my momentary visits from her over the years have always been enjoyable, and I know that despite the fact that we haven’t spent heaps of time together throughout my life, that she loves me. I know that she tries to reserve judgement on me not being an active Christian, and perhaps the reality that I don’t even know that I believe in organised religion. I think I do however deep down inside believe in God, or whatever he/she is, and whatever he/she is supposed to do or mean to our human existence. I don’t believe that he/she created the world though. All that creation in seven days stuff has always seemed a bit to unrealistic to me, even when I was young and impressionable. The thing is, I still celebrate Christmas and Easter, god knows why (pardon the pun) as I don’t believe in Christ/Jesus. Well maybe there was a guy who was a do-gooder who was born and dedicated his life to helping the sick and the poor, like Mother Teresa, though I have a feeling being a nun she was inspired by this guy.

See, the whole concept of faith and belief seems to be so important to us humans, like believing in ourselves, and each other is not enough. That thinking that we can be in charge of our own destiny is not good enough, and dealing with the consequences of our own actions without passing blame to a cause is not possible. This is why I have such a hard time thinking/talking about religion, because it seems to me that people heavily/partially involved in religion seem to be incapable of shaping their own destiny, making decisions on their own, or capable of reigning themselves in when they misbehave, always asking their respective God/s for forgiveness instead of asking for it from the people they have hurt or even from themselves.

I think that young people (well I suppose I can only speak for myself here) are totally terrified by organised religion. After all, what do we see all the time around us? People committing mass atrocities against other people and doing it in the name of their God and religion. Whoever God is I am sure that he/she would not be happy with people enforcing their ideals through violence onto others, unless of course he/she is a nasty b*astard, who knows? So many wars, killing sprees, cultural take-overs, deprivation of civil rights take place everyday in the name of religion, and churches wonder why people are so opposed to religion these days? Just look at the entire of human history, yesterday, today and what horrible things people will do tomorrow in the name of religion.

I have heard many people tell me that Christianity in particular teaches people morals and values, but I don’t know whether that is necessarily true, I think that you learn these things from the people that surround you, and the people who love you, like parents, grandparents, extended family, friends, sisters, brothers, and partners. I have learnt more about life, love, care and support from my family than any church could have taught me. So I suppose I do believe in a sort of religion…the religion of family and friends, and the richness of love and humour that these special people bring to my life.

After my coffee date with my godmother I went to the Art gallery and then wandered back through a park towards home. Some gothy teenage boys were hanging under a huge fig tree in the park, and they yelled at me “Merry Christmas” then following that “I hate Christ”. I didn’t really feel anything after I heard that, no need to defend this Christ, whoever he was. How do we know he even existed anyway, but through stories that were written in a book by a collection of human beings. This is all we know of any God, through collections of historical material, all created by men and women. So how do we know it was true at all? Can science tell us? Can the believers convince us? Maybe it’s all to do with the human need to have faith in something, anything, a being that oversees and protects, and an institution that delivers the so called message from that being to the lowly parishioner. I wonder what would happen if we stopped believing in churches, religion, in a god, and started believing in ourselves, and our fellow man?

Well, for what it’s worth, Merry Christmas. Even if your not a believer, like me, perhaps we can just set this time of year aside for quality time with the ones we love.

The biggest of the smalls

I was going to leave this rant until after Xmas so as to not spoil the spirit of this time of year. But the other day I went to buy some tights at Supre and that just tipped me over the edge. I don’t know if any of you have noticed but over the past few years the sizing of women’s clothing has gone through some serious tweaking. By tweaking I mean that what used to be a size 8 or 10 is now no longer a size 8 or 10, it’s more like a 10 or 12 respectively. Now I know I shouldn’t b*tch about being a size 8/10, but when this first started happening all I could think was that I was on a slippery slope from eating too many carbs. I have never been self conscious about my body until now.

At Supre I was trying to buy a pair of brown tights, and on the pile on tights there were the following sizes; s, xs, xxs, xxxs. Seriously XXXS! That size should not exist! That size only fits stick insects and pre-pubescent 14 years old girls! What is the fashion world coming too, when a skinny girl feels bad about going shopping for clothes? Maybe I am being a drama queen, but all I can think about is how horrible must it feel to go shopping when you are a beautiful size 12, or 14? Why does the fashion world deem it necessary to make beautiful women with realistic body shapes feel bad about themselves, after all aren’t these the majority of the buyer market? The cannot seriously be that many stick insects in this world that require an entire fashion market to cater to them.

What is the fashion world coming to? Why are they alienating the majority of their market? Doesn’t seem like smart marketing to me.

P.S Happy Birthday Mamma.

A Hug

When I watched this I got tingles all over. If only we would all open ourselves up to this idea a little more. In this crazy, uptight, scary world we all tend to walk past each other as if the other doesn't exist, or the other person is going to molest us. How did we all get so terrified of each other? I am a prime example of this, I walk down the street clutching my purse, glancing suspiciously at every passerby like they are all out to get me. I am sure they all stare back at me with the same suspicion, especially when I am wearing one of my crazy outfits.

I think that this was filmed in Sydney, so next time I go into the city I will have to look out for this guy, and give him a hug.

Check it out here.

Reflective

I have been feeling very reflective in the last few of days, to allow my brain to catch up with our new life, and all of its new challenges. My poor old brain and heart have taken a beating over the last year really, not necessarily a beating in a bad way, perhaps a description would be ‘a workout’. Yes, ‘a workout’ is definitely what I have experience in the heart and the head department in the past year.

This time a year ago I was working for a design studio, and since then I have:

• Left my job
• Dealt with various family crisis (sad face)
• Started my own business from scratch
• Got married (happy face)
• Moved into a shared office, where I learnt heaps and had heaps of fun.
• Moved out of a shared office (sad face)
• Moved across country, which resulted in losing all physical contact with my best friends, family and newly discovered design guru’s.
• Realised that perhaps I wasn’t as profitable in my business as I wished (fair go though, it’s only been 9 months since I started it)
• Realised that without work face-to-face contact and separation from loved ones, I have in fact become…a loner…oh yes.

Mmm, yes. I know what you are thinking, “poor little brain, poor little heart”. I know that I have my husband here with me in this new town, and believe me he really is my best friend in the whole world. But…each of us need other things/people in our lives other than each other. Unfortunately we have long ago left behind that completely amateur idea/reality of a relationship where all you want to do, is spend time with your partner 24/7. I know, and he knows that this is not healthy for a person’s brain, and heart. We can support and look after each other without being permanently attached at the hip.

So…do I have a plan. Oh yes! I have a plan! I am setting the wheels in motion…perhaps when the time is right I will share the details.

Pain in the neck

A few times in my life I have been punished for being a woman when I have been drying my hair. Oh yes, I put my neck out whilst drying my hair! Now it could be that perhaps I don’t have a great chair or posture when working, perhaps my neck got cold last night with the fan blowing on it, and perhaps I should not dry my hair with such vigour. Either way I am now stuck half laying down, with hot packs all over my back and neck, pumped up on antiinflammatory’s and trying to gently stretch my neck and back. I feel like an invalid and the only thing that seems to be becoming more certain is that soon, I may not be able to move…at all.

Classic Comment

My husbands response to an Idol Teeny Bopper Singer on a commercial radio station:

"It's like someone just shat in my ear."

We are made for each other.

New Neighbours

Now that we have moved we have a whole new set of neighbours, of which we can regularly hear turning on and off light switches inside their apartments. Welcome to apartment living, where if you are lucky you won’t hear your downstairs neighbours fart! Speaking of farts, and the downstairs neighbour. He really likes garlic, and I mean really really really likes garlic. How do I know this? Well every lunch time I smell this really intense garlic smell, like I am myself wrapped in a giant garlic clove. Now I know I am occasionally prone to exaggeration, but I am not exaggerating this time, I promise. The guy must put at least 15-20 cloves into whatever he makes for his meals! Ok maybe 15-20 is a bit of an exaggeration, but the garlic is making my eyes water and we live on different floors, so I am guessing that he is using quite a bit of the stuff. I am also guessing that even though I haven’t heard him fart as yet, that he must be letting a heap of those go, and I am thankful that they are not seeping up through my floor and into my nostrils. This may also explain why the guy is still single. Ok, so I don’t know for sure that he’s single, but I have never seen a woman/man (you have to have an open mind, this is Sydney after all) go into his apartment, and with all the garlic I am pretty convinced that they never would.

I suppose Garlic Guy could also be trying to ward off vampires! You never know, you have to keep an open mind, after all this is Sydney! So really I should be sending him a little thankyou card with the words “Thanks for keeping the vampires away with all the garlic, our families thank you for protecting their loved ones” Aah neighbours, neighbours, neighbours. We did end up seeing our old neighbour in Perth one last time, the one that we thought was dead. She was in fact not dead, but backing her car out of her drive, after she had removed all of the plant growth that had engulfed her wheels of course.

We do have another neighbour; she is not in our building but the one behind ours. She religiously practices her violin everyday and it is so lovely. I can regularly be seen taking out the trash, then holding my nose to block out its smell, and prancing about the back alley listening to her swooning violin playing. She’s really very good.

I love my husband...

A great email that I received from my husband the other day...

hi lovey, how you doing?

smoochies
hug
hug
smooch
*grope*

looked at those mac computers very quickly this morning. seems we could get a 20" one for ~$2,100. We can look again in April/May to check pricing and whether they have ironed out the bugs. you should find out if there is a forum or whatever that updates the issues on the move to the new processors.

He's great!

She’s coming tomorrow!

Tomorrow one of my girlfriends arrives to stay with us for a few days, and I am super excited. Also I have this un-nerving compulsion to scrub my apartment from top to bottom, drive to Ikea and buy little frames to put up all the pictures I was going to attend to later, go and buy some Christmas paper and make decorations, baste a turkey, scrub the apartment from top to bottom again. It’s not that the apartment is dirty at all, I cleaned it on Monday and I do general cleaning every chance I get during the day, it’s just that I have this ingrained need to have everything perfect when people visit us. It’s not that my friend will even mind, she won’t at all, it’s just that I will worry that the house is not perfect and will passive aggressively torture myself if it’s not. Damn these OCD Italian cleaning genes!

Sooo, this afternoon I will drive out to the shopping centre and get some flowers, some stuff from Lindcraft and a paper shop to make my house look even more perfect than it already looks! (Oh dear, I really do worry about myself sometimes!) I am worried about killing myself on the way to the shopping centre though, as I have not yet driven over here and I am worried that all the Sydney scary drivers will ram me like the insane taxi driver did a couple of weeks ago. See I just can’t risk that kind of stress as my head may explode if the car gets ruined in addition to there being one speck of dust on the coffee table.

So despite all the torture that I will inevitably put myself through today, to ensure that the house is perfect, I am still super excited about my friend coming over here! I have really missed my girlfriends!

P.S Mental note: do not paint nails in enclosed spaces like I did this morning. When you paint your nails in an apartment the size of a shoebox it is important to open a window so that your husband doesn’t come home and find you shrivelled up dead on the floor from the nail polish fumes. Nail polish poisoning…another side effect of having everything anally perfect, including your fingernails.

Mental Note

Even though the local Pizzeria's Hot Prawns pizza, with king prawns, hot chilli, garlic & herbs seems like a good idea at the time of ordering and consumption. It is never worth it, due to the bathroom agony experienced the following day. All of you remember that!

Flat

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel like doing absolutely nothing? When no matter how much you try to set yourself up to do something, prepare yourself with coffee, lining up all of your folders and writing your to do list, you just can’t seem to begin? I am having one of those days, when it seems that I can do everything else in the world but anything constructive. I have to pull myself out of it, how, how, how do I do that? I just feel…I dunno…flat…very flat…extremely flat. I can’t explain it.

That was earlier today…now I am feeling much better. See all that has to happen is that you get half of your Christmas cards done, enveloped and addressed, whilst feeling super efficient, as it is still November! Then your fabulous husband comes home, notices that you have had a sh*tter of a day, takes you out to dinner and gets you liquored up, cheers you up with great conversation, and then you feel even better. Aaah, I love my man.

Public Urination

I have started going for a walk everyday, for fitness and also to have a bit of a look around this new city. I have been choosing new directions each day and it’s been a great way to examine all of the areas that we do and do not want buy into in the future. On Monday I went for a great walk, lots of beautiful streets and houses, great weather. Which all ended with me walking down the road and some old guy showing me his winky, and then proceeding to do his business! Yeah! I am not lying, it was the most disturbing thing I have seen in a long time. You think he could have just found a bathroom rather than scarring the 100 or so people on the street.

I know it happened on Monday but it took me a couple of days to be even able to come to terms with the fact that I had seen something that looked like a prune, before I could then expose you to the horror.

Bambino or Bambina?

I received a message last night from on of my girlfriends back in Perth, that her lovely little baby was born yesterday evening. When I read the message I got tingles all over! It’s so exciting to think that she has brought this gorgeous little bundle into the world, and how much it will change her and all of us for the better. Congrats love, on a b_e_a_utiful healthy baby. I can’t wait to see the photos.

(P.S Is it bambino or bambina for a girl? Or neither? Was trying to get all international on your a*ses, but have possibly failed miserably)

The morning I had a visit from a Cherry Picker.

As I type, there is a cherry picker parking outside our apartment building and orange traffic cones being spread around it to stop traffic. You know why? Well when we moved in there were several cracked windowpanes in our little 1920’s windows and these guys, they are here to fix them. I thought that maybe they would come in the apartment and fix them from the inside as it seemed like the obvious course of events. But noooo, apparently there are three guys and a cherry picker required. They are not yet on their way up, probably packing the panes of glass into the picker part of the cherry contraption.

So this post will be a live post, well not posted live, but written live as opposed to my regular posts reflecting on the day. You’re in for some fun!

Oooh, it’s coming up! Yay! (Can you tell that perhaps I have been a little starved of human contact?) Wow they have blocked half of the pavement too, must be to prevent people form being showered in glass and suing the bajeezes out of them.

Oops, fell behind a bit, was setting up presentation boards. Ok, so there is glass all over kitchen, lots of banging, and new panes going in. All I am thinking right now is that those guys had better bloody come in and clean up my kitchen, I can’t even look at it right now as my head may in fact explode.

Thank god, they just came to clean up, and they have just left, and I have new windowpanes. The thing is when boys clean up, they don’t really clean so it’s crystal clean, so there are tiny glass shards all over my kitchen and all over the window sill in the lounge. See Boys, a dustpan and brush don’t really cut it when you are dealing with teeny tiny shards of glass! Didn’t your mother’s teach you anything! Vacuum cleaner time for me and I have had enough of the live writing business, doesn’t give me time to think of anything witty.

P.S Did I mention the glass boys were cute? But they can’t clean very well, so sorry all you single gals, that makes them a no go zone, then again they would come in handy in the event of a glass breakage. They were not as cute as my husband of course.

Jaded

Today at 2pm in the afternoon a man walked down our street ranting and raving, yelling ‘f’ this and ‘f’ that, yelling at imaginary people, as you do. Me, being a killer for drama rushed out onto the balcony to check it out. I looked down, and he was in fact yelling at no one in particular, mainly just the people in his head. The interesting thing was that all of the surrounding people just walked right by him, as if nothing was happening, as if this kind of behaviour was something they see everyday. Heck, in this neighbourhood it is probably something you see everyday.

See this is how you can tell that I am not Sydney born and bred, because we would react to something like that in Perth, we would stare and then run, or cross the road at least. Here they just continue walking right past the guy, even bumping into him, and he doesn’t even notice, he just keeps on yelling at the people in his head.

It’s interesting what we get used to in our lives that we no longer even see anymore. I have been picking up on a lot of that kind of stuff lately, as I seem to notice everything here, cause it’s all new to me, whereas everyone already here has seen all this and worse. I suppose someday I will become as jaded as they are.

Our interesting weekend…

Our Saturday began with a lovely sleep in, a stroll and great coffee and toast from our new haunt. I bought the paper on the way home and read the first section of it, the Sydney Morning Herald is huge so I like to attack it one section at a time, and after each section I generally need a break.

The Saturday had started well, then we decided to go to the shops to get groceries, window shop (e.g. look at things in fancy shops that we can’t afford). The problems began on the way there, the traffic was hideous due to the nearby markets, and also that it was perfect beach weather. The hubby got so frustrated he debated turning the car around, but I was able to calm him and we kept going. Retrospectively I wish I had said nothing and that we had turned around. The shops were fine, but I was over the window-shopping pretty quickly, we were looking in a lot of electronic shops and I was dragging along my lime green granny trolley, so I kept bashing into things. We were however looking for headphones for me to use Skype, so I was in no position to complain.

We got to the groceries in the end and things were looking up, we had found a Woolworth’s so I was back in my element. All the products I used to get in Perth were there, the prices were cheaper than Coles, and I knew where everything was, the only difference was that the range was much bigger, which was, well fantastic! (Yes, that’s me, getting excited about grocery shopping!)

Baah booww…the joy did not last for long. We lost the car. Well, we didn’t lose the car, we just forgot where we parked it, which was somewhere under possibly the biggest Westfield shopping centre in the Southern Hemisphere. It was ok though as he had a plan, I was to stand with the trolley whilst he scoured the floor where we thought we had parked. See, they have these little codes, but we had forgotten ours a little bit, kinda half forgotten, and there were no distinguishing features about the car park. As in, I thought ‘Hang on a tic, I remember that corner and that sign, but hang on a tic there is another one just like it, and another, and another. Holy Potato everything down here looks the same!’ We did eventually find the car, but not before the husband had scoured 2 levels of the car park.

When we finally got out of the car park, we were side swiped by a taxi, who decided to mount a curb so that he could gain one car length on us. (Shall we bake a cake and write “Was it worth it?” on it for you Mr Taxi Driver?) After he scratched the side of the car he proceeded to drive away, no swapping of details or anything. Lucky I am the bag lady and carry notebooks and pens with me. We spent the rest of the afternoon feeling decidedly sorry for ourselves and our poor little car, and then we made police reports called the taxi company etc etc.

The car scenario was the real low point. I made a roast for dinner which would have been great except I am used to a cool oven requiring a very long cooking time, and the one we have now is much hotter, hence I over cooked the roast. There is nothing I hate more than over cooked meat, that dry texture is horrible. Hubby loved it, though he may just have been saying that to cheer me up.

Sunday was much better, though we both still felt a bit out of sorts due to our run in with the crazy that is, the Sydney Taxi Driver. It involved completing the enormous read of the paper and the movies. We saw a strange one called Children of Men, a great film filled with action and emotion. Check it out.

Aaah Sweet Broadband

Aaah sweet Broadband, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. You don’t leave in a constant state of desperation by disconnecting every hour.
2. You take less than 5 minutes to load a web page.
3. You allow me to be on several different sites, msn and email giant files all at the same time.
4. You are wireless, with no messy strings attached.
5. I can sit on the couch, in bed, on the floor on the dining table, maybe even in the stairwell and still have access to the net.

I love you broadband.

Now that my pathetic spiel over my inability to deal without broadband is over, isn’t it interesting that such a together woman can fall apart when she doesn’t have a fast and continuous Internet connection? My life seems to depend on it, and in terms of business and earnings it does. I wonder what would happen if there was a nuclear bomb and there was no internet, I suppose that wouldn’t matter as my concern would be the fact that I may no longer be living…ok enough of stupid internet talk, it is going no where.

In other news, the weather here has been absolutely loopy today. I felt like I was living in Antarctica except for the snow and ice part. It was so d*mn cold and the wind was so strong, I thought the apartment windows might explode. Did I mention that I was wearing leather boots, a scarf and a jacket with a hood and it’s November! November People! The time when I should be lazing on the beach, wearing pluggers and singlets.

Also I saw this guy today who looked exactly like Lenny Kravitz, except I think that this guy way gay. He had the whole stringy fro, black jeans, leather jacket, cool boots, buggy sunglasses thing going on, he was totally hotttt! Hee hee looksies only I promise.

Ok, chicken time! Hungry belly demands food.

Four seasons in one day… that’s definitely true

Today Sydney has fulfilled the prophecy stated by Crowded House all those years ago. This morning, it was warm and sunny, then midday it was pouring with thunder and lightning, currently (afternoon) it is lovely and sunny again! What the! I am only glad that I don’t have to leave the house otherwise I would have had huge issues with what I put on this morning, Sounds nerdy, but I always tailor my clothing to the weather, but you can’t tailor outfits to this kind of weather, it’s just impossible!

Speaking of clothing, if I have to go to Bondi Junction Westfield one more time and stare longingly at all of those pretty clothes in the windows, I just might die. I wish I could take a photo for you guys, but they would probably arrest me for taking photos is a shopping centre, I could be planning an attack on Dangerfield for Christ’s sake, in order to spring myself this seasons hottest jeans! The thing is, I have found it a little difficult to compete with the fashion-istas over here, for some reason my little gold ballet shoes, no brand jeans and stripy t’s don’t seem to cut it here in Syd-o-ney, because they are soooo last season daaarrhhling. At least I haven’t been hanging out in Double Pay (oopps I meant Double Bay) otherwise I am sure that I would be feeling even more self conscious about now.

See gals, this spring it’s all about dresses, dresses and more dresses! Oh dear god, soon I have to go to an Xmas function, I have nothing to wear, best go get me one of those spring dress numbers.

My hands hurt…mine hurt more

Last night after eating our delicious Satay Beef, we popped together two of our new storage cabinets for the lounge. Well, ‘pop’ might be a little bit of a lie, perhaps ‘struggled’, ‘moaned’, or ‘blistered’. In fact, we haven’t even finished the second one, the doors still have to go on, but we looked at each other and new that we couldn’t go on.

Let me clarify that my husband in fact did most of the work, I just tightened screws, because he has done so much building over the last few days, putting together the dining table and all the chairs, that he can hardly move his hands. Poor Love.

I will eventually get the photos up on the web of the whole moving in fiasco, perhaps tomorrow. I started back at work yesterday, and it was insane! I logged on and had about three thousand emails from 5 days away from my computer. We haven’t got the internet up at home as yet, so I am down at the café down the road till my laptop battery dies. I come down here twice a day and send and receive email, and hopefully have enough battery at the end of it all to read my daily dose of news and dooce. I am looking forward to being able to curl up on the couch again, or in bed with the wireless internet though, it’s comforting to be able to flip open the laptop in the morning and know that you can find out anything that you want to just by typing in two little words…google.com

First Day at School

This morning I dropped of my husband at the train station for his first day at work. He seemed very excited and although he doesn’t seem to be nervous I don’t think he slept as well as he normally does. I can still hardly believe that we are over here in Sydney now and our new life over here has begun. The last 5 days have been a blur of unpacking, buying fridges and furniture, unpacking, eating out, unpacking, cardboard, packing paper, unpacking etc. You get the picture.

There have been emotional ups and downs, though there have predominantly been ups, despite the fact that we have been living in a tornado of paper and boxes which has been hard for my OCD cleanliness side to deal with. I have been able to keep the kitchen, bathroom, and our bedroom spotless however, so this has helped me to deal with the fact that we are still surrounded by boxes in our living room, and have to lay on the ground to watch Scrubs.

A few of the emotional downs have been that my uncle described our area of choice to live as nice, except that we are surrounded by prostitutes and people who spend their life with the Ice Fairies. Oh dear…another was that this morning in the paper there was a story about a serial rapist who climbed into a woman’s window during the day and assaulted her. This was in a different area to where we are, but you can imagine my concern working from home during the day. Thank god that we live on like the 4th floor of a secure building, which is impossible to climb up. Can you see now why I can’t watch scary movies? I end up going through all of the terrible things that could happen to others or me after I see them, and then don’t sleep for days!

The emotional ups for today are that we get our new red couch delivered and all of our funky new lounge room cupboards. Finally, some place to put all the unpacked items. We will spend the entire evening putting together storage units! What fun!

Images of boxes, unpacking, and copious amounts of packing paper coming soon...

Extremely, extremely slack…and this is why

I have been very slack with the old blog lately, and it is because I have not had two moments to rub together over the last several weeks.

In the last few weeks, we have:

• Cleaned the cr*p and junk out of our house
• Prepared for removalists
• Travelled to Sydney to find an apartment
• Found above apartment, after much walking, pain, torture, exposure to the worst apartments in the world, and crying.
• Had our home packed up by three hilarious men, all of which have now seen my underwear collection, as they packed all of my belongings.
• Dropped our car with a company who will truck it over to Sydney
• Moved into my mum’s house
• Lived out of suitcases (still currently doing)
• Had a big goodbye BBQ
• Welcomed a brother back from Europe
• Had several mini break downs
• Had several little fights which we have simply dismissed due to our current stress levels
• Completed ridiculous amounts of design work in between all of the above

We are flying out in 2 days! We have reached the goodbye stages, which I am never good at. I am actually a little worried as I haven’t had a good bawl about leaving yet, and I am worried that when it hits I may not walk for days afterwards.

Stitch & B*tch

I wonder if this is what happens to my mum's sowing group when they go down south for their stitch and b*tch weekends? A bit OCD, but that' cool, I can relate to that, plus it's great animation.

Click here to see what I mean.

Ok…so we are moving to Sydney!

My un-employed husband is no longer un-employed! Oh yes, that’s right! My days of coming home to my househusband are almost over! Of course before I get to experience a workingman again, we have to pack up our entire lives and move to Sydney…small sacrifice! Haa haa, not really.

We got confirmation on Wednesday, and we have almost cleared out all the unwanted cr*p from our unit, which has been a really cleansing experience. I recommend that everyone imagine that they are moving interstate and cull all their cr*p so they can feel as cleansed as I do right now. I feel freed, from all of the useless papers, collected postcards, dusty books, old candles, teenage clothing (yes I am 24 and still had a huge box of teenage clothing). It is really amazing how much stuff really means nothing to our lives, yet we all seem to carry it around with us. I never thought of myself as much of a hoarder, I always do a twice-yearly sort and throw, but I have held on to so much useless, ugly, trashy things, all of which I actually disliked but felt compelled to keep.

This week we will have all of our stuff packed, loaded and trucked and will move in with my Mumma, and we will go to Sydney to look at apartments next weekend.

It is all happening so quickly, all of this change. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, as it has forced us to make quick decisions and not over think things too much. My only concern is that after about a month of being there that it will all hit us, and we will get a bit homesick and lonely. We will have each other, and some of my family also. But once we settle in, I think it will hit us that this is a really big change.

Two in one day! Now aren't you Lucky!

Last week I did a wander in Freo near my office and took some shots with my little digi camera, here they are.

Commitment Lacking

Ok, so I know I have not been super committed to this site in the last week. Many apologies. I have just been up to my ear lobes in work and stress.

Please however to go and enjoy these latest photo's on Flickr. I have finally uploaded the photos from my joint b'day Karaoke sesh, and very soon there will be some nice arty shots of Freo.

Prep for the 1st Baby Shower

On Saturday I am going to attend my first baby shower, for a girlfriend of mine. She is an absolute doll, and I am sooo excited about going to the shower (and about the baby of course). So yesterday, in preparation I went out to buy her a gift. I was going to get her all the Bunnikins gear, you know the ceramic bowl, double handled cup, spoon with the handle, all that sorta junk. This was the traditional gift in my family for babies. But then I made the huuugggee mistake, and just let me emphasise huuugggee mistake of going into a really funky baby shop in South Perth, and came out with a couple of other items which do not match the previous description…at all! I still really want to get the Bunnikins stuff but now I can’t afford to get that too!

I swear to god, that no woman over the age of 21 should be allowed inside a baby shop! No way, hoossaay! Especially not in Spring! I was like a kid in a candy store! There were cute dresses, jumpsuits, giant rubber ducky’s, booties, hats, cool t-shirts with “Got Milk” written on them. How were the Bunnikins ever going to compete with that? They just didn’t stand a chance. I wanted to buy everything in there, and I mean everything!

I got home with a huge bag containing two expertly wrapped gifts and the cutest card ever (!) for my friend and her future daughter. The first thing I said to my husband was that under no circumstances was he to allow me near that shop again, especially when we eventually pop out our own watermelons. Because I swear, if I go there again, I will spend every cent we have, and don’t have (on credit) in that shop, till there is absolutely nothing cute left in there.

I must admit, I might even have to hold him back too, cause when I told him about the Got Milk baby t-shirt he just about ran for the keys and the car to go down there and buy it. But I mean who wouldn’t? That’s funny sh*t!

Anxiety

I think I may have just had an anxiety attack or something?! I started freaking out, breathing really fast, feeling that all was hopeless, very fidgety, very agitated, and couldn’t even sit down until I had washed the dishes, scrubbed the stove top, and dusted the entire house! What does it all mean? And why?

Well, my husband has been unemployed for almost two months now, he left his old job and had a bit of a well-deserved holiday, he hadn’t had one in three years except for our honeymoon. So in this period he has had several interviews, one has progressed really well, and we are at the stage where huge hints have been dropped, but there is no actual approval as to when he is going to get it. We were supposed to find out yesterday, but the guy in charge was away on business, then today but he has been in meetings, and now time wise it is too late for them to call us today. So we won’t find out till tomorrow.

I know this shouldn’t be a big deal but the potential new job could mean a move for us that would be quite significant, that might develop quite quickly, the idea of which is making every muscle in my body tightens up, including my date. (Too much information I know, but I am really trying to communicate just how stressed I am feeling by this whole situation of uncertainty). I am not stressed by the fact that we have to move, but by the fact that we ‘almost’ ‘maybe’ ‘might’ have to. I am one of those people who need to know either way. I don’t deal well with uncertainty.

Another thing I am not good at is patience. Whenever I have needed something, I have always just gone out and got it, and I have made it happen pretty quickly. But our current situation is something that I can’t rush and I can’t force. And that…that is what is shitting me! In my head I am thinking why don’t they just hurry up and call us already, and put us out of our misery! Maybe if they knew that I was feeling so uptight they might hurry the f*ck up! (Haa haa, I doubt it, very much).

So now that I have had my rant, removed every speck of dust from my home, and my stove is sparkling like an f-ing 3 carat diamond, I am finally feeling a little better. I have decided that in order to cope, I am not going to think about the job, the possible move, or anything to do with that situation, it’s not happening until it’s happening. So no body, I repeat NOBODY bring it up, and if I do, stop me…please…for the preservation of my sanity and the environment which I am fast filling up with disposable anti-static dusting cloths.

Of course this whole ignorance is bliss scenario will go down the toilet when we go for dinner tonight at the in-laws and they ask about the job. “Has he got it, has he not got it, when will you know, maybe he hasn’t, where will you live, what will you do with your job?” Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! Help!

Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I may yet find a better picture to put at the top left for this Pink month. But I thought it was important to mention that this month is Breat Cancer Awareness Month. That is also why some of the parts of my site are pink, mainly the text for now, as Blogger is a little inflexible with colour changes. :)

Have a look at these sites to see how you can contribute or raise awareness for Breast Cancer in your area;

National Breast Cancer Foundation

Pink Ribbon

Cheers
Bec

Bubble Wrap is the Bomb

This is the coolest! Must have more!!!!

Lotto hopes dashed…every other week

When the lotto prize reaches above about 9 million dollars, my husband HAS to buy a lotto ticket. After he has bought one, or I have bought one for him, he then sits down and proceeds to list all the things we can do when we win the lotto. Like first we will go on a holiday, then we will buy a house, a new car, take the family to China for the Olympics. All good stuff! The thing is that I have never really been into the lotto; my family aren’t big lotto ticket people. Hence I don’t really see the excitement in buying a piece of paper for 10-15 dollars and then hoping, that out of the millions of people who have also bought a ticket that we will win. Maybe I am a realist but I don’t really think that the chances of winning are that high, at all! But as he says, you have to be in it to win it!

After our discussion of all the cool stuff that we will buy, do and experience I must admit that I do get a bit excited. But I always have to pull myself back to reality and think hang on a sec, this is the lotto, the chances of winning anything are extremely low. After this discussion, I always feel like maybe our current lifestyle is not really good enough. L In reality it is! We are doing great for people in our early/mid twenties, we have minimal debt apart from our giant HECS debts, we own lots of shares, and we studied hard to get good jobs that we love doing, we are married and we are happy! What’s better than that? Well maybe a slightly higher salary would be nice, but we don’t really need to win lotto.

Last year I bought a lotto ticket for us and I won $40 (not much), but the next week I won $120. I caught the bug after that, but only for a week. I bought a ticket the week after that and then we won nothing. See I am happy to be committed to something as long as it is committed to me also! And Lotto YOU FAILED ME!

The only upside to buying a ticket for me is that at least I know I am contributing money to Lottery West. My hard earned Lotto ticket money is helping a lot of charities and community projects, which are funded by Lotto grants. Apart from the extremely distant possibility of winning, the fact that we are donating to a body that makes a difference in this community is the only reason I allow the hubby to keep buying them tickets.

Happy 100th Post!

Hello Peeps,

Happy 100th post! December last year I wrote my first post, and wondered whether it would be a good idea to even go down this path. But I have found this blog a huge release for frustrations, funny bits, questioning myself, and expelling some of my crazy into the world without creating irreparable damage.

So Happy 100th post and please enjoy the latest photos that I have posted on Flickr, preview on the right! See the rest here.

Cheers
Bec

Serial Email Forwarders

I don’t know if ‘Forwarders’ is even a word, and I don’t know if you can tell that this is going to be a rant, about people who only send forwards instead of putting thought into writing something of actual use!

It was over 8 years ago that I received my first forward, initially they were a bit of fun, but it did not take long for the novelty to wear off! When you first got internet or email you were so excited that you actually had an email whether it was a forward or not, though after a little while you came to realise that the people sending them couldn’t actually be bothered writing you a proper email. Instead they sent you an email full of someone else’s photos, poems, warm fuzzy’s etc. Like that is supposed to make you feel good?! (*hands currently making obscene gestures*)

I actually have people who only send me forwards, no normal emails. No “Hi, how are you going? This is what I have been up to…”, only forwards, I repeat, ONLY FORWARDS! Am I not worthy of an actual email containing the contents of their own heads? I think this is the major reason that I hate forwards, they are sent instead of actual intelligent conversation. Imagine if we spammed each other in person! It would be like someone asking you how your day was, and then you sprouting information about a completely unrelated topic about someone else, or something else, along with some pictures of a dog hugging a cat. What would be funny is if you used those crappy forward quizzes to actually find out more about people in person! Even with people that you already know! “Hi, I have known you for years but what is your favourite ice cream flavour, what was the name of your first pet, and like, what are your four favourite movies of all time?!”

Mmm, are you all dying from the saturation of sarcasm in this post?

See, the thing is, that I see forwards like junk mail now, I pick it up from my letterbox and I stick it directly into the recycling bin, it doesn’t even make it into the house. If I see any email with fw: in front of it, you can be sure that I will delete, delete, and delete. Because they are useless trash, especially the ones with funny photos that I have seen a million times, or came out about 3 years go. Often the initiators of the forwards will only catch on about three years after something has first graced the internet.

After all that ranting, if a forwarded email does make it through, and I do open it, if it is good, I will still not forward it. Unless it is really, really really good (does not happen often), then I will write a short introduction, delete all of the crappy previous addresses that the email has been forwarded to, and personalise the email for the select few I am forwarding to.

This brings me to Forwarding Etiquette. If you cannot resist that urge inside you to forward, here are some useful tips for making your habit less dangerous to others:

• Do not, I repeat, DO NOT forward crap forwards (this should bring you down to about the two worthy forward emails a year).

• Do not forward those crap quizzes. They are long, boring and no one has time to do them. If you really think that you need to know more about your friends/family, call them on the phone and ask them questions, it’s quicker and more fun.

• Do not just hit forward and leave 2000 lines of other people’s email addresses above the forward! Delete all but the essential information before you hit send. This way people will not have to scroll for ten minutes before they actually reach the forwarded contents, along the way being greeted by people’s “Haa Haa’s” and “Hee Hee’s‘.

• Edit the top of the forward to meet and greet the people that you are sending it to, so they at least feel slightly like they are worthy of your words.

• Do not select everyone in your address book and send the forward to them all. Believe me, your Grammy does not want to see the rude cartoons, and your macho hormonal brother does not want to see pictures of kittens.

• Do not forward emails with explicit content to people’s work emails, unless you want to get them fired.

Aaah, I feel better already, all prepped to move forward into my email ‘fw:’ free, though inevitably with a letterbox full of junk mail.

This make my ovaries turn

Dooce's Wednesday entry makes my ovaries turn over see it here.

Cheeseburger & Black Beetle Equals Eeewwww!

(Warning: if you are offended by people using the Lord's name in vain, do not read this post. Also if you don't like insects any where near cheeseburgers.)

Person A
Hey guess what?
I have the grossest story.
Trauma central!
I was at the gym Tuesday night, and I just changed into my exercise gear that I got off the line that morning. Anyway, all of a sudden, I feel this sting in my undies

Person B
Jesus!!

Person A
I rushed to the toilet and there was a HUGE black beetle biting me!
I freaked!

Person B
Holy sh*t!

Person A
Almost vomited

Person B
Was it in your hamburger???
LOL
You know what I mean by hamburger right??

Person A
Haa haa haa, you're funny, and yes!
I was traumatised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Person B
Oh my god!!!!!

Person A
I got shivers, up my spine.

Person B
That’s horrible!! I would have died!!!!

Person A
It must have come in from off the line.

Person B
I had a bug in my hair near my forehead today and I freaked
Ooops its actually cheeseburger, care of dooce:

“Most Anticipated Moment of 2003: When the ultrasound technician pointed at the monitor and said, “See that cheeseburger? That means it’s a girl.”

“My husband’s most memorable quote of 2003: “You’re going to have to teach our daughter about her cheeseburger.”

Person A
Haa haa haa haa haa haa haa aha, cheeseburger, haa haa haa.

Person B
Lol, cause it looks like a cheeseburger!

Person A
Oh my god, man, beetles freak me out!
I couldn't believe it.
I get chills just thinking about it.

Person B
You are going to have a whole cheeseburger/beetle complex now.
That sh*t is scary!
I would have cried.

Person A
Yeah, I almost dry retched

Person B
Oh god, that’s horrible, you poor thing. You will be scarred for life.

Person A
Oh well.

Pike'in It Up

http://www.joshpyke.com/

Check this guy out, awesome tunes! The Middle of the Hill reminds me of when I was a kid, such a great collection of childhood memories, you can watch the video at this link. :)

Retraction

Just after my birthday I received a lovely birthday card, which I wrote about on this site. The card was from my Dad. In the card my Dad mentioned that I was entering into my 25th year. After I saw the 25, my initial reaction was to jump to the conclusion that he thought I was 25, after re-reading the card at a later date I realised that this wasn’t the case at all. Just that I was entering my 25th year, which actually is CORRECT!

Initially I didn’t bother writing a retraction about the 25 hoo haa, as no one in my family was reading my site. Until I foolishly thought that I could trust my 16 year old brothers. (*Note to Self: you love your brothers but they are not yet capable of keeping all of the secrets you might like them to) I just had a panicked call from my good ole Dad, saying that he was so sorry that I thought, that he thought that I was 25! He thought that I was offended because my Bro’s told him I had written about it on this site, which I had, but hadn’t corrected myself, until now.

So I stand corrected:
My Dad does not think I am 25
My brothers aren’t capable of keeping secrets just yet, but that is only natural for 16-year-old boys who get excited when they are telling stories!

And:
Many more people now know about my website than I had initially anticipated, but I suppose that I am comfortable with that. After all, one of the reasons I started writing was so that people would read, why else would you publish written works on the Internet!

Welcome to the era of the public blog, these are exciting times! Like Dooce and many who have come before me, I have managed to upset someone close to me, my good ole Dad, who is a fantastic card writer, Volvo driver and loving and concerned parent.

Sorry Dad, love you Dad and loved your card.

“I love you fart mouth”

Wife: I love you friend
Husband: Whoa, bad breath
Wife: Sorry
Husband: You ate eggs again didn’t you?
Wife: Yeh, for lunch, on toast.
Husband: When you eat eggs, and then breath on me its like you are farting in my face!
Wife: Mmm I love eggs.
Husband: Mmm I don’t like farts.
Wife: I love you friend
Husband: I love you fart mouth.

Spring is in the air, and my ovaries are alert!

I am sitting in a new café in South Perth, its sunny, and its spring. Finally! Spring is here! Yay! My ovaries are in over-drive as around me because all around me are pretty mummy’s and their baby’s/toddlers in the café, all taking their kids to the live play school show on a few blocks from here. D*mn you ovaries,! I am not ready for those urges. I am only 24! Though at 24 my mum has at least one child, possibly with the second on the way, aah the good old olden days, when getting married and popping out young-uns was the key to every woman’s success.

It will be 25 degrees today, sunny and perfect! Gotta love that time of the year when you can pop your washing out on the line and it’s dry in under an hour. Oh dear, did I just relate the beauty of spring to the fact that I can create maximum efficiency in my washing schedule?! I did…and one, two, three, I have turned into my mother. Although her ability to multi-task is something that everyone should aspire to.

So back to these spring ovarian motions. I always get freaked out when I see little kids, and I go oooh aaah. Because my brain is saying NOOOOO and my ovaries are saying YYEEESSS. What is it with this urge to procreate? It must be deeply imbedded in a woman’s psyche. I have heard rumours that a breastfeeding mothers actually get milk leakage from their br**sts when they see babies???!!!! Maybe I got that wrong, will have to Google it and confirm when I have more time.

I just wish I could switch the ovaries off for a while, till my brain has caught up with them. Its like looking at a car crash when I see little kids, you don’t want to look, but you can’t look away! You can’t stop yourself from looking at their little outfits, and their little shoes, and their little hands, little feet, big eyes. Oh Jesus, there I go again! Ovaries! Now you listen here! I am just not ready!

My Hermit Neighbour

We have been living in our little unit for close to two years now and most of our neighbours we know, or at least wave to. Two of them even gave us cards when we got married. There is one neighbour in particular however who is like a hermit or something. She lives directly next door to us and I have seen her ONCE (yes really!), reversing out her driveway about 15 months ago, and since then, nothing.

The only reason I used to know that she existed was that her car would sometimes not be in the driveway, and then sometimes it would. Then it dawned on me that she must be a shift worker who works odd hours and that was why we never saw her. Problem solvered I thought!

About 5 months ago around the time we got married, the garden began to look a little shabby, and her ugly metal roller shuttered windows were always closed, and the car, it stared to stay permanently in the carport. I also started to get paid visits by her rather shabby looking cat, who sleeps in my garden beds, and mopes around my garden. The poor thing look decidedly underfed, its fur is really matted, and it looks severely underweight. It is from about that time on that we have come to know her as our strange hermit neighbour.

I also noticed that the only visitor she seemed to get was a green Hyundai Excel on Friday evenings, and sometimes on the weekend. It turns up and a decidedly butch looking lady gets out of it, and waddles inside. Now my husband and I have bets on whether our hermit neighbour will get a visit from her l*sbian lover or not each weekend. Cruel I know, but we are cruel, heartless w*nkers so it fits.

More recently the garden has turned into a forest of waist high weeds, in fact some of them are probably higher than my head (which is not hard, considering I am almost the shortest person in the world). There are also weeds in the driveway, also waist high, growing from in between the bricks. They seem to have grown around the car also, the navy blue Holden Astra is almost enveloped by weeds. So I am guessing that she hasn’t actually left the house in say, 4-5 months.

We got a sign of life (not her life though) two days ago, when several of her friends came to her house, three cars to be exact and hauled some crap onto the lawn for the suburbs junk collection, happening next week. Gave us an insight into the inside of her hermit zone, a white wooden bed head with a gold antique strip, and a queen size mattress in hippy green. Wow, what does it all mean? Nothing I expect.

Mmm, its funny how curious we are as humans, all I want to know right now is what the heck is going on there? What’s with the metal roller shutters that block out all the light, the whole not coming outside thing, the whole not feeding your cat properly thing, not bringing your bins in after they are emptied, like ever???!!!

I have been tempted to go and knock on the door with some baked goods or something, to make sure that she is ok. But there is always that constant toss up, would she really want that, would she latch on to me afterwards, would that be so bad, would I be doing it only the satisfy my curiosity. It’s a tough one, and until I take that leap, she will continue to be my strange hermit neighbour.

Aaah Haa Haa Haa Haa

I want a puppy!

http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily/09_12_2006.html

P.S I tried to make this an actual link for you but the New Beta Blogger version is for some reason having a hissy fit! It's one of those love/hate blogger days.