Best of Days

Astely Clarke Hayli Rings
I had my big Birthday weekend. It was surely a big weekend, I felt very celebrated and special (not in the short bus way though).

I got my pancake breakfast, I got to go over the Harbor in the helicopter, I got some great photos of the sea fog that came in, it looks like I’m on top of the clouds, but it’s actually sea fog and I got to have nice drinks and dinner with lovely friends, and I got to not get off the couch on the Sunday.

I got some lovely presents, I got great scarfs and clutch bags from my girlfriends, and spa days/or lunch and finally I got the lovely lovely ring set on the picture above from D.

He has proven to be exceptionally good at presents, a very important feature in any man I reckon. It's from one of my favorite jewellery stores Astley Clarke, and these rings are from a designer called Robindira Unsworth.

I love these rings, and have loved them for a long time, I love them so much I have a colour print out off them on the "inspiration" board above my work desk. I think possibly that is where he might have got the idea. He was being well sneaky about finding out my ring size and everything. I was very surprised, and even better. IT WAS WRAPPED REALLY NICELY, in teal and silver paper. I was so chuffed.

I had a great birthday indeed.

Technology bringing us together

Today it’s my Birthday, I will celebrate it in full effort and style tomorrow. Events that are included are blueberry pancake eating, helicopter flying, eating of good food with friends and drinking of (probably to much) wine.

My mum sent me an email today, with her singing our family’s standard happy birthday song, which is a different song from the “normal standard” happy birthday song. It made me very happy and teary eyed, as things like that does to you. It was really nice to get it, it made me feel much closer to her then if she just would have called and sung it. I will not show it here, as I’m sure she did not intend to become a internet birthday singing star, even though it sounded nice.

And that is when I realised, for being not very interested in gadgets, not a great user of them, not owning an Iphone, or Ipad or any of those things (except the office standard issue of blackberry, that I use to much to read my emails late at night or on the weekend, hence working when I really shouldn’t), technology has still made my life a better one.

Example one, Skype, Skype makes it possible for me to have a somewhat normal relationship with my family that is so far away, it allows me to show them things that I’ve made, what my home looks like, what I look like. It makes it possible for me to have an hour long conversation with my sister if she has time, without having to take into account the cost of a long distance phone call. I can see my nieces being cheeky, not just hear them, I can see what my mum and dad looks like when I talk to them.

Last year in particular Skype was a god send, the hours and hours of skyping I did with my friend M in New York where priceless and probably saved me from going to a very dark place at a time of my life that was pretty rough,

So, to follow up on that. I’ve been complaining about book prices since I arrive in Australia, which has meant I buy and read far fewer books then I used to. I also no longer commute to work so that is another reason, but price is the main one. So to counteract it, for my birthday I bought myself a Kindle, and I’m looking forward to getting back to reading some proper books, some crap books and pretty much everything in between at half the price I would buy them in the book store.

ohh, and I had a haircut, and dyed my hair back into a "natural" colour instead of the super white bleached colour...not sure how it looks. I think it looks gray. D thinks it's "gorgeous", but then he says that about most things. He is good like that.

Just got myself some of these

And that means I passed my driving test. I can now drive unsupervised in my car. I now have a proper drivers license. Which makes me very very happy.

And made me drive home from the RTA very very badly indeed

Novemeber 1

Today is my hearing date, for the divorce. It feels really strange that to get married one has to by law attend the event, (in some cases you can send a representative, you know, if you don’t like crowds, fancy clothing or cake) but when you get divorced you don’t have to. That seems strange to me.

So of course I did a little bit of googling, as you can see from the above picture. It’s a real one, a real company. No kidding. There are civil ceremony officiants that specialises in divorce ceremonies. I guess that works in a way, in a strange way I can understand that. People like ceremonies most of the time, we might not like funerals, but many find them comforting.

There are companies that are specialising in divorce parties, that seem a little callous. Maybe that is most appropriate if a divorce is acrimonious, as in a “hahhahaha good riddance” kind of way. (What favours would one choose for a divorce party, broken heart chocolates, a tote bag, lip balm with snazzy wording, I’m not sure what would be appropriate. Probably cup cakes, you don’t seem to be able to go wrong with cup cakes.)

But when it’s just a quiet fizzle, with periods of anger and resentment ending with a “To be honest, probably a good idea”, I’m not sure IF you are suppose to mark that and if so, HOW you are suppose to do so.

I have been thinking about it, quite a bit lately because I’ve stopped sleeping again. Not cause of the hearing and all, due to totally different concerns. But as I’ve been awake, you know, I might as well have think about things.

Other friends that I have that have gone through the same thing in the last couple of years, have bought something, like something substantial to mark the occasion, like jewellery or you know, something fairly expensive. That seems fair. But I wonder if I would look at that piece of jewellery as a positive precious thing, or if I would end up looking at it as a representation of failure.

I can’t get over the fact that I think of the divorce as somewhat of a failure. I’m not saying that everyone else has to think so, and most people are telling me that I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am. I don’t think failing at things is always bad, it just means that next time, and you’ll work harder at not failing at the same time. You are more aware, you are able to look at the thing you didn’t succeed at the first time, analyse them and decide when/what went wrong and then improve on it.

So maybe I would buy something, as a sign of willingness to improve in the future.

It could possibly be a cup cake.

(it's also Melbourne cup day, and I can't have a boozy lunch with a silly hat on my head, because I have meetings all night, and that is not right)

Again, I’ve been absent. Very much absent. I’ve not really kept up contact with many in any form. It’s poor form I know, the only excuse is that it got a bit much for while.

To many things to do, to many sad things happened, the person I wrote about previously who was ill passed away, that knocked me about for a bit. There where more things, other things in conjunction and it just got so much I went with the old
“If in doubt, observe radio silence”.

It’s better now, much more better, I’ve been focusing on driving a lot, unfortunately I didn’t pass my first test, cause I was trying to fix a kerb side stop, he made me stop in front of someone’s driveway, and I thought it was a trick, so I reversed back and apparently didn’t head check enough, that in combination with 3 others times of not head checking enough unfortunately pushed me over the limits of how many fails you’re allowed. So I’ll do it again, and I do right next time, head checking like nobody’s business. I went driving last night, I was head checking so much I over head checked and got dizzy. Got to find a middle ground, even amongst the head checks.

Other than that, my favorite day of the year is coming, and this year I’m buying myself a sewing machine. I will wrap it and get very surprised when I open it. I probably will say, “Ohh a sewing machine, how surprising”. Why am I buying a sewing machine.

Well, I’ve gotten into sewing again; so far I’ve made 3 cushion covers for the couch, and I want to make a Quilt. I know quilting is proper hard work. So before I start, I will make a couple of coasters by hand, to see if I will hate it 20 min in.

Want know why I want to make a quilt. It’s all due to this blogger.

That quilt is plainly awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, so as I have no friends who quilt really, I figured, I’ll try it out myself. Probably not anything equally ambitious. Just something a little less, big and scary. And one day, when I’m big girl, I too can make a “Harry Quilt” that is awesome.

Drama-Orama

This week has introduced a lot of drama, some work related (something that happens in every work place), some very personal (lovely people getting sicker), finally getting he divorce papers into the courts (that has taken such a long time, as the Australian rules about this are weird), diss agreement with tax agencies (Yes, they are probably right, but I still don’t like the bill they’ve landed me with) etc etc etc…

So what have done with every single minute that I’ve had to spare; I have been stalking online fabric stores, of course.

My obsession has moved on from Eggs, which was good, because they started making me feel a little vobbly, with a hard shell to fabric. Lovely, brightly coloured, happy patterned fabric.

The reason I’m obsessing about it is that I have a wall panel planned for above my sofa, and it will be covered in fabric. I didn’t know there where so many fantastic fabric prints out there in the world.

Other then that, I have calculated so far in my life I have spent 45.8 days putting on mascara, realised that Hayfever is either proof that god has a weird sense of humour or possibly we (as in humans) are just the vehicle for DNA and not pretty useful, and finally that I really need to buy a new bed. One too many 4.30 am re-construction missions when for some reasons the slats decides to fall out the bottom.

So that is the week in full, drama, fabric and broken bed slats.

The weekend will be quiet, driving, buying Styrofoam, then going to the opera house to watch something disgusting about food and then more driving. That is it

The one benefit with tooth extraction

18 months ago I bought fabric to make pillow cases for my "Throw Pillows" for my couch. For 18 months these huge 25 inch square pillows have had some random white and blue pillow covers.

Finally on Sunday night, as I was trying to distract myself from the pain in my non longer there tooth, I hand sewed one pillow case, this one, it's pink on side and bright yellow on the other, it even has a bright yellow zipper.

I was hand sewing it ( I don't have a sewing machine anymore), while sitting on the couch, waiting for D to come home from work, watching a documentary called MEGA FACTORIES, about IKEA. Isn't that a nice 1950's view for ya! When D came home said my stitches where very even ( he might have had to be prompted to say that, but still, my grandmother would have been proud)

Did I mention the fabric is from IKEA. I love IKEA.