What do you want out of life..

my sister asked me quite fairly and I am unable to answer. I tend to get drawn in different directions on this one, one way I want to be a super hot super bissi business person who buys all Christmas presents at the airport cause they are so busy and international and jet setting and all that.

The other me wants to be all French and dark and live on black coffee and cigarettes, the third would want to be a yoga instructor who is all healthy and eat predominantly green things, fourth but not least I would like to have an easy life...not that my life is hard as such, just an even easier one..One where my brain would shut up...Sometimes I want to stay at home and make cupcakes, other days I think I wouldn't mind being an underground miner or a therapist, or perhaps an ear doctor cause I really like ears.

But most of all I want my brain to shut up and just go along with it

Dance the dance

I was out last night on my first girl’s night out in Sydney. A girl that I know through a friend in London invited me out with her girlfriends for a girly night out. It was really nice, it was great to see that girl group going out procedures are the same no matter where you are in the world…

It starts with consumption of large amounts of wine/champagne, comments on fab outfits and then once the wine has taken effect talk about boys. It’s something I have missed as many other events I have attended here has been more a case of consuming reasonable amount of wine and then hours of conversations about children’s faeces.

During the night I got to dance in a fancy looking club with the hundreds of beautiful people standing around looking beautiful not interaction with others. It seems that most of the male population in Kings Cross do a huge amount of push ups and then wear their shirt open to half their chest to show the results of the push ups. I am not complaining at all, I merely commenting. This place was full to the brim with really attractive men and women, I felt very short, quite ugly and badly dressed; but that was ok. Because I was dancing, so when I’m dancing I don’t think about that kind of thing so much.

But I do think next time when I go out, I don’t need to bring an extra scarf and cardigan in case I get cold, you know, because I’m not really 70 years old yet, even thought I seem to behave like it. Now I’m going to get myself a nice cup of tea before I go to Sydney bead and gem show.

More dust

My friend John asked me if I had taken the photos that I put up earlier today, and I didn't.

But these ones I did take, I took them at about 7.15 this morgning from my balcony.

The dust has cleared now, but it's going to be windy in the coming days. So we'll see, we live in interesting times as they say.

Dust

Sydney is enveloped in a red dust storm today, It looks like a scene from Blade runner outside. The skye was bright red when I woke up. I couldn't really tell what was wrong. I have never seen such a thing before. The above picture is of the harbour bridge and as you can see, you can't see it
This second picture is of bondi beach, and as you can see, you can't see any of that either.


The weather here truly is a bit more extreme then what i'm used to.

Wisdom and all that..

My younger sister has a blog as well, which is great for me because that means I can keep updated on her life without too much of an effort. You realise that when you live in a different time zone that keeping in touch takes effort and planning. And normally results in home-sickness and sadness. At the same time that it is to talk to family and friends it’s also really hard spending Saturday day and Sunday night missing them and wishing that you would be able to build one of them machines that allows you to beamed to different places. (How cool would that be, “beam me up Scottie, I feel like going to the Caribbean for lunch today)

When I read my sisters blog I realise that so much that stresses her out and that makes her nervous are the same thing that stresses me out and makes me nervous. And we both rely heavily on our older sister to get perspective on our freak outs.
Obviously this stresses me out . One would think that I, as I am 8 years or so older should be at least 8 years wiser. But that is not the case at all, whereas my older sister seems to be far wiser then the 1.5 years that she is older than me. So that leads me to believe that wisdom comes not from years but experiences and responsibility taken.

I have very few actual responsibilities, I’m rather uncomfortable around real responsibilities, actually they make me so uncomfortable I don’t even like to have my name on the utility bills cause that means it’s my responsibility to pay it. I do pay it, I just don’t want to be in charge of making sure it’s paid.

I think maybe I need to add some responsibilities to my to-do list. Since the double set of wisdom teeth that I have been given doesn’t really seem to do the trick in regards to wisdom.

Things

I have not made a lot of things lately, I lost the making spark if you like since the last few weeks have been a bit overwhelming. I'm getting back on the horse by making some earings for a birthday present. Everytime I make earings I realise why I don't make earings very often, they are soo fiddly and annoying.

My brain is quite blank today, I've used up all my energy at work. So nothing fun in my head today, except my eternal question keeps rising to mind..

If dogs ruled the world, would they have toilet paper with tiny people printed on them...

KGB

I've caught the cold of a lifetime that has quickly turned into a painfull earache and a really loud cough.

I have been sick for over a week and it wont go away, I think it's because I've been stressing out and freaking out about work. One of the reasons we decided to move there was so I would not do that, that I would get a better work life balance, but looking at the hours I did last week and that my work mates do that hasn't really happened.

My sister said something very clever on Sunday, she often says very clever things. She said, well maybe It's a personality trait. Maybe moving across the world wont solve the fact that you stress out over work to level where you get really weird illnesses like shingles and over-active thyroids. Which is true, very true.

So I've decided, I will have to stop that. I will work as hard as I can, I will go home in time to have a life after work. I will do my best, and if that is not good enough, well, they are not KGB. They can not kill me, the worst that can happen is that they ask me to leave..

So my new mantra is, They are not KGB, they can not kill me...

Say it with me now, they are not KGB, they can not kill me..

Ring outlines

I've been working on a few designs of different rings lately and I've been trying to establish which is the best "Look". What I'm talking about is the location of the setting i.e. The circle of metal that is holding the stone

In the above picture you see four different rings. From the Left it starts with

Ring 1 = The setting is set into the band.

Ring 2 = The band is cut open and the setting is soldered high between the two ends, if you look carefully you can see the culet (bottom of the stone) between the ends of the band.

Ring 3 = The setting is on top of the band, and small cut under the stone to make room for the culet (the bottom point of the stone)

Ring 4 = This is the crazy overlapping ring that I love, where the setting is so high and way above the band.

So wich one do you like the most...and why??


Under here are some more rings I've worked on on Friday

Ben Folds ringing it in

On sunday night A and I went to see Ben Folds in the Sydney Operahouse; and wow it's such an amazing building. When you stand close to it it looks scaly, almost like snake.

The moon was bright yellow and shining on the scaly roof so wished I would have had a camera, other then my mobile phone camera which is truly rubbish as you can tell from the above picture.

The above picture is a forbidden picture of Mr Folds himself on stage. He was playing the whole concert on request. Before the concert started everyone could write on slip of paper what song they wanted to hear and then he would sing it. It was great, sometimes he forgot the lyrics but that was ok. And he made up at least 3 songs on the spot that where really funny. And he sang the Bitches aint shit, which was very to funny to hear in such a adult place like the operahouse.

The bitches aint shit is the a cover of a Dr Dre song, and it's really funny cause he has taken this quite literal hip hop song, and put beautifull beautifull music to it, such that for once you listen to the lyrics and realise how moronic it is.

Now during the concert that we saw last night, it was only Ben Folds and a big piano and that was it. So none of that extra stuff and people.



You can really tell it's a Dane that has designed the operahouse, it's all birch veener and concrete in ondulating shapes and sharp angles on the inside. It's like a very very upmarket IKEA.

Other than that I'm got a cold of life time, I feel like death warmed up. So now I'm gonna eat some soup and complain to A about how ill I am so he get's me some ice cream.

Hunkering down for winter

It’s the first week of spring and it has been getting cooler this week. But it’s still the week of spring. They know those things here as they have official dates for such things. The 1 of September is the first day of spring.
There spring fashion is the shops, they have a big flower exhibition at David Jones and to be honest it’s not that cold so I guess I could feel like spring.
My problem is, my brain and body is hardwired for September to be a pre-autumn feeling. It’s the time of the year when you can still wear your skirt out but you should bring a jacket and scarf if you are going to be out late.

This time of the year I start dreaming about casseroles and warm sweaters and start planning for Christmas. What I shall buy for people, what is my present wrapping theme, anything interesting to bake, yes I am quite obsessive about Christmas.
So life has thrown me a curve ball here a little bit, in my head I know I should prep for summer, start looking for salad recipes and think about what to wear to work when it’s 35 degrees outside. I’ve never done that before. But I don’t. I start dreaming about wearing black roll neck sweaters and tweed trousers and wether my brown boots could survive another season.

I have always had really bad winter moods; I get really moody and don’t want to leave my house. Normally I am able to stave off the worst in the autumn as I obsessively plan for Christmas and drown myself in sparkly glitter and wrapping paper, so the real winter blues doesn’t normally hit fully until late January/February.

Now I realise that this is in one part actually not feeling well when there is a lot of darkness around and one part the expectation that this will happen. Subconsciously I’m preparing for this. I’m collecting books and cheerful things that I can do to feel better in January. Even thought I know in my mind that I might not feel bad in January cause then it won’t be less than 5 hours of daylight every day. So maybe all the years I spent trying to learn to deal with my really bad winter moods I’ve also created a cradle for it, that expect it to happen, and that I accept that it is going to happen and maybe even in some strange little way look forward to a couple of months every year where my expectations of myself are lower.

It’s not that I think I make the dark feelings up, or that they are pretend, during that part of the year, as the very low level of me at that time of the years is quite severe, I just wonder sometime. What would have happened if I would have been born somewhere else, would the moods still be there, just relating to something different?

funny

There are many funny things that I don't understand about working life.

For example, I woke up at 5, flew to Melbourne, sat in 3 meetings solely based on the fact that people shall know what I look like when I speak with them on the phone. Then I flew back to Sydney. And I'm earlier then if I would have been to the office. It's funny I think. And it's not programing so I am a very happy bunny.

Now i'm very tired, that is also funny, I have not done any "active" work, but I am exhausted, eventhought it's really early. So tired that in my tired mind I can justify a Thai Take away and a magnum ice cream. And then later another whinge about the unexplainable weight gain.

Walking slowly by ...then BAM..

I was sitting at my desk today, working away as you do, when a 2 cm cockroach walked past. I’m terrified of most bugs; cockroaches make me feel specifically sick. So of course I reacted with a loud yelp, took of my shoe and beat it to death. It seemed like a good solution.

The loud yelp however made people ask what had happened so I told them about the giant cockroach at my desk. So they came over to look. They deemed it so small it was totally insignificant.
Now I don’t think that is right. I think cockroaches of any size warrants a full on freak out. Then they tell me about the moths. Apparently in the spring, (first official day of Spring today) a huge migration of bogon moths happens in Sydney and it goes for about a month. As they are moths and a bit stupid they tend to fly into the buildings, in the lifts, in the toilets and all over the offices. Apparently last year you could not see anything in the toilets cause all these moths had flown in under the lamp cover and died. Apparently the crazy moths attack you when you go to the toilet.
This is due to start in the coming weeks. I will keep you all updated on any moth attacks. And I will increase my self defence arsenal with a can of bug spray

Things that makes me angry

There are many things that makes you angry in the world, injustice, abuse, corruption and animals/babies/elderly being treated badly..

These are things to deserve your thoughts and your anger. I have realised I often choose to get angry at things that really is not worth it and that I cannot solve.
For example I get really angry about having to buy toilet paper. It’s the act of having to remember to buy really boring and mundane products that makes me really annoyed. I realise this is a waste of my time and my energy. Everyone has to buy toilet paper, it is nothing to be angry about. More importantly I can’t solve this. Not buy bulk buying or not buying.

So I have to accept this, everyone else seems to have. And that makes me even angrier. I wish there was someone else that could sort this out. Like international sorting out organisation that took care of toilet paper tissues and hand towels for you. You know, they knew when you needed more and then it got delivered. Not like a government organisation or anything cause that would be to bureaucratic and you’d never get your toilet paper on time. And they have lots of other things to do. You know prevent war and sort out social service payments and make sure that when ministers are having affairs it ends up in the media (or maybe that are the media themselves).Anyway, they are busy.

So I see it more like a God, like a divine toilet paper person that would, you know
organise that.

A toilet paper God. A God of toilet paper...maybe he/she also could take care of other things one has to remember as well like washing up liquid and toothpaste.