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.

Pain and I don’t agree at all

In general I have a very high pain threshold, for everything except tooth ache. It’s the one thing I can’t deal with. The pain makes me panic.

This means I don’t like going to the dentist, this also then means that I really need to go to the dentist more often, and I only really go when I really really have to. Unfortunately I seem to be born with bad quality teeth, because I take better care of my teeth then most people I know. I brush and I floss and I do all the things they say I should, but I still have more trouble with my teeth then your average.

For example, 3 months ago I broke my tooth. I didn’t chip it, or you know snag it. No the thing broke in half, all the way down to the root of the tooth.

Now how could that have happened, well my uncle the dentist who is the first dentist that doesn’t scare the living daylight out of me has explained, that the dentist that I had in London had done a bad job on a big filling at the tooth so instead of working as a filling it was working as a wedge, prying the tooth apart little by little.

So, 3 months ago I ate a cracker, and the tooth came a part, actually split apart,, from a cracker, so I had a emergency patch job, until my uncle the dentist came back from holiday and I go and have it looked at. And what did he say, well the tooth had to come out.

And so it did this Saturday and I’m not a happy camper. He told me that on day two it would be more painful then day one, so I said fine. I can handle that, and you know what. NO I can’t, I can’t handle it, pain in my mouth/teeth makes me panic. All I’m doing right now is sitting waiting for another 15 minutes so I can take another lot of painkillers. The actual pain if left unattended makes me nauseous and aggressive.

This is not a good state to be in when at work. But I am afraid that if stand up and walk out, I might round kick someone that tries to talk to me.

And my lord that was one ugly tooth, even my uncle the dentist said so; he said I’m very happy that tooth is not in your mouth, because it’s one ugly tooth. An ugly tooth with delicate roots, which apparently it’s not a good thing for teeth.

I have named it Ruth the Tooth, it lives with Barney now, they can be ugly together.

Need new Rhino Skin

Sometimes things just pile up; it just ends up being so much sadness and pain that it feels like you have had your skin peeled of the body. Normally I’m pretty tough and can roll with the best of them; Rhino skin is truly needed when you do what I do.

At the moment, amongst all the great things that are happening there is overwhelming sadness in relation to someone who I love very very much, who is very sick. And it doesn’t matter how much I hope and pray that he will get better, he is still very sick and it doesn’t feel like it is progressing in the right direction. I hope that it will, that the information I will receive in the coming week will be more jubilant and more in the frame of “they where wrong all along, there is nothing wrong that a bit of vitamin C can’t fix”.

It gets more awkward and weird as it ends up being mixed up in the divorce, it’s a little like, this is a person who I have known for such a long time and hold very dear, but as with all divorces things gets split up, and you can’t take other people family members and make them yours however much you’d want to. Maybe I’m being silly, but I feel very lonely in my sadness, as no one that I know now, knows him.

So, it’s little like I have no skin, and in this particular case my sadness has no purpose. I can’t fix it, and I really can’t help, in the way that I could have had we not been getting divorced.

Time is just swirling past

Another weekend passed in a speedy haze, one minute is Friday afternoon and you think you are going to get so many things done over the next 48 hours and then suddenly you realise its Sunday night and many of your plans have failed yet again.

I used to be so controlled with my time, so organised, so structured; I have memories of feeling that I had to much time, that I got everything done (with the result of always being exhausted), and I’ve just realised that by being a little more chilled out, I also have to accept that with the comfort of not being continuously running about doing “stuff” I don’t get as much done.

This weekend is no different, I feel like I’ve done nothing. The main thing I did was eat, socialise and then I did some driving.

The Driving, well on Saturday I had a lesson with my instructor, he said I was good enough to book my test, I think I took that to heart too much because I went driving with D on Sunday and scared the living daylight out of him. I missed 3 stop signs and had to slam on the break because I didn’t see the red light turn.

I blame it on the principle of driving where you will be going, the first thing my teacher Peter said was, when you do you learning driving go where you think you will be going once you have your license. To often people do their learning driving in very safe, known streets. That wont help you when you get your license.

He said to go where other P-platers will go, like McDonalds drive thru; He then looked at me, muttered a little about maybe I was to old for that but the super market or the beach might be more appropriate for me. I then had to tell him about the last time I went to the McDonalds drive thru..(i.e. the giving of finger to lady hassling me in the car park when I stalled the car).I’m unlikely to go back.

Anyway, we drove to Bondi beach, on a Sunday, that was probably a sub optimal decision. Driving at Bondi is horrible, and it’s really really bad on Sundays. People milling about, not looking where they are going just randomly jumping out into traffic, pretty scary place for a learner driver. But that is just excuses for me driving badly and without concentration; D was not a happy passenger. I will have to tidy the up the driving, otherwise there will be no license, and Kurt (the car) and I will not be able to drive happily ever after.

Ridiculously happy

This last week I’ve been giddy, jumpy and hysterically happy. It’s a very strange sensation, it’s like I can’t really contain the general cheerfulness under my skin, it jumps out as face wide grins to the least suspecting passers by. I’m sure I’ve scared people; they don’t really know what hit them. I know my staff thinks I’m a little more weird then normal, but as one of them said “not in a bad way”.

It’s not that I’m normally a happy person, I am mainly rather cheerful, but this sort of general giddiness is not what I’m used to. It’s the same feeling that one has when you look forward to something specific that is going to be great, except there isn’t any particular event on the calendar right now.

I’m not complaining about it, I think it’s great. I’m just not used to it, and I’m a little scarred off it, in the way that you know that one day, if it’s gone, you will have known how great it was, and then you will know what you are missing out on.

In other news:
One of the girls in my office has a very pretty dress today. I will tell her.
Tonight I’m catching up with a really great group of girls that I got to know very well in the last year, and I’m going to eat souvlaki.
Tomorrow I’m going to see my friend R and her son that is now 1 year old.
On Sunday I’m going to learn to reverse park.

In reference to previous post aboutobsession I have now realised what the new subject is, it's Eggs, not as a subject of interest, but as a subject of eating. I can't get enough of boiled eggs. It's almost as bad as the "year of the tuna" which led to not being able to eat any more tuna ever, so let's hope I get over it quicker this time.

Visan: Re tattoo – Reckon it would be a little chavvy to have a sonnet about obsessions about monkeys as tattoo..but you know, maybe it would become “THE” new fashion, Angelina eat your heart out, check out how my poem rhymes gallus besom with m

Spring Clean

Today, the 1 of September is the first day of spring. Spring people, Spring is here, it’s coming, bring on the asparagus.

I have a strong urge to spring clean, to tidy and sort out, during the winter I haven’t much enjoyed staying at home. My flat has been cold, and not very friendly feeling, I’ve been really trying not to spend much time there. I think that will have to change as this spring is coming.

I have been thinking about sorting, cleaning, tidying out all my things. Last year when I moved out of the last flat, it was just aiming to get out as fast as possible, get out, get out, get out, so I never had a look at the things that I packed.

I have so many things in my cupboards and drawers that I don’t use, like or think are beautiful. I don’t know for the life of me why I have them. But I do, and now they are all going to have to find new places to live.

I will try not to overwhelm myself with this, as I normally do, by pulling everything out, and trying to sort it, and then getting tired and frustrated and unable to throw anything. This time I will do it slowly and in bits, I’ll start cupboard by cupboard in the kitchen and move from there.

I have been obsessively reading Martha Stewart's (cause I love her) cleaning, tidy and organisation tips, I’m so geared up to do this that I’m almost panting. I just hope that the energy will not disappear before I start. That has happened before.

I also have a great plan for the poem my lovely friend M gave me for my 30:th birthday, a great plan I tell you…..

Obsessive or nerd gene!

I have a full on nerd gene, I will on occasion find a subject to which I become obsessively interested, such that I want to know everything about the subject, I want to read all the books, look at all the pictures, see all exhibits etc. I become a rather dull person at such occasions as I mainly want to talk and think about this super duper really interesting subject that I love. I truly enjoy it, but I’m not sure that others might.

Now this doesn’t happen often, last time it occurred it was gemstones, which ties neatly into my interest in jewellery, and I ended up doing a two year FGA qualification and is now a qualified gemmologist.

Now I love gemstones, but the interest has vaned a little bit in the last couple of years, I still love looking at them, working with them, reading about them, but I don’t obsessively read everything I can find about them in the way that I used to.

I’m kind of feeling that a new nerd subject is coming on, I’m just not sure what it might be yet, maybe wood work, maybe physics, it would be awesome if it was maths, but that is unlikely.

And I was wondering, what if stalkers are people with a nerd gene whose obsession becomes another person and not a subject. That thought is a little scary. I think I will stop thinking that, before that is the thing that becomes the great new interest, and I would turn into a stalker of stalkers.

Don’t want that, no good.

Holidays with Family and Friends

So I went on holiday, to Sweden and to London. To Sweden to see family and went to London to go to a wedding. Both parts of the trip where great, in their own separate ways, they also put a lot off things in perspective.

Mainly in regards to location, I’ve been thinking a lot this last year about where I should live and why. I live in Australia, which is a lovely place; I have nice friends and job I really enjoy. I have been thinking that I should be moving back to Europe where I have nice friends and family, but obviously not this job that I have here.

It was lovely being back in London, my first thought on the first night when I met up with friends was, “jeezz what I’m doing, why aren’t I back here”. Then the second day when it was pissing down rain and I was stuck on the tube getting from Victoria to Westminster I was thinking “Ahh this is why I’m not here”.

It was a great weekend to be back in London, it felt a little like the last weekend before everything change. I have been talking to my close friend M (how I miss her when I live here in OZ) through the year about the fact that life moves on for everyone and that people move and change and social life change over time. But that is hard to see when you not amongst it on a daily basis.

Also moving back would not just be slotting back into where I was, because I’m not. I was never lonely in London because I wasn’t on my own. I would be, if I moved back now.

Moving back to Sweden would be even more different. It would be moving back to something that I should feel comfortable with but actually feel very uncomfortable with, I feel like I’m always missing the social clues, I don’t know the TV programs, or the writers or the whatever. I’ve missed the last 10 years, cause I haven’t been there for the last 10 years. Actually I haven’t lived in Stockholm since 1997.

And then there is the thing about the people that I have here, D for example. It would be very sad to leave him. Because he is nice and I like him. So for now, I’m staying here, and then we’ll see.

Maybe if I stop fretting about it, the answer to it all will come in time.

Happiness

I saw a friend of mine on Tuesday night and she told me I looked so very happy. I hadn't thought about it much lately, I guess that is a first sing that you are.
And I guess I am, I'm really happy.

I have some rough weeks, bad news and hard work, we've (my team and I) worked hard to push something forward and we kind of got it there, at least a start. Not finished, not even close to finished, but a start. It made me very happy, exited and wanting to share it, that is when I realized, when you've known someone for 10 years, telling them that you have done something good doesn't come across as bragging.

But when the people you know are new friends telling them that you've done something good can come across as smug and bragging, and you know annoying. And that is sad, cause sometimes you just want a couple of gold stars.

Well I'm gonna celebrate by nothing reading my work email before bed and have some mint slices.

Then soo calm - now so phhhhh

I went away for the weekend to Kangaroo Valley, which as you can see is an absolutely stunning part of New South Wales.

Normally when I go away I get freaked out if I don’t do much, but this time I did nothing. I slept, ate, read one book and made a roast dinner and that was pretty much it.

When I got home, I was very relaxed and chilled out after a couple of weeks of pretty hard going stuff, bad news and too many hours in the office.

But now, only two and half days later, I’m back to feeling like pressing the “f*ck it button” and scoot of to a beach in Fiji.

Maybe it’s just because it’s now winter, winter in June. How up side down is that anyway.

Oscillation

So I went on holiday, which was great. Saw touristy things in NY that I haven’t seen before (I have yet to see the statue of liberty, but you know hey, I have to save something for if/when I go back). I also went to Washington DC and got surprised with how small the White House really is, also how close you can get to it.

I would have assumed that you’d have to be a couple of kilometers away from it, but no, it’s just a couple of hundred meters and you can get that view that you got from the White House TV series (which I liked very much if I could get it subtitled, they all spoke to fast).

After the holiday I have been oscillating between being very happy and being sad and confused and weirded out and all the gray shades in-between. For someone who mainly does black or white, gray is so very uncomfortable.

It was very sad to leave my NY friend but also very happy to come back to Sydney and my friend/s here, and that confuses the hell out of me. It would be easier if it wasn’t so conflicting.

The only conclusion I can draw is, I’m unlikely to stay in Sydney for any prolonged period of time (mum we are talking in years here, not months, i.e. do not expect me home for Christmas). But I can’t see myself celebrating Christmas 2014 here. However, I have absolutely no idea of where I want to go. I’m quite sure I’m done with London, I can’t see Sweden working out as I’ve been away for about 10 years, I’m not really feeling a strong attachment to any location that I would like to go to, San Fran, sure, NY, yeah why not, Frankfurt, Mumbai, Hong Kong…not in a million years..

So, I guess I will find out in time where it all takes me.

(btw – Patty Fudge, did pick your spelling mistake and it makes me feel better knowing that I’m not the only one that wont make it into the enclave)

So unbelievably tired

I have allowed myself to get to the state when I’m overtired, so unbelievably overtired. This is not a good state to be in, it’s the state when you overreact, when your attitude goes to “Mate, I’m just surviving right now, so I’m can’t be bothered with these issues”. It’s when I go into the state off concreting.

I call it concreting because all I do is walk straight forward and look into the concrete, using as little energy as possible, not noticing my surroundings and not looking at the bright autumn sun or the vividly blue sky.

It’s also at this stage when you don’t become a good friend, sister, daughter, workmate or partner as you only really have energy enough to get up, brush your teeth and go to work and sit there and try to do the job that you need to do.

All I can say, thank god I’m going on holiday tomorrow.

Diets and such

Lately or in the last 9 months or so my weight has steadily been inching upwards. Not in huge numbers but slowly, slowly got it self to a number that I’m not happy with.

I was whinging about it the other day to a friend and he said, well considering all that has happened in the last few months maybe it’s not so strange, and I kind of thought Yes, but for how long can I use that excuse.

I know exactly what has happened, I’m not cooking dinner like I used to, I’m not eating in the same controlled fashion that I used to, I allow myself toasties and biscuits to make up for not eating dinner. I don’t bring lunch work, I socialise much more then I used to with the extra alcohol and the extra crap food that I wouldn’t have eaten previously.

Now the issue with all this is that knowing myself very well in regards to weight gain, if I don’t nip this in the bud pretty quickly, I will get to what I perceive is my “critical number” and that number will push me into doing something, and that something will most likely be something silly. I will indulge in old restrictive eating behaviours and exercise too much, too hard and I will hurt myself again, I reckon to major hip surgeries should be enough even for me.

So my plan is to try to get a handle on it prior to going mental. So I’m looking for inspiration to get me eating better again, eating better but not crazily restrictive.

Thinking health more then kcal I guess. And that is hard for me, so I did some looking around, and I saw the LCHF diet, I thought that looked interesting. And I realised that is pretty much exactly how I used to eat, excluding most dairy products except cheese.

The only problems with all these low carbohydrate eating plans for me are breakfast; I like porridge for breakfast, with berries and almonds.

So I’ll do my own version. Good old fashioned eating habits. So I’ll go to the super market, buy myself some eggs, make an omelette instead of sandwich for dinner and then go home and throw out all the biscuits that are loitering around my flat.

Those biscuits are well known for loitering around my house. I love them and they love me, but not in the right way. More in the love handle way. So in the bin they go. I will replace them with chocolate.

Events that has occurred

A lot of events have occurred since I wrote anything last time. I will list and comment and hopefully get back to writing a little more after this huge update post.

Since I wrote last I have done these things:

Music festival – I went to the Good Vibes Festival, which was great fun, wet and rainy but not cold. Once I had committed to being wet and ugly I had the best time bopping about to Miike Snow.

Had a date
Had a work do
Then a driving lesson, and went flying in a helicopter again and then a few days of drama, which thought me:
Sometimes I am not a nice person.
Some people’s ability for forgiveness is astounding.
Other people’s anger is hard to understand.
The fact that I have friends that I can talk to about things in annoying detail is fantastic.

Then a friend of mine moved back to the UK, which highlighted the fact that all this moving around in different countries allows you to make and loose fantastic friends in very short time.

We had a big work do which was interesting, I saw one of Sydney 24 hour pubs, which was a scary sight.

I went to a concert with Mark Ronson, he as not as good as expected but had Miike Snow as a surprise act so I was a very happy customer anyway, that night I met the cutest 20 year old gay couple planning their wedding. They made me very happy, they thought I was 25. That made me even happier.

Then I had yet another leaving do, which was sad, but the week up I got catch up with my friend R that I haven’t seen in a long time cause as she has had a baby and I’ve been a pretty shit friend in not going for a visit. So that will have to change.

I had a book club event, without talking about the book we where suppose to have read, which was nice as I hadn’t read the book. Then I did some driving, over the harbour bridge.

Then I had a more confusing times in regards to marriage and divorce and spent a fortune in getting to be registered as the owner of my car, and then paying for all those really dull car payments, rego, insurance, tires and other boring expenses.
The marriage and divorce bit was far more painful and confusing then I had expected. I thought I had all that clear in my head, but apparently some people found that they needed to add a little more pain and confusion to the mix.

The week after that we had a big night out with all the girls, which led to dancing around at the opera bar until my feet bled, which was probably exactly what was needed at that point.

A couple of days later I did some more driving, all the way up to the blue mountains, where I saw 2 traffic accident and gave the finger to a lady that hassled me in the McDonalds parking space for stalling the car when I was trying to get out.

So it seems that I will turn out to be an expressive driver. My driving instructor was most impressed with the fact that not only was I giving the finger to a driver in a SUV in the western suburbs, which easily can be led to you getting shot in the head, but I also lent forward to make sure she could see it properly through the tinted windows.

After that I’ve helped a friend move house and watched a live game of AFL, which was entertaining.

Events coming up are:
Weekend in the Hunter Valley on a wine tour with 10 friends
Cracker Night Sydney Comedy Festival Gala night
10 days in New York
and more stand up comedy.

So all in all very eventful times, the last two months has had pretty much every drama one could expect of a lifetime. So let’s hope it calms down a little bit. It seems that I have had the Chinese curse come true, “Hope you live in interesting times”

The health project is not going well

Busy bee

Last week was an extremely eventful week. There where so many fun things happened that now I’m all funned out.
I went to the Opera house twice, once to watch theatre and once to watch opera. I realised I really liked Carmen, however I do think that the subtitling of opera does take some of the beauty out of it. It’s good to know what the stories are about, but I found it hard to focus on the singing and read at the same time.

Then it was big night out for comp day on Wednesday, with the side effect of loosing my phone in a cab. Then the rest of the week to me to see a lot of music at the Good Vibrations music festival. My high light was watching Miike Snow.

However Ludacris did put on a great show, so did Eryka Badu, Kelis and the other bands we watched did alright as well. The only let down was Ting Tings, but then that could have to do with that by then it was raining very hard and their stage had no cover.

All an all, I left the festival, soaked through and covered in mud. As one should I assume
Sunday took me for a nice Sunday lunch in Randwick and ended with a Burlesque show in the city. It was entertaining, for sure, and you got to give a lot of credit to the girls. It takes some guts to do what they do. Unlikely that it will be something that I would get myself into. I do not have that kind of confidence.

Today is Valentines day, and my exiting date night will include, taking out the bins, cleaning the shower screens in the bathroom and vacuuming the living room floor. Might make a night of it and throw in a bit of grocery shopping and a load of laundry.
The saddest thing, this is actually making me pretty happy. My flat is a mess and I’m looking forward to putting the music up loud and dance around with my hover.

Life architect

I for the first time in my life have no plans, no goals and no real direction. I’m finding this thrilling and scary at the same time. I am the kind of person who always have had a 10 year plan, I’m going to study this, then work here then do that, do this etc.

Now that is not to say that the plans have always come together, been what I expected or lead me where I thought I would end up. But there has always been a plan, normally a 10 year one.

Now there is no plan, whatsoever, no long term plan at least. There are short term plans, like this weekend I’m going to a music festival and a dance performance and a lunch. But no long term plans, no future idea of where I’m going to go, work with, live with, city to live in.

This is an unbelievable uncomfortable situation for me, who is not a natural “take-the-day-as-it-comes” kind person. Carpe Diem my ass. This is not my normal habitat. But I think for now, making plans to fix, sort out, get on would more then likely lead to ending up in a very wrong place. So for now, I’m making 10 minute plans. Plans for today, eat something before going for a 3 hour opera at the opera house.

I’m going the distance, I’m going for speed.

Well that is how it felt when I was doing my first driving lesson since I was 16. When I was 16 I did do a few driving sessions with my dad. But since then, all I’ve done is practicing parking.

So I did 30 minutes in a parking lot figuring out how to use the clutch and changing gears using my left hand, and then out on the streets at the breakneck speed of 70 km/hour. It was pretty exiting.

There are things that I’m not very good at yet, such as getting off at green lights. I stalled the car so bad I missed at least 3 green light sessions. Got really flustered cause there where cars behind etc. I was really scared that they would start honking, not cause of the honking but that I would get really angry, jump out of the car and run over and start yelling at them. That won’t happen; I’ll make sure of it. But you know, it’s in my personality to do that.

I also went to my PT for the first time yesterday and today there is so much pain. Good pain, no joint pain, but still pain. Tomorrow I’m suppose do to the Great Urban run, it’s a 5 hour orienteering/running/quiz event that you do in teams. It will be good, except it’s going to be 38-42 degrees in Sydney. I reckon there are going to have to be a lot of water drunk, and not a lot of beer drunk tonight. Probably a good thing all in all.

M.I.A

I have not been writing for a while. For many reasons, mainly time constraints but also disinterest and a general feeling of not wanting to.

So since I wrote the last time a lot of things have happened, Christmas and New Years came and went, with the pleasure and the pain that they brought with them. I had a lovely time on both occasions, but not without a fair bit of sadness that I tried my best to ignore and shovel down. Christmas was particularly hard, but I was lucky in having my dad here and also having places to be and people to see.
The picture above is from the fireworks over Darling Harbour, that you could see from my balcony. Look to the left and you see the outline of my dad.



Then I went bridge climbing and took a helicopter ride over the harbour. That was pretty awesome. I’m a great lover of the Sydney harbour and it doesn’t get much better then seeing it from a helicopter. The picture above is from that Event. The helicopter flyer is my mate. Pretty good thing to have a friend who can fly the helicopter, I guess.

Since then I had some more friends visiting from Europe which was lovely.

I also have been working stupid hours and got myself my learner’s license. So I can now take Kurt (the car) out for a drive as long as I have fully licensed driver supervising me in the car. I’m having my first lesson today, with my mate the helicopter flyer, indeed a brave soul considering I get aggressive and rude when I’m trying to learn new things.

PH11, has taken a really bad turn, no weight loss, cut down on the disco dancing and drinking mainly cause I have no people in the house, the smoking is going so so.
But as my sister says, failure is not an issue as long as you pick yourself up and try again. So I’ll have to do it again, do it right. First session with a personal trainer today. Maybe that will get my arse in the gear.