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