On My Mind: Not long now....!

Spring is coming!  Spring is coming!  Spring is coming!!!!

I am so excited (can't you tell?!).  Last year, the year of wet, spring didn't really eventuate.  Oh, I saw the sun a couple of days from September to December but it wasn't enough to really be classified as 'spring'.  It also wasn't nearly enough to boost my mood and make me shake the winter malaise.  And it certainly wasn't enough for me to consider trying to dry the sheets on the clothesline outside.

This year is shaping up to be better, normal almost - no, make that better than normal!  The weather started warming a couple of weeks ago and I started shedding layers - would you believe one day I even wore open toed shoes?  I know right!  Bare feet in July, it was almost unthinkable!  

And the trees are also shedding their layers.  Well, actually I don't know if that's the right description but they are bursting their buds and sending out leaves and flowers and buds and generally announcing to the world that they are not far from open and trading and ready for action!  It's glorious to see.

Right now is Ekka wind time.  That time of year, every year, when the Brisbane show signals the arrival of some bitterly cold westerly winds that remind us all that August still is a winter month, thank you very much, there'll be no jumper-less action on my watch!  

I find it amazing that the winds know when to start up - right on Ekka time - sometimes before, rarely after, but right on queue they whip up.  Regardless if Ekka starts on the 10th or the 17th of the month, that is the day the winds come.  Freaky.  So all the planned show stopping outfits of pretty summer dresses and short shorts have to be ditched in favour of jeans, boots, jackets and scarves (unless you are 16 in which case it is cool to be cold - necessary sacrifice for fashion and all!).

So welcome Ekka winds.  Knock yourself out, blow yourself silly.  Go crazy with it all.  This year I welcome you with open (and very rugged up) arms because your arrival signals your end and your end means spring is here and that is only ever a good thing!

Linking in with Down To Earth's Friday photo feature 'On My Mind'.....check it out and join in yourself!

Super C Day

Thursdays are Super C days.  

The one day of the week, every week, when I get to look after my newest (well, 7 months new) nephew while my SIL is at work.

I love Super C days.

Exhausting as they are (I don't have and am not having kids - hats off to you mums!) I look forward to them.  Watching him grow and change and learn new things each week is such a privilege and a blessing and I am so grateful to my SIL for letting me be a part of Super Cs little life.

Likewise I am incredibly grateful to my sister for letting the LOML and I be part of her kids' lives - we need our kid fix at least once a week to settle us down and remind us what is important.

I'm sure my sister and SIL don't fully understand my gratitude - for them any time we have their offspring is a chore-achieving-godsend for them I'm sure! - but grateful I am.  Getting to watch little minds learn new things, seeing teeth fall out and faces change, and getting to share the excitement of Christmas and birthdays and school awards, all without the burdens (burdens of love no less) of lack of sleep, projectile vomit, backchatting and red-cordial-induced-bouncing-off-walls spells Win-Win for me!

Buzzzzzziiiiiiinnnnnngggggg!

The time is 7:26am.

OMG imagine the buzz
if I'd had 2 full-sugar Vs!!!!

I have been awake (up and about) since 2:30am.

In that time I have consumed two sugar-free Vs and two pieces of toast with syrup, and driven 300km.

I give it two more hours before I crash and burn in a completely un-pretty way.

Sugar high (well actually, sugar-free-high), you have worked, and are still working, your magic just fine and dandy!!!  Thank you for keeping me alert on my drive home.

****

This morning the LOML had to be at the airport at 5am for a flight to Melbourne.  So it was a 3 hour round trip to drop him at the Brisbane airport and come home again.  He's away for only the one night, down and back for a big gift fair (wholesale delights for retailers around the country) and a look/see around Melbourne's Lebanese area (he's on the hunt for an Agileh - can't wait to pick up one when we're in Lebanon again next year - must have one NOW!).  Meanwhile, I'm holding the fort at this end (not today though - Miss K will work today for me at the shop).  

It was a great drive - no traffic on the road at all, not even any trucks which was surprising (maybe we were too early even for them).  Coming back through the city at 5:30am though was a different story.  I can't believe how quickly it built up and cars were lined up and travelling slowly through all the hot spots.  I mean, we did live there only 4 years ago so in my head I know what it's like but how quickly we forget.  Made me glad I was going the other way.

I was also reminded this morning of how beautiful the world is just before the sun comes up.  All mist and fog and soft light.  Made me wish I was a passenger with a camera in my hand just so I could share it with the world.

Once upon a time it was usual for me to be awake and functioning at this time of day.  But then I met the LOML, the biggest night owl ever, and changed my hours of operation.  These days bed time is somewhere between 11pm-1am (a really early night is classified as 10pm) and the alarm doesn't go off before 7:30am.  

We get quite a bit of ribbing from our friend Mr Paddy for that fact - our late starts.  A number of times he has rung at 6:30am and given us stick for not being up.  He somehow doesn't seem to realise that the opposite is true also - when he is heading for the sheets at 8:30pm, we are just getting started.  I wonder what he would say to a 10pm phone call....!

But anyway, today day shall be long and I daresay I shall accomplish a lot, what with all this ENERGY ripping through my system.  I think I might start with the washing, then the floors, then the garden, and then I might make a start on painting the house.....!!!!!

Hope your day is as buzzing as mine!!!!

Hip to be square

When I was thirteen, that bitch called puberty slapped me on the butt and said 'grow'.  

I'm a hippy girl.  I have been cursed blessed with hips that are just right for child-bearing (according to every woman I met as an adolescent).  Should children be on the cards, that would be wonderful news but as they are not....wasted on me.  If I did have kids though and childbirth was anything less than a dream, well, me and puberty would be having some serious words!

I make regular repeated and desperate attempts to decrease the size of my MAXIMUS-gluteous through vigorous exercise and strict control of the sugar consumption but I have to tell you, I appear to be losing the battle.  Weight has a funny way of going on to my hips and butt first, but coming off my waist/boobs/top half first.  Nothing funny about that.

So while the good news is that the exercise I've been doing lately (struggling out of bed on these cold winter mornings) is seeing me tone up and lose a few kilos, the bad news is that the jeans are still stretched taut (t---a----u----t) while the stretchy jumper is looking good.  Bastard.  

I mustn't give up though cos I will win in the end.   Surely I will?

In the meantime, I'll be the woman standing behind the counter/furniture/fernery wearing black bottoms with a bright cardi to draw your attention upwards Nigella style.....most likely I will also have big hair, you know, to balance it all out.  Cos that's what you do.

'Feast'-ing my mind

The other day I saw an ad in the paper for this magazine.....

A brand new magazine, first issue out at the start of this month.  The description read fantastically and given my salivation at all things yum, I had to make it mine!  So on the allotted day (Monday) I pestered Robyn at the newsagent all morning until it was on the shelf!

Put out by SBS, it ties in with the Feast series (I looooovvvve those shows!) and its tagline is 'experiencing life through food'.  I have to say, I think it's an amazing mag and ties in so well with my goal of 'eating my way around the world'!  The piccies left me hungry and the info has me itching to visit the new Indian grocery store just opened in town....I like it so much I've left a heap of subscription forms areound the house so that someone (hello LOML!!) might get the subtle hint that I would like to have this little gem arrive in the post box for me for a year.....might have to change that to some blatant hints because subtle has a history of not working.....leave it with me!   

I also got this little gem out of the post box on Monday as well....

I love mail that isn't bills. :)

A fantastic Monday haul that has kept me entertained throughout the week!

* I bought both of these magazines with my own hard earned pocket money - my opinions about them are my own and are in no way 'bought' promotions.  :)

He's a keeper!

The LOML is one of a kind - not the overly emotional or demonstrative type and certainly not up for public displays of affection - but he has a side that no one but me gets to see.  A side that if questioned about he would loudly deny to all within earshot.  

But I know better.

And now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, so do you :)

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you.....

Example A:

Message in blu-tac left on the counter at work for me to find when I opened in the morning.

Example B:

Note left near the shop register for me to find when I served the next customer.

(for some reason I can't change the photo orientation - but you get the gist!)

And add to that a bunch of flowers this week for no reason - the best reason of all to get flowers!

********

As my customer the other day told me (after I showed her the note), he's a keeper.  

He is indeed!

Sorry, August, but I don't really like you....

Nothing personal of course, but you haven't been very kind to me in years past so I don't hold much hope for you this year.  Don't get me wrong, there is a glimmer of hope deep, deep down that this year will be different, this year will be a good one, but that feeling has a tendency to be smothered by the realisation of, well, reality.

If you will remember, it all started back on that windy, blustery, are-my-ears-blocked day 23 years ago.  You know how it went.  That was the day my life was changed forever.  Irrevocably one could say.  The day my innocent, naive, childlike, life-will-never-change-because-it-is-so-perfect-and-how-could-it-get-any-better world was shattered like an expensive crystal wine glass on cheap ceramic tiles.  That was the day mum decided to leave my dad.  

Of course, I'm the first to say now that it was for the best and how grateful I am that it happened because it shaped me into who I am today and I like the me I am and all that and I wouldn't change anything.  But at the time I was devastated.  Heartbroken.  Emotionally scarred.  

Eventually I got over it but not the point.....

2001 was a good year, as you well know, you came through with the goods for which I will forever be grateful.  Out of character for you but I am grateful none-the-less.  That was the year I asked the LOML out on a date and he said yes and from then on it all went smoothly along the 'happily ever after' path.  Well, it did after I realised that it wasn't me he didn't like that night, it was the crowds - I now know he doesn't cope well with that many people in such a small space.  Pity I didn't know about that before I asked him out to watch the fireworks in the city along with most of the population of Brisbane.  Oh well.  It ended well and that's all that mattered.

A couple of years later you let me down again when the LOML decided to take on an electric power saw and came out second best.  No need for details but let me just say I found the hospital in our new town very quickly and I can drive very quickly when needed and my repertoire for swear words is amazing when the situation requires.  I never knew I knew some of the words I used that day.  Anyway, it all turned out okay in the end.  Took a good year of recovery but it's true what the LOML says, chicks dig thumbs (no thumb, not so sexy).

And then last year.....well, last year is still so very fresh in my mind and in my heart that it's hard to put into words.  Last year you took my dad and that just wasn't fair.

....

So August, this year I don't think I can deal with anything bad or too life changing (unless it's for the better - you know, like winning lotto - I'll take that one).  This year, please just carry on like July or September or even February (nice an quick and over before I know it).  

I'm counting on you.