This is where I'm at right now....

Like the ad sang, I'm going to "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with nothing in between".

The LOML and I have had a few times in our lives together where we've chosen a more positive path and have lost a few people on the way.  Sad as it was at the time, we're mentally healthier because of it.

It seems that time is upon us once more.  

Now, more than ever in our lives, we have no room for negative talk, negative thinking, negative attitudes.  We have chosen to surround ourselves with people who are happy, cheerful, friendly, nice, respectful.....and it's rubbing off on us.

It's amazing how the conscious decision to focus on the good, on the positive, on the bright side can make all the difference.

My glass is half full.

Getting my Spring on

I absolutely, positively, without any shadow of a doubt, LOVE this time of year.

These camelias are all off the one tree we have growing outside our bedroom window.  It's a massive tree, not a bust,
and I couldn't begin to guess its age....

In my ideal world, spring and autumn are the only two seasons - spring being the longest of course.

We have Jasmine growing along the fence out the front - the smell is divine.

Three weeks ago I smelled the warm on the air and started preparing for it.  Down came the blankets nailed over the windows and doorways (I do what I can in this icebox house!) despite the weather reports of another cold snap.  The doors were thrown open and the breeze blew away all the winter stuffiness.

This year I've planted heaps of flowers in my veggie garden...

Glorious.

The colours are gorgeous....

The plants outside are all telling me spring is here to stay.

  Thank you plants.  I love spring too.

Why hotels rock (a brief list)

• Free stuff in the bathroom.  Especially good when it's a brand name selection.  But I'll take it all.  I don't use shower caps but I have a lot in my bathroom cupboard here at home, just in case.  Likewise body lotions, shampoos, conditioners and shower gel.

• The pens on the  bedside table.  I don't collect much but the pens you get in hotels get me every time.  They have to have the hotel name on them though to be considered legit and allowed into the 'collection'.  At present I have about 20.  Is that enough to be called a collection?  Or is it still in the hoarding stage?  Especially since some no longer work....

• The welcome message on the telly when you first turn it on (in the pricier hotels - you don't get that in a two-star in Tripoli).  

• Someone other than yourself to make the bed in the morning.  And clean the bathroom.  And vacuum the floor.

• Lots of hot water and fluffy white towels.  

• The 'do not disturb' sign for the door.  

The more I think about it, it's the travelling I love the most - the hotels are just one part of it, just like the flight is merely a means to an end - it's the new experiences that matter the most.

But I still love hotels.

Sydney

The LOML and I were in Sydney a week or so ago.

Whilst there we did a few tourist things...

....saw a few sights...

....and welcomed home some sporting champs....

I think ticker-tape is the benchmark of a really good parade.  My standards have been raised.  Carnival of Flowers be warned..... lol

Of macadamias and avocados and so forth

When the LOML and I first looked at this house with the intention to buy, it had sat un-lived-in and un-loved for months.  The grass was knee-high, the front gate was chained shut and the letterbox was full of junk mail.  

While waiting for the real estate agent to show up, we had a sticky beak around the yard, as you do.  

I fell in love in an instant.  

Well-established fruit trees were everywhere - orange, lemon, grapefruit, mandarine, fig, avocado, pecan, persimmon, apricot, mulberry, peach, nectarine, kiwi fruit, bananas, loquat, custard apple, lime, lemonade.....I was in heaven.  

It blew me away that this suburban block, tucked unobtrusively between two businesses in the 'rough' side of town yet still amazingly close to the centre of town, still had the feel of the farmhouse it once was.

In my heart I knew, this was my home.  The viewing we were about to have was merely a formality.

One of the mulberry trees just inside the front gate, absolutely loaded with fruit this year!

Right now, the trees are feeling spring.  I cannot wait until all these flowers burst their buds and bring in the bees.

That's the macadamia on the left, pecan in the middle, avocado on the right.

Some days I feel like the most fortunate person on the planet.

Walking on the wildside

When I was in the garden the other day, talking to the lemon tree, checking out the bananas (very exciting really, to have bananas growing in this part of the world through winter), making mental lists regarding the need to do some serious weeding and a whole lot of pruning, I was startled by the sound of dry grass rustling.  

A slow, sneaky rustle.  A rustle of the reptilian kind.  

I couldn't see what the source of the noise was but my mind filled in the gaps...

Clearly a gigantuan, multi fanged, lethal and angry snake-like creature was making it's way from beneath all the tin and timber the LOML has 'stored' around the perimeter of my garden straight for me to eat me.

Luckily, I wasn't eaten.

Falling off the face of August.....

Seriously, where has this month gone.

I'm flailing in my lack of date recognition and the disappearance of the days.  I'm really pinning all my hopes on the longer days meaning I get back on top of things again - in my world, we're only just into the first week of the eighth month...very disappointing, and more than a tad scary, to realize with a jolt that we're nearly into September already.  I'm just not ready.

That being said, a lot has been happening in this neck of the woods lately.  A blog post in each to be sure, but in a nutshell.....(not, as the LOML would say, you're a nut-Shell)....

......it's been Languages and Cultures Festival time again....

.....I've been working long enough to accrue a week and bit holiday - so we headed south and spent a week and a bit in Melbourne and Sydney....

(I loooovvveee hotel freebies)

....saw some sights...

Could I get a bigger pole in the centre of my frame????

 ....made a few donations....

.....welcomed home some olympians....

....did some shopping, met some rellies and then headed home loaded up with goodies....

.....I've since been out in the garden with gusto (this weather is glorious, just plain glorious!)....

.....we've also been cranking up the little Webber on the deck again with the LOML showing off his chicken-stick prowess...

Hopefully now I'm back in the routine of blogging, just like I'm back in the routine of exercising.  But while I despise with the white hot intensity of one thousand suns the necessity which is exercise in my life, (a routine that is a must.  M.U.S.T.), blogging (both reading and writing) is my outlet and my release and I'm glad to be back into it.

Cheers!!