Lost chair.

The building across from my office is the ugliest building in the East, I call it "the projects" because it's all sheets for curtains and broken furniture for a garden. Complete eyesore. But the random lounge chair in the weeds looked like it belonged.

Lyric share.

Josh Garrels, who has a weird voice and really likes rhymes.

Beyond the Blue

Stand on the shores of a site unseen
The substance of this dwells in me
Cause my natural eyes only go skin deep
But the eyes of my heart anchor the sea
Plumbing the depths to the place in between
The tangible world and the land of a dreams
Because everything ain’t quite it seems
There’s more beneath the appearance of things
A beggar could be king within the shadows of a wing

And wisdom will honor everyone who will learn
To listen, to love, and to pray and discern
And to do the right thing even when it burns
And to live in the light through treacherous turns
A man is weak, but the spirit yearns
To keep on course from the bow to the stearn
And throw overboard every selfish concern
That tries to work for what can’t be earned
Sometimes the only way to return is to go,
Where the winds will take you

And to let go, of all, you cannot hold onto
For the hope, beyond the blue

Yellow and gold as the new day dawns
Like a virgin unveiled who waited so long
To dance and rejoice and sing her song
And rest in the arms of a love so strong
No one comes unless they’re drawn
By the voice of desire that leads em’ along
To the redemption of what went wrong
By the blood that covers the innocent one
No more separation
Between us.

Australia day.

I had a simply nice day on Thursday. I was kind of wondering what to do with a useless midweek holiday that would not be exhausting, yet at the same time not be so lazy I wasted it. It fell into place beautifully, with a last minute fb event invite (which I normally HATE and LOATHE) to watch G swim in the harbour. I thought, yes! What could be more perfect for Australia Day then going to watch friends swim at the Opera House. It was a little boring standing there by myself but I was rewarded with wet hugs when G and A got out of the water, and then E arrived, and we went to a cafe on CQy that is called Arc, and has cheap coffees but very slow ones due to a lack of multiple barristers. Then it was lunch time so E and D and I decided to go have lunch, and a 555 free bus pulled up so we went downtown. Cellinis in QVB has the most reasonably priced light lunches of soup and sandwiches etc. And on that top level there are also some cool new shops, mywalit which has every wallet format you could ever want in rainbow colours http://www.mywalit.com/ and also a stationary shop, drool.

Then quickly popped into David Lawrence, where I don't normally shop, to check out the sale racks. I bought a dark purple cotton dress a size to big for $60. On Friday I picked up a roll of thread to alter it, on the weekend I unpicked the underarm seams a bit, took them in, and voila. Still loose fitting but not gaping. I'm glad I got onto that quickly, it's terrible when things hang around new but unwearable because you have to do something fiddly to them, and then you regret buying them so optimistically. Not this time! I shall wear it tomorrow!

Back to Thursday— I then had to go home because mum and sister were coming. I walked up to bus stop, and a bus arrived! Beautiful. Then when I walked down my street I noticed a station wagon, which is pretty rare in Randwick, and it was mum and sister just arrived! Beautiful. We watched Gilmore Girls and then walked to Coogee for dinner and then I bought a Sara Lee bavarian for dessert with more GG. I had a dehydration headache though, so I guess it wasn't a perfect day.

I woke a little bit up in time to get a hug goodbye which was a lovely start to Friday. Then I finished off the defrosted milk with some berries and chocolate. It's quite nice to do something different for breakfast, because breakfast is such a mundane meal.

In other daily news, Saturday was a wedding in the city, and Sunday I mainly watched TV (Heroes) until mid afternoon music prac for church. I suspect I have been watching too much TV recently.

Today didn't work out great, I forgot Jillian clothing, forgot slip for post office pickup, and have to go home and get the broken fridge up to the street. Although moving a fridge that is ALREADY broken isn't very stressful when you think about it. Maybe that will be fun after all.

Family reunion.

Prelude: my bro and I are going traveling, so we set aside last Friday arvo to go to a travel agent together, before we headed to Canberra on Sat morning for a family reunion. I decided to get my passport photo printed at photo king even though it was further to walk, to compare it with the print quality of the other place, then I was gonna walk back and pop into STA or something and get info till Matt got here. Walking around the corner, the first place I saw had a big student flights sign, but STA does student and normal, so I walked in and asked. And the second thing I said was "you look like my cousin", doing a confused double-take. And it actually WAS a cousin. I still can't get over it. So he sold us travel. Flying to Heathrow 16 April, then to Namibia, then home, 4 weeks. Yay! Will start planning how to fill time between flights soon. Here's a clue: there is a very interesting movie in post-production.

So then, the proper family reunion, an "every 5 years—Mum's side of the family" thing. There were 50 of us, 4 generations, and we went on a cruise on Lake Burley Griffin, and hung out on the Christmas tree farm outside Canberra. There was such nice weather on Saturday, warm and sunny, but I also enjoyed the cool windy weather. Nothing so therapeutic as a walk in a fresh breeze. The extended family are really nice, although being so extended and dispersed we don't know each other very well. I was asked several times how I was enjoying Perth, which is fair enough, I didn't chat to everyone because really, one weekend every 5 years is not enough time to bother learning all their names! Anyway, this is me on the cruise. You get a good view because all the important buildings are around the edge of the lake. If I were Governor General I would go to work in a speed-boat.

On a walk around the farm I spotted a family of fairy wrens, 4 babies were huddled on a twig. When I went back with my camera I only managed to get an adult male (and a hiding baby). They hide and hop so quickly. I love fairy wrens, it's as cute as seeing an actual fairy.

This is a crop of Christmas trees. There was a particularly handsome big one but I didn't photo it. My aunt says it is set aside for Parliament House next Christmas! How prestigious.

Cat cross stitch

When I was home for Christmas I needed to raid the cross stitch cottons. I found this cat pattern, and it seemed like something a colleague of mine would like, and it was very quick to do. I did it when the cricket was on, and it was done in 3 days. I bought it a cheap smart frame and gave it away.

My tip for doing cross stitch is to roll it up. If you fold it in between doing it you get dirty lines where it's folded. I don't like embroidery frames much because I think they are too rough and pully. But if you roll it up, and unroll it to the bit you are doing, you are mainly holding the back of the cloth so it is cleaner, and it's much easier to iron out afterwards.

Feeling better.

The horror of mass appliance death while flatmate away, solo financial and decision responsibility, is starting to wear off, leaving me tired and pathetic, although I did Jillian before work so it could be a combination. And have remembered that I've been blessed to have these things in the first place, esp free and second hand. Putting big girl pants on and coping.

My attempt at ringing a repair person was a fail this morning. No internet skills at home due to laptop death, so had to come to work to find a phone number. Ring up, and they need to know the brand to send the appropriate person. I do not know the brand of my fridge, or of 90% of boring useful things in the house. Also, a bad sign, the first one I called is booked up til Thurs. So I guess at this point, there's no hurry. The fortunately small amount of food is already having to go in the bin, which is going to break my heart, and nothing worse can happen. And I still have a freezer, which would be a worse disaster if it died. It doesn't seem to be dead.

This is what I don't like.

I got home from church last night, turned on the lights, turned on the TV—TV not working. Check fridge: not on. So the wall electricity must be off. I know what to do, flip the switch in the fuse box thing in the kitchen. Yay. Fridge on, TV on.

Except, set top box won't turn on. Must have been struck by lightening last night. So no TV after all. Well, I'll read a book.

The fridge is not making the normal noise. No engine running, just periodic coughing and then quiet. Well, give it a kick, go to bed, check it in the morning.

Eat breakfast, every mouthful of not-cold milk stresses me out. Need to ring up repairer. Need a phone number. Need internet. Lucky didn't have laptop plugged in during storm, should be OK. Except that the adapter was plugged in, and it won't work either. So will have to find number to ring up at work. 3 things broken so far. WHAT ELSE CAN GO WRONG?

Try and take most perishable food to work in back pack. At least the freezer is separate so not broken and the fridge is nearly empty, that's a blessing. Get to work and make call, but don't know brand of fridge, so can't get repairer.

I can't switch my brain off this stuff, I'm too annoyed right now. Hopefully blogging is clearing my brain so that I can work.

Random Review: Dream 05/01/12

Last night I dreamed I was getting married. I don't read anything exciting into that, I've never enjoyed getting married dreams, the few I've had have been full of confusion and fear. This one was set in the time between waking up and going to the church. Not sure who the groom was, never got to the church, but I remember doing the "morning before wedding thing" and I had no bridesmaids, and I was flaking out, I got my hair done but it looked weird on one side and nice on the other, I had lunch with my family, then I just ran around randomly for a while and there were a lot of guests I didn't know, until it was 10.30am which was the time to get married (to someone?), and I went to put my dress on and I couldn't find it, but I had tried it on just before lunch. Then I woke up. It's probably my fear of being disorganised and unhappy when I have to organise something that should be fun.

And on the marriage subject, here is something I learnt today: the honeymoon period, the first year or so, is often not a blissful time, in fact "honeymoon" is the opposite of what it is. That was an insight, cos I thought it was all happy love hormones.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1861028,00.html
http://mynewlywedlife.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/post-nuptial-depression/

So there you go, that's the weird heavy stuff I've been thinking about today.

Random Review: Fleet Foxes.

I had a spontaneous last minute invite to hear Fleet Foxes at the opera house last night. I knew they were coming there but I'm not a super big fan, just a general liker. Last minute tickets are wonderful, but I'm not very good at changing my plans at the last minute so I almost said no. It was 6.30, an hour and a half before the music started, and I was still at the office, having just done Jillian, tired and smelly and hungry, with a MASSIVE load of washing at home and a scarily depleted underwear drawer. First I tried to catch the bus home for a quick shower and throw the washing in the machine, but there was a 20 min wait, so I trotted back to work and washed up as best I could and put my work clothes back on, then caught the bus straight in to Circ Q. I bought a schnitzel wrap cut in half to share with D, and some hot chips to eat while waiting for her. I saw 2 people on scooters like mine scoot on to a ferry! Ah cool.

I was wondering if there would be a support act. A gig at the opera house, would it be casual or what? And actually at 8pm the FF walked on stage and started playing. Odd.

I'm not familiar with most of their songs, but they are foot tapping good. They played the few I knew about half an hour in. They had a lot of instruments, there are 6 of them, and they do a lot of swapping piano to flute, guitar to weird slide thing, double bass to violin, bass to shakers. The singing and harmonising were unbelievably good. They have the same sound quality on stage as on the albums, the sort of echoey 'singing in a pedestrian underpass' sound, only bigger and louder. They had long awkward pauses between songs to tune, sometimes there was banter but mostly they didn't bother, they seem pretty shy really, playing in the dark as much as possible.

So this is them, or plasticine version of them, for your enjoyment. (2.5 min long)

Review: CWA Cook Book; Seventy years in the kitchen.

Gift from Grandma, I think Dad suggested it. It looks nice. It's a spiral bound folder, with a nice textured plastic coating and a cream and blue colour scheme. The inside is full colour and often uses a linen-textured background, which unfortunately decreases readability. Ergh. First rule of design, form follows function. Also, although the first few pages of linen background are high res, mostly it is pixelated and ugly, I really don't know why. The pages with flat coloured backgrounds are much nicer, thankfully. Each section has a spread with some sepia photographs of old fashioned CWA meetings, group photos in front of CWA halls, and refreshment stands at country shows. They are charming. My favourite one is of the "younger crowd" at Gunnedah, about 20 young women enviably turned out in smart frocks and hair-dos.

There are no pictures of food. I do find it hard to know what to cook when I don't have pictures to help me choose, or to guide me to a finished product. But in this case, I don't think it matters, because the book is actually quite interesting to READ. I literally spent the morning on NYE Saturday sitting on my bed with this book, flipping pages and learning stuff. The CWA sandwich challenge I'm doing is to help me actually experience the book, otherwise I wouldn't know where to start, I'd just go "oh, wow, people ate tongue sandwiches in real life, not just in Agatha Christie books, I wonder if I should try out this mashed potato chocolate cake recipe one day" and then never actually use it because, yes, there are no pictures.

So there you go, I wouldn't have bought one for myself and it isn't exactly that useful in the modern world, but it is very interesting and I like it.

What I did on my New Year.

Had a picnic with JK and read Agatha Christie and watched the Coogee fireworks. 2nd year of this picnic so that makes it a tradition! We had an early night, she went home and I went to bed before midnight. Fireworks woke me up though, so I was there. But in bed. This was the first year I went to bed, actually. I've always felt that I really need to be awake and having fun. But this year, I had fun, drank champagne, then I wanted to go to bed, so I did. Best of both worlds, fun, and not tired the next day!

I bought an internet usb. So far, I've used it for nothing except setting itself up, trying to deactivate Adobe CS from one computer to another, and looking up movie times. But I guess it will be handy.

Went to the beach with another friend. Got a tiny bit sunburnt, where I missed the sunscreen. How amazing is sunscreen. I missed the front of my shoulders, which was a shame. Bit sore for clothes even after 2 days. Gonna have a cracking swimmer tan.

Read the first Patricia Cornwall book, Postmortem.

Did Zumba with flatmate on DVD. Not as good as Jillian, or the actual zumba classes I did in 2010. Wow, was it that long ago...

Cooked Coles brand chorizo sausage on George Foreman, because I had a craving. It worked pretty well, but they roll down it a lot.