So I get home today...

...and Mr Richard has bought me a birthday cake and is singing "Happy Birthday Eve to You!"
Totally makes up for the cranky people I spoke to on the phone today at work.

Now he's trying to learn to play happy birthday on his piano iphone and throw rice on me.

Kittenface.

I was going to write a proper post, but I have a kitten who has decided that his new favorite game tonight is trying to attach and eat my fingers while I try to type. So since he's insisting, I may as well introduce him.

 This is Wayne. R named him, after I said I wanted the name to remind me of New Orleans. He suggested Lil Wayne, and then spent the next hour calling the kitten nothing but. Now the kitten wont answer to anything else...only Wayne and Kittenface.

 This is how he feels about me writing this right now. I've temporarily relocated him to my lap, but he's clawing my foot a bit so I'll have to make this quick.

He was rescued by a friend who found him wandering around alone. She thought he was a bit teeny to be out on his own, so she took him to the vet. He didn't have a microchip, so she took him home and found him a safe room where her big puppy couldn't eat him, and put posters up to try and find his owners. A few weeks later, she'd still had no luck, and she couldn't keep him there locked up in one room away from the puppy, so she asked if anyone wanted him. R miraculously said yes, and we picked him up a few days later. R likes him just as much as I do, he just wont admit it.

He's one of those cuddly little things that follows you room to room. He gets in the way of whatever you're trying to do. Beats you to the bath, sits on the laptop's keyboard, beats me to the bath.

And he's especially fond of recipe books as beds. This is him relaxing on the open pages of Jamie's 30 Minute Meals (while I'm trying to plan dinner) but he's also quite partial to Cajun Country Cooking too.

Everything is coming up rosy

So things are looking rather up. 

Not to jinx myself or anything, but I'm kind of coasting right now. Do you ever get the feeling that you're on the verge of something interesting? Not when you know everything will go your way, but when you know that things are going to change...and it's going to be big.

I love this feeling. The only other times in my life I've been in this position, I was sort of not in the right mindset to embrace it. Now? Bring on the change. I've kind of learnt that every single thing I'm used to can fall apart, and I'll be fine. I've got all kinds of fall backs, and even if I didn't, I've got the strength now to pick up the pieces.

I'm enrolled to go back to uni next year, at a really cool campus, and in a really cool course.I'm studying to become a speech pathologist. Which is super cool, because it's a helping-people-and-doing-good kind of job. Even the days it sucks, at least I'll know I'm contributing in a very direct, tangible way to bettering people's lives. It's also an industry that is experience massive growth, a huge shortage in pathologists and a massive demand. The option to work in public or private health, to run my own practice, to work with the wealthy and charge lots, or to work for next to nothing in a community that needs the help. I can do this work all over the world, and I can earn as much, or as little as I want, and work as much or as little as I want. I'm pretty excited.

I'm also moving house in less than two months. We've been looking at little run-down rentals by the beach. We're going to downsize, ostensibly so I have less financial pressure on my while I cut back work hours to study, and so we have a better chance of saving some money to travel with. 

I've also got a shiny new job. Also with a major florist company, but this time the environments couldn't be more different. Have you ever been in a really horrible situation - a job, a relationship, a friendship, whatever - and it wasn't until you actually got out of it and into something functional and sane that you realised exactly how effed-up it was? Thats how I feel about my last workplace. I knew I wasn't happy, I knew that some of the people I was working with were toxic, but it wasn't until I started working in this lovely office, with sweet, funny people who want to help. In a company that isn't run entirely on someone's ego, and that has actual policies and supports in place, where my boss talks and listens, and doesn't shout, gaslight, verbally abuse and throw temper tantrums - often when he's the one at fault. It should be a given, but I'm still amazed every time someone acts like a decent human being in this office...the contrast couldn't be greater between it and the last company. 

I've got not a damn thing to complain about at this new place, and I'm so excited by that.

Cheating on my blog

It's been far too long an absence, little blog.
I'm pleased to report that my absence has not actually been because I've been lazy and neglectful and not writing at all. I actually have been writing. I've been road testing a couple of options, because this blog was starting to feel a bit angsty. I kept going to start a new post, and it kept quickly turning into a woe-is-me self pity party about miserable and uncomfortable things like miscarriages, workplace bullies, funerals I've attended and people who have been astonishingly nasty to me. And I don't want to fill this pretty little space with all that negativity. This was meant to be about adventures - the good ones and the ones that turned sour. But not about everyday, banal misery.

The thing about writing is that for me, at least, can't help but wander into the cathartic category. So I couldnt write here without writing about the sad things. So I found somewhere else to channel it. Have you ever heard of the 750 Words Project? Here's the theory:

"I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day."

The problem is, that while I can muster the motivation to get up a bit earlier and write three pages before work if I start at the leisurely hour of 9:30am as I did previously, when I changed job to one requiring regular 7:00am starts plus smart casual grooming standards, the idea of getting up at 4am just to write first thing in the morning didn't really fly.

I also dug out a brand new 365 Journal that I bought years ago and didn't use, because I had already started one in another colour and tried to write in it every day. Its actually reasonably easy, because theyre single, unlined pages per day. So when you have a crap day and don't want to go into it, a large fonted "fuck" in the middle of the page would suffice. Other days you write really tiny to fit it all in. If you're like me, you forget to take it with you a lot, so you have lots of notes scrawled on napkins, and envelopes, and work stationery stuck into it. I love my 365 books. The dream is to have a lovely row of them, each one documenting a year in my life. I'm not quite that disciplined yet. I journal in fits and starts and then when things get too rough, I don't want to play anymore and I stop writing until things calm down, and I get bored and restless and need to inspire myself again.

So, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf with this blog, and focus on the loveliness. And in that spirit, here's some prettiness:

The baby lop ear rabbit I had when I lived in Summer Hill. His name was Iago (he had a brother called Othello) and he slept in a vintage suitcase and ate bok choy and celery.

 I like very few things more than how clouds look from planes...when I was little I daydreamed about getting out and walking on them. I hate how information gets in the way and ruins plans like that.

 This bird lives in an old Irish pub in Glebe. I've forgotten it's name, but it tried to join in our shoeless pool game one afternoon.

 Back when I worked in a Swedish stationery shop, this is what happened when we worked too many hours, had not enough customers and not enough to do. We invented faux Swedish names, made name tags and called each other by our Swedish names for the whole day. We also perfected our Swedish chef impersonation, ate lots of ginger snaps, learnt pointless swedish phrases - like "Santa is coming" and "Register Fairy". <3

My American Crush

I don't know if Americans are aware, of if they even feel the same, but when you're Australian born and bred, it's hugely politically incorrect to love the USA.

Sure you can holiday there, and you can have a good time. But when you return, you must have a couple of 'stupid american' stories, a couple of "australia does this better" comparisons and you must promise sincerely that "It was fun, but you could just never ever LIVE there"

Just quietly, I don't really feel that way.

I've never been very patriotic about my own country. Not that I hate it, of course not, this is a wonderful place to live and I wouldn't have given up my childhood here for anything, but I'm well aware that the world is a big place, and I'm not ready to claim 'greatest place on earth' just yet. Not without seeing everywhere else first. And I'm also aware enough to know there are things about my motherland that make my blood boil, and damage it's 'greatest place on earth' ranking. Namely, our track record with our indigenous people, our appalling attitude towards refugees, the lack of legalised gay marriage and the inherent racism that still permeates our society outside the centre of our major cities.

So when I came to visit the States, I wasn't prepared to apologise for liking it so much.

The list of things I've loved is ridiculously long, but the revised version is as follows:

1. Macaroni and cheese is a valid meal, and one people make from scratch, using actual recipes. In Australia mac and cheese is a microwaved instant meal. It's on the same level as 2-minute noodles, and you should feel insanely guilty for eating it...and you may as well end it now if you feed it to your kids. I love mac and cheese. I'm all for legitimizing it.

2 Thanks Giving. Whatever criticisms one might have of the US, you cannot argue with Thanks Giving. I think it's a lovely tradition. One day I really want to make Turkey and sides from scratch and have my whole family together with the sole purpose of celebrating what we're grateful for. What a lovely thought. Thanksgiving doesnt exist in Australia, and Christmas is in the middle of summer, so it's waaaay to hot to eat roasted turkeyness. I'm thinking a Thanksgiving in July, when it's cold and rainy and we all need some comfort food.

3. Almost limitless cities to explore. Australia has two worth living in, and a handful you could consider as a second choice. Sydney and Melbourne are it. I'm in Sydney. I've lived in Melbourne and Brisbane too, and visited Adelaide and Perth. Theyre nothing special. I was bored after a week.
In the states, I could go to a different city every week and in a year I would still be discovering and learning new stuff. The cities I visited in the month I was there were all completely unique, and I was enamoured with every single one.


In conclusion, I left my poor heart behind in New Orleans. It yearns to be back there more than any city I've ever been to.

I still crave the sun in Miami. Australian sun stings in summer. It burns through your skin in just a few minutes. In Miami the sun warms you to the core, but you never burn. It's blissful. And the people are beautiful, bouncy, shiny things.

San Francisco treated me good. Wanted me to read, write and paint. Wanted me choose discerningly what cocktails to drink, sourdough to buy and wanted me to lean Juliette style out of the fire escape of my dollshouse terrace and be courted by an artist. And San Francisco definately wanted me to buy a puppy.

And New York. New York. He's like an enourmous old chandelier. It shines so damn bright that it's dazzling, and all you want to do is get amongst. The city never sleeps because nobody in it wants to miss a single second of it's sparkle. And the grime and the flaws only make me love it more. The same way I'm drawn to antiques with cracks and fading plaster, the Bronx, the darkness in Harlem, the graffitti in the subway call to me.

Last years adventure part 1: San Francisco

 I don't know recall ahow much I've told you about my Big USA Adventure.

It consisted of San Francisco, New Orleans, Miami and New York. In that order. 

San Francisco wasn't on the original agenda. LA was, but people kept warning me against LA, the hotels I looked at there were so exxy the weekend I flew in, so I decided last minute to bypass LA and go straight to San Francisco, a city so many people raved about.

It turned out to be the perfect choice. The achitecture in Frisco is adorable! The houses are these whimsical dolls houses in gelato colours. I'm also slightly enamoured with fire escapes on the outsides of buildings (they just dont exist here!) and San Fran is full of them.

 The first night I arrived I went wandering. I was staying on Lombard Street, so all around my hotel were gourmet cheese shops, dog groomers and pretty antique shops. Total love. I stayed in three different hotels, in three different parts of the city, went to China town, and the italian food/strip club area, to a bar you needed a password to get into that looks like a library, and where the drinks are super strong and mixed by dapper gents in hats...and the coolest part (and I'm setting myself up for a bit nerd ribbing now) was the nature museum!

 Entry into the museum's exhibits is by raised walkway above a series of manmade swamps, rockpools and rivers. At one point  I was walking over glass with a stingray swimming along underneath me

 The museums draw card is a four story, man made, indoor rainforest, with a spiraling walkway all the way to the top, and a deep pool at the bottom full of fish and oceany creatures. The natural levels of the forest are explaind as you ascend, with each layer's plants and animal life explained so you know what to look for.

 The whole place is full of pretty little birds, two austere macaws and when you reach the very top, you find yourself literally surrounded by swirling butterflies!

 I should mention at this point that my Iphone had a lot of photos on it too, but that it was lost before I could back it up, so these are the best of what I could take with an ailing old normal camera.

 photographing butterflies isn't easy! This one just wanted to hang out though.

Stingray!

I'm busy trying to search for a passion to pursue still. I'm changeable and I get bored easily, but when I'm passionate I'm unstoppable.

The Perks of This Job...

The spoils of working for a florist - bundles of roses to fill all my vases and wrap up for lucky favorite friends.