Faith

Last night, on the eve of our immigration interview, I had a strange dream.

I found myself, with R, on a rooftop surrounded by floodwaters. But the strange thing was, I felt safe. I had faith we would be rescued, and we would be fine. 

Now I've never considered myself religious, but in this dream, I was completely at peace and had this overwhelming sense that everything was going to be fine. I woke up feeling truly positive for the first time in weeks. I'm just not ready to write this off as 'just a dream' right now. I'm going to have a little faith,

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Image here.

The Fear

Sitting in my blog post drafts are a couple of cheery little posts - a round up of gorgeous bedding I'm lusting after for our bedroom, a post about pretty urban balcony gardens, a kind-of-successful attempt at jollof rice and a proper post about our weekend with the cheetahs.

But they all feel too frivolous and carefree to post at the moment.

In less than three days time, R and I have an interview with immigration so they can decide whether or not to allow him to stay in this country, with me. I'm a bit at a loss as to how to explain how it feels to be staring down the barrel of a major life change, and having so little control of the outcome.

 If you've read other posts or know us at all, you'll be somewhat aware of the fact that I consider him my rock. It's an indescribable comfort to have someone who is 100% on your side, who has your back no matter what and wants to see you succeed and be the very best you can be. I've felt safer and more capable with his support than I have in years, or maybe ever. I'm not exactly fearless, but I'm not crippled by anxiety and I'm actually passionately planning a future...and I'm planning it with R.

And we've gotten over roadblocks before. Most notably the miscarriage, but since we've been together R has also had the business he worked for collapse, I've been bullied out of one work place and made redundant from another. We've sometimes struggled financially...at one point we were living off my tiny $590 a week income, in an apartment that was costing us $450 a week in rent, plus running my car so I could get to work and back and R could job hunt. We got really good at shopping at Aldi and making passably tasty meals using Mi Goreng noodles. In fact, when we found out we were pregnant, we had no washing machine and were getting by with a tiny second hand bar fridge that I bought for $30 at Vinnies.

This time though, there's a chance it won't just be a roadblock. This time I have a sick feeling in my stomach that we might be careening towards a sheer drop and I have no idea whats down there. I've never prayed before but I find myself trying to bargain with the universe to just let me keep him here, I'll do whatever it takes. I'm looking for signs or good luck charms everywhere. I was browsing nail polish today and reading the names of the colour printed on the bottom, searching for one that might comfort me. I turned over one called "Vacation Time". What did that mean? That the visa would get a approved and we'd finally be booking a holiday? Or did that mean it would be rejected and my 'vacation' would actually be flights back to Ghana to avoid us being separated? Or, are the names of random nail polishes in K Mart completely arbitrary and my brain is just so overwhelmed by this that it's inventing creative coping mechanisms?

The truth is, I'm terrified. I can't even begin to contemplate a life that is suddenly without him here. I can't get my head around how we would rewrite our future plans if he weren't allowed to stay, or how I could carry on my share of the plans on my own. Or how he could on his own. I can't imagine living in this apartment we've shared, driving the car we bought together, using the laptop, the TV, the couch that he bought knowing he was so far away.

I still can't think through what we'll do if the answer is no. It's too big and too depressing and too scary to contemplate. A no wouldn't mean the end of us, but it would mean the end of our dream future. The thought of having to raise my future children far away from my family here because he wasn't allowed to stay makes me tear up. The thought of starting all over again somewhere else after all the battles we've already thought makes me dizzy. We can't do it. I don't want to.

So that's it. He has to be able to stay, because I need him to stay.
I need him.

How I Get Anything Done...despite being a massive procrastinator. Plus some pretty photos.

I am, by nature, a massive procrastinator. In the past I have easily spent entire days doing nothing at all of note - watching trashy TV, shopping for real estate in opposite corners of the world (I've picked out a nice apartment in New Orleans, and a horse ranch in Vermont for when I'm really rich), and flicking through magazines without really reading them.

I'm not totally useless of course, I've always worked or studied and done well at what I was doing. I had to drag myself out of bed grumbling, but I would go work really hard and had enough work ethic to make sure everything I needed to do was done. Then I'd come home and do nothing again. I got by seeming productive with the occasional manic cleaning or organizing or shopping binge where I'd race around all day and get a million things done, and R would come home to a spotless house, new dinnerware and a three course meal, or our home office entirely re-arranged and re-organised. More often than not though, I'd get inspired and my motivation would last about 2 hours - fine for cleaning because that's plenty of time to work through our little apartment properly. But not so good for other things. It took me two weeks of to do the three coats of paint on the ugly built-ins in our office.

This year, by necessity of not wanting to compromise my money and work less hours, nor take a lighter uni course load, I've finally had to grow up. I've learnt that for me, there are a few things that keep me on track and stop me collapsing on the couch at the end of the day having not accomplished anything beyond earning my salary.

1. Keep the momentum.
 For me, if I stop moving when I get home, that's it. Nothing else will get done. That's why I go straight from work to the gym, so I can't sit down and lose motivation in between. Then from the gym, as soon as I get home I avoid that comfy sectional like the plague! I try to plan dinners that are either already prepped, or don't need much prep, and that can be popped in the oven or on a low heat on the stove and left alone for long enough for me to run up and shower and do a super speedy tidy up, or sort and put on a load of washing, or pull up a uni lecture recording to listen to, or a chapter that needs reading. Basically I don't sit down until all those things are done, because if I do sit down to check my email or something, the momentum will go and it will be so much harder to get up and keep going.

2. Make the most of waiting time.
 This is related to the above, but I find that the more 'idle' time I have where I'm stuck waiting for something or in transit or whatever, the more likely I am to get bored and lose motivation. I find I have to keep busy from the time I get up to the time I sit down at the end of the day. The worst time for me is the traffic on the commute home. I find it frustrating because it seems like such dead time, where I wish I could be getting something else done, but multitasking while driving is mostly a really bad idea. My solution is one of two things. I either put on really really good music that will perk me back up again before I get to the gym. Or I play something educational. It sounds super lame, but MIT offer hours of lecture recordings from amazing professors. For next week I have a lecture by Noam Chomsky, celebrating 50 years of linguistics studies at MIT, which of course makes me feel like I'm doing uni work and being productive. If you google it, theres also lots of free language learning audio books you can download too. If you catch a train or bus you can just load it onto your mp3 or phone, if you drive a newer car you can load the files to an MP3 or thumb drive and use the USB connection. If your car doesn't have that, invest in a couple of rewrittable CDs and burn a few new lectures each week, or rotate your music often enough that you don't get bored.

3. Find a positive to focus on.
 For me, I can do things like cleaning or laundry with less grumbling if I focus on the fact that whatever I do now, I don't have to do on the weekend. It's like, on a Tuesday night, I'm already worn out, what difference does it make if I get more worn out before bed time. But on a Saturday morning, the less I have to do to keep on top of everything, the more time I have to do something fun or relaxing. Some little tasks have their own gratification too. Like taking the time to do a hair treatment means I have hot hair by the weekend. Going to the gym leaves me with enough of an endorphin rush mostly that I get a little more done post workout. Some (though definitely not all) of the uni work I have are actual tasks that I can work through and finish, and I love being able to cross something off my to do list once and for all. Repeated or ongoing tasks are sometimes the hardest because they never truly go away (I'm looking at you, laundry!) but actual uni assignments are my jam because I will at some point be able to finish, save and submit them, and then they're gone from my mental to-do list forever. That, for me, is enough of a little psychological reward in itself to keep me going.

And now, on a much less productive note, a sample of photos from my neglectful period of non-blog-updating.

Two minute hot nails...these are just those sticky nail adhesives you can get at Priceline. And they're my new best friend since I'm trying to save and don't get manicures anymore. You can find them yourself here.

My little blue bubble car. I finally traded in the Celica just before Christmas, and bought this shiny little thing off the showroom. It's way easier to park, way cheaper to run and isn't threatening to fall apart at the axles like the Celica was. I'll miss Juanita and her far superior acceleration and pretty curves, but having a new car is fun! Car is from these guys and the details of this baby can be found here. This colour is Blue Candy.

We've been taking lovely little weekends away. This was a drive from Sydney to Thrirroul through the National Park and over the Sea Cliff Bridge. Check in here to plan your trip, especially if the weather is a bit iffy because they do close access to parts of the National Park and the bridge occasionally when the weather is nasty.

Kittenyface is still his usual goofy self. He's taken quite a shine to this replica Isamu Noguchi Origami table from Life Interiors. If you're ever looking at Matt Blatt replicas, these guys are worth checking out too. If you're Sydney based they have a showroom about five minutes from Matt Blatt Alexandria, in Lachlan Street, Waterloo. It's a bit tricky to find because it's set back behind another building, but their prices are sometimes slightly cheaper for very very similar replicas, their service has been much better in my experience.

This was our Valentines day! I swear I will write a proper post about this at some point, but I cannot recommend the Meet-a-Cheeta experience at National Zoo, Canberra. It was pouring rain all day and the photos feature us in very unattractive rain ponchos, but the cheetas were beautiful and the staff were really lovely.

Rainy day roses in a front garden in Chatswood. 

The view from my new office, with storm clouds rolling in. After Roses Only was sold and my department ceased to exist (sadface) I took a job processing invoices and all kinds of brain hurting numbersy stuff for a wine distributor. Numbersy stuff comes pretty unnaturally to me, but the level of accuracy and attention to detail this job demands is probably exactly what I need to counteract my natural flakiness. 

The Perfect Home Office

From apartmenttherapy.com

So with the new Uni semester starting next week, I've been in daydreaming of the perfect home office.
I have a head (and Pinterest board) filled with airy, inspiring, beautiful work spaces and I'm itching to make over the one we have.

We bought with us from our first apartment an IKEA expedit desk set up and a small 4x4 cube and we've had that set up for the past few months. It's served well, but we originally bought it to double as a dining table in our first apartment, which had one bedroom and an open plan living/dining/kitchen space so we got the dark brown/black colour to match with the other furniture we already had in that big room.

Now in our new apartment we have a whole room we can use as an office, which is obviously awesome, but comes with a different set of challenges. Its a little boxy room in the middle of the apartment with no windows to the outside (though it has a cut-out in the wall into the sunken lounge room and gets a bit of natural light from the balcony doors. It's a really awkward room, because the stairs climb over the top of it creating a weird bulkhead in one corner, and a low recessed mirrored cupboard  into the wall underneath it. There's a massive almost floor to ceiling wardrobe that came with the place. It was originally a fairly ugly cheap orange-y wood, but I've since painted it the same white that we used on all the walls, so it looks more built in now and it's helped to lighten the place up a bit. Then there's an inward opening door on another wall, and a massive cut out window on a third. It's hard to picture, but super awkward to furnish nicely.

Its such a small room its hard to take pictures, but this gives you an idea of the giant cupboard (now white like the walls) and the stairway bulkhead thing plus weird mirrored sliding doors underneath it. Plus big dark shelving...functional but not very pretty.

So I've been dreaming of banishing the heavy dark bookshelves and desk and bringing in airy, white instead. Maybe something tall and slim for that nook between the wardrobe and stairs. Most of our books are in the lounge room, so the office just needs to hold our paperwork, my uni textbooks and resources, plus space for the printer and a desk we can sit at with laptops. We don't have a desktop computer, and the storage should be enough that we can stash away the odds and ends electrical stuff, x-rays, spare picture frames etc which are clogging up the shelves. I feel like one carefully sized bookshelf should hold all it needs to and then I have this possibly crazy idea that a tulip table might work for us to sit at.

This blog post from Everygirl has some good ideas...plus the cover image is pretty close to what I was imagining. Take a look:

Photo from theeverygirl.com - love the replica tulip table, light and airy walls and breezy shelving. Not so sure about all the pink and the gold chair...needs to be a bit more unisex for R to be comfortable in it.

Tulip table desk set up. I love this so much. Would look perfect with my little pink laptop instead of the big monitor here. Image via littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com.au.

I'm still trying to figure out the positioning of everything in the room though. Frustratingly, the measurements of the little nooks and wall edges I would like fill with bookcases are weird sizes and to my go-to Ikea bookcases don't fit properly. Sydney is also weirdly devoid of affordable furniture that doesn't look awful. 

If I do go with the tulip table idea, I will probably get the Ikea version though. It's plastic, but I don't really want to splash out on a marble replica version for an office, plus it's light enough to move around and be used on the balcony as a dining table sometimes too. 

And since I want to do it all in one clean sweep I need to wait until I have a little more moolah stashed away to take a shopping trip, a clear plan in place and a weekend free of uni work to put it all together. I'll keep you posted as soon as I get around to it!

You can see the rest of my Home Office Pinterest board here. Other projects in the works: Finally fix my failing balcony and figure out what do with my minimalist bedroom that looks more empty than it does curated and chic. 

It's that bittersweet time of the year.

So Uni has officially wrapped, leaving me one year down and two to go. 
In my days of leisure - this blissful gap where uni has finished but work hasn't bumped their hours back up to full time just yet, I've caught up fully with all that trashy tv I neglected during the semester. You know, the really good stuff like Real Housewives of Atlanta, Love and Hip Hop...I've watched about three seasons of Say Yes To The Dress because it's wedding season and that ish facinates me.

With the weather being so cloudy and rainy in Sydney at the moment, I've taken the opportunity to stay in and screw my head back on. I always feel a bit like I'm on a trapeze when I'm juggling work and uni, like any second I'll miss the catch and the whole thing will crumble. Thankfully, I've scraped through again, and looking at my current ability to write, just in time. That mixed circus themed simile was terrible. 



That said, I realize that while my life is slightly more hectic than all my classmates because I don't live at home anymore and do work to support myself, if things had worked out differently, I could have been juggling those final essays with planning a first birthday party. Had the universe taken a slightly different course, we would have had a child turning a year old around about November 6th. It's absolutely mind blowing to me how different our lives might have been at this moment. While I can't truly say I'm 100% happy with the way that part of our lives has played out so far, I am at least thankful that maybe now we get the opportunity to plan this at our own pace instead. It's a very strange feeling to be a bit ambivalent about procreating, then being forced into deciding pretty quickly whether this life is going to include children or not, realizing that actually yes, this is a life that will hopefully include a little person...to the universe just kind being like "psych! not yet!". Maybe it's just a coping mechanism, but I like to think of it like a warning shot - a "this is something you probably want, so maybe keep it in mind when you're making your plans to it can fit in one day down the track".

It's hard seeing friends with their gorgeous little families, beautifully chaotic households and with convention thrown out the window. Their thriving reminds me that we could have managed just fine. Our time will come though, and at least I know some truly inspiring women who have gone before me who can help light the way.

Obviously not R's baby, but he's a natural, don't you think?

Plus, that guy who stopped cooking all his favorite foods because the smell of them triggered the morning sickness from hell, who drove me to the ultrasound, who reassured me when it was all still scary, and comforted me when it all ended. He was so amazing that it made me fall the last few inches in love with him.

This car is a better judge of character than me.

The First and only car I have ever had, is this 1996 Toyota Celica.

It's nicknamed the Sex Mobile. Ironically, of course, since there has never been (and is zero room for) sexy times in it. It is also psychic and was used to 100% accuracy to judge the character of the person in the passenger seat.

I bring up the sex-mobile because five years (!?) after this picture was taken, It's not as cute as it once was. It's taken a massive beating over the last few years. Has probably got an extra 150 000kms on it since I first drove it, has dents and rust and salt damaged paint...and it might be time to replace it.

It's got way more sentimental value than anything else I own. It was my dad's car before it was mine. He taught me to drive in it, and gave to to me to practice in when he wasn't around. When he passed away, I inherited it, and it's come with me everywhere I've gone since. I love this little rust bucket. 

It needs new shock absorbers, and the engine will need replacing soon. I should have replaced the battery like a month ago because it threatens not to start anymore. It's looks especially sad next to Richard's very pretty and lovingly cared for Rover. The mechanic says it barely passed rego this year (and only because he was nice to Richard) and most likely wont pass next inspection, so I've been reluctantly looking at little city-friendly Peugeots and Citroens and Jazzes and stuff.

Is it wrong to have attachment issues with a car? Is it ok if the car has been with me longer than any of my relationships? Also, did I mention the car is psychic and has predicted with 100% accuracy thus far whether the boy I was dating at the time was an asshole or not, but suddenly and inexplicably breaking down, setting off it's own alarm or refusing to start if said boy was in the car. The times it broke down, it weirdly worked fine ten minutes later when the guy had gone on his way.

Once when I was dating this uber jerk, he'd just decided his broke (non-car owning) ass was going to 'borrow' my car, drive it an hour and a half each way to work without even offering to fill up the tank, and ignored me when I protested that maybe I'd uh, want to use my own damn car sometime in the next 12 hours, and since I was paying for said car and he wasn't he could go get on a damn train. Anyway, Douchey McDouchbag ignored my wishes and took my keys out to go take my car. Instead of using the remote key, he tried to unlock it at the door. What he didn't realize was that the remote key was also an imobilizer and stopped the alarm going off. So he set the alarm off and NOTHING would work to turn it off - not relocking and properly unlocking the car, not starting the car, and amazingly, not even the disarm button my dad had shown me. Douchey was running late at this point, so he took off to jump the next train, and I went inside to find the NRMA roadside number to get it fixed so my neighbours could get back to sleep. I came back out, got a text from Douchey to say he was on a train and on his way. As I was dialling the NRMA number, I casually pressed the disarm button again and...the alarm stopped. I got out and locked the car, unlocked it again and started the ignition - no problems. It was like the car threw the tantrum I wasn't strong enough for, just long enough to get rid of him, and then went back to normal.
The car did all kinds of weirdness like this the first few years I owned it. Now it doesn't seem to need to look out for me as much. Maybe because the boyfriend now is a far cry from the douchery from before, or maybe it's because I don't need defending anymore, I've got a much lower tolerance for bullshit, and a much louder voice.

Either way, I just can't see a Jazz having my back like that, and that makes me sad.

An apartment with some actual furniture in it!

So we've managed to make some progress on the apartment finally, after I cut back to working 3-4 days a week during the uni semester:

 We've added faux built-in low shelves/bench  to the empty wall in the loungeroom...those books may or may not have been arranged by colour when they were first added. I realise there are plenty of people who loathe that because it's a completely illogical way to arrange books, but my defense is twofold. Firstly, there may be some undiagnosed OCD going on here, so this is the way that looks neatest to me. And secondly, I have a full collection of the Great Books, and they are colour coded by content - literature/poetry is a rusty burgundy colour, the philosophers are a dark forest green etc...so the easiest way to find what you're looking for among them is to arrange by colour.

 We've also started a gallery wall, which is a huge work in progress. It currently includes an old print of a stripper, a map and postcards from New Orleans and a squirrell drawing. We have a big world map I'm framing next week to add, we're looking for a printable or purchasable map of Richard's hometown that shows the suburb he grew up in and we've got a USB of our own photos to get printed and blown up properly, this this will hopefully take shape soon.

 We've rearranged the office and added the pin boards I acquired back when I got staff discount of Kikki.K's expensive yet adorable stationary and office-y goods. It currently holds the rest of my postcards, maps etc, bills, love notes (awww) and reminders. It's doubling as a necklace holder because I have barely touched the bedroom yet and have nowhere to hang them and the cat keeps stealing them.

 We've started framing stuff for this room too. A teeny owl, some roses, Sienna in oils, and (one of) Richard's degrees.

The zebra chair has been banished to the office as a 'curl up and do your uni readings' chair/where the kitten sleeps when someone is working in the office (he's needy, and must be wherever the people are).

I've also made some updates to the bedroom with shiny new beside tables and lovely linen. You can see a preview of what's gone into the apartment and what is still to be added here:

http://www.pinterest.com/elodierose/current-loungeroom-interior/    (loungeroom)

http://www.pinterest.com/elodierose/current-bedroom-interior/  (bedroom)

But I'll update it more shortly - it's on my list of things to do along with two major uni assessments, a tonne of cleaning, taking care of a very sick boyfriend, cooking enough that I don't live off English muffins and Chinese food this week (unlike last week), studying for uni exams and finishing all those projects that will get swept aside in two weeks when I'm back at work full time and in the Christmas countdown. 

And yet, I'm blogging and watching Antiques Roadshow. Figures.