a Beer, a Whine and The Spirit

Hubs and I left Brisbane 8 (???) hours ago and we are currently on stopover in Singapore, using their FREE internet!! Did I mention it was FREE????? Singapore Air have my 2 thumbs up so far! We had a few glasses of wine (and G&T and Baileys) which I've never really done before (drank much on flights) so I'm feeling ready for a little nap now but there are too many good movies and TV shows to watch on the next leg!! Which leaves in 6 hours :-(

Singapore airport is also really easy to get around (FREE shuttles between terminals that are run by robots!! Okay. So it's all automatic, but that's PRACTICALLY a robot, right??)

Not much more to say other than I had such a great Christmas and it was awesome seeing all the family again. I miss you all already!! And we made a few new special friends who really touched our hearts - you know who you are! Can't wait to see you again!

Until we get FREE internet again, adios!

Posted by Renae at 11:52 PM Comments

We're due to leave on our road trip in about 3 hours time and we're almost packed. Sort of. Mostly. Oh well! It'll happen! I'll be trying to blog a bit while on holidays, but I haven't prepared or scheduled any posts for while we're away, but I'll have plenty to talk about when we get back.

I hope you all have a really wonderful Christmas and thanks for reading!

See you in 2010!

Posted by Renae at 1:57 PM Comments

Myself, Hubs and Nate will be starting our road trip back to Brisbane tomorrow night and we're excited!! This is where we'll be for the next few days:


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Once we hit Brisbane, we'll be pretty busy leading up to Christmas, and then of course we'll be heading to South Africa and doing something like this:


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So as you can see, we have a LOT of fun to get through the next few weeks! Then it's my 30th birthday! YAY!!! And then we'll be attending Hubs' brother's wedding (double YAY!) and then flying back to Melbs for our last 5 months here before we head to Wangaratta (or to the locals, Wang!) which is here:


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Looking forward to seeing so many of you soon! And some of you not soon enough!
(You can drag and zoom in and out on the maps! Go nuts!)

Posted by Renae at 4:52 PM Comments

In fact, no one is like "other people". I guess that's what makes us all special and individual and all that stuff. But I'm a slow learner, and I can be particularly dense sometimes. I'm just now learning (in almost my 31st year of life) that I don't think the same way as "other people", and other people don't think the same way as me. And that's okay.

I have these ginormously high expectations of myself that I'm constantly not living up to. But no one cares about this but me. Instead of just being "me" I want to be the perfect Wifey, the perfect employee, the perfect friend, the perfect body shape, the perfect daughter, the perfect granddaughter, the perfect sister etc etc. No pressure or anything!! And when I fall short of this, it really gets me down.

I know that this is making me sound like a perfectionist, and I'm really not, as I just give up when I'm not perfect! :-) I just try and do too much all the time and then when I don't succeed I fall in a heap. So even though I don't like to make New Years resolutions, my goal for next year is to give myself a break; to let myself be me, however imperfect.

It's going to be tough :-)

Posted by Renae at 11:43 AM Comments

No, I'm not talking about this type of Mary Jane. I'm talking about THESE.

Oh, and these:

I have bought all 3 pairs since we've been in Melbourne, for a grand total of.... hang on, how about I play another game!? How much you think I pay for each pair? They are all leather (wouldn't buy anything else when it comes to Mary Janes!), super comfy, and totally sexy! Again, I'll put the price down the bottom, but I can assure you, you WON'T BELIEVE ME!!!

Another angle? Sure thing!

Posted by Renae at 10:16 AM Comments

Posted by Renae at 10:29 AM Comments

Friday the 4th of December it was cool
Sunday the 6th my back got sunburnt from sitting out on our patio for a few hours, cutting Hubs' hair (calm down, it was just a trim)
Tuesday the 8th it was freezing again so I had to wear layers (and on sunburnt skin, this is NOT COOL)
Sat/Sun the 12th/13th was cold then hot then cold again
Yesterday (14th) was freeeeeeezing!
Today it's getting up to 30
and Tomorrow it will APPARENTLY be 39.

Stupid. Melbourne. Weather.

Posted by Renae at 9:31 AM Comments

We have been fortunate enough to have access to a car the last few weeks (thanks to Lsl buying herself a Ute from down here, so we have to road trip it back to Brisbane starting this Friday!) so we decided to take it for a spin down to Torquay a few Saturdays ago. The weather was so lovely in the morning, that I insisted we get out of Newman for the day. The thing about Melbourne weather though, is that it seems to incorporate the surrounds as well. On our way down the sun vanished, but we were determined! (Well, I was determined. Hubs was in a making-Wifey-happy mood which suited me just fine!)

We arrived and went for a walk down the beach. It wasn't actually as cold as I expected, and the bay water was pretty nice too.

And now for a game of "how much you think I pay?"

(Back story: My Grandpa is a bargain shopper and becomes very pleased with himself when he saves lots of money, and he likes to pose the question "how much you think I pay?" and is chuffed when we name a price WAY higher than what he paid! It's good fun!)

So I bought this purpley-pink top from a Kathmandu sale

and I pose the question: How much you think I pay? Now, I SHOULD leave it at that and tell you the price after you guess, but I'm not that patient, so I'll put the price right at the end of my post and you can tell me how WRONG you were in your guesses :-)

After our walk on the beach we went and checked out the Rivers clothing store and got a few bargains there as well! (A post for another day.) While we were inside it started pouring down so we shopped until it eased off. We left and dropped our stuff off into the car and as we were doing so it started to pour down again so we ran to the cafe we had decided to eat at, but not before we got quite soaked :-(







Full price $74.95 (who would PAY that???)
What Wifey paid: $6.95 (yes, I'm a bargain shopper too!!)

Posted by Renae at 11:11 AM Comments

I'm a cereal girl (living in a cereal world?) and I had toast for brekky this morning and there are so many things I don't like about toast for breakfast:

1. it takes too long
2. it doesn't fill me up for more than half an hour
3. too many decisions to be made about what to put on it in the morning (jam? peanut butter? honey?? I'M STILL HALF ASLEEP!)
4. I get distracted very easily so there's only a 50% chance that I won't forget about the toast being cooked and burn it beyond recognition
5. I'm hungry now (see 2nd point)

I have a whole week of this!! (we are leaving on Friday and ran out of cereal last Friday and there's no point in buying a whole new packet just for a week...)

Posted by Renae at 10:12 AM Comments

When choosing a movie, to watch, one question always has to be asked:

"Is this a Wifey movie?"

A lot of the time, Hubs has to think about it. Most of the time he gets it right, but sometimes not. Here's an example of Wifey movies:

Cool Runnings (I can't believe that's the first one that popped into my head)
Moulin Rouge
Lethal Weapon1-4
Chocolat (I think I had a bigger crush on Juliette Binoche than I did on Johnny Depp!)
Die Hard 1-4
You've Got Mail
Love Actually
Robin Hood, Men in Tights
Shrek
to sum up: rom-coms, comedies, kids movies, action with a medium level of violence

An example of non-Wifey movies:
A Nightmare on Elm St (thanks for letting me watch that when I was 9 years old, big bro)
Twilight movies
The Exorcist
The Ring
Hostage (learnt that the hard way too)
Anything scary
to sum up: horror, creepy, extreme violence

This rule also applies to TV shows. Some shows that Hubs and I have enjoyed together are Scrubs, Battlestar Gallactica, and more recently, Boston Legal.

And then there's Dexter.

Dexter is not, never has been, and may never be, Wifey-safe. Hubs started watching a few episodes last year when we first moved down here, and he said it was really awesome, and that I should give it a go, and that he would tell me when to close my eyes (or at least put my hands over my face and peep through my fingers.) So I gave it a go. I think the first episode we watched together was on the weekend I was sick with rubella and it was daytime, which reduces the scary-factor somewhat. It was like a train wreck. I couldn't look away! I loved it but hated it all at the same time. But not wanting to be narrow minded, I stuck at it, but we were only allowed to watch it in daylight.

So we made our way through season one with a few bad dreams, but I did really enjoy it. So then we moved on to season two, with the same daytime rule. We took a bit of a break from it after that (season two was emotionally exhausting!) but then Hubs acquired season three, so we started watching that a few weeks ago. And we punched it! We were watching an episode most evenings (it's still light until 9pm!) followed by an ep of Boston Legal. But the other night we watched Dexter, BL, and then ANOTHER Dexter cos it was so good.

Bad idea.

I had the most horrible dreams. There was stabbing and shooting and strangulation, dumping of bodies in the lounge room ("we" killed Dexter then tried to hide his body under the couch) and police cars and stake-outs. It was all there! And I had one of the worst night's sleep I've had for a LONG time. We MUST comply with the daylight rule. It's not a rule to be broken.

So we are watching the last episode of the season after work today, and the suspense is KILLING ME! I trust it will be as good as they've built it up to be. No spoilers thanks!

Posted by Renae at 11:21 AM Comments

spaghetti and bolognaise - good
bolognaise on toast - good
cheese on toast - good
jam and cheese on toast - good
vegemite and cheese on toast - bad
vegemite and anything - bad
banana and honey - good
banana and tuna on toast - bad (yes, I know someone who tried it)
mango on toast - bad
mango - bad
mango flavoured frozen yoghurt - good
natural yoghurt and bran with some honey - good
vegemite and honey - see above
milo - good
peppermint tea and milo - bad

And you?

Posted by Renae at 3:06 PM Comments

... I was blogging about how lovely and quiet the college is without all those pesky students around
... I was amazed that we had been in Melbourne for 6 months already
... I was struggling to find an identity for myself down here
... We had just celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary
... I was annoyed that I was sick AGAIN!!
... I was looking forward to going to Brisbane for Christmas

And now I'm
... blogging about what I was doing a year ago
... blown away we've been in Melbourne for 18 months
... finding my groove down here as a wife, a Marriage Celebrant, a friend and someone who has had a job for over a year and is happy in it
... excited to have just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary
... excited that I haven't been sick for months and months (touch wood)
... looking forward to going to Brisbane for Christmas, and all the adventures to follow

The countdown is on! 2 weeks and 1.5 days of work left and we're hitting the road! YEAH!!!

Posted by Renae at 11:17 AM Comments

It's my job to order to the key lanyards at the end of the year, so if students (or staff!) lose their keys, the person who finds them can call the number on the lanyard and tell us where the keys are. In a perfect world anyway. Most of the students discard the lanyard as soon as they are given their keys. Anyway. I get to choose the colour and last year I ordered a lovely orange, to contrast with the previous year's blue. This year I chose purple. Hooray! My favourite colour! The colour of the lanyards have nothing to do with this story, but I like purple so I thought I'd mention it. (And from the looks of my blog, I like the combo!)

They arrived today and look stunning. I gave the first one to my boss (well, one of my bosses - when you're this low in the pecking order, you have many) and she put it on her key chain. A minute or so later she came out holding the lanyard, looked at me, and said "The phone number is wrong."

In the 3 seconds before she cracked a smile and said "only joking", my brain had processed the following:

"Crap crap crap. Hang on, they used the template from last year so that means LAST year's number must have been wrong, but I know for a fact that it wasn't wrong. Someone at their end must have stuffed up. It's not my fault! Hooray!"

Am I the only one here impressed by the speed of my thoughts right there? Maybe it's the thought of getting into trouble (yes, I'm a scaredy-cat) that makes me think so fast. But seriously! Never mind how gullible I am, LOOK AT MY BRAIN POWER!!! At this rate I'll be able to take over the world sooner than I thought.... Mwah ha ha ha ha haaaaaa....

Posted by Renae at 3:00 PM Comments

I consider myself to be a very lucky person, growing up in a loving family in a beautiful home and never going without everything I needed, and many things I wanted. With Dad being a geologist, we got to do a lot of travelling around for the first 7 or so years of my life. We would spend the winter months up in Dimbulah (I can't believe it has it's own Wiki page! Woo hoo!) just outside of the township, where my bro and I would go to kindergarten, pre-school or school. We lived at a Queensland Government base camp, where up to 30 male geologists and maybe 1 or 2 female geologists or field hands were based for 6 months at a time. There were a number of tents set up as accommodation, and some outhouses and outdoor showers to share.

We were lucky though. We had "the shed". As a kid, it was like living in a big adventure land. Our "back yard" was a mountain of boulders that we would climb up and explore; "The Shed" seemed perfectly adequate and large to a 4 or 5 or 6-year-old; and because we were usually the only kids on site, we were given a lot of treats, usually in the form of soft drinks or cardboard-on-a-rope rides, or piggy-back rides. Mum was the camp cook, often cooking for the whole camp of 30 men, with my brother and I, and our dog Cuddles, running around under her feet.

I re-visited our old home when I was 22 and boy that shed was small. Mum, how did you do it?? Living there with Dad and us 2 ratbags, I have nothing but admiration for you!

Even writing this now, at the age of 20...something... I have a smile on my face. Those times up there for our family are some of the happiest memories of my childhood, and certainly at my youngest, some of the only memories I have. Yes, my life is awesome.

Posted by Renae at 9:20 AM Comments