Food combos

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?

This time last year…

… 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!!!

Quick thinking

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….

A priveleged childhood had I

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.

Mmmmmmm….. coffeeeeeeee……

I think I just had one of the nicest coffee’s I’ve EVER HAD. The Deputy Rector pops down to The Potter coffee shop from time to time and picks us up a coffee, and today’s brew was just amazing! I mean, I haven’t had a bad coffee in Melbourne (bad service, yes, but not bad coffee!), but this one was just exceptional. It was the perfect temperature, the perfect strength and the flavour was fantastic!

And now I want another one…

Mondegreen #15

She Bop was a very confusing song for me, as previously mentioned. I didn’t even know what the song was about – I just assumed that it was about dancing – bopping – you know what I mean? But no, it’s not. It’s about….. um….. I’ll let you read about it yourself 🙂 (Pay particular attention to the second paragraph under “song information.” Classic!)

So the second lot of lyrics I misheard were:
“Do I wanna go out with a lion’s roar?”
which I always sang as
“Do I wanna go out with a lying slob?”

Well no, I don’t! And I certainly don’t want to dance with one!

New stuff on my blog

I’ve been having a little bit of fun with all the new gizmos and gadgets available on blogger (I accidentally typed blooger! Tee hee!) .com. I am particularly LOVING the new search tool (see left sidebar at the bottom) so I can check and make sure I haven’t already blogged about stuff before I start a new post. (Bad memory). Turns out the search window in the Navbar is fairly useless. Oh well. I do love my new look blog!

Plus, you can see what I’m up to with my TO DO list! Riveting, I know!

I do realise that many of my readers use Google Reader to read blogs (as I often do) but feel free to come over here and visit from time to time to check it all out. Who knows? You might want to know what I’m up to this Friday night in Brisbane!

It’s not you, it’s me.

“Often the things that annoy you in others, are things you see in yourself.”

I have NO idea where I first read that, but I totally related to it then, and I have ever since.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. For some reason, my patience has been a bit light-on for a while now, and I’ve been finding myself getting annoyed at things that wouldn’t normally annoy me, and then getting annoyed at myself, for being annoyed. And that is really annoying!!

To try and combat this, I’ve been trying to work out exactly what is annoying me in a situation, and reasoning with myself: Is this worth getting frustrated over? Is the issue, in fact, my own? Am I getting annoyed at this person, or the behaviour? Would I act the same way if I were in their shoes?

This line of reasoning sometimes helps (if, in fact, I remember to do it and not just get carried away with my feelings and thoughts and get upset and annoyed and frustrated and…. where was I?…) and I feel I am reconnecting with my patient self. Then today I stumbled across this quote:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” (Carl Jung)

And I like this idea a LOT more. It takes away the feeling of frustration, at both the person for being annoying, and at myself for feeling like I have the same character trait that is annoying me in the first place. Instead, it gives me the suggestion to get to know myself better, and to understand who Wifey really is. And she’s not such a bad gal.

I told you! This journey of self-discovery is going to be a lonnnnnnnnnnnng one.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me…

So, remember how I told you about the chilblains? The doctor told me to make sure I kept my feet nice and warm all the time, and that would help the healing process. So that’s what I did! I wore shoes and socks EVERY DAY and slippers or thick, woolly socks at night. Then a couple of months ago I start getting these spots on my feet. They weren’t painful as such, but they were all between my toes and annoying me. So I FINALLY went back to the doctor about them this week (I’m sure he’s sick of the sight of me) and you won’t BELIEVE what he told me.

“They are heat blisters. Your feet have been kept too warm.”

Excuse me? Can you please repeat that?? First you tell me to keep my feet warm ALL THE TIME, and now you say I’ve kept them too warm?

And the treatment?
“Don’t sweat. Ha ha.”

Do I LOOK like I’m laughing buddy?