Author: Renae
Living life as a wife, a stay at home mama of 3 kids under 5, a marriage celebrant, a craft and sewing amateur, a cooked breakfast lover, coffee enthusiast, extroverted socialite, and most recently, someone who is trying to keep a tidy house. It's tough I tell you!
The Wedding of 2009
This is really quite overdue, but I figure, it’s better late than never! Hubs and I attended my cousin’s wedding last October and it was just delightful. We headed over to Kturtle and Khicken’s place to get ready in the afternoon, after a few home brewskies, and headed to West End for the service.
It was just divine. I had a little cry as I watched my “baby cousin” who, along with her twin, are the sisters I always wanted. The service was really lovely and personal, and I had a little cry when they were making their promises to each other.
Here’s A&A, the happy couple, after the service
Kturtle, Khicken, Dad, Mum, Wifey, Hubs (red was the order of the day!)
A&E – Another happy (and stunning) couple!
And another…
And another!!
Pro Photo. Aren’t they just gorgeous!
And then it was off to the reception! Via the Spring Hill Hotel with the cousins, that is. I thought to myself, “I’ll just have a champagne or 2 and that will do me” but what I’d forgotten was that we were with my brother and his Kturtle so the drinks were flowing freely. Oh boy. We finally made it to the reception, in a jovial mood and were ready to par-tay!
The speeches were really special, and when Crolly recited a poem he had written, to his bride, there was not a dry eye in the house. And don’t get me STARTED on his rendition of “The Horses” by Daryl Braithwaite. “That’s the way it’s gonna beeeeeee little darlin'”. Oh my goodness. SO MUCH FUN!!!
And of course, you can’t have all the cousins together, without getting a cousin shot!
I’m so happy for you guys, and I know you have embarked on an amazing journey together that you will share whole-heartedly. So much love to you both.
Choose my own adventure
My dearest darlingest cousins and Aunty and Uncle bought me a Red Balloon experience for my birthday. Basically you get a whole lot of experiences to choose from, to do at your leisure and I’ve narrowed it down to a few options, depending on availability
Yoga Classes – 10 yoga classes at a studio in St Kilda
Sea kayak adventure tour – along the Mornington Peninsula
Coffee Tasting kit – although, I AM trying to reduce my caffeine intake…
Tea sampler gift box – now that sounds like my cup of tea!
Dolphin and Seal watching for two – just off Sorrento where we’ll be for Easter!
Stand up paddle board and sunset penguin tour – this sounds like SO much fun!!
Horse riding on the beach – might be a bit far from Melbourne, but how fabulous!
Decisions decisions! Deciding is half the fun! Which one would YOU choose?
Boston Legal meets The Muppetts
So we’re onto season 4 of Boston Legal and again, it’s taking me a while to get into it. It happens every season. I get attached to characters, the stories are going great guns, everything is making sense and I’m in my groove. Then we start a new season and all of a sudden old characters have disappeared with a vague explanation like “since Denise is on extended leave” or sometimes they just vanish with NO explanation at ALL! Like Claire! Do you know how annoying that is?? It’s like the character didn’t even exist!
But I can’t help but adore the show. I’m addicted. We finished Season 3 last week and didn’t have Season 4 straight away I kinda panicked a little! But it’s okay, we’re onto Season 4 now, which brings me to the point of this post.
Saffron Burrows aka Lorraine Weller. Now don’t get me wrong. I liked Saf in Circle of Friends, and I liked her in Troy. But in Boston Legal, all she does is walk around looking all leggy and necky and dopey.
She reminds me of Janice from The Muppett Show. Seriously.
She has no substance! Or if she does, I’m yet to see it. She’s just on the show for the sex appeal, and really I’m okay with that. I mean, you can’t watch BL without being okay with a bit of sexism in the script. I don’t know how they get away with it, but I think it’s partly due to the fact that they’re so damn blatant about it. But Saffron’s character takes it too far. She’s just too much snooty and not enough depth.
I don’t know how many more snooty huffy drippy looks I can take from this woman!!!
South African Animals
I’m going to mainly let the photos speak for themselves in this post. These animals were mostly seen at Kruger park, and a couple of other game parks we visited. You could get so close!! Scary!
Cheeky Zebra (you can just imagine it going “heeeyyeeee” kinda like The Fonz)
Cheeky Monkey (and baby!) (this is one of my favourite photos!!)
Gorgeous Giraffes (we think they were canoodling!)
Impossible impala (what?… I’m running out of words. Can you do better?)
Ossie Ostrich (?)
A red-billed hornbill (aka Zazu from The Lion King)
And while we’re talking about The Lion King, here’s Pride Rock!! (okay, so it’s not as impressive as the one Mufasa comanded from, but there were lions nearby, so clearly it was Pride Rock.)
(“aaaaayazenyaaaaah mudiwi’ chadiwa” “hummmmm”)
(YOU try spelling it…)
“When he was a young warthog.”
“When I was a young wart hoogggggggggggggggg”
“Very nice”
“Thank you”
(damn these things were cuuuuuuute)
Plenty more animals to come!!! Stay tuned…
Wifey 1. Bank 0.
Well, I should give the bank a point as well. Let me explain.
I’ve been with the Commonwealth bank since I was 6 years old, when my parents opened a Dollarmite Account for me, and, in fact, I still have that account (without all the fun colouring-in stuff I used to get!) I used to take $2 in to school every Thursday in my deposit book, and watched my total slowly creep. (The I blew it all on kit-kats and Ekka show bags when I got my key card! Ha!)
Anyway, I also have a Credit Card with them that I’ve had since I was 22 and have NEVER missed a payment and NEVER EVER had to pay interest. So when I looked at my statement today to see a $25 late fee, I was gob-smacked. Then I had a look and realised we had been overseas at the time and I had gone over my interest-free period. I wasn’t really annoyed at the bank, per se, but I thought banks should work like car insurance – if you don’t claim in a year, you get rewarded. So having ALWAYS paid on time, I thought I should be rewarded.
So I called them.
Although I had to wait on hold (twice) and was on the phone for 15 minutes (not too bad, really), I presented my case to the customer care representative and she took a minute to look over my history and told me the following:
“I’ve just looked over your history and see that you are an exemplary customer, paying your credit card off and never missing a payment. I’ve refunded that $25 to your account now, and you’ll see it in the next couple of days.”
HOORAY!! As my mama always says “It never hurts to ask.” It wasn’t really about the money, more the principle, and it was a victory for me.
Sunset on a yacht
(I’m going to blog about South Africa again very very soon! I PROMISE!!)
But first, let me tell you what Hubs and I got up to a few Tuesdays ago! Our friend’s Dad has a yacht and we were invited to a day/evening out! 4 of the boys met at Brighton where the yacht is moored and sailed in the bay, had a swim (i.e. were dragged along) in the bay and then met us at Docklands, where 5 of us joined them for the return voyage. I always get excited about sailing, and it’s not til we get out a ways that I remember I get sea-sick. I wasn’t too bad on this journey though – I stayed above deck and managed to not chuck.
The whole evening was just lovely. The weather was gorgeous (though, not enough wind on the return trip) and the company, as always, fabulous.
“Damn, I think we lost Hubs. Can you seen him?”
“Yeah, I can see his dreads, right there!”
“I hope he tied the rope nice and tight!!”
Nathan and Cal looking hot, and enjoying the view
Hubs and Wifey trying to do the same…
…and looking like clowns…
Enjoying the great company (and nibblies!)
Stunning sunset
(I couldn’t decide between the 2 photos)
The sunset reflected on the Eureka Tower, and nothing else – it was incredible!
Thanks so much for a wonderful day out guys! I can tick “sailing in Port Phillip Bay” off my “things to do before leaving Melbourne” list.
I miss my long hair
I LIKE having short hair, but I miss having the girly flicky bits. Ah well. Another year and it’ll be long(ish) again…
Baby steps
Apart from being a line from one of my favourite movies of all time, Baby Steps is also an accurate description of my “progress” in the last 12 months. One of my goals was to become more open to new ideas, and not to just dismiss them off-hand because they differ to my own. I think by nature, I’m quite a defensive person and this comes from having a low self-esteem for many of my teenage years, (and beyond 🙂 which stemmed a lot from my body image. So when someone has an idea that differs from my own, I take it personally, or I think they think I can’t come up with ideas of my own. Crazy? Just a little…
Anyway, I noticed early in my marriage, that I was quite dismissive of some of Hubs’ ideas – crazy or not – and it took me a while to realise how that affected him. So I decided that it was in my power to change that behaviour and I realised the other day that it was happening naturally now – like when Hubs’ suggested the Superman Cake; a year ago I may have said “that’s too hard” or “don’t be ridiculous” but not this time! I investigated the idea and decided it would be a great thing to try. If I had considered it and decided not to do it, that would have been okay too. It’s the consideration that’s important in this life lesson.
I’m feeling quite pleased with myself in fact! Next thing to work on: thinking before I speak. That’s going to be a doozie!
Special time with Ouma
One of my highlights of our trip to South Africa, was meeting Hubs’ Ouma. She is one of the most amazing women I’ve ever had the privelege to meet, and now I’m related to her! We spent many hours drinking coffee, eating rusks and listening to her stories as she showed us some photos. She has had an extraordinary life and remembers the finest details in her stories – we couldn’t get enough!
These are the memories that will last a lifetime – precious moments spent with precious people who we adore, and we are so blessed to have so many of them in our lives.