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!

Stuff it

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I can’t BELIEVE how much stuff we have. Seriously. Hubs and I have just moved into our new place on college and it astounds me how much crap we own. Plus we had a trip down to Sorrento over the weekend to pick up our kitchen stuff that we hadn’t needed so far, and there is SO much more STUFF than I remember!! I really didn’t pack lightly for Melbourne at all. And unfortunately, while I was packing things in Brisbane, Hubs kept asking me “are you SURE we need all of this?” and I kept replying “yes dear, of COURSE I need these 8 tea towels and 24 pieces of Tupperware.”

And even MORE unfortunate, was that after I saw how much stuff I had brought down, and how I realised I should have left half of it in Brisbane, I had to utter those 3 little words to Hubs that made him the happiest man alive.

“You were right.”

He even did the Lleyton Hewitt “c’mon” and a few fist punches in the air. Very annoying. Oh well. As my good friend would say: I digress.

I managed to cut it down and bring back only half of the stuff to Melbourne which I thought was a pretty good achievement, so I’m looking forward to unpacking our kitchen tonight! All the other rooms are pretty much done, so I’ll have some photos up in no time.

Aaaaah. Home sweeeeeeet home.

Excuses excuses

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I KNOW it’s been 3 whole weeks since my last post, but I have been busy with the following:

Vising a bajillion relatives and friends in Brisvegas
Eating WAY too many Christmas treats
Drinking copious amounts of wine/champagne/beer/more champagne
Neglecting my emails
Listening to Jazz at the Story Bridge hotel (and drinking more wine)
Playing guitar hero
Dancing with my girlfriends (NO BOYS ALLOWED!!)
Combining and coordinating mine and hubs families together on Christmas Day (with fabulous results!!)
Opening Christmas presents
Watching the cricket
Climbing the biggest mountain I’ve ever climbed (photos to come!)
Wishing everyone a happy new year!
Drinking more beer
Receiving my first 2 birthday presents (12 more sleeps!!)
Attending a wedding (dancing, champagne, yummy food – it’s all good!)
Flying back to Melbs and moving into our new place!!
Starting back at work.

So forgive me for not sending any love your way, but hopefully once Hubs and I get set up in our new place (still on college) I’ll be a bit more regular… ahem… with my posting that is.

Cheerio!

It’s so hot today

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I’ve had this Peter Coombe song in my head since we arrived in Brisbane on Saturday. After the weather in Melbourne (tops of 25 degrees, mostly 22 degrees though) these 30-35 degree days (plus 88% humidity) are killing me! Hubs is loving it though, so at least that’s something!

It’s been a crazy start to our 3 week holiday in Brisbane, but so lovely to see everyone. I’m still fighting my sinus/chest infection so decided to take it easy today which has been bliss! Off to the shops with Nanny and Grandpa tomorrow (which consists of me trying on clothes, not finding anything I like, then Nanny stomping her foot down saying “I no leave til you buy something!”) so that should be fun! No doubt a trip to ALDI will also be on the cards.

I spent a lovely afternoon with my Godson Billy-Bob & Billy-Bob’s Mum yesterday which was de-lightful! Looking forward to spending quality time with friends and family over the next few weeks, so if that’s you, we’ll see you soon!!!

Sicko

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A whine

Well it must be nearly time for me to go home because I’m sick. Again. That’s 5 times since we arrived in Melbourne that I’ve been sick. (Cold, flu, cold, rubella, sinus infection.) I’m convinced it’s because I’m not eating enough veges down here. Or my immunity is shot at the moment. Or I’m still acclimatising to the Melbourne weather. (Right now it’s 19 degrees and raining.) Or maybe I actually have a Man Cold. They’re pretty serious you know! I’m trying not to be whiny-Wifey but it’s SO HARD. I just want to curl up in bed and sleep for 2 days. But we have to pack tonight and I was going to do some “work” on Hubsband’s dreadlocks. Aaaah well. No rest for the wicked.

This time tomorrow we’ll be basking in the Queensland sun, pining for the cool days of Melbourne. (Maybe I need more Vitamin D!! You don’t get much of that down here…)

Okay. I’m done complaining. For now 🙂

Mondegreen #9

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In “Goodbye Stranger”, Supertramp sing about saying goodbye to strangers and lobotomies:

“You can laugh at my behaviour
That’ll never bother me”

or is it

“You can laugh at my behaviour
Or have a lobotomy”

They BOTH sound okay to me!

Mum’s birthday brekky

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On our trip home in October, Khicken and Kturtle put on an amazing spread for breakfast for Mum’s birthday. Here is the menu, accompanied by photos.

~ STARTERS ~
Breads, cheese, olives, sun dried tomato.

Smoked trout sandwiches, Dad’s salmon & avocado specialty:

~ FIRST COURSE ~
Herbed pikelets with pear and cream cheese, brandy, brie topping:

Asparagus and prosciutto bundles served with hollandaise sauce:

Field mushrooms topped with fun stuff:

Jumbo savoury omlette with caramelised onion (available dairy free as well):

~ SECOND COURSE ~
Grilled figs wrapped in prosciutto:

Seasonal tossed fruit, choice of yoghurts and Birthday Cake! Here’s a great photo of Mum and Dad with the birthday cake made by Mum’s friend:


And, as always with it was the little touches that made the day super-special. We also had sparkling white wine and coffees with liqueur of choice!

So thanks Kturtle and Khicken for an AMAZING feast and an all-round brilliant breakfast!

It’s oh so quiet (sshhh sshhh)

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Since we kicked all the Junior Common Room students out… ahem… since they left of their own accord… a few weeks ago, we’ve pretty much had the place to ourselves. Oh, apart from the 175 Homeless World Cup delegates who stayed with us for 10 exciting/crazy/entertaining days, and now the 30 or so “maths nerds” who arrived yesterday. Anyway, apart from all of those people, there are only about 30 of us staying here at the moment. It’s lovely! We don’t have to line up for dinners, the food is even better (we had corned silverside the other night – delish!) and it’s just nice and quiet.

I guess we’d better not get too complacent though. They’ll be back before we know it! In the mean time, we’ll be moving into our new unit (still on college) once we get back from Brizzy and will have much more of a home, rather than just a couple of rooms, so we’ll be looking forward to some visitors in the new year to show off our new abode. I’ll be sure to post some photos of the new place once we’re settled in, but in the mean time I have a bonza (yes, I just said bonza) before and after sequence of Swanston St, where we live.

Taken in late August:

Taken in late November from around the same spot:

Noice huh!? Though, I’m not sure what Mother Nature is playing at the last few days – it’s December and it’s currently 16 degrees and raining. Can’t wait for those 35 degree days back in Brisvegas!! (I’ll be complaining within a week, guaranteed!)

Happy Anniversary!

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Happy 1st Wedding Anniversary to Wifey & Hubs!!

Here we are just over 1 year ago:


Hubs woke up to a real treat Monday morning, when I sang a song that my Dad used to sing to Mum on their Anniversary: (to the tune of Happy Birthday)

Happy Happy Anniversareeeeeeeeeee
Happy Happy Anniversareeeeeeeeeee
Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy
Happy Happy Anniversareeeeeeeeeee!

Okay, so Dad is not known for his musical genius, but we always knew how much he loves Mum. And now the tradition has been passed on to us! Then Hubs surprised ME with 2 gorgeous roses:


Hand made of course!


(I found out later that he hadn’t done any of his uni work for 3 days cos he was working on the roses! TOTALLY worth it from where I’m standing!)

Hubs also gave me this card:


which totally cracked me up!

We had a disc game on Monday night, so we went out for dinner along Hardware Lane in town on Tuesday night.
We had oysters for entree which were SO YUMMY


And the restaurant even sprinkled hearts all over our table for us! We had a lovely night listening to some jazz (which is what you do in Hardware lane)


And just generally had a lovely night out. Thank you Hubs for a wonderful year and I look forward to MANY more to come.

Job #30 – Newman College

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Started casual work on 25th August, full-time on 20th October 2008

(Wow! 30 jobs in 30 days! It’s like I planned it or something! 🙂

After my Channel 7 gig, the business manager at college offered me some casual reception/office work when I wasn’t working my other job (database admin). So I appreciatively took them up on their kind offer. The receptionist here had taken extended leave and they weren’t sure if and when she was coming back, so it was a week-to-week arrangement which suited me fine at the time. About a month later, they offered the job to me full-time and after very careful consideration, I accepted.

When I let my part-time employer know that I was resigning (I stated that I needed full-time work and gave a whole month notice), they counter-offered a full-time job at their company. It was a LOT more money, and longer hours. I did consider this offer – let’s face it, the money would have been really great and I would have had a high-responsibility position, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

So I made a lifestyle choice and stuck with my original decision to work full-time with the college. They weren’t overly happy and they tried to bribe me with chocolate (my one weakness! besides red wine that is…) but it wasn’t to be.

So I began full-time employment here at the college just over a month ago and it’s going great. I have a 30 meter commute to work and so much free time on my hands that I don’t know what to do with! Though, I’m sure I’ll find something! It’s also very social here and not only do I work with lovely people, I get to have lunch with Hubs most days (bonus!) and there’s always students coming in and out of the office which gives the place a nice atmosphere. AND they all stop to have coffee at 10:30am (just like YACMU!) AND they have a special staff morning tea every Wednesday! It’s great!

So that’s it folks. Scary? Yes. A little depressing? Sure. Frustrating? More than you can imagine. But here I am, in a job that I like, feeling like I make a difference (maybe a small one, but a difference none-the-less) and enjoying a very nice lifestyle. What more could a gal ask for?