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!

Before and After

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I do love a good “before and after” sequence (see College Life). Whether it be seasonal change, people’s before and after shots, maps showing how an area or country used to be. It’s all good. In my own life, I’m pretty good at the after shots, but not so good at the before shots. For example, the trees have been completely bare since we arrived in Melbourne, and I keep thinking to myself “I must take some photos from each season down here.” But alas it hasn’t happened. And today it’s just too darn cold and windy for me to want to venture outside.

I DID however just take an “after” photo of the flowers that Hubs bought me last weekend! (Okay, so I bought them for him to give to me, but a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do! I went to a flower market and these gorgeous gerbras only cost $3.99!! Cost me NOT to buy them!!) They have lasted beautifully all week and now they’re droopy but still gorgeous! They’re sitting on my window sill as I write this.

Don’t I just have the most wonderful hubs in the world??

Actually, Hubs has only ever given my flowers once, but to be fair he did make them himself:

And I still have them after 18 months! They’re the most beautiful flowers I’ve ever been given.

10 things….

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I MISS about Brisbane

1. My friends and family (you know who you are 🙂
2. Working at YACMU
3. The convenience of having a car
4. The predictable weather
5. Being able to see people whenever I want
6. Mt Coot-tha lookout
7. The warm water at the beaches
8. My Nanny
9. TEA Party & Toowong UC
10. Having a friend or 2 who can just drop around when I need them 🙂

4 seasons in 4 days

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I realise that Melbourne is a place of extreme crazy weather changes, but come on! Last Thursday was cold and miserable, Friday spring came along – it was 23 degrees, sunny and lovely, Saturday was pretty damn nice, apart from the crazy wind, Sunday was cold with the most violent winds I’ve experienced, (and I’m married!!), and yesterday and today have gone back to 9 degrees during the day!! Freezing!!!

Just when I was getting out the summer dresses. *sigh*

On another Melbourne note, if you ever come to visit this wild city, make sure you buy tram and train tickets. Seriously. We’ve been here for almost 3 months and we’ve encountered 3 lots of ticket inspectors. Of COURSE we had tickets every time (we’re so good like that!) but we saw a few people try and talk their way out of it but got TOTALLY busted. That’ll be $130 thank you very much. It’s funny cos it wasn’t us…

A small insight

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The Spirit

I feel like I’ve been being a bit airy-fairy on my blog. I also feel a bit censored. It’s like when I used to write in my diary, and I’d be scared to write what I REALLY felt, in case someone read it and thought I was a nutter, or in case they got offended. It turns out that I AM a nutter, but only a little bit. I still think I hold back a little when I write in my current diary. I guess I just can’t help it. Maybe I should try and be a little more out there and honest with the world. My friend once told me that I was one of the most self-aware people she knows. And I am. I’m aware of my crazy thoughts as I’m thinking them; I’m aware of my irrationality at times; even as the craziness is escaping from my mouth and eyes and nose, I’m thinking to myself “Noooooooooooo…. don’t doooooo iiiiiittt”. What’s the use of having self-awareness, when I have no self-control?

It reminds me of the Scrubs episode where Elliot starts dating Nurse Flowers and is trying to act all normal around him. Then one day, “the crazy” just bursts out of her and she spills her guts all over him. And even though she thought it would completely turn him off, he just digs her even more.

I think I come across all together and composed, but really my head is constantly racing with a million thoughts and feelings and insecurities and insane assumptions about people. I’m so hard on myself and am constantly assessing and re-assessing and trying to figure out my place on this earth. And then once I figure it out, I doubt myself, and the whole process starts all over again.

I often wish I was one of those confident, super-cool chicks who seemingly run their lives with perfect precision, knowing exactly what they want, and how they’re going to get it. But I wonder if they have the same crazy thoughts running around in their heads. Maybe if I WAS like that, Hubs wouldn’t have fallen desperately in love with me. Maybe I’m lucky that he finds my craziness endearing. Yes. Very lucky. And so very blessed.

So maybe I need to embrace this characteristic and let myself be myself, within reason of course. Except for once a month. Once a month I have neither control NOR awareness of what comes out of my mouth.

Stay tuned for more crazy to come.

Pigtails for you, Pigtails for me

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For a number of years now, some friends and I have been celebrating “Pigtail Friday”. What does this mean, you ask? It just means that we all wear pigtails on a Friday in unity. We wear high pigtails, low pigtails, plait pigtails… “As long as there’s 2, it doesn’t matter what you do!” And sometimes we might take a moment to think of our friends, no matter where they are, and perhaps send up a prayer for them.

So if you’d like to participate, all you need is a couple of elastics and a part down the middle of your head. Here is one way you can wear your pigtails!

(Okay, so TECHNICALLY we’re only wearing 1 pigtail each, but I’m allowed to make up the rules!!)

Or if you want to go for 2 on your own:

Get creative ladies! And please feel free to send me photos of you wearing your pigtails on a Friday to put up on the Blog. We can take over the world! One pigtail at a time!!!!

A Toast

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When it comes to public speaking, I’m the type of person to either a) be completely prepared and read off a piece of paper or b) be entirely unprepared and joke my way through it. I’ve never really been great at public speaking, and unless I’m reading off a piece of paper, or joking around, I don’t have the confidence to stand up in front of a group and deliver something to remember. I also generally just get through it and then not really remember much about it afterwards. But last Saturday night, that all changed.

Hubs and I have been audience to quite a number of speakers since living on college, and in our opinion (well, his more strongly than mine) the best speakers are those who a) don’t read their notes, b) don’t memorise their speech and then just say it from beginning to end, and c) come across naturally and genuinely, only needing notes to prompt them.

Over the weekend, Hubs and I went up to the Vegas for my cousin’s 21st birthday and after being there for a couple of hours, I decided that I would like to make a speech. I frantically scribbled a whole lot of notes and started putting something together. Then I stopped. I thought to myself “I can do this on my own. I don’t need to write this out word for word. I can do this!” So I wrote down 4 things that I wanted to mention, and left the rest up to fate. I gotta say, I don’t think I’ve EVER been so nervous in my life. Those 3 glasses of Lambrusco (yes, I drink Lambrusco) that I had just drunk vanished from my bloodstream from the adrenaline pumping around my body. My mouth went dry, my palms got sweaty, my legs felt like they were going to buckle and I started questioning my decision to fly solo.

All of a sudden, the floor was open to anyone who wanted to make a speech. I stood up (rather shakily) and as nervous as I was, delivered a pretty damn good speech. (Well I thought so anyway!) I was in the moment. I was actually listening to myself, instead of just reading something word-for-word. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve had with public speaking.

So thank you Hubsband, for giving me the courage and encouragement I needed to give something new and exciting a go. I’m actually looking forward to the next time!

The REAL Lyrics #5

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Okay, so I sang SO many words wrong in this one. This song was on a mixed tape of my Mum’s that I memorised as an 8-year-old. Firstly, I didn’t even know what a Centrefold was – I thought it was some sort of centipede.

Centrefold – Status Quo

Does she walk? Does she talk?
Does she call the police? (Does she come complete?)

Slipped me notes under the desk
Flowers flicking about her dress (While I was thinkin’ about her dress)

I was shakin’ in my shoes
Bless those blasted betty-boos (Whenever she flashed those baby-blues)

Consealed in that negligee (Too see her in that negligee)
Still it’s just too much (Is really just too much)

So yeah. Only found out the real lyrics when I looked them up just now. Hubs finds it rather amusing.