Category: Life as a Wife

My Addiction

/ Renae / 3 Comments

For some people, it’s cigarettes (yeuch), for others it’s exercise (I wish), or it might be chocolate (guilty!). But my main addiction is being organised. I love it. I get a thrill out of it when everything falls into place and my handy work pays off. I pretty much single-handedly organised our trip to the USA and it was brilliant. Because I’d done all the work before we left, and we were flexible once we got there to change our plans (somewhat) if we wanted to, we had a stress-free travel experience. I can’t help it! It’s the way I was brought up. (Have you MET my Mum??) Nor do I WANT to help it. (Why on earth would I??) Organising our wedding was like heaven for me…

Hubs, on the other hand, is a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kinda guy. And this is certainly one of the things I find endearing about him. He is relaxed and chilled out most of the time and I know this rubs off on me which is a good thing. I also know that we disagree on certain things when it comes to organising or “over-organising” things as he might say. But it’s a learning curve.

The weekend that we just had, however, proved that no matter how much you organise something, if you keep leaving your suit and dress for the wedding you’re attending behind (first at College and then at Hubs’ Mother’s place), things aren’t going to run so smoothly! Ha ha. Oh, and I haven’t even MENTIONED the fact that I left my purse in Melbourne as well. It was a hilarious comedy of errors by someone who is usually on the ball. I think my memory is failing (yes! Already!) so I might have to start writing more lists.

Our weekend was delightful (apart from the forgetfulness) and the wedding we attended was fabulous. But more about that later. It’s time for me to get …..

(everybody all together!!!!!)

“ORGANISED!!!!!!!!!!!!”

A comedy of errors with a happy ending

/ Renae / Leave a comment

Hubs and I try to have a designated “date night” every week or 2 and it usually occurs on a Wednesday night. A few weeks ago, life was hectic and the only day we could do was the Tuesday, so we put it aside. Hubs planned to cook up his famous pumpkin and mushroom rissoto, so before he got home from uni, I got a few things ready for him. I had frozen some leftover stock from the last time we’d made rissoto, so that was all thawed out and ready to go. I chopped up all the mushrooms and put them in the steamer part of our saucepan set to rinse before setting them aside. Then I chopped up the pumpkin and got the rice out ready for Hubs to come home and make some magic.

So Hubs comes home, tired after a long day of studying and slowly gets to work. First of all, he grabs the “saucepan” of mushrooms, puts it on the bench and proceeds to pour the defrosted stock “into” the saucepan, all in one go, before I realise what he’s doing. You can guess what happened to the stock….

 (This photo was taken AFTER the mushrooms were put into a “proper” saucepan)

Chicken stock – 1
Hubs – 0

Somehow this was my fault for putting the mushrooms in a saucepan with holes in the bottom and not telling him. I wasn’t so convinced and started to get a bit cranky, but tried to see the funny side.

Not a happy Hubs. So I helped him clean that up while he continued preparing. Now it was time for the rice. As we had some leftover, again, from the last rissoto he’d made, I had rolled up the packet and put it in a re-sealable glad bag, but as he went to take it out, he grabbed the “wrong” end.

And you can guess what happened to the rice…

Rice – 1
Hubs – 0

It went all over the counter, on the floor, beside the oven, EVERYWHERE! And that was my fault too. I was laughing quite hard at this stage, but Hubs wasn’t ready to see the funny side, so I decided it would be best to leave him to it and go and read my new favourite comic book.

We had a couple of glasses of wine over dinner and a DVD and started to relax a little and try not to take it all too seriously. Dinner was absolutely delicious and looking at these photos now (and having the sense to take them at the time) I can’t help but laugh. A lot. It really was a hilarious date night, and we have learnt that Tuesday nights are NO GOOD for date nights any more, and we should stick to Wednesdays from now on!

Maybe I should have learnt from last time, although, this might be another one of his ploys to do things “enthusiastically and badly” in the hope of not being asked to do it again!!

Little Book of Calm

/ Renae / Leave a comment

In the past, I have blogged about getting in touch with my nerdy side, but the problem is, most of the time I just fluke it when I get technical things right.

I was having a particularly non-nerdy time the other night when I was trying to watch Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on our big screen and I couldn’t get it to work. To be honest, I didn’t try THAT hard, and I ended up just watching it on the laptop, when Hubs came home from his tutorial and wondered what on earth I was doing.

I explained (in an appropriately whiney voice) that I, once again, could not work the awesome technology that he had set up. He set it up for me, stating very nicely that I’d seen him do it a hundred times, to which I (whingely) replied “but I don’t have to pay attention when you’re around!!!!”

The next day, Hubs had a present for me:

Seriously? This is one of the most thoughtful, wonderful presents I’ve ever been given. And it’s not only step-by-step instructions, but it also has explanations about how things work and how to fix problems.

Hubs is a problem-solving kinda guy.
Problem: Wifey is getting upset that she can never remember or doesn’t know how to work gadgets and gizmos.
Solution: Write Wifey a guide to help her to learn new things and feel useful around technological things.

Hubs, you always know how to help me out. Even if it’s just listening to me whinge, you always know what to do and what’s best. I am in awe of you. x x x

(Oh! And I can’t WAIT for Part 2!)

Happy Serenity Day!

/ Renae / 3 Comments

Since Hubs and I finished watching the Battlestar Galactica series, we have moved on to Firefly. We LOVED BG. And that’s a big call coming from someone who doesn’t generally like sci-fi, but that’s the good thing about being married to someone with certain different interests and tastes to my own. I get to try new things! It took a little while for me to get into it, but I really started liking the characters and the writing got better as the show progressed. We got through all 4 seasons in about 8 months and as we were running out of episodes, we started considering our next show to start watching.

Enter Firefly. A friend who likes BG recommended it to us, but said not to get to attached as they only made 1 season due to low ratings. We gave it a go and we LOVE it! We only have 2 episodes left to watch (only 14 in total) so we’re savouring them. There’s also a movie that was made after the show got canned called Serenity that Hubs tried to get me to watch about 2 years ago but I thought it was boring. Now that I know all the characters, I’m keen to give it another go! I also like to think I’m a bit more open-minded than I used to be…

Often when we watch a TV series or a movie, Hubs likes to do a Wiki search and read all about the cast and characters and back stories. We were reading about Joss Whedon and it turns out that he and Hubs share the same birthday! There was cheering and excitment all round when Wiki informed us of this fact!

If there was ANYone that Hubs would be happy to share a birthday with, it’s a famous power-nerd!

Echoes of Them

/ Renae / Leave a comment

Every year at Newman College, they hold a visual art competition. The theme of the competition this year was “Echoes” so Hubs did a photo composition. He spent some time practicing the execution of the photo, and then the final product took about half an hour to complete. (i.e. taking a number of different shots, changing the lighting, the positioning, the shutter speed etc.) Then on the way home from the pub one Friday night, Hubs stumbled upon some hard rubbish that the uni had discarded. There was a cabinet there with 2 glass doors intact, and Hubs decided that one of them would make a great photo frame!

Hubs had the photo enlarged to poster size and it looked amazing.

The prize of $500 is awarded at one of the fancy-pants dinners around this time of the year, so we got all dolled up (as usual) and attended. And then the winner got announced.

“And the winner is, Echoes of Them.”
And I went nuts, but Hubs had forgotten what he had titled it!
“By Hubs Hubsband.”
And then it sunk in. He was beside himself. He was in shock. And I had tears in my eyes. My goodness I was so damn proud of him.

There were 24 entries and his was chosen out of all of them, as being the best. And it was. Here’s the award-winning-photo with an award-winning photographer.

And the description that accompanied it:
“The humble couch is part of the fabric that brings us together. Each person who sits on a couch leaves an echo of themselves in the room, on the lives of those who share the couch.
The memories of those who have been before combine with the memories of those who are present in an echo of the past, present and future.
The theme of ‘echoes’ is central to the piece – the echo of the past in the photos on the wall, the ‘echo’ of the present in the man on the couch, and the echo of the future in the friends who are with him.”

*sigh*

Now Hubs is trying to decided between a “new” camera lens or a “new” laptop.

Congratulations Hubs, from a very very proud Wifey.

Strangers in Paradise – a graphic novel

/ Renae / Leave a comment

As you’ll see in an upcoming post about the San Diego ComicCon, Hubs is often encouraging me to read comic books, or moreso, graphic novels. (In fact, the Graphic Novel featured on that Wiki page was one that Hubs had me read, but it was actually a little too “graphic” for me!) So he borrowed out a copy of Strangers in Paradise from the library and I started reading it, and I gotta say, I really like it! Hubs read the forward for the book and it was about a staff member who said similar things to me like “I hate comic books, I don’t read them.” But she read the first SiP (as it’s commonly called… apparently) and after that she waited impatiently for every issue to come out. Hubs thought this might be the book that changes my attitude towards comics.

I can’t even remember which one I’m currently reading – I think it’s Volume 2. And I really want to read Volume 1 (hint hint Hubs??).

I’m finding though, that I get so engrosed in the dialogue that I sometimes forget to look at the pictures. The artwork is quite impressive, and the pictures do really add a great dimention to the story. I mean, even without the pictures I’d be pretty hooked, though, a little confused as to who was saying what!

I’ve always liked “comics” like Peanuts (my very very favourite) and Garfield (my bro’s fave) and really just the newspaper funnies on a Saturday and Sunday, but this is the first time I’ve ever read these graphic novels, and I gotta say – don’t knock it til you try it!

How long do you need it?

/ Renae / Leave a comment

A conversation I had with Hubs last night:

Wifey: “Do you have a ruler I could borrow?”
Hubs: “How long do you need it?”
Wifey: “10 or 15 minutes?”
Hubs: (looking bemused) “No, what LENGTH do you need it?”
Wifey: (laughing very hard) “Oh! 15cm should do the trick.”

I laughed about that for the rest of the evening.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend

/ Renae / Leave a comment

I was just sitting here at work and I noticed that my engagement ring was a bit dirty so I gave her a bit of a clean and now she’s sparkling once again. I think Hubs did a brilliant job choosing my engagement rings.

The first one, with which he proposed, is a Puzzle Ring. For those of you who don’t know the story, Hubs took me aside while we were on Day Camp, where we had met 7 years prior, and gave me the ring, and after proposing, said “Life with me is going to be full of challenges.” He then took the puzzle ring apart and said “and here’s your first one.” It was a LOT of fun putting it back together again (after declining kind offers from the 12-year-olds in my group to “help”) and I wore it proudly. I was engaged to the most amazing man on earth and he had given me a beautiful ring that was gorgeous and nerdy. Just like him. What more could a gal ask for?

A few days later, he presented me with this:

A platinum, tension set diamond ring. It is stunning. It really blew me away then, and I still catch myself admiring it. A lot.

Again, it’s a bit nerdy, with the tension setting, and Hubs chose it because it was so different and because it is, I’m sure he would say, “teyodally awesome”.

And it is. I love it. Thanks honey x x

Sew what?…

/ Renae / 3 Comments

I’ve been meaning to blog for AGES about my sewing ventures, but there haven’t been many exciting ventures to blog about. Mainly clothing alterations and mending really. Last weekend though, we replaced a few rubbish bits of furniture (we were using a single bed as a couch) with some much better bits of furniture (a couch!!) including a bigger desk so Hubs and I both have work spaces. My sewing machine is now much more accessible and I’m much more enthused to use it.

And here she is:

She was a wedding gift from very good family friends of mine and I just LOVE her!! Ahem… I keep referring to her as a “her” but I don’t have a name for “her” as yet. These things take time!

Anyway, back to the story.
Hubs: “Wifey, can you please make me a pocket thing to put my pens and notecards in?”
Wifey: “Well I AM still going for Wifey of the year, so sure!”

I started thinking about a leather case with denim interior (cos I love the 80s) and in my head it looked awesome. Would have been tricky to pull off though. Then I came across an old satchel thing that I got for free at a conference and started imagining how I could re-model it! After some stuffing around, I got to work on it last night. But then I had no elastic so I told Hubs:

“I’ll have to finish it over the weekend once I have elastic.”
Hubs: “Aaaaaaaaaaw but I reeeeeeeeeeally would like it nooooooooooowwwwwww. Don’t we have any elastic lying around that we could use?”
Wifey: “Hmmmm… well there DOES seem to be some elastic holding my tracky-dacks up! Maybe I could use that!”

So I’d like to say I very carefully picked out the piece of elastic from the waist-band (it was floating fairly freely – only sewn in 1 spot at the seem) but if you know me well, you know that when I get an idea in my head, it has to be done NOW NOW NOW so I butchered my waistband, but luckily I still had a draw-string so it was all good! And the elastic was PERFECT!!!

Once I finished making it, and Hubs was suitably pleased, I personalised it, just so he doesn’t get it mixed up with other people’s.

(I love that I can sew hearts at the push of a button and a stomp of a foot!)

And of course Hubs’ comment at the end:
“You could make heaps and we could sell them on eBay!!!!!!!”
Wifey: “hmph.”

Happy Birthday Hubs

/ Renae / 1 Comment

As many of you know, I LOVE surprises. And I love giving them almost as much as receiving them! So the last month or so I’ve been scheming behind Hubs’ back, planning a big celebration for his 2nd 21st!! He was getting cranky that everyone else on college is having their 21sts so I thought “why not!?” So I went to work on the organising. I sent out emails, used my friend’s facebook account (cos apparently it’s easier than emailing the entire med student cohort) and got busy planning the cake. Just remember – I don’t do things by halves…

Here’s the progression of the cake:

With Hubs not around, I got to lick the bowl all on my own!!!!!!!

Maybe I should have shared it after all…


Enough about the cake. Let’s get to the prezzies! As some of you know, Hubs got a new SLR Digital camera from our families which he LOVES, but even better than that, I had a street named after him!!

(Biggest coincidence – this street is about 3km away from where we live and just around the corner from the pub we were having his party at!!! CRAZY!!!)

Right. The Party! There were friends, balloons, embarrassing 21st speeches, lots of beer and wine and a GREAT atmosphere at a fabulous pub called The Brunswick Green. I highly recommend it! I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story…


Eeeeeeeeeew grooooooosssssss!


A couple of friends from Brisvegas – Jodes and Nate (and Hubs’ birthday pot!)

Hubs’ friend from Mackay was also down for the weekend for his birthday, so of course we had to meet up for a drink!!

A few nights ago Hubs and I were cuddling and he told me I fit perfectly next to him. Like a puzzle piece. It’s not hard to love this man.
Happy Birthday honey.