Category: Stuff

Baby steps

/ Renae / 1 Comment

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!

A creature of habit

/ Renae / 1 Comment

When I find something I like, I stick to it. Take Hubs for example – no way I’m letting HIM go 🙂

Though, I refer mainly to other non-Hubs-related things, such as the fact that I ate the same lunch every day for 6 months (corn thins with herb tuna and fresh baby spinach leaves), and that I have been eating the same breakfast for almost a year (1 crumbled wheat-bix with 1/3 cup bran, soy milk, natural yoghurt and honey) and that I buy the same conditioner, moisturiser and lipstick brand every time.

Oh, and there’s also this:

I’ve bought the same diary the last 6 years. I can’t help myself! It’s compact, has a nice layout and it comes in PURPLE!! But this year I’ve branched out into something bigger. And it was purple too!

Then I realised it was TOO big and didn’t fit properly in my “new” (2nd hand $10) handbag very well, so I took the cover off and now have a much more user-friendly sized diary. I do like having a bigger diary I must admit. I feel more mature or something. Whatevs.

Kondalilla falls

/ Renae / Leave a comment

On the Monday after my birthday party, Hubs and I felt like doing something active for the day, so our family friend Lou suggested Kondalilla Falls. And the best thing was, Lou was free on the Monday as well so we invited him along to be our guide. Lou knows the area like the back of his hand, so we didn’t have to worry about such things as getting lost or eaten by giant eels 🙂

It was a hot day but the walk was mainly through rainforest so we kept quite cool. We started at Barroon Pocket Dam, and left the car there. The plan was for Lou’s wife Di to pick us up at the other end, just near the falls, and bring us back to the car on their way home. Lou had told us it was about 8km so off we went!

What a view!
After about 2 hours of walking, it was time for smoko and a swim
 
We then walked another hour or so and found somewhere to stop for lunch. Lou tried a bit of fishing but there were no bites that day. The track was all downhill for the first bit, then pretty flat for a while, and then we started walking back up again. Lou had promised us a swim at Kondalilla falls, and after a day of walking, it was exactly what was needed to cool off.
 

And boy was the water chilly! While we were swimming Lou said something along the lines of “You wouldn’t BELIEVE how big the eels can get in here.” Hmmm… I chose not to think about it…
Just before we headed back up to meet Di
 
It was exactly what we needed – a day out in the “wilderness”, with good company and lovely views. As we headed to the car, I turned around to see a sign that said:
Baroon Pocket Dam – 11.2km walk
No wonder I was so exhausted!! Thanks so much for a great day Lou!

Vacuuming sucks

/ Renae / 3 Comments

I don’t vacuum. There aren’t many household jobs that I won’t do, but not long after we moved in to College, I told Hubs that his job was to vacuum. Oh, and clean the toilet. I don’t actually mind clearing the floor so the vacuming can be done, I just don’t like actually DOING it. But when it’s finished, and we have nice, clean, dust-free, feather-free carpets, it’s just the nicest thing in the world. (Well, in the top 20 at LEAST!)

It’s funny how, for a week or so after you do a massive vacuum and clean of your abode, any little piece of visual rubbish (bit of paper, feather from the cushion, crumbies from your toasted cheese and tomato sandwich) is immediately picked up off the floor and thrown into the bin, so as to preserve that “just cleaned” look. But then after a month, you’ll drop half a cheeseburger on the floor and not worry about picking it up.

Mmmmm… cheeseburgers….

Dragging the chain

/ Renae / Leave a comment

I know I know I know! I haven’t blogged about much interesting lately, but we are having technical difficulties at home, uploading (downloading? crossloading???) our photos from the last 2 months (all 3500 of them! Don’t worry, I’ll be selective) so because I haven’t been able to use them, I’ve been a bit lazy. I can’t believe we’ve only been back in Melbourne for 8 days. It’s like we never left. Last week went by very slowly, but we just had a really great weekend. The weather was really great so we simply had to get out amongst it.

Hubs starts back at uni in 1 week, and is busy with his PhD at the moment, so we really have gotten straight back into it. But we have enough time to watch an episode (or 2 or 3) of Boston Legal each night. Even though the second season isn’t nearly as good as the first, I haven’t given up on it yet, and it seems to be improving as the episodes go on.

Anyway, that’s enough drivel. I PROMISE to resume my usual witty interesting posts in the next few days…

I’m not like other people

/ Renae / 2 Comments

In fact, no one is like “other people”. I guess that’s what makes us all special and individual and all that stuff. But I’m a slow learner, and I can be particularly dense sometimes. I’m just now learning (in almost my 31st year of life) that I don’t think the same way as “other people”, and other people don’t think the same way as me. And that’s okay.

I have these ginormously high expectations of myself that I’m constantly not living up to. But no one cares about this but me. Instead of just being “me” I want to be the perfect Wifey, the perfect employee, the perfect friend, the perfect body shape, the perfect daughter, the perfect granddaughter, the perfect sister etc etc. No pressure or anything!! And when I fall short of this, it really gets me down.

I know that this is making me sound like a perfectionist, and I’m really not, as I just give up when I’m not perfect! 🙂 I just try and do too much all the time and then when I don’t succeed I fall in a heap. So even though I don’t like to make New Years resolutions, my goal for next year is to give myself a break; to let myself be me, however imperfect.

It’s going to be tough 🙂

Showtime!

/ Renae / 2 Comments

When choosing a movie, to watch, one question always has to be asked:

“Is this a Wifey movie?”

A lot of the time, Hubs has to think about it. Most of the time he gets it right, but sometimes not. Here’s an example of Wifey movies:

Cool Runnings (I can’t believe that’s the first one that popped into my head)
Moulin Rouge
Lethal Weapon1-4
Chocolat (I think I had a bigger crush on Juliette Binoche than I did on Johnny Depp!)
Die Hard 1-4
You’ve Got Mail
Love Actually
Robin Hood, Men in Tights
Shrek
to sum up: rom-coms, comedies, kids movies, action with a medium level of violence

An example of non-Wifey movies:
A Nightmare on Elm St (thanks for letting me watch that when I was 9 years old, big bro)
Twilight movies
The Exorcist
The Ring
Hostage (learnt that the hard way too)
Anything scary
to sum up: horror, creepy, extreme violence

This rule also applies to TV shows. Some shows that Hubs and I have enjoyed together are Scrubs, Battlestar Gallactica, and more recently, Boston Legal.

And then there’s Dexter.

Dexter is not, never has been, and may never be, Wifey-safe. Hubs started watching a few episodes last year when we first moved down here, and he said it was really awesome, and that I should give it a go, and that he would tell me when to close my eyes (or at least put my hands over my face and peep through my fingers.) So I gave it a go. I think the first episode we watched together was on the weekend I was sick with rubella and it was daytime, which reduces the scary-factor somewhat. It was like a train wreck. I couldn’t look away! I loved it but hated it all at the same time. But not wanting to be narrow minded, I stuck at it, but we were only allowed to watch it in daylight.

So we made our way through season one with a few bad dreams, but I did really enjoy it. So then we moved on to season two, with the same daytime rule. We took a bit of a break from it after that (season two was emotionally exhausting!) but then Hubs acquired season three, so we started watching that a few weeks ago. And we punched it! We were watching an episode most evenings (it’s still light until 9pm!) followed by an ep of Boston Legal. But the other night we watched Dexter, BL, and then ANOTHER Dexter cos it was so good.

Bad idea.

I had the most horrible dreams. There was stabbing and shooting and strangulation, dumping of bodies in the lounge room (“we” killed Dexter then tried to hide his body under the couch) and police cars and stake-outs. It was all there! And I had one of the worst night’s sleep I’ve had for a LONG time. We MUST comply with the daylight rule. It’s not a rule to be broken.

So we are watching the last episode of the season after work today, and the suspense is KILLING ME! I trust it will be as good as they’ve built it up to be. No spoilers thanks!