Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!

I missed a few Gratitude days, the be honest Monday and Tuesday were kind of downer days, mainly because of work. I think once Seamus is working full time as a teacher I will start looking for the sort of job that doesn't expect you to have no sleeping pattern.

It is my birthday today, I am 27 years old. 27 seems a very respectable number. So far being 27 has involved being picked up from work just after midnight by mc_shamo, and receiving from him:

1. A bottle of pear cider, or perry
2. A box of chocolates from Koko black, my favourite
3. A very lovely card with
4. A picture of my real present (that will be ready next week) which is MY OWN SET OF ICE SKATES!!!
5. A (few) kisses and a ride home

Then we sat up talking until 1am when I remembered that although I have today off Seamus did not, and had a 7:45 start time, so I declared it to be bed time and have only just woken up.

Now my plan is a stroll along Smith St, then lunch, then deciding where of the many options Seamus has given me to go for dinner. Desert, apparently, will be back at Koko Black as Seamus noticed they had several of my favourite things on the seasonal menu. Creme Brule, lemon meringue pie, blood orange sorbet...yum...

I'm getting married today.

mc_shamo and I both woke up at 5am, too excited to sleep I guess! We cuddled and talked for about an hour then got up. He fed the cats and ironed his shirt for today, I made tea for me and coffee for him them went for a walk to the supermarket for juice (and just to clear my head and have some quiet, calm, "Chris time" to start the day). We've both just had shower and the plan is to double check everything is packed for the honeymoon, then drive down to Hot Poppy for breakfast with whoever from the bridal party wishes to join us then really start the day.

And after this I won't look at live journal for another three weeks, so I hope you all keep well and happy and healthy and i will see you when I get back!

Much love,

Chris

Friday:
-Trip to Castlemaine
-Very enjoyable car trip with Seamus
-Purchase of soap, included an encounter with two lovely old Great Danes who seemed permanent fixtures in the shop
-Pleasant browse through antique and book stores
-Awesome lunch and great coffee at a cafe- reassuring us that good coffee now does exist in Castlemaine
-inspection of some houses in what will be our price range in 3 years. All very exciting.

Saturday:
-DaySpa visit
-My aunt and uncle came over for afternoon tea and brought with the them wedding present from that side of the family, which is all the glassware we could ever need. A really useful and lovely present.
-Dropped in at Andrew's housewarming where he very nicely plied me with sangria and tequila jelly shots
-Dropped in at Sarah and Daniel's place for a MUCAAS pub with Mark

Sunday:
-Trip to Olinda
-Originally intended to be in Olinda for breakfast but we gave in to our growling tummies when we past a Pancake Parlour about half way.
-Tea and scones at the Pie restaurant in Olinda
-Browsed the shops in the village and bought lollies, chocolates and hand painted china cats (as you do)
-Checked in to Candlelight cottages, where we stayed for our first anniversary of starting to date two years back.
-Had a spa!
-Had a nap
-Had a hot chocolate curled up in the loungeroom and listened to pretty classical music
-Walked back to the village and had a wonderful dinner at Immerse.
-Walked back and cuddled up together watching Breakfast at Tiffanys

Monday
-Wished each other Happy Third Anniversary and Happy 1 Month Until Our Wedding
-Received some very cute red crystal earrings from Seamus which I am wearing right now
-Cooked Breakfast
-Showered, packed and said goodbye to the charming couple who run Candlelight Cottages and their two dogs and one cat
-set off to head back to Melbourne very slowly
-found an antique store and bought a bread bin
-found a chocolate factory and bought chocolates
-lunched at Chateau Yering in Yering which was absolutely AMAZING! I had a heritage tomato salad with goats cheese, Seamus had a duck waldorf salad and then we both had a snapper and wine, and finished with french patries. I got rather giggly from the champagne. We liked it so much we're thinking of coming back next year and staying there a few days as well as at Candlelight cottages, maybe for our first wedding anniversay...
-Got back to Melbourne and met up with our celebrant at the Quiet Man Pub so she could sight legal documents and we could finalise everything.
-Got takeaway Thai from the Asian Kitchen, the best Thai in the area
-Cuddled up on our own couch at home with our cats and watched Roman Holiday

One month left...

I am:
Happy,
Well rested,
Healthy,
In my only pair of and rarely worn trackie daks (link for the non-Australians on my flist),
Having a day off

I have:
Dvds,
Tea,
Cats,
Knitting,
Non-arduous household chores,
Yoga instructions,

I'm going to enjoy this.

Well, what a huge weekend that was!

Saturday morning started when I was gently woken by mc_shamo and told I'd got an sms on my mobile, it was vox_diabolica- his plane had landed and he was on his way to Melbourne. I jumped in the shower then in the car- via my bedroom so I'd have clothes on- and with Seamus in tow and collected Mark from Spencer st station.

vox_diabolica decided following me round a farmers market in the humidity offered less charms than an air-conditioned cinema (crazy lad) so left after a nice cup of tea and catch up. I dragged mc_shamo down to Flemington Racecourse only to find that the market I wanted to visit was infact a Sunday market. Bollocks. So instead we walked down Racecourse rd to Verb for breakdfast, stopping in at the pet supply place along the way and discovering they had a very good cat tower there, which we went back for with the car yesterday, pictures of cats enjoying it under the cut ( Cat tower cuteness ).

Once we got home I got dressed up and mc_shamo put his suit in the car, then we headed out again, me to cows_might_fly's mum's place to do Eva's make-up and Seamus to see clappamungus and help him out before the wedding.

Make-up done, I headed in to uni with Eva and her mother and went up to the U-bar, along with Penny I put Eva in her dress, which was stunning and made all the more stunning by the person in it :-) We brought her down the stairs of Union House with Shayne waiting at the bottom of them, then the two of them went off for photos and Penny and I did the sensible thing in the heat and went to the pub until it was time for the wedding.

The wedding itself was beautiful, and the weather held off. vivienne_aster sang the song she and fnoo had written for the event and it sounded spectacular. I had Shayne's camera and had a lot of fun taking happy snaps, which stopped me from bawling like a baby which was good.

Once we all got back to the U-bar the weather broke and it poured with rain, and as anyone who was in Melbourne last Saturday night knows, it did not stop for about 15 hours. I was very grateful for the sails over North Court as I stood out on the balcony in the freah air.

The reception was great, lots of friends to catch up with and dancing and fun. Plus the jolt I got when people were talking about the next wedding they would attend and I realised for me it would be my own... Oh! And mc_shamo requested Sunlight in a Jar and danced with me to it, which was pretty special as I'm going to walk down the aisle to it in about 5 months.

Getting home in the rain was hilarious and fun and special, then Seamus and vox_diabolica went on a Hungry Jacks run, so I finished the night with fries, good conversation and a fuzzy warm feeling.

The wedding was amazing, I am so, so, so happy for Eva and Shayne, they are two of the most fantastic, generous, loving people in the world and them being married makes so much sense.

The next day, just when you'd think they'd want to rest and be alone, Eva and Shayne came round to pick us up and take us to Eva's sister Katie's place for a BBQ and "Wedding Wind-down" I helped them open presents and played with Jasper, Eva's 5 month old nephew, and chatted to Katie and her husband Joel about permaculture and carpentry. It was a lot of fun, and I felt very priveleged to be hanging out with Eva and Shayne the day after their wedding.

I'd moved my shifts around to accomodate the wedding, so my weekend finished with me doing the night shift at work on the Sunday, which was good as it was very quiet and I was forced to sit in front of a computer until I finished my bloody essay. My essay was on Samson and Delilah which I'd seen earlier this year, and very luckily when we got home we discovered that it would be on tellie in 15 minutes for the first time, so I got a refresher before work. It was a really interesting topic, but quite depressing (substance abuse in remote indigenous communities, hooray!) so I was glad at 5am to put it aside, finally done, and go to sleep for an hour and a half.

I got home about 9am Monday morning and found poor mc_shamo up, but with an awful head cold. The reason he was up? A courier had just arrived with my bridal veil. I got it out and stuck it anyhow in my hair and looked in the mirror... and a bride looked back. It's amazing what a huge difference it made for me. One of my friends (I think it might have been thewoozel once mentioned to me that it was her bouquet that made her feel like a "bride" but it could be different things for different people, and I think I just found mine. It was a nice feeling.

I slept until midday, then Seamus drove me to uni to hand in the essay (which I looked over before handing it in, since the final draft had been completed at 4am and it's entirely possible I wasn't completely with it- actually it was pretty good!) and we went to Fitzroy so he could duck in to work and I could play in the Friends of the Earth shop. I bought misshapen beeswax dining candles for $3 each, a bottle of natural insect reppellant and made friends with a small child who wanted me to read the labels on every single bottle to her.

The rest of the day past very pleasantly, we went to the pet supply place and picked up the cat tower, then spent an hour or so putting it together. Once again I was reminded of why I love Seamus, he makes doing that sort of thing fun. As I'd just completed the semster with my essay being handed in I got to pick dinner. Out of a choice of White Lotus restaurant, Limeflower Thai or fish'n'chips I... picked fish'n'chips. My excuse is it's the least diet friendly and therefore at the moment it's the most indulgent.

Today life has returned to normal. I pottered around the house and online before heading in to work.

I really did have a fantastic time last weekend, and I'm so very very lucky to be me and have firends like mine.

After several shift changes (about 5 in all I think!) I ended up working from Saturday 3pm right through to Sunday 7:30am. It sounds bad but it was actually quiet for a Saturday night (I actually checked the phones were working at one point!) and it meant that I got yesterday completely OFF!

I got home about 8am and slept until midday. Luckily as I thought I'd be working I'd already made lunch for mc_shamo and I in advance, so all I had to do was stumble down the stairs and revive over a chicken salad.

After lunch we decided it was too nice a day to stay inside. We also looked at our "Gardening" fund and found it had enough money in it for a compost bin. With these factors combined we decided to make our way to Ceres in Brunswick. We ran into hespa there in the queue for coffee and said hi to aurellia who was there with her family, then I sat on the lawn sipping chai and watching two of the cutest little girls ever playing chasey, and a gorgeous hyperactive dog running around and around and around the cafe, all while lazily discussing the future with Seamus and enjoying the sunshine.

After a walk around looking at the animals and bikes and stuff we made our way to the nursery. We lusted after the native plants for a while then chatted to a lovely bloke about our composting needs (two people house with bugger-all garden, trying to grow herbs and sick of "wasting" food scraps) who suggested we get a Worm Cafe and took us through how to use it in detail. We bought one and 1000 worms to start our wormfarm. In the car home we decided the worms were our new pets. They are all called Leslie.

Once home we set up the worm farm in the garage (it's meant to be completely out of the sun, and let's face it, we're never going to clear enough space in our garage to park the car there anyway!) and made sure the Leslies were comfy. Inspired by our new purchase we set about clearing the front garden of grass and weeds, we've made a significant dent, and we're thinking of planting some native plants there with the landlords' permission- which I'm sure we'll get as our landlords are my parents and they're very easygoing.

In the evening I made spicy indian roo burgers and tandoori vegetables and we went for a walk around the neighbourhood, enjoying the dusk and the birdsong. Then we realised we'd completely forgotten to do any grocery shopping for the coming week, so high-tailed it to Coles.

And we've also planned our next mini holiday, on Wednesday the 28th of Oct we're going to leave Melbourne proper about 5pm and spend the night in Healesville, then the next day have a look around and visit the Sanctuary as I've never been. We'll be doing this on the cheap this time, so not looking for the luxury of the last holiday, but I realised how much better I feel after a break, no matter how short, so I plan to take them more often in future.

By the way, anyone who can get the Thursday off work is more than welcome to join us!

Friday night we crammed as many people as possible into our house, then crammed in as many people as weren't possible and had a party to celebrate our engagement. It was a lot of fun. Thank you to all who came, in particular to Mark who made a surprise visit having come down all the way from Canberra, to Anna the awesome who came despite being in the middle of hideous sounding Law exams, and to ex-housemate-Penelope who came despite having had a major operation. I had a wonderful night, was left at the end with a vague feeling of disappointment and guilt because I'd not managed to spend quality time with everyone (actually, with anyone) but I think that is the nature of hosting a large party, and I imagine the wedding will be even worse. All in all a fantabolous night, and one from which I had a milder form of hangover having stuck to mulled wine most of the evening and only derivating the once with a glass of champagne. I think my highlight of the night was when Seamus asked Ed, Dave and Shayne to be groomsmen- they all seemed quite chuffed.

Saturday we had a hangover breakfast with the more or less usual suspects then came home for a snoze before I went to work. Weirdly that was when the worst of my hangover actually hit, it was like it had a delayed onset or something. Still, it wasn't too bad, and I got through my shift with relative ease.

Sunday was awesome. We took a train into the city, got off at Spencer st and checked in to The Grand Hotel. It was a very nice room with a fantastic use of space. We dumped our overnight bag and headed out to catch the 3pm matinee of Avenue Q!

I can honestly say that Avenue Q was the first big-budget musical I've seen in my adult life that I've thought was worth the price of the ticket (I realise this may cause some of my friends to jump up and down in outrage but Wicked and Spamalot and that Johnny O'Keefe thing? ALL A RIPOFF! And I'm glad that I didn't pay to see any of them- working at Ticketmaster and having friend into musical theatre helps). Avenue Q was fun, still witty, well acted, well choreographed and the set wasn't just there so people could go "Wow, look at the set, it must have cost a lot" it was actually justifiable in my opinion and intergrated well into the action (Wicked's set i did not feel was justified, I would have preferred a cheaper set and the remaining money to be spent on acting lessons for the cast) I went in expecting to be disappointed as I'd been told by friends who had seen it in the UK that it wasn't that great live and was very pleasantly surprised (it makes me wonder about the UK cast- everyone I know who saw it in the US loved it, Everyone I know who's seen it here loved it, but the four or so people I know who saw it in the UK didn't). So yes, I came out with a big smile on my face, the soundtrack in my handbag and a song in my heart- best not to ask which song :-)

We had a nice earlyish dinner at Tsindos on Lonsdale st which was amazingly yummy, then headed back to the hotel where we indulged in a room service cheese platter and relived our highschool years by watching Nicolodeon on Foxtel- which seems to show nothing late at night but mid to late 90s cartoons.

Woke up this morning in a very comfy bed and had room service breakfast. A tip for anyone else staying at the Grand Hotel- one of their "Grand Breakfast"s will feed two people- in hindsight we should have just got one and an accompaniment and shared. Still, really good food!

We left via the lounge where we had tea and relaxed in the big leather armchairs, then slowly and pleasantly made our way home.

I definitely think I needed that little microbreak, and definitely plan to do something like it again!

...which is no longer a secret!!!!

Check my mood.

:-D :-D :-D

On Sunday evening I was picked up from home by _audhumla_ and Stevie and we three drove to Bendigo. As much as I'd like to say it was a spur of the moment road trip performed by three mid 20s women in search of wacky adventure to a kickin' 90s soundtrack it was in fact a pre planned event. We were meeting mc_shamo, Helen and Sharon there and in the morning were going to perform Aeschylus' Persians for 70-odd VCE students. The others had already been at a rehearsal camp for Mostellaria all weekend, so were a tad worse for wear...

We managed to find our way to the YHA despite Bendigo's ludicrous amount of one-way streets. The YHA was really nice, we got an 8 bed room for the six of us all to ourselves and one of the lower bunk beds was a double, which was welcome as Seamus had been on rehearsal camp the night before and we'd missed each other. It sounds silly but I don't sleep well without him anymore. We sat and watched the multi media part of the play (John- the messanger- had been pre-recorded to appear as a news-report-cum-documentary) then as Sarah and I were getting noisier and noisier about our desire for dinner we all headed out to a local Chinese place where the staff were incredibly nice and possibly too ready to bend over backwards for us (no, really, what's on the menu is fine, we don't need the chef to make things up...). We then realised we'd prepared nothing for breakfast, silly us. So we asked the lovely Chinese lady about supermarkets and discovered we were a mere block from Coles, awesome.

The Coles, and it's carpark, was surrounded by teens and extremly young adults, most of whom had spilled from old cars with P plates on them. Many were still in the cars and engaged in driving very fast for very short distances. we had to walk through them, it was mildly disconcerting. Once out of Coles we had to walk through again, and we nearly jumped out of our skins when from a car parked near us there came a shriek of "Christina!!!!!" and a slim blonde girl jumped out- my cousin Heather. We hugged and I explained what I was doing in Bendigo and why I had not come to visit her family (feeling incredibly guilty as I did so) she was waiting for her boyfriend to come out of Coles and I would have liked to have met him, but by now it was past 10pm and we still needed to run the show before the next day, so with a final hug and directions to send my love to her family we left her among the youth of Bendigo.

Back at the backpackers we stumbled through a few lines runs before succombing to exhaustion and piling into beds. Best. Sleep. Ever. Oh lordy were we all tired! (Well, except Stevie, who sensibly had brought a book and a reading light) There wasn't even any chat after the lights went out.

The performance the next morning went very well considering. The kids were quiet and seemed absorbed, though turned shy afterwards and didn't ask questions until most of them had left, then a few came up to talk to us. I was feeling a little grumpy as Seamus had accidentally grabbed my ear instead of my hand to fling me across the stage (an easy mistake to make in the circumstances, though hard to explain on paper, and I was not grumpy with him just grumpy it had happened) and it bloody well hurt. We also chatted to one of the teachers who seemed really interested in what we'd done, especially with the concept of comedy within tragedy, with the idea that some of the lines can be comic. He was expecting the scene between Queen Atossa and the ghost of King Darius to be high drama I think, and instead we gave him a squabbling domestic tiff. I think he really liked it, and hopefully we get asked back again!

We walked through the park after the performance and hit the second hand books and clothes shops with a vengence before discovering that the brewery we were planning to lunch in (and drink in) was shut for the day. Bollocks. So we searched and search for a closeish decent pub, found one and walked in. Only on actually being inside did we discover that we'd managed, like the homing pidgeons we old MUCAAS types are, to end up in a Pugg Mahones.

A very nice few hours then passed, til we realised it was nearing 3pm and Seamus had to be back in Melbourne by 5:30. So we walked back to the cars and with a little too-ing anf fro-ing and organising of luggage we were off back to Melbourne, where I has the fun of driving un-accompanied through the city to get home after dropping seamus and Sharon off!

I got home, fed the cats (who had been fed that morning by the obliging _bounce_, thanks again!) and was just contemplating my own dinner when I received a very welcome text from vivienne_astor, asking me to come around, watch dvds and have Thai take away. And thus an evening was very pleasantly passed. :-)

The next day I blitzed through errands and housework like some sort of domestic goddess. I can breathe in my own home, oh joy!

Altogether a wonderful weekend, I'm so glad to have finally had a proper one. It makes up for the fact that I am now halfway through my hell-run at work (Thursday overnight, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning shifts- with only 8 hours between them).

Only three weeks til my next weekend! I think I may have to plan to do something fun with it...

I passed!

From the "You Can't Win" Files:

I was told before the test to make sure I checked my mirrors and didn't speed. i was told (over and over every lesson) to not worry so much about parallel parking, that I was fine at it and to concentrate on speed and mirrors.

I nearly failed the test today because I drove too slowly, used the mirrors too much (!) and failed to correctly parallel park within 2 minutes (think it was about 2:20).

I feel slightly vindicated, and am glad the tester was nice about it!

It may be time for a Victory Drive...