titwillow

so. i just got home from my last weekend at yoga school. i feel... odd. the weekend was epic, we had an exam in class yesterday which sucked and i think i didn't do so great on but i hope i at least passed. then we went out to dinner and it was great to see everybody outside of yoga school. we all get along so well and everyone is so loving and supportive - i feel really blessed.

i stayed down in boston and a couple of the other girls from out of town stayed in my hotel room so we practiced our teaching for the today (when we would have to teach the whole class a pose) and got some sleep. then this morning everyone took a turn in class teaching a pose and my pose was svanasana and closing meditation. it was my first choice of poses and i got it and i was thrilled. so i had to go last (naturally) and i loved it. my voice shook, which sucked, and i think i got those splotchy things on my chest that i got when i got married but overall it was a fantastic thing to do. after i had everyone in svanasana i read a rumi poem and then brought them up and into final meditation and a bunch of people were crying and saying that the whole thing was really beautiful etc etc. quite an experience.

then we took a little break and then came back for the next stage of the day - a mala. a mala is 108 sun salutations. in a row, in unison. it was epic. the teacher counted them off and it took about 2 hours to do them all. 108 is a sacred number in a bunch of religions and philosophies, and it is a lot of sun salutations. i am going to be sore tomorrow. but it was an increibly rewarding experience. then after lunch we all sat in a circle and recited our favourite sutra and said why it was important to us and then closed by saying what we had gotten out of the course and how we were feeling (many more tears). then a protracted goodbye session, a group photo, many hugs and then i came home.

and now i don't know what to do with myself!! literally. i am in a really weird headspace. i still have the take home exam to do, it will take me the next two weeks to get it done but i am confident that i can make that happen. and i think i am going to let calie know that i am available to substitute teach, i think there will be a lot of demand for that over the summer.

that's all i have right now. i realise i didn't explain all this very well but i really can't.

peace.

i'm alive - really i am!

just burned out on typing and computers and stuff.

so here's the news in brief.

vance graduated on saturday. very american graduation ceremony, everyone had their robes and funny hats, boring speeches, lots of names read out. it was actually a bit emotional, they focused a lot on thanking the people that had helped you get through college (which i wasn't expecting) and that's ME so that was nice.



then jane took us out to dinner that night at a swanky steakhouse and got grumpy when we ordered salads because she deemed that excessive - funny.

in other news. i have yoga school again this weekend so i should be finishing off my home work (my procrastination is your gain). celts game tomorrow night (not going, just watching at home), then buffet dinner and trivia night at the country club on wednesday night (ha ha, the result of a slightly crazy volunteering while at the club for dinner a few weeks ago, never thought she'd follow through), then dinner at jane's (lots of jane this week) because someone's in town that we haven't seen in forever etc, then yoga school all weekend, then monday is a public holiday and an absolute godsend for me because the weekend after that is yoga school again and i am going to be pooped.

then on june 15th all this craziness is over (except my 2 week long take home exam) and we can relax a little bit into the summer. still planning vance's graduation party, july 6th at the farm. thinking about making it a graduation party for both of us but i think i'd enjoy it more if i wasn't anywhere near the center of attention. vance finally sent off his visa stuff a couple of weeks ago so that's in the pipeline. he's getting his stuff together to send to the teacher's registration thingy in s.a. so he is recognised as a legit teaching dude. in an odd turn of events he is back delivering water for the summer. they needed him and the money is way better than anything else out there so that's pretty cool. i can't wait to give my notice, the way the economy is going they may be looking for people to take a redundancy package soon so if it's a few months from now i would be all over that.

still planning to make the move late october/early november. nothing's changed there. dreading the flight already.

enough. i promised myself i would do a cd's worth of homework and it's now radio silence. this counts as homework, it needed to be done.

peace.

sunday afternoon again, funny how that happens.

it's been a while. last weekend was a yoga school weekend and for some reason it was really physically exhausting. every day everything hurt and it was a real struggle to give myself enough energy to get through it all. not in a bad, draggy way, just in a good challenging way. we had a really good philosophy discussion on sunday afternoon and i made a couple of commitments. the first is to not expect thanks for good things you do, to just do them for the sake of doing them. the second is to not apologise for anything i do/say/write that is weird or esoteric or stinky hippy-esque. i just can't do it anymore. yoga is more than just poses and classes and breathing, there's a whole underlying belief and philosophy to it. and the underlying stuff makes sense to me and is something i could live by. and by hearing me talk in class you would think that i came from the most repressed, strict, traditional family in the world and that all my friends were boring puritans. which, obviously, isn't anywhere near true. so any kind of leaning towards that way of seeing things has obviously come from me and my reluctance to be weird, even amongst all the weirdness. enough. no more. end of rant. it's taking everything i have not to apologise for it - i swear. i have to break this habit.

anyway, it was great to see all the yoga school chicks again, we have made plans to try and see each other during this next long break so we'll see how that pans out. i went to a class with one of my classmates yesterday and it was great. the teacher was actually calie's teacher training teacher and i can see where calie gets her practice from. the next time i'm at yoga school is in late may and then the last 3 yoga weekend play out during one month so it is going to go so fast.

i'm really excited about it actually. i think i can do this teaching thing. i lie in bed at night and sequence classes in my head and can hear myself talking people through it (too bad my classes will only be about 13 minutes long - as long as it takes for me to fall asleep!!). there are a few teaching opportunities coming up around here and i will definitely let my regular teachers know that i am available to sub for their classes. very very exciting and cool.

other things are going well too. work is the same as always but i am dealing with it a little better. it's getting harder and harder to not let on that we are moving to australia in 6 months but so far the secret is safe. we have lost a few key accounts and people have been laid off since we got bought out (not in my department but in other departments). the severance packages have been 30 days notice and 2 months full severance pay. if things keep going down hill (the economy sucks over here right now) it would be awesome to time a sweet severance package over the summer and before leaving!! not likely, but that would be beautiful!!

we are slowly wading through our respective visa paperwork and are almost done. my green card extension application is all set, signed and sealed and i'm going to mail it tomorrow. fucking yay!! vance's visa is almost done, we just have to finalise a couple of forms and call the helpline for a couple of quick questions and hopefully we can send that in by the end of the week. i can't even express what a relief that is going to be. anything else we can make as important or trivial as we like but there's no way of getting around the paperwork. plus, we get to go out to dinner when it's all done and we haven't done that in ages.

what else? we're trying to get celtics tickets for wednesday night but they are kind of expensive. i'd really like to go to a game though, all that 'nba action' watching with adam and i've never been to an nba game - pretty lame! vance doesn't particularly care for basketball but he would totally come with me and have a good time. he does get into it when i watch it here and humours me when my commentary seems to consist of 'boards! boards! where are you guys? aaaaaaaaaargh!' i can't believe they lost last night, i didn't watch the game because we were watching 'superbad'. what a depraved, funny movie. i'm sorry, but it was lol funny.

so we're trying to have a good time on a limited budget. monday night we went out to a sports bar to watch the bruins try to clinch game 7 but they lost 5-0 so that kind of sucked!! then on tuesday night we rode beach cruiser bikes around the parking lot at vance's work! ha ha, it was funny. the weather was great here last week so on tuesday afternoon (he was working 4-8, i finish work at 6) he calls me at work to invite me to stop by on my way home. so i went up there and we picked out bikes, mine was a sweet paul frank beach cruiser



and his was a pretty normal schwinn beach cruiser. anyway, so we rode around the parking lot (which is shared with a huge supermarket and a couple of other things - it's busy!) and beeped our little horns at people (his was the classic honking one and i had a dinosaur that made a squeaking sound) and had a few laughs. ha ha, this whole story sounds ludicrous!! then on wednesday night we went to the country club for jane's birthday which was ok. i don't get to wear jeans or flip-flops to the country club so it's sort of a pain in the ass but the food is ok and everyone is really nice so it's not too painful. i think i might have accidentally signed vance and i up to go to trivia night at the country club with jane and jack and a team. that should be interesting!

other than that we are just making some plans for the summer and trying to get through the next week of paperwork and vance's last week of student teaching. we went to look at the place we want to have his graduation party today and i think it's going to be really amazing. the farm is fantastic, there are chickens running around everywhere and you can feed them and this suddenly seems to be an odd thing to focus on! but anyway, as soon as we have secured the date i am going to make some sweet invitations and hopefully everyone can come so we can repay them for the times they have hosted us. not that it needs to be fair, but it's something i really want to do. it will be nice to be the host for a change too, instead of just being vance's wife. it's tough to explain but life has been very strange for the past couple of years. i hope he adjusts to things better than i did - it does scare me a little.

where the hell did that come from? i was about to sign off. he's out fishing with his boyfriend and i'm going to go and have a glass of wine.

peace.

sunday late afternoon,

vance is at work today, he got left off the roster for his usual saturday shift but managed to snag someone's sunday shift. which is good, because we really need him to keep his hours for the next few weeks. money sucks.

if you recall correctly, this was meant to be the day that we went to the fishing show in providence. well, we went yesterday instead and it was fun. i wasn't sure if i wanted to go but the alternative was to be home by myself all weekend and that didn't sound like fun. so we left after i went to yoga. picked up a couple of bagels for the road and headed on out of town. it was SO nice to get away for even a day. the fishing show was, um, interesting! my husband sure can look at a lot of fishing stuff! and stuff you wouldn't even think he would look at, he looked at. he looked at $40,000 boats, tiny little hooks, big weird looking fake fish, rods, reels, clothes, lanyards, beer and god only knows what else! that's cool though, because i knew that was how it was going to be before i signed up and it was a pretty cool insight into his weird little world. so we spent a couple of hours there and then went and got falafel from the best falafel place ever. oh my goodness, it is SO good. we had it last time we went to providence and i had to have more. then we came home and got sundry stuff done.

but really, that's not interesting, let's talk about yoga. yes, again! the last weekend i had at yoga school (4 weeks ago now - yikes!) our focus was on inversions. mainly handstand, headstand and pincha mayurasana. we worked on how to get into them, what to do when you're in them etc. of the three, i could only get into headstand. we do them all up against the wall and you have to kick up into them (controlled) and i just couldn't get to the wall or i'd kick too hard and bounce off. kind of frustrating but because it was something i had never really tried before (at least in the last 20 years!) i wasn't too bummed out. but i have been working on them during my home practice 3 days a week. no pressure, just playing around. and then on wednesday i was able to kick up into pincha mayurasana - yay! and i could repeat it on friday and i think my form was pretty tidy. oh... this is pincha mayurasana -



probably doesn't look like a big deal, but i actually have a picture of someone doing this pose that has always drawn me in and i had it pinned up in my yoga room for the longest time (i tried to copy it in here but i couldn't find it on the web - except in some weird flash presentation at prana.com). this was always one of those 'yeah - right!' poses for me so it's sort of amazing to be there. not that there is any shortage of those poses! for the record, i still have the challenge of being able to do it without the wall.

also, in yogaland news. thursday morning i actually finished off calie's class for her. we came out of savasana and she came up to me and asked if i could lead the class through the 3 rounds of om at the end. i guess she left her phone upstairs and had to go and make sure it was still there. so, we all came out of savasana and sat quietly, then i led the class in 3 rounds of om, then said the little end bit ('bring your thumbs to your third eye and let's all say - namaste'). tee hee, i guess it doesn't sound like it was too much of a stretch but it was actually really intense. in a wonderful sort of way. the class was fuller than i had ever seen it (strange coincidence) but my voice was heard and it was all good. she came up to me yesterday in class and thanked me and said i was a natural born teacher. really, what choice did i have? so that was a great feeling.

oh, and last week my yoga school instructor emailed me and asked me to email her my teaching script from the last set of homework because she wanted to give it to the class to refer to for this next set of homework as how to do it well. so that was nice too!! i have been tackling my homework today and it's good to be back amongst the books. i still have a weekend free before we go back so i have some time to get reacquainted with everything. i'm really happy with the way my practice is progressing. i just wish the rest of my life was more yogic and inspirational but i am working on that too. i need to eat more vegetables!

that's about it. it's all yoga and spending time with vance right now. he is SO almost done with school (3 more weeks) and at some point this whole crazy plan is going to come together. we are waiting on some paperwork and we should be able to file my green card extension and his australian visa application soon. i can't even tell you what a relief it will be to have that all done and in progress. i don't know what i am going to do with myself when yoga school and paperwork is over. ha - who the hell am i kidding? then we have to organise a move halfway around the world and figure out what we're going to do when we get there. but i'm not thinking about that yet, i just can't. all i need is vance, two plane tickets and the big pink suitcase. anything else is superfluous.

namaste.

sunday. early afternoon. weird day.

i've been puttering around all morning trying to compile evidence for my green card extension. it's kind of fun.. going through old cards, holiday receipts etc to try and prove that we are still legitimately married and in a harmonious, co-habiting relationship. i'm kind of stressed about it but the process can take up to a year anyway and as long as i get the application in they will send me a letter giving me authorisation to stay and work for another 12 months while they process it and that's all i really need. however, i was reading the immigration website this morning and i found out that my eventual sort-of green card is going to make it very difficult to even visit the states in the future. turns out that because i am sort-of a permanent resident, i don't qualify for the visa waiver (just rock up and we'll let you in for up to 90 days) program. if we wanted to come over i would have to apply for a 6 month tourist visa, which is $$, hassle and drama. big sigh. so i'm looking into that. the only other option would be to stay until mid-2009 when i am eligible to become a dual citizen and then i'd be free to come and go as i please forever. but really, that's just unfathomable (to both of us) right now so i think we are just going to make the best of plan a. we're going to be pretty busy for the first few years we are over there so we seriously doubt we would be planning any trips anyway. everyone can make good on their promises to come and visit us. i just hate being restricted by something so stupid.

in other news... vance is at his work right now talking to his manager because he's had his hours cut pretty dramatically (change of seasons, not many skiers anymore) and we can't afford for him to be working any less. sigh. we are canning the idea to go away next weekend and the weekend after that, we just can't afford to right now. sigh. and he is still working on securing the job full time over the summer, we'll be fine once that happens but until then it's pretty tight.

but it's not all doom and gloom. we are having a pretty good time, the weather is getting a little better, it's sunny but there is an icy wind all the time that is a real pain in the ass. there are little buds on the trees and birds singing outside our window. vance has started reorganising his fishing lures and planning his adventures this year. i just want to go and sit in the sun without freezing! i am planning a graduation party for us both at this cool little organic farm that i found. i basically just need a backyard and this place is perfect. it'll cost us a couple of hundred to rent the place for an afternoon and then we'll just bring all the food and drinks up and cook out on the grill etc. it'll be nice to return some hospitality to people who have been so hospitable to us over the past couple of years. jane is planning a going away party for us too for later in the year so we'll let her drop the big bucks on that one!

ok, enough. still a couple of weeks until i go back to yoga school - it seems surreal that i was ever there at all.

peace.

i don't know where to start.

it's saturday afternoon. i took yesterday off of work because vance was off of school and he had to go into boston to get fingerprinted so he can get an f.b.i. check for his australian visa. wait - i didn't have to take the day off to go with him to do that, i just figured it was as good of a reason as any and i needed a mental health day. so we drove into boston and got that done. then we went to this mexican place that i had read about online but it wasn't that great. from there we took the t to the aquarium because we had free passes and we have been meaning to go. it was awesome, we had such a fun time. i never understood people who were all into tropical fish and stuff but they are so gorgeous. and the good thing about the aquarium (as opposed to the zoo) is that all the 'animals' are out there all the time, not hiding in their houses. they really have everything there, so many exhibits covering so many different environments. then they have the main tank which has everything in it so vance was naming fish and telling me all about stuff - it was very cute. we made friends with myrtle the turtle who has been at the aquarium since it opened in the 70s and was apparently 30 years old then. she's seen a lot. here's me 'with' myrtle -



and here's vance with some fish -



then we came home and lounged for the rest of the day. it was SO nice to spend some time together, it really is tough to be so busy and then when you are hanging out together one or the other is usually tired or stressed or whatever. ya gotta make an effort.

today vance is at work until 5 so i have been puttering. one of the girls from my yoga course came and took calie's class with me this morning so that was kinda cool. worlds were colliding in a good way. i don't have yoga school again for almost a month so it has taken on a bit of a mythical feel - was i really ever there? suffice to say i haven't started my homework yet! i need to get into it soon though, vance and i have mini trips planned for the weekend of the 5th and 12th of april. the weekend of the 5th we are going to go and stay saturday night in providence again, and then i get to go to the big fishing show on the sunday (it's family day - ladies get in free!). ha ha, i guess gabe is going to be away that weekend so we figured we'd make a little trip out of it but you should have seen vance's face when he realised it meant i would actually be with him at the fishing show. ah, i can hear the naggin now 'do you really need another one of those lures/rods/lines/beers?'. he has been selling off a bunch of stuff on ebay so he does have some play money saved up. i am going to make him buy me a nice dinner while we are down there though. i don't have anything to sell on ebay, i am already running pretty lean - no fair!

then the weekend of the 12th we are going to head up to mount sunapee for the cardboard sled challenge that we happened upon last year. we had such a good day that we decided to make a weekend out of it this year. bunny is insisting on paying for us to go up skiing one day so we're going to collect on that and maybe ski, maybe just hang out and watch the festivities (actually, we'll probably hang out on the saturday then stay and ski sunday).

so those two little breaks will be cool. we are still in the midst of visa/green card craziness but i have actually mellowed out a lot about it. i'm aiming to have everything done and sent by the end of april, then hopefully we can forget about it until everything gets approved and we are all set.

as for the rest of life? it's ok, i think i am coping much better. i read that (slightly daft) book 'eat, pray, love' because one of the girls at yoga school had a spare copy and gave it to me. eh, it was alright, but right towards the end there was this quote that jumped out at me and made me fold the page over a bunch of times so i wouldn't forget to look at it again (don't worry, the book is mine - this yoga girl's mum is losing it a bit and left the book out in the garden in the rain so it is all messed up and was going to be thrown out). so this weeks quote is

"To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life"

i think i'm going to go and eat some cheese.

peace.

it's sunday night. i just walked in the door from my third yoga school weekend. i probably shouldn't be posting, it's a little like drunk dialing.

so it's hard. so hard. hard in ways that i didn't anticipate and i'm sure it will be hard in ways that i still haven't realised. i'm exhausted right now but i will try to explain.

i've been over here for two+ years now. i have never been the greatest at making friends and this time in my life has been no exception. which is fine. really. but then you end up in a room with 16 other women, getting into some pretty crazy stuff and i just feel like my usual socially retarded self is even more retarded after all this time in 'isolation' plus finally being in a group of people talking about things i have been thinking about for a long time. it's a really tough combo. i feel like i am back in high school after being raised by wolves. so there's that. i am not good at interacting with people and not feeling like i look stupid. which is stupid. these people couldn't be more nice and i am definitely forming friendships. we all are. you kind of can't help it. anyway, enough of that.

it's also hard because i come home at the end of the day and it's like coming from this beautiful community of like-minded souls to.... this. not that this is bad. it's just kind of a harsh transition. tomorrow i will be back in my little cube staring two feet in front of my face for 8 hours. don't get me wrong, i have taken steps to make my work environment as nice as possible and i get up and wander a lot etc, i'm not interested in succumbing to the banality of it all. but it is what it is. and it's a tough transition.

and then there's the problem of what to do with the things i am learning. that's hard too. i come home and tell vance about it, i really do, but the nature of the subject matter makes it hard to talk about my day without coming off preachy. today we learned about proper focus and attention. how's that 'family guy' rerun working out for you? today we learned about how alcohol can damage the aura. thanks for getting me that bottle of red wine (which, incidentally, i am going to have a glass of in a few minutes, but it made for a good example).

we have a fledgling marriage. i am not stupid enough to believe otherwise. and if i don't know when i am going to want wine and when i am going to be virtuous and skip it - how can i expect anyone else to know? right now i want burger king. can i tell vance that when he gets home? well, i probably won't. because in order for things to become clear to him, they have to become clear to me. but that's the wrong way around. or is it? so that's hard.

so here is something for you all from the yoga sutras of patanjali. it's number 33.

"By cultivating attitudes of friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and disregard toward the wicked, the mind retains it's undisturbed calmness."

peace y'all.

tired.

it's sunday morning. i don't have yoga school proper this weekend but i do have my anatomy intensive. it's 12-6 saturday and sunday and it's actually pretty cool. basically this guy tells us all about the structure of the body and we ask questions (specific or general) and then we go home. no notes, no quizzes, just general info for the greater good. i'm actually very interested in it (as evidenced by my inability to shut up and stop asking so many questions - flashback to primary school although that was too many answers) and i can see how the more you know about the body, the better (and more profitable - hello private clients with specific issues!) a yoga teacher you will be. he suggested looking into anatomy courses at community colleges etc so i think i might do that.

on the other hand, having to go to boston again this weekend is kind of a pain in the ass. i've had class 3 out of the 4 last weekends and it's getting a bit tiring. i went in early yesterday (like 8am) to take a yoga class before the lecture and then it was a long day. but today will be ok, i had a bit of a sleep in and read the paper (vance made me coffee and an omelette - crap, can't spell ommmmmmmmmlet). i don't have class next weekend (or the one after that) but i have so much stuff piled up to take care of that it's going to be busy anyway - sigh. if only i didn't have to work for a living.

yoga is about it right now. winter is dragging on, i am ready for summer and flip-flops. shoes are overrated. work stinks but i am trying to be good about it.

more later maybe, i had more to say but it has evaporated.

peace.

deep breath.

ok, so it's tuesday night. i am usually at yoga tonight (calie's class) but i skipped it because i am still feeling sick and/or got sick again so i need some downtime. i did an hour of yoga this morning anyway so i don't feel too bad.

we were housesitting all last week (from tuesday) so i have really missed our little house. it was good to see bunny and be able to keep her company while jane was away but the house is very non-comfortable and it was hard to come home to and truly relax.

i had my second 3-day yoga weekend in there too so it was bad timing all round. but i am loving the course. we are doing about 2-3 hours of yoga each morning when we get there and it is feeling so much 'better'. natasha (our teacher) says that we are the most improved class that she has ever seen in the initial 2 weeks of the course. i think she meant it too, not just a shelbyville/springfield thing. it does feel like a lot of the knowledge is coming together and that a lot of the alignment and breathing is being learned by my body, not my brain. it's still extremely physically challenging but it's meant to be and i can feel subtle changes already. i can't believe i have only been on this path for less than a month - it's crazy!

so in the afternoons we generally discuss anatomy and/or philosophy. it's great, i am learning so much about both. the philosophy discussions make me realise why i have been reading all those weird books - i can grasp a lot of the concepts really easily and spark some good discussions. we're working with the sutras of patanjali and my bedside reading right now is the bhagavad gita (the stephen mitchell translation if anyone wants to play along at home). i thought the bhagavad gita would be too esoteric for bed reading but it's actually very compelling and i wish i owned it (borrowed from the library) so i could highlight and flag certain passages. it's an epic poem, here's my favourite stanza from last night (stanza? verse? i don't know - sorry english people!)

You have the right to your actions.
but never to your actions' fruits.
Act for the action's sake.
And do not be attached to inaction.

see that's hard. i like to do nice things for people, but i don't like doing the nice things nearly as much (if at all) if i don't get either commensurate thanks or some kind of reward. so that's my challenge i guess. that's my thing that i am working with right now. maybe the foo said it best, i love this song -

****
I am a one way motorway
I’m the one that drives away
Then follows you back home
I am a street light shining
I’m a wild light blinding bright
Burning off alone

It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again

I am a new day rising
I’m a brand new sky
To hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?

It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again
***

anyhow, enough copy and pasting.

so this weekend i have our 'anatomy intensive' weekend which is 12-6 on saturday and sunday. honestly, i am going to be exhausted by next weekend. when you're this busy on the weekends then everything else has to get smushed into whatever time you can find during the week (duh - i'm sure i'm not the first person who was ever busy!). and vance was really the one that was supposed to be busy and i was all prepared to pick up the slack for these last few months. but we're figuring it out and doing pretty well. just don't get me started on his visa and my green card extension, that's when i start to get a little anxious. but we have a plan for that too, so i just have to trust the plan i guess.

ok, maybe more this weekend. i am holding on to sunday morning as my beacon to get me through the week. on saturday i am going in to boston early to take a yoga class with some of my classmates before the anatomy intensive so that day is all done.

and breeeeeeeeeeeathe.

peace.

sigh.

i am a little overwhelmed today. let me give you the week in review.

when i got home from yoga teacher training last sunday night i took vance out to outback steakhouse for a nice meal and a drink. they don't have coopers on tap as rumoured, but they do have sparkling in bottles. nice. so we had a nice grown-up date, laughed at the pseudo-australianness and were planning on stealing a menu (it's such a travesty) but we didn't get around to the thievery.

then i went to work on monday, pretty tired from the hectic weekend. tried to dodge questions about why i took the day off on friday etc, ended up telling a few people what i was doing. reluctantly. i don't know why, i just don't like people knowing all about me and asking questions about how my weekend was and not really giving a shit about the answer. hmmmm... that's fairly judgemental, maybe they do give a shit. food for thought.

anyway, by tuesday i was starting to feel crappy and by wednesday i was full-blown sick. i took the day off, one of the great things about the new company is that we have 5 designated sick days now (instead of all personal days) so i might as well use them. i was going to take thursday off too but i made the mistake of checking my email from home and the shit was hitting the fan so i went to work. no-one was helping out my clients when they called so i had a bunch of stuff to catch up on. honestly, if i hadn't gone in on thursday then friday would have been the worst day of work ever. so the rest of the week played out pretty normally, i'm getting a little better but i am really rundown and floppy. it's tough not to do a bunch of yoga too, i was all fired up to make some improvements in these 2 weeks before our next weekend but i guess realistically 2 weeks isn't a lot of time for that anyway. better to get the being sick part out of the way and worry about improving at yoga next week.

so it's saturday now. i slept in this morning and then went to the library, mailed un petit package, banked some checks and then went to the grocery store. vance works all day on saturdays now so i go by myself and buy all good things! he has to go my himself when i am in boston for yoga weekends so it will all even out. the ski shop he works at is in the same complex as the supermarket so i took him some lunch and we said hi. then i came home and tidied up around here a little bit before launching into my homework. and 4 hours later, here i am. there is a LOT of stuff i have to do and learn. i'm actually a little surprised at how easy i am finding it to concentrate. i think the key is frequent, defined breaks (i.e. doing the dishes, not turning on the tv) and lots of tea. i wanted to get everything done today but i don't think that's realistic. besides, if i did it all today i would just end up second guessing myself and having to review everything again before friday anyway.

so i think i am done for the day. vance should be home soon and we kind of have a date night planned but i don't know if i am up for it (or if he will be after a long week). we were going to go out to dinner at this italian place in peabody and then vance was going to take me candlepin bowling. not tenpin bowling, very different. google is your friend. but we'll see. tomorrow is superbowl sunday. the game isn't until 6:30pm though so we have a bunch of time to relax, sleep in and hang out together. i love sundays! i am designated dessert bringer so i am thinking cupcakes. i'm going to try and find a good recipe online. yum, it's been a while since i have made cupcakes. anything goes on superbowl sunday. and if we lose, it's going to be really ugly around here for a few days/weeks. not in my house, but in this state in general. urgh - it doesn't bear thinking about.

maybe more tomorrow.

namaste.

first of all, apologies to anyone that i 'owe' correspondence to. i'm getting there, i swear, it's just been a really intense weekend.

yesterday was the last day of the first weekend of yoga school and i am exhausted. physically and mentally. the practice yesterday morning was really hard and i just couldn't get it together. it was tough. i have a long way to go physically before i can feel accomplished but i am excited to do the work i need to do. in the afternoon we had a philosophy discussion and that felt a little better. i seem to have the mental part of this practice off to a good start.

wow, i had this whole blog written in my head last night but it has gone now. suffice to say that i feel very weird, elated and exhausted, but not for one second considering that this might have been a bad idea. i could have been more physically prepared but i came to the conclusion at the end of the practice yesterday that anything i have achieved that i have really appreciated has started with me being at the back of the pack (more than likely in tears). when i started running (ah, the oakbank-morialta where we came so last that there wasn't even a finish line anymore), when i started snowboarding (i actually deliberately broke a binding one day at buller so i wouldn't have to snowboard back to work) and, to a certain extent, when i started my relationship with the vance. (hey, what do you know, my blog is coming back to me!).

so i'm not too worried. the house is a mess, i have a massive pile of laundry and going to work today is about the last thing i feel like doing. but while i am there i will be present. i think that's part of the reason i have been hating it so much, because i am trying to weave more interesting things into my day while i am there (surfing the web, shopping online, talking to vance etc). i think i'm going to try just working hard today.

enough, i have to get ready to go.

namaste.

so i'm training to be a yoga teacher.

i'm two days in to my first weekend of the course and it is intense. we have 2-2.5 hours of practice every morning and then we dissect the practice, then lunch, then discussion about various aspects of yoga in the afternoon.

it's amazing. a. maze. ing. but hard. we were working through the sanskrit terms today and i thought i had a good handle on them but i so don't. there's all this anatomy to learn and umpteen things on top of that. it's ok. i'm not too stressed at the moment because i am meant to be pretty clueless at this point but i am worried about how my inability to concentrate lately will affect my retention of things. i haven't really studied for anything in 14 years (!) so the skill has diminished. and i didn't ever really study anyway.

anyway. that's me. checking in. one more day tomorrow and then i have a few weeks until the next session. with any luck i'll be a certified teacher by july. ack!

peace. ahem. namaste.

brrrrrrr... just got back from seeing the pats win the afc championship game so now we are going to the superbowl! sweet. i didn't go to the actual game, just to gabe and betsy's to watch it there. it is so freakin cold out... my fingers are numb from just getting to the car and home.

anyway, i just have one piece of information and then i am out. so due to weird circumstances that have nothing directly to do with me, i have decided not to do the yoga teacher training course that i was going to start in may. let's just say that the teacher of the course did something that meant i can't aspire to be like her, learn from her etc so i had to can the course.

so there is a course that starts in boston this friday that i have signed up for. i only sent the paperwork in yesterday but they said they had spaces and now i am just waiting to see if i got accepted. it's over 7 long weekends (friday, saturday and sunday) from next friday until june. if i get accepted and all goes well then i could be qualified to teach by june. crazy. both of us graduated by mid-year. the plus sides are that it's close, i would only have to take 7 total days off of work (the other course was 3 fulltime weeks) and it's less money. the downside? well, to be honest i don't see a downside anymore because the main reason i wanted to do the other course was for the other teacher. and now that's a moot point.

i drove into boston this morning to see where the course will meet and get an idea of where to park in the area. i'm really not a fan of driving there but it will be the easiest and almost the cheapest way to do it. hopefully there will be someone else that lives near here and we can carpool.

but anyway, i'm not even accepted yet so we will see what happens.

i'll keep you posted.

peace.

gah.

i have been very remiss and now i feel like i am shouting into an abyss. i bet no-one even comes here to check anymore. and now it's even harder to know where to begin.

well, january came around finally. i had a nice birthday, a little dinner and some gifts. nothing crazy, but what was expected and a little bit more. being 30 is ok, i don't mind.

things have been relatively normal for a couple of weeks. the company i work for got bought out so that is creating a bunch of upheaval in the office but it really hasn't affected me so much. the jobs that are safe are the jobs like mine so it shouldn't change much. i only have 8.5 months to go - thank goodness. i put in for time off in may to do the first part of my yoga course so that made it seem all the more real.

i got a bit slack over the holidays with my diet and yoga so i am tightening everything up now. i really try to get on the mat 6 days a week and generally i'm practicing for at least half an hour at a time. more like an hour most days. but the goal for the rest of the month is to just roll out the mat 6 days a week (3 days at the gym so that's always an hour class). vance is starting his crazy schedule this week (tomorrow) so i think that will be a mixed blessing. on the one hand he will be leaving the house earlier to go to work and coming home later so finding time to practice for an hour or more will be a LOT easier. it's virtually impossible to enjoy practice when he's in the house, even though he does try to be an unobtrusive as possible. house walls over here seem to be made of plywood and our house might as well just be one big room sometimes. so i have been squeezing it in between when he leaves for work and when i leave for work but that's not quite an hour of time. well, it is, but then my tea doesn't have time to get down to a drinkable temperature before i have to leave for work. and that won't do. there's not much point in adding an extra 20 minutes onto my yoga practice only to have to rush around the house desperately trying not to be late for work. so i really hope this extra time will give me a real routine.

the minus side, natch, is that i will very rarely see vance until he graduates in may. he is student teaching 5 days a week (7:45am - 1:30pm) then working 4pm-9pm at the ski shop monday, tuesday and wednesday nights, then he has a computer course he has to take in order to get his degree and that's on thursday night 7pm-9pm and then he's going to work 8am-5pm at the ski shop on saturdays. it sucks. but on the other hand i feel like he has had a good run (he was working fulltime and going to school before i got here, now he has only had to work 3 days a week) and his mom pays for school so i am trying to make him see that it could have been like this for 4 years. ok, so i get a little peeved when people don't have to work hard and get stuff handed to them. it's a character flaw, what can i say? but we are both going to work hard to make it work for us. it's only a few months and then he is completely done and i get to watch him graduate - hallelujah! and he graduates the day before i leave for yoga school for the first time, so that's a circle of life kind of deal.

but anyway. we just got back from a weekend in new hampshire. we went up to ski on saturday and stayed with my friend claire on saturday night. she has a great little house up there and we hung out, watched the patriots win the first of the sudden death finals - which was great but too stressful for me! then we drove around today, her husband was working so we kind of hung out, saw some of the sights etc. it's a cool area. but i am absolutely exhausted, i didn't sleep great on her futon last night and it was a crazy week at work last week (which was hard to adjust to because it's been so dead) so it's time for a glass of wine and a nice sit down.

i have to go and do that now. i'll be better at this, i swear.

peace.

christmas! well, almost.

sorry for the perpetual slackness, it has been a weird couple of weeks. good, nothing too bad, just weird and i kind of feel like i have been enduring this last week. but that feeling was over yesterday, so that's good. maybe the solstice will bring new light etc.

so we have been plodding along as normal. we have a gorgeous christmas tree with lots of gifts under it and we are both ready for it to be christmas morning. we have a little bottle of champagne in the fridge for mimosas and vance found a recipe for pear and ginger pancakes that he wants to try and i think i am in charge of the citrus and pomegranate salad (had a moment in the supermarket yesterday when i realised i have no idea how to pick a good pomegranate. they are the enigma of the fruit family). we successfully steered jane away from her plans to have brunch at her house and then dinner at her house (with a few hours in between) on christmas day. a plan that would have required us to have been at her house (not wearing jeans or trackies) at 10am. uh - no. no. no. no. so we have settled on 2pm lunch/dinner. we went to her christmas party last weekend and she got to show us off to all her friends. they all knew we were moving to australia so that was pretty much the conversation. but i think she had a good time and thought they were impressed (?) by us. and i wore a dress and apparently looked (sotto voce) "ab-so-luuute-ly daaaaar-ling". ha ha - funny!

anyway, so tomorrow night we go to bruce and susan's house for the big christmas dinner which is always a good time. lots of wine and food. i have to work tomorrow 8am-4pm. well, actually i didn't have to, they would prefer that i wasn't but it would count as a vacation day and i don't have enough of them as it is. so there are about 4 of us coming in, it should be really quiet and an easy way to get paid for a full day's work.

aaaargh, i canna type anymore. it's sunday, it's about to rain and the football's about to start. i'll talk to you guys soon, in the meantime here is our living room (the fish string was my idea)..

peace.

first, a confession. i am listening to 'ultra-lounge christmas cocktails'. i don't know, i am hooked on that cd right now.

anyhoo. cancun.

well, the trip was amazing. everything was about as great as it could be without it being so great that you worry about the punchline at the end. the flight down was easy, the plane was almost empty so we had the row to ourselves. i had arranged a car to the hotel so they were waiting for us at the airport and whisked us away. gorgeous weather etc. we got to the check in desk and they said they had a nice room for us on the 11th floor and i asked if they had been able to confirm a king bed because it was our anniverary etc and they said that they only had doubles available and clacked around on the computer for a few minutes then gave us our room keys which were for room 1415. it turns out that that is the top floor of the hotel and our room had a huge balcony and a beautiful view. said view -



so we got settled and headed down to the pool. grabbed some lunch, got the lay of the land etc. the place was pretty quiet so it was no problem finding a pool chair. eventually we headed up to our room to get ready to head out to dinner and we were sitting on the balcony having a few drinks and unwinding and at one point one of us got up to go into the room and there was a bottle of champagne there from the hotel. we have no idea how they got in and out without us noticing but it was like magic! so we had some mexican champagne -



then went out to dinner. had some local seafood and a couple of drinks at a restaurant near the hotel. we were taking it pretty easy because we were going fishing the next morning at 6am so we called it a night.

the next day we got up at 5am (we were up at 4am to catch our flight the day before - urgh!) and went over the road to a dock to meet our fishing guide. it was still dark when we went out on the lagoon and it was great to watch the sun come up. the lagoon is really shallow so you could see the schools of little bait fish swimming around underneath the boat, i saw a ray too, and the little fish jump out of the water and arc back in all the time in little gangs. apparently that's not that exciting when you're vance or the fishing guide, but i was excited damnit!



i fished a little and caught a couple of fish but i was mostly just hanging out on the little boat. fine with me. we were all done by 10am so we headed back to the hotel and then out to get fish tacos for brunch. mmmm. we found this cute little place down by the water and had a cheap meal with some beers. then it was back to the pool for a couple of hours and then i really wanted to go and check out downtown. meanwhile, we're laughing at all the people who obviously barely leave the hotel for their whole trip. remember that, it's important later. so we catch the crazy crazy bus into town (the bus drivers get paid on commission - you figure out how that makes them drive!!). town kind of stunk but i had to see it. we scoped out the restaurant that we wanted to eat at for our anniversary on sunday night and got kind of pissed off with the heat and the hawkers and the lack of signage and just the general suckage so we stopped by the local supermarket for some hot sauce that we can't get here and then we caught the bus back to the hotel. well, actually, we got off the bus about half a mile from the hotel because we wanted to go to a restaurant that was meant to be there but it wasn't there any more so we walked the rest of the way back to the hotel and man were we grumpy. i think that's the night we got room service because i swear my foot still hurts from walking around in $3 flip flops all day (i need need some birkenstocks or something). i think it's a stress fracture or something but ow.

so anyway, sunday morning went down to the pool and after a couple of hours we had the breakfast buffet at the hotel (do you see where this is going?). i had croissants and miso soup and smoked salmon and fresh fruit and all kinds of good stuff. good buffet. then we went back to the pool. at some point we swam in the ocean which was wonderful. while we were jumping through the waves (think boomer but warmer and prettier) vance laughed a laugh that i have never heard before. grin. so we had a fun afternoon. that night was our anniversary dinner (although not on our actual anniversary the next night - for reasons that are a little warped and that i will avoid in the tonally devoid medium of text. all fine i swear). fabulous. we took a cab into town and ate at a restaurant called la habichuela. look it up if you are so inclined. they have a garden that looks like mayan ruins and the service was spectacular and vance gave me a gorgeous anniversary present which i don't have a photo of.

the next day was much of the same except we had room service breakfast. yum. here we are on the balcony waiting for breakfast -



there are numerous photos of breakfast too. very fun. then it was back to the pool for our last day. we swam a lot and read a lot and relaxed and got sunburned even though we were in the shade all day.







then we went and enjoyed our balcony for a while before heading out to dinner. we went just down the street to a tequila distilling restaurant and had another amazing dinner as the sun set over the lagoon.





now, full confession time, the reason that we weren't having our anniversary dinner on our actual anniversary was that the patriots were playing and they were still undefeated and it was going to be an amazing game. we had planned to watch it at a sports bar in the hotel next door but they were closed for renovations so we were then going to watch it at the outback steakhouse (yes, in cancun) but we really couldn't be bothered and it was in the opposite direction to our hotel so we just headed home and watched in air-conditioned comfort in our room. the pats won again - yay!

long story short, the next day we flew home and jane picked us up and got rear-ended by some guy who lost track of his ferret in his car so she was furious and vance and i just wanted to go home. and it was funny at the time and funny now!

so since we've been back we've been sucked into christmas land. we went and got our tree on saturday and decorated. somehow i get light duty but i'm damn good at it -



the tree is gorgeous now, i'll take a photo when it is resplendent with gifts. most of the stuff i have ordered for vance is still in transit - damn cancun! so we're good. having lots of fun. the cancun trip report wore me out so i will update you more on schedule on sunday. apropos of nothing, here is my husband in his teacher garb -



he is doing observation at the moment and took the class today for his first lesson by himself. math(s), he said it went pretty well. he has his last college session next week and then it's just student teaching to go. amazing. yoga is on track too. good times.

more soon. miss you guys.

peace.

so.

yesterday i called and signed up for the yoga teacher training course. yikes. the first week-long session is in may, then one in july, then the final one in october. i borrowed the money (unfortunately) but i am strangely ambivalent about having made the call. i think it's because it doesn't start until may, i have a few months to be excited and then a couple to be scared.

on the plus side, the six months will give me a change to get my mind, body and spirit into shape for the upcoming journey. oh yeah, you're going to have to get used to me talking like that too. if you want to find out more about who, what and why... you can find my eventual teacher at www.shivarea.com.

but back to this reality. this week was wacky - in a mostly good way. monday was normal (except for vance getting 2 birthday packages from australia, but i am making him email individuals to thank them so just know they were received and appreciated). then it was all downhill. tuesday i left work early to try and pick up a few extra things for vance's birthday on wednesday but it wasn't to be. i drove around in the rain and the dark abd the cold and no-one had what i wanted. but on the plus side, christmas is all sorted out - i just have to remember to buy things on line on time this time. wednesday morning vance had to start work at 6am so i didn't make him birthday breakfast. i did get up after he left and i blew up balloons that spelled 'happy birthday' and pimped out the house. then i went to work and stopped to pick up his birthday cake on the way. it was the day before thanksgiving so the bakery was a mob scene but i was only going to be late for work so i didn't really care. i got him a chocolate mousse cake instead of the chocolate fudge cake that he loved last year. i figured it would be a little lighter with all the eating we were going to be doing over the next couple of days! having now sampled the cake (many times!) i can assure you it was every bit as rich. vance is going to have one more piece after dinner tonight and then we are tossing the rest. urgh - enough cake!

so then i worked, went out on my lunch break and bought some fancy cheeses and breads etc for snacking that night. i was going to make vance a big birthday dinner but with thanksgiving the next day we knew that might have been a mistake. so i worked the afternoon then went home. we had cheese and opened presents, then vance decided he still wanted dinner so i went and got pho (vietnamese soup, jo knows) and his was his first time for pho and he liked it very much. the beef came raw and then cooked itself in the broth - mmmmm. i had seafood pho which i love. then we had cake. then (did i mention it was thanksgiving the next day?) i rolled myself into the kitchen and made pecan pie. i even made the pastry from scratch so it was pretty intense. not especially what i felt like doing at that particular time but i tried to do it with love. then i slept. a lot!

then thursday rolled around and i went to special thanksgiving yoga at my gym. always good, with my favourite yoga teacher, with some guided meditation tacked on to the end. a great way to start the day. then i came home and roasted garlic for the mashed potatoes i was making for thanksgiving. then i made the mashed potatoes. very delicious and easy recipe. then i took a shower and we headed over to jane's for the big feast. note distinct lack of sitting down in the last two paragraphs - sic.

so we get to jane's and she gives us grief for wearing jeans to thanksgiving (they were our good jeans!) and then we have a drink and her and vance start poking at the turkey and snipping at each other and i'm just chatting to bunny and staying the hell away from the kitchen. honestly, so neurotic. but the meal looks amazing and ros (aunt)and doug (uncle)and cassie (cousin)and her boyfriend (boyfriend) turn up just as the turkey is coming out of the oven to rest so we chat to them and they are super nice and it's good to have some extra people around. then we eventually eat (after more bickering in the kitchen) and vance gets in trouble for taking all the turkey skin and my vegetarian gravy that vance made was the best (we put vegemite in it! yum!) so we eat eat eat but i only have one plate because overeating is really not good for you. then we have dessert and ros and doug brought a birthday cake for vance which we have with my pecan pie and jane's pumpkin pie and vanilla icecream. which was more than enough. then, thank goodness, jane wanted to wrap things up because her boyfriend was having his own thanksgiving shindig so we didn't have to hang around and we drove her over there and then came home and then evil claire that i am made vance go for a walk. ooooh, he was hating life. but it was so nice to be wandering amongst the autumn leaves and having a chat. like proper grownups, you know?

then we came home and flopped on the couch. i though survivor was on because it said it was a new episode but instead it was the recap of the season so far episode so that was a cruel blow. i'm hooked this year.. vance is too and it's hilarious because he used to leave the room while it was on because he thought it was so lame and now he's yelling at the tv with me. then bed. then i worked on friday. one of only two people in the office who did. we didn't get it off as a paid holiday, you had to take a vacation day and i wasn't having any of that so i went in from 8-4:30. it was super quiet, most people take the day off so i did some online shopping, caught up on the celebrity news etc etc. i was pretty happy to get home at the end of the day. vance had been out shopping all day at the new fishing shop that opened up. he had birthday money so gabe and him went to spend it. i don't think they bought much though. although he did say he got me some christmas gifts - that makes me a little wary!

yesterday i went to yoga in the morning as usual and then had a massage straight after it. it was really quite wonderful. calie (my masseuse/favourite yoga teacher) just kind of freestyles and does whatever needs to be done. she did some hot stone massage and man that is some good stuff. check it out if you can. then we chatted for a while about how annoying it is to have scorpio husbands and then i came home. then the usual, grocery store etc etc. i was planning on taking vance to a movie in the afternoon but the massage caught up with me and i fell asleep on the futon. we had a quiet night at home with pita pizzas then went to bed.

this morning i got up and made pancakes. yum. we have this buckwheat and honey pancake mix and you are supposed to add eggs and oil but i substituted yoghurt for the oil and they came out great. why am i telling you this? because these are the sort of changes i am going to be making if i want to be the kind of yoga teacher i want to be. which, evidently, i do. anyway, buckwheat pancakes with bananas and maple syrup. a fine way to start the day. then i read the paper and did some laundry. vance was so enthusiastic about going for a walk today that i thought for sure there was something he wanted at the tackle store near where we walk on the beach but that was not the case. he just wanted to walk on the beach. there was lots of flotsam (and some jetsam) so we explored. he kept finding marine creature body parts (a stingray spine, an unidentified bone, some cartilage, a row of teeth) and i kept being grossed out. but he did find me a petrified walnut and then i pretended to be a petrified walnut. which amused one of us.

then we came home and made lunch. clam chowder and wheat toast. god, is food all i talk about? apparently. and now he is out pike fishing (yes, i thought it was over too) and i went to the library and on a birthday card buying mission.

so where does that leave us? well, we both work 4 days this week and then at 7:30 on friday morning we leave for cancun. ahhhhh.... fun in the sun. we'll take lots of pictures, i don't know how much stuff we are going to do but it looks beautiful. then when we get back christmas is just around the corner so get those lists in! i have a list, does anyone want my list? i'm turning 30 too you know. vance is planning some kind of large surprise - oooh!

ok, enough of my week. you poor loves must be bored to tears.

peace.

sorry for missing last week. it happens.

it's saturday morning. went to yoga, very nice. now we're trying to get all of our stuff done because we are staying in boston tonight. it's vance's birthday on wednesday but because it's the night before thanksgiving (the piggiest day ever) we decided to go out tonight for dinner and drinks etc so we can eat ourselves silly. gabe and betsy are coming out with us and we are going to vance's favourite steak house (which also has awesome fish dishes) and then vance and i are going to stay in boston for the night. it should be a lot of fun, i'm looking forward to being in the city, we might do a little wandering and shopping tomorrow morning if the weather is good. i have no clue what i am getting for vance for his birthday so maybe he'll give me some ideas as we wander around. we are this close to getting snow so it's only a matter of time before we all go inward for the season.

otherwise, life is good. my work place moved offices so it's nice to have a change of scene. everything is the same but different, i like the new place better but it's really just a box within a box. on the day of the move they needed a couple of people to go to one of our other offices about an hour north of here in new hampshire and i volunteered. now, don't laugh, but this is kind of a big deal. i hate driving on the highways here, i hate trying to get around new cities and normally i have vance with me when i try these things. but no, i drove up and back by myself and nothing bad happened. it was stressful though, i really hate the driving around here and i can't wait to get home where things are a little more sedate.

yikes, i gotta go so we can go to the supermarket and get that out of the way. everything is good, the holiday season is shaping up nicely, cancun in two weeks...good times.

peace.

hmmmm... what to blog.

well, not surprisingly it's sunday. this weekend has been pretty cool. friday night was quiet, apologies to anyone i spoke to, i wasn't quite myself. i had a really long week. work was incredibly frustrating and every day i came home and just wanted to crawl under a rock and not participate anymore. it will hopefully be better next week, it can't possibly be any worse.

so yeah. saturday morning was the usual, yoga and grocery shopping. there was a big storm so the weather was nasty, rain and cold and all that good stuff. i stayed in the house for most of the afternoon, made jalapeno cheddar bread to go with dinner and finally read some library books that are overdue. i had a hair appointment late afternoon so i went and did that. four hours later and i walked out looking like this -



it was meant to be fire engine red but we ran out of time and i kind of like it like this. it's taking some getting used to though - for vance too!! all the freaky people and all that. so then we had a quiet night again (vance hasn't been feeling well but successfully fought it off), watched 'the real cancun' and went to bed early.

this morning i couldn't sleep in to save my life and it was daylight savings day so we turned the clocks back which made it even worse. we were both up and about by 6-ish. i made hells eggs for vance because i found a recipe and i have been promising and he said they were awesome - yay! i didn't have any, i wasn't really feeling like eggs and such. so we faffed about, i read my paper and vance watched fishing shows. good times. then we went for a walk on the beach, the storm cleared out last night and it's a gorgeous day today. we went to this beach that was like the holy grail for rock collectors, but i stuck to the rule of three. tilt head.



then we came home and i made oatmeal raisin cookies for the game today (yes, i am quite the domestic goddess this weekend - thanks for noticing) and they are gooood. i just took the last batch out of the oven and told vance to only eat the ugly ones so we can take the nice ones to gabe and betsy's house for the game this afternoon. yes, the football. again. but oh my goodness it's a big game today. we're 8-0 and they are 7-0 and we're the only 2 undefeated teams in the league and they beat us last year to end our season and it's considered to be the best game of the season on par with the superbowl so we are excited. but the game isn't until 4:15 and with the extra hour it's going to be a long wait.

i'm going to go to the library after lunch (vance is making tuna melts after he cleans up the cookie mess) and then go and start my birthday shopping for vance. we're keeping it low key but i want to make sure i can get what i want to get (chocolate with bacon in it in this case!). time is flying and all the stuff we have coming up is coming up really fast. including my 30th birthday - gulp! vance has to be at school for 4 hours that night and i am not too happy about that but we will do something fun on another night.

oh, and the yoga course i am doing is open for sign up and i found out i have to pay up front so i have to borrow the money - sigh. that sucks. $5000. urgh. but it will be worth it and in a year we will both be qualified and i get a job that i can wear trackies to. nay, have to wear trackies to. it can't be all bad.

hungry now.

peace.

indeed.

sunday morning. what's up?

vance is out fishing. it may actually be the last time he can go out in the boat this summer so that's a little sad. the poor little chumbucket gets tucked into bed and left under a tree all winter.

so i'm at home. eating vegemite on rye toast and drinking mate. ha ha, not drinking, mate. drinking mate with a little - over the e. it's my new thing. breaks up the monotony of green tea, keeps me away from coffee. next step is reading the paper (which vance brought upstairs early this morning when he left to go fishing), doing a bit of cleaning and then going for a walk on the beach with vance. football is at 4pm today so we have a bunch of time.

yesterday was a fun day. i went to a baby shower for one of the girls at work and it was nice. a ton of people were there but the people from work mostly stuck together, drank some coffee (brunch event - yay!) and chatted while she opened a massive pile of gifts. i swear, she got everything on the registry. it's weird, you have to put things in gift bags here and then scrunch all that tissue paper on top. it's so the done thing. and the bag has to be pastel and baby-like. ha - i didn't do all that crap (and, no shit, i was the only one who didn't and there must have been 50 gifts), mine was wrapped in grass green paper with some tissue paper tying it up. and i didn't buy from the registry and she said (genuinely) that my gift was amazing and that i should get a prize. ok.. ok... i am a little proud of myself. and inspired to try and take christmas easy this year, keep it simple and heartfelt and not too spendy.

well, that plan also helps because we have no money right now. we're saving for cancun and my yoga teacher course and so every week goes down to the wire and while we eat well and have fun, it's getting a little wearing. i need new clothes and so does vance (he's doing his preliminary student teaching now and wants to wear a shirt and tie to the school - so cute) etc etc. and kripalu (the place that is holding the yoga teacher training next year) has posted the first set of dates in may with prices (it's going to be about $1500 per week x 3 weeks) and you have to pay up front to hold a spot and i don't have enough money saved yet so i am worried i am going to miss out if i don't register soon. yada yada, i may have to look into getting a credit card and then paying that off like i am saving now.

yes, we could not go to cancun. but we are so trying to find a balance between having fun and enjoying our time together and getting all this stuff done. the trip is actually going to be cheap and i always put too much money aside but i just want us to be able to relax and have a good time. and besides, we'll have kids soon (not THAT soon!) and we haven't been together together that long and we have so much fun when we go away together. and we can almost make all this work. it's so close!!

so there's that. i'm going to go and do the dishes and read the paper before my tea gets cold.

peace.

oh, i forgot to say that we watched 'the castle' last night and vance thought it was hilarious. especially since he recently had his first experience of 'the trading post'. so that bodes well. then we made smores over a sterno in the living room. he's a little dismayed that they're not big in australia. i tried to tell him about the bananas with the chocolate in the fire and he thinks maybe that will be ok.