I don't know why I put a smiley face there, I'm not happy about having to say I'm 32 now, but life has always got better with age so I'm not gonna dwell on it. And people still think I'm mid twenties, so that's kinda good.
Yesterday I went for lunch at Sitella winery where I think we'll get married. I took some more photos and I asked about their availability. They are pretty well fully booked every Friday and Saturday night to the end of the year. I guess it's no wonder seeing as it's so beautiful, the service is so great and the food is so good.
These are the dates that they're available next year:
Saturdays 2nd and 30th Jan
Fridays 15th, 22nd and 29th Jan
Fridays 5th, 12th, 19th Feb
Sat 29th May
All fridays in May
All of June
There's not much to choose from! But I suppose the less choice there is the less indecision we can have.
Jason doesn't want to get married in summer, it'll be too hot, and I guess he wants to get married in a suit.
He's worried that he won't have a job after February when he finishes his apprenticeship, but we both know it's highly unlikely he'll be unemployed for any amount of time. I think if he's worried about money we can just pay for the wedding well in advance. He thinks it'll be too cold in winter, but they have a tonne of heaters and they can seal off the deck with screens anyway. We need to make a decision sooner rather than later because they're going to continue booking up dates.
I just want to get the wedding over with! I'm sick of having to make decisions about it. And we've hardly even started the planning process.
I thought I'd write in point form this post.. I never do that.. I always write paragraphs of longwinded rubbish. So here we go!
- It's nearly 1am and I just vacuumed most of the house. I couldn't stand the dirt tracked in on the bottoms of shoes that seemed to be EVERYWHERE. The floors need a proper clean now. But that won't be happening right now.
- I've got my period which equals cramps. Yay.
- Going to Melbourne in 10 days!
- Have to go back to work for 7 days before that though.
- Bought two pairs of jeans today for 50 bucks. Yay for sales!
- There is terrible jazz playing loudly on the tv. I have better things to listen to, but I can't be bothered getting up right now.
- I have to take my playstation to be fixed because it freezes whilst playing blu-ray dvds and then won't read them at all. Annoying!
- JJ and I found the place we want to get married. Sitella winery in the Swan Valley. Their website isn't working right now so I won't post the link. I'm going there for lunch tomorrow and I might see how booked up they are over the next year for weddings. I forgot to book a table for lunch, when JJ and I checked it out Wednesday they were packed. All the reviews I've read for the restaurant have been amazing.
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I priced it for 80 people and it's gonna cost about twelve thousand for the meal and six hours of booze. I think we'll have to get married in summery months so that we get a bit of daylight to enjoy the view. Functions go from 6pm to 12 midnight. I'm so glad we've found the place now... I'm sick of looking at potential venues.
- I bought two scarves today. It's winter here and a bit chilly at night now.
- We're going to get ducted reverse cycle aircon installed in the house. Jason's dad is getting us a 10kwatt inside outside unit thing for one third the price we'd normally pay for it. We just have to get someone to do the ducting and installation for us.
- The hotel we booked to stay in in Melbourne isn't quite open yet. Due to open mid 2009. I've emailed them, they don't know the exact date they're opening. I booked through a site called hotel.com and they've assured me it's going to be fine.... I hope it's open by the time we get to Melbourne because it sounds really awesome and we WANT to stay there. It'll be a bummer if it's not ready yet.
- They've finished building our house in Drouin, Victoria. We just need to arrange the practical completion inspection and then they'll hand over the keys, while we're in Melbourne. Yay! Then hopefully we'll get tenants in straight away and stop losing money on it with no tax benefits, but I won't hold my breath. The real estate agent we've been recommended to use by our financial advisor company is in Melbourne, not local in Drouin. I hope it all works out, but I keep feeling like the financial advisor company has kinda duped us. We might dump them once the house stuff is sorted.
- I really need to go to bed.
It's amazing how much you can't write in your blog when you know your entire family and boyfriend oops, i mean fiance, read it.
Today I bought two more star wars fx force lightsabres. I've told you about these already, I know. They're replicas of the ones in the movies. They make the sound effects as you move and they look awesome. Jason already has two darth mauls, the green luke skywalker and the blue luke skywalker, all thanks to me, because I've been buying them for his christmas and birthday presents. FX force lost the license to keep making them, which means they are now even more collectible than before, and there aren't many left to buy in Perth. I rang all the Gamesworlds shops in Perth today and one of them had two that had been put on layby but the payments weren't continued so they were available to buy. There was a darth vader and a yoda. Jason had told me previously that he didn't want more red ones because he had two darth mauls (red) already, but how could I not buy it now? The yoda one is green and he already has the green luke skywalker....
I was gonna get him an ipod classic, but I couldn't resist buying both lightsabres. If I hadn't bought them both then the other one would have been sold and Jason wouldn't be able to continue his collection up the wall of the study.
So the question is... do I give him both of them for his birthday, or do I just give him one and save the other one for christmas? I don't know if I can withhold it from him for that long!
Anyway, tell me what you think!
After I'd bought the lightsabres and put them in the car I went to the supermarket to get some food since there was nothing good left to eat in the house. I rang JJ to ask him if there was anything he wanted me to buy and after he told me to buy lots of red and green chillies and a jar of chilli paste, he had a little outburst and said not to buy a bunch of food we weren't going to eat and spend 300 dollars. Three hundred bucks is kind of my standard amount I spend when I buy food, no matter what's on the list, but in my defence I do buy lots of non perishable food AND Jason has always eaten it all by the time I want to eat it. Also, food is really expensive in Perth. It's more expensive than in the eastern (australian) states, and way more expensive than food in the US. I got a bit annoyed at him thinking I can't go to the shops and buy food without spending three hundred dollars and I said "I won't!" in the tone of voice that says shut up!
And then I bought three hundred bucks worth of food. Go me! But it's all awesome stuff that will get eaten, and I guarantee you that I will hardly get to eat any of it because Jason will have already vacuumed it up with his mouth. I try to hide things at the back of the pantry but he finds it all.
It's been windy and raining here the past couple of days and it's a nice change from all the fine sunny perfect weather we've had the past two months. There was a gust yesterday that broke off the top of one of the trees behind our house, but it's a good 10m away from our back fence. The bathroom drains have been blocking up since I flew in so I tried pouring hydrochloric acid down them to get rid of the blockage. Then last night the guest toilet had one of those persistent leaks into the bowl that's normally not a problem and usually if you press the flush button a bit it stops, but unfortunately the water wasn't draining down the toilet, so it filled the bowl, and then the water came up through the bath and shower and a couple of hours later I came in to use the toilet again and water was lapping up against the doorway. I got a bucket and tipped all the water from the bath and shower out over the back fence (the laundry is right next door to the bathroom and there's a sliding door to get out the back there) and then tried plunging the drains a bit to get the blockage and all I got was a small clump of hair in the bath drain. This morning I called a plumber and he put some weird thing down the drain outside that broke through the blockage which was probably a tree root. Hopefully it won't be a problem again for a while.
hmmm, the sprinklers just went off. Jason said he set it for three days a week but I'm pretty sure they've been coming on every night. Better check that tomorrow. Anyway, I'd better go to bed.
The swing at work went quick, real quick, so I suppose I shouldn't be saying home at last. I worked til 7pm every night (with 6am starts) to try to get more work done, but I'm still 9 days behind on my project. Fuck. I've got one of the other girls in the office helping me out with the next stage of the project, which I will start cutting into next week to finish the part I'm on. There just aren't enough hours in the day for this shit. They've given me a huge area to work on.. it takes longer than they've given me time to do. So 13-14 hour days it is.
The motivation for working the long days is actually the fact that my boss granted me a couple of days off one swing so I can have a bit of extra time in Melbourne. Instead of flying out Tuesday afternoon 16th of June, I'm going to fly out Monday morning 15th of June. The flight to Melbourne is at 1pm Monday afternoon. But my asshole of a boss has said that if I'm behind on my project then he will cancel those two days off.
I don't want to lose those two days off.. I've booked the flights, I've booked a hotel. It's less than 48 hours, not enough time to make a difference on the project work. He told me that I couldn't work extra days if I wanted those two days off. TWO FUCKING DAYS. The entire project is due in September. Which basically means I can't take anymore leave between now and then. And I can't work extra time to finish in time. I'm going to try to palm off as much work as possible onto the other two girls, who don't have impossible deadlines to meet. I don't think he minds if I delegate, as long as it doesn't interfere with any other work they have to complete. I've completely stopped doing any other day to day work, the other two girls do it all, but there still aren't enough hours in the day.
Nevermind. I've stopped stressing about it. It's not worth it. When I stress I get less work done.
So anyway, today I went and got a cut and colour. It's been nearly 8 months. It feels soooo good to have all the dag chopped off.
After the haircut I went shopping for mothers day presents (Mother's day is this Sunday for us Aussies). I went to this shop down the road from my hairdressers which normally has lots of lovely knick knacks and gifts, but they've become more of a clothes, handbags and shoes shop.... and I spent a shitload of money on stuff for myself. Seriously, a shitload.
I don't know why I bought that colour in the shoes. I don't have anything that goes with that colour. But the bag does! The bag is leather.. I just loved it. I nearly didn't buy it, seeing as it was nearly 400 bucks, but then I thought of a girl I work with who told me she bought a 500 dollar bag and she always looks a million dollars and I thought fuckit. This is a bag I can wear with anything, looks fantastic and I love it. When will I see this bag again? So I bought it. The top is pure wool, and pretty casual, but that's what I need. Something that goes with jeans... it was 120. The shoes were 140.. I have serious guilt trip over spending so much, but when Jason goes shopping he only buys expensive designer clothes and I decided that I deserve it. I'm working bloody hard at the moment, I want nice stuff! I won't tell him how much they cost.
I bought a bag and a beautiful scarf for mothers day, but I don't know which mothers to give it to. I love the bag, but I just took it out of the wrapping to assess and now I'm not sure it's appropriate for either mother.
Jason said he thought handbags were a very personal thing for people, though it doesn't stop him buying me handbags. I might have to keep it for myself and find something else for the mothers. We're going out for lunch to the Oakover winery in the Swan Valley, which we're also checking out as a wedding venue at the same time. All our families are coming: my mum and dad, Jason's mum and dad, our brothers and their partners, my grandmother, my mum's brother and his little boy, and Jason's brother's fiance's mother as well! So my mum and Jason's mum will see what presents the other one gets, so they have to be equally wonderful. Shall I show you the scarf?
It's bloody huge! I don't think the photo does it justice at all. It seems like something Ginny (Jason's mum) would have already, but it's also something lovely that I think my mum would love but wouldn't buy for herself.
I would have bought two if they'd had any more. Maybe even one for me too
This is a photo of my mum ( she was graduating from her diploma in english as a second language last year). I bought her that handbag she's carrying there. She's pretty tiny (5 foot 5, maybe shorter) which makes me think that the big bag might dwarf her. Yep. I think it's a definite no on the handbag for my mum. I've thought about the scarf some more, and I want to give her that for sure.
Seriously, she is always talking when I take photos of her, hence the weird lips. The bag seems more her, but I'm not sure now if she'll like it. I'm happy to keep the bag. I'll do some more shopping tomorrow to see if I can find some awesome stuff. I'm going to Mt Lawley. I'm totally over all those malls with the same old shit in the same old shops. I want beautiful presents for our loved ones.
I don't know what else I was going to say, but in any case I'm going to bed soon. Have a great weekend y'all.
After a weekend of drinking hard and eating plenty of rich food, I went back to work on Monday and started my diet and exercise program. I decided to try biggest loser meal replacement shakes because a girl I work with has been using them and says they make her feel full, and she's lost weight on them as well. I'm not really getting the full feeling for much longer than an hour, but that's okay, I guess I'll stop feeling hungry all the time eventually. I was going to give up cheese, but I'm having a small amount each day now because I need the calcium. I have given up cakes and most bread, because I spend all my day sitting around at work and I can't afford to eat them except for special occasions.
I'm having a shake for breakfast and one for dinner. After a while I'm going to start eating cereal and yoghurt for brekky again to see if if makes me put on weight or not. It's not like one could live on these shakes forever. Although I think the dinners here at work are really fatty so I'd probably keep the weight off really well by not eating them.
I've started running home again (with plenty of walking between spurts of running) and it feels so good to be doing it again. Daylight savings finished on the weekend so it's a lot darker a lot earlier in the evenings, but that also means it's a lot cooler, which is great for running. I don't know if I'll be able to run every afternoon in winter, as it gets pretty cool but I'll try to. I don't like the gym at all.
I don't know if I'll have meal replacement shakes when I'm at home. I'll think about it. Maybe for one meal a day, or when i don't have something better to eat. I will try to exercise at home more though.
I caught a cold. First one I've had in a year.
Boohoo.
Other than that, everything's dandy.
Jason is taking Sharlotte to work and when he gets back it's work work work to get the house ready for painting. We've already moved nearly all the furniture out to other locations, there's only the couch left in the living room. So here are the before pictures:
We've got a week to get it all painted, it's going to be hard work, I think. And on top of the painting we've got people to see every day, lucky I'll only be going back to work for 5 days!
I love:
- My boy JJ. He is so great. We've been having such good times together lately, I miss him when we're apart.
- That we're both at work together for Christmas and we don't have to share our time together with anyone else.
- My iphone. It's beautiful!
- That the aircon works in our room again. The filters just needed to be cleaned. Jason said they were like carpet they had so much stuff on them.
I loathe:
- That they're putting king single sheets on our double bed here at work. They always come off during the night! Finally put in a complaint this morning.
- The layout in our donga. We're going to change it around this week.
- I'm sure I had something else, but I forgot!
