Good Morning!

It is officially my last day of classes today. For this year, anyway. Hopefully this time next year I'll be running around like a chook with my head chopped off screaming "OH MY GOODNESS I'M FINISHED! I'M FINIIIIIIIIIISHED!!". I'm really looking forwards to that.


But for now I'll celebrate in a more sedate way. I'm looking forwards to having a little more free time. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels; they came to my house a week ago and I'm already up to book 6. 

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They're terribly addictive. They were supposed to be my little treat to myself post-semester, but I may have started them a wee bit early. Oh well! I'm sure the next book in the Rain Wild Chronicles will be out some time soon and I'll be able to happily bury my nose in that. That's my next purchase on my book wish-list: the books of Robin Hobb. I'd dearly love to own the Farseer Trilogy, the Liveship Traders Trilogy and the Tawny Man Trilogy. But that will have to wait until such time as I no longer have to buy Uni textbooks.


So. Guess who visited us at my work yesterday?

BATMAN!

Batman is a Monster Truck (in case you couldn't tell). He swung by our school on the way to an important event that he's participating in on Saturday. His driver even climbed in and revved his engine for us. All the kids screamed and covered their ears. It was hilarious.

It's getting close to that time... One more day of tutorials and I'm done for the semester! (I'm conveniently ignoring the last few assessments and that one exam I have.)

Happy days

xx

Home Alone 2

I'd like to take this opportunity to assure you that my parent's don't abandon me on a regular basis.


However, tonight I am (at least temporarily) home alone again.


And, after re-connecting with an e-pen pal, I began to wonder what happened to my previous attempts at blogging. I used to write lots. I had a blog on my MySpace page (does anyone still use myspace for anything?) and I had an anonymous LiveJournal for a while.


I've had this niggling feeling that I'm not really writing what I want to write here on my blog.  Mostly that's due to my vagueness about what I want this blog to be. I cannot help but compare it to my other blogs which were much more... candid, I suppose. One important aspect of those blogs was that I was at a stage in my life where I had a lot of confusing stuff to work through, and blogging helped me sort out my head in many ways. 


I'm less confused now, but I'm sure once I do run into an issue it'll be weaved into a post somehow. That's my usual way of working through things: writing them down. It forces me to put things in order and be clear about what I really think or feel. Coming from a childhood that left me with little self esteem, I've always had difficulty expressing myself verbally. I've put in a lot of conscious effort over the years to work on that and speak up about how I feel, but when things get confrontational or when something is really important to me, I tend to get very quiet. 


That's where writing comes in. It's a way that I can be clear and firm about what I think, what I want, what I need. In writing I can be persuasive, I can be funny, I can be forceful. I can be all the best parts of me without the awkward aspects, like my propensity to turn beetroot-coloured. 


Trouble is, the times I really turn to writing are the times when I am upset, depressed, angry, scared or lonely. Which means, without these negative (positive?) stimuli, I don't have much to say. Being blissfully happy doesn't make for much deeply incisive thought-provoking analysis. Mostly we're too blissed out to think twice about it.


So sadness, then, is the food of my introspectives. And it is sadness that people most often need to share. One of my lecturers today almost broke down at the end of her presentation when she disclosed to us her hopes and fears for her mother's impending death. Not a word was said by my classmates but we could all feel a wave of sympathy and support go out to her. A young girl I've gotten to know over the past semester is tragically heartbroken after being left by her first love. All my optimistic attempts to explain that 'love will come when she least expects' (how I hated hearing that when I was recently single!) and that 'when it's The One, you just know' were batted aside by her very definite decision that she would live and die alone because she'd never be able to trust any man ever again. She's 19.


When we are hurting we need to tell others of our pain. and we don't necessarily want to hear back that it's all going to be fine. Sometimes we just want to moan.


I moaned a lot in my old blog posts. But that moaning led me to some of the more important realisations of my change to adulthood. I'm still a work in progress, but I understand many more things about myself now. I've learnt that I'm terrified of failure. i've learnt that I still care way too much about what others think of me. I've learnt that I need affection and approval... quite regularly.


I've learnt that I am an ordinary woman, full of fears and misgivings, lacking confidence, worried about her body. Blessed beyond measure with a happy loving family, and a small but tight-knit bunch of friends. I've learnt that I can be a good employee and that I am capable of learning well, once I overcome my fears of failure.


I'm still learning my flaws (and I certainly won't enumerate them all here), and I can begin working on them to make myself a stronger person.


And if my parents keep insisting on leaving me home alone, the first thing I'll have to work on is being afraid of the dark.

Orange and Almond Cake

My little brother is studying to become a chef. He's currently working at one of the more well-known boutiques in Rozelle... which means occasionally I get surprised with little gluten-free treats of indescribable yumminess.


This time, it's a whole delicious Orange and Almond Cake, made in the kitchens of Adriano Zumbo. I've seen the finished product in all its glory on the shelves of the store, so I can tell immediately that my little cake is slightly lopsided (which is probably why I ended up with it in the first place). But my cake, in all its asymmetrical wonderment, is absolutely and most definitely the most delicious orange and almond cake i've ever tasted. It is moist without being claggy, doesn't feel in the slightest undercooked, and had a delicious chunk of what must be preserved orange in the middle of it.

My cake - mid consumption.

It is TOTALLY DELICIOUS! 

Sending you happy cake thoughts for the remainder of your day (and, if you're lucky, some actual cake!)

xx

Final Week.

So. I'm sitting in the Student Centre at my uni. It's the last week of classes and I am supposed to be doing some homework. Naturally, I decided to blog instead. 


Last night my family and I went out to dinner at the fabulous Malaya restaurant on King Street Wharf. It was delicious, and there were a few GF dishes for me to choose from. I went with the Otak Otak entree (a sort of steamed fish cake parcel... very spicy, but very tasty!) and the Singapore Noodles as a main. The standout, though, were the cocktails. Yum. I had two and had to remind myself it was a school night to restrain myself from a third. 


Highlight of the night was when my brothers came in. Sam, my older brother, leant over and sang "Helloooooooooo". My family proceed to then join in, in four-part harmony, like a Barbershop Quartet. I love that my family care more about having fun that worrying about what other people think of them.


I will post more about my night later (hopefully with photos!) but I really ought to do some homework now... especially as this thing is due by Wednesday, eeeep!


Wish me luck :)

The Grand Adventures of Chickenface, Sister Hen and MC Mugle.

My friend Erin is opening a shop. I'm very excited. You can read about her exploits here. I was giving her a hand today, because opening a shop for the first time while being a full-time Mum of a little handful like MC Mugle (aka Oli Boli aka Oliver) can be quite a task. I'm there to assist in any capacity, which luckily for me usually means hanging out with my gorgeous 'nephew' and ogling all the pretty things she has for her store. 

So today, after spending the night in the city house-sitting with Mr Wickham, I got up bright and early and hopped on a train up the mountain. Erin and The Mugle picked me up and we were away, off on a day full of serious business-women like activity... or not. 

We went and measured the shop windows for drapes, but someone was getting mighty tired and kept trying to escape down the stairs (those things are a death trap, even for grown-ups!) so Erin made the executive decision that it was Nap-Time. Not for us, unfortunately. I long for the day when Mugle realises that nap-time is possibly the most awesome time of the day and he should relish it while he has the chance.

However, my personal feelings about nap-time aside, it was time to move on with our day. After Sleeping Beauty awoke, we headed out for a nice scenic drive around the mountains (because we were halfway to Erin's 'storage area' when she realised she'd left the keys at home and we had to double back...but shhhhhh) and then headed over to do some more inventory. Yay, inventory! You may think I'm being sarcastic. But on this particular day 'inventory' loosely translated into "play with the cute baby and gorge on snack food". Which is pretty much my idea of heaven.

On the way back to The Coop (Home Base for the Chickens), we spotted a garage sale sign outside a familiar house. Always on the hunt for a bargain, we doubled back and popped in for a visit. One of Erin's pal's parent's places were scheduling a garage sale for the next day, but we thought it might be worth asking if they had anything to sell in advance.

Did they ever! As Erin said as we drove away, I'm not sure if they'll have a garage sale tomorrow - there was almost nothing left to sell! We found some great things - My favourites were: an absolutely darling Royal Dalton blue and white china coffee set, an elegant ornament cabinet, and a totally wicked retro swivel chair, upholstered in green velour. Awesome... Totally awesome. We landed some larger items too which was grand because Erin really needed some display surfaces for the shop. 

Were we lucky or what!?

I'm so excited watching this store come together. Erin has such unique vision and a flair for fabulous fashion and design, so I have no doubt that the finished product is going to be quirky and delicious!

In the meantime, though, I have a mango to enjoy. Mr Wickham has gone to the Motor Show with his friend. I was going to go with them but after my fabulous day with my girl, I thought maybe they could use some boy-time without the girlfriend loitering about. Which means my mango and I are in for a big night with some trashy chick flicks :)

Ella 

Home Alone

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I'm home alone. Not in the fun "I'll set up awesome and ingenious traps for potential burglars using toys and household items" way, but in a "holy crap what was that noise?!?!" way. 

My parents have escaped to take my great-uncle (great-uncle? grand-uncle? uncle-once-removed?) to visit my aunt (just a normal aunt) in far-off Dubbo. And they won't be back till Thursday. Thursday!


Now, had this happened a few years ago it would be a case of "Yeeeeeeeahhh! PARTAAAAAAY!" and a sleepover with several of my friends. But since then, as you can probably tell from the fact that I write a blog now, my life has deteriorated into a tiny pinprick of social sunlight. I can count my good friends on one hand using only fingers and no thumbs. And that's counting my boyfriend (hi Pete!). But I've made up for my lack of quantity with exceedingly high standards of quality :)


There's Erin. 

Codename: Chickenface, Orange, Hen, Epe.


Status: Best Friend


Likes: Vintage, Design, Vintage Design, Polkadots, Ceramic Fauns and her little family unit (totally adorable)


Dislikes: Meat, Procrastination, Mess, Bad Grammar, 'Mainstream'


Awesomemess Factor: One billion




There's Pete.

Codename: Squish, Mr Wickham.


Status: Lover (and Boyfriend but lover sounds cooler)


Likes: Cars, AFL, Music, Technology Stuff. And me :)


Dislikes: Fruit of any kind (but especially Guava), Missing Top Gear on TV, Stupid Clients and the Nissan Micra.


Awesomeness Factor: One billion and one.


There's Maddi.

disclaimer: this was at a fancy dress party.

Codename: Stink, Mofo, Mads The Spunkrat.


Status: Other Best Friend.


Likes: Acting, Singing, Getting Drunk and Putting on Accents and Cheese.


Dislikes: Sleep Deprivation, Arrogant Berks, and Country and Western (I have no evidence to back that last one up but it's an educated guess)


Awesomeness Factor: Also one billion.






Well. That sufficiently distracted me from all the things that go bump in the night. Thanks, Blog! I'll be sure to do a follow-up post on the rest of the people in my life (there are more. I'm related to most of them).


Good night, and keep your fingers crossed for me so the axe murderers don't decide to stop in and say hi.


[all images personal photos unless otherwise specified]

Greetings!

Ella here. I'm a first-timer. Hopping on the blogging bandwagon, so to speak. Anything to get out of homework, no?

I'm hoping (rather optimistically, I may say) that this blog will be a collection of random thoughts and musings, visual stimuli and inspiration, as well as the occasional comic I draw myself. And hopefully it will be fun :)

So, I should introduce myself. Ella, 20something, of average height and stature. Gluten intolerant and (tragically) lover of beer. Lover also of music, art, goofy dancing, snuggles and my wonderful man Pete. Child number two of three from a very silly and fun family. Drawer of teensy cartoon people in entertaining scenarios. Proficient in speaking drunk Irish and drunk Scottish. Sporadic crafter and chronic mess-maker. Professional shower singer. Admirer of all things vintage. And now, blogger.

I have a few acquaintances in the blogosphere so hopefully I can get some assistance from them on the technical side of things. I tend to break stuff just by looking at it. Amazingly my new laptop has survived almost three months so I'm hoping it's an omen of change for the better.

Looking forward to sharing with you.