In.UB.wearing.gutuls&a.deel: 4/17/11

Saturday, April 23, 2011

I couldn't fit my teddy in.....

I have to leave my teddy at home. He's never come overseas but I haven't been away from him for a year before. I also haven't been without my satin edged blankets for more than 6 months either.

Nevermind; I'm 25 - I should probably learn.

I LEAVE TOMORROW

Wholey shitballs.

Dinner was delicious. Baked lamb leg plus homemade pavlovas. YUM. Everyone was here including Tegan because she was on skype. Ebony's boyfriend Steven was very drunk and trying to sleep at the table, which was pretty funny. And Brad didn't want any pavlova. Boring.

Now my bag is packed; I had to sit on it to make it fit. Lai's washing up which is silly because we don't generally do it in this house for at least a day afterwards. We named dad's pup Winnie (that was Lai, really. It was her idea). And the boy is still Caesar.

So, last night in Australia. It's surreal. And pretty sucky. I so love being at home and helping out and visiting people. It's been great.

Today was pretty bloody cool. Lai and I had a lot of fun. Mum made me some brownies and I feel really bad because she made them for me but I don't really like them. It's okay, I'll eat them - I just feel bad because they're not my favourite (I don't really have one).

The puppies got played a lot with tonight. And a guy that's in Mongolia right now added me to facebook because he wants to move into a share house. He seems really nice. I mainly like him because he's a GEOLOGIST which means he has to be totally cool. I probably went a bit overboard; I get way too excited about things. But nevermind. If he doesn't like excitement he doesn't have to live with me. But either way, hopefully there's someone I can talk rocks with. Because right now I don't miss it but I know that I will soon. I do really like rocks and dirt.

Signing out for the night - off to take some valerian as I know I won't sleep. Will update as I'm on my pic 3 day journey (god forbid I live in the days where it took weeks to get somewhere on a boat; I'd totally get sea sick).

xox

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Puppies!

Aren’t they adorable!

Lai came to visit me this weekend, which is so good considering she fought through stupid Easter traffic (including a crash in Richmond) and drove ALL the way around to come and see me. Its lucky because I miss her, and now shes here (and writing my blog).

Its been a beautiful two days, sunshine all around. Today we went wine tasting, and it was awesome. Petersons even have a wine called Ebony Grace (which is my sister’s name) so I bought a bottle!

Lai went nuts on the credit card and got 6 bottles of wine (3 of which were this amazing rose, which smells like tea, strangely) and some olive tapenade , too.

Then we had a delicious ploughmans lunch and a tasting plate from the Small Wine Makers place, and sat in the sun for a good chat.

The most exciting thing that happened today was Lai bought some awesome boots.

Actually, I’ve already got a pair and it was my idea first, and she thought she wanted to be as cool as me so forced me to go to the saddlery (we had to go twice so we could see the other place – which didnt even have any girl boots to look at). Anyway, these guys were trying to close up shop, and we had to tell him to wait 10 minutes so we could check another store. What a high maintenance girl!

Then we got back and played with the puppies again (thus the videos).

I’m sad because its my last moments at home, so thats why Lai is writing my blog today, so I dont waste precious family time on the computer.

Making pavlova right now – and were having lamb roast tonight! Will report soon.

x Sally

(via minion L)

Friday, April 22, 2011

Jaz and Bridget come to stay

Jaz and I organised ourselves so we both arrived at Moolarben at the same time. I got big hugs all round and then we checked out the puppies. Bridget LOVES the puppies. So do I, so we got along well.

Bridget's pretty cute. See proof:

Bridget (Jaz's daughter) being holding two of Lace's puppies

Yeah, cute as the puppies. Unfortunately most of the Bridget photos are all portrait photos so I can't upload them onto here.

I made some pasta (from scratch) for dinner - it was pretty yum. Minkey's pups are on the front verandah now so it's pretty easy so duck out and play with them. Bridget kept sneaking out. She wasn't allowed to (because they're only a week old so they're pretty fragile). I caught her playing with the little girl and she almost crapped her pants. She wouldn't come inside so I locked her out (for like 30seconds) and she didn't like that much. I didn't think she'd ever talk to me again but she did.

Which was lucky because the next day dad took us around some sheep and cows. Bridget hadn't been on the back of a ute before so it was pretty fun. For all of us!

We played with more puppies, had pancakes for breakfast, played with more puppies, had a look at a cut up cow in the cool room and then it was time to go. Boo. It was SO nice to see them though.

Lace and pups

Dad, Bridget and Jaz watching the sheep

Bridget and Dad cleaning out the feeder

Yesterday was another busy day. Mum and I had lunch at Fairview - it was delicious! Ploughmans lunch plus a tasting board of olive oil and dukkah. My favourite. We did a bunch of jobs in town. I saw Katrina - Nikki's boyfriend Brad's sister who is a hairdresser. She diagnosed my crappy hair as having excess silicon built up from using cheap shampoo thREE times. Bloody hell. I used to use that stuff all the time and now I don't earn money, I can't afford the good stuff! So it built up and my hair was totally gross and I had to wash it with bicard soda and now it's all fixed. Thank goodness!

I went up to Pop and Marg's to say hi and to setup Skype and Hotmail and show Marg how to use them (and see my blog). She was a very good learner but we had to start from the basics, which kind of tested my (lacklustre) knowledge. I was very bossy but I think between us, we got some good instructions down and she's practicing today. Hopefully it means we can Skype while I'm in Mongolia.

Dinner at the Thai restaurant with Ebony, Nikki, Steven, Brad and Washy (Brad's friend). Food was okay, company was great and my verdehlo was also pretty good.

This morning mum and I de-flea-ed the puppies. We never have fleas on anything - but we looked after a dog that managed to bring them in. And now everything has them. We used a special spray for the pups; it worked a treat - the fleas literally died and dropped off before we even finished spraying them. Sucked in fleas, you do not belong on our puppies!!!!

I am currently repacking. It's heart breaking. To go from 30 dresses down to 5 'favourites' is horrible. I love them all. I love the ones I made, I love my Cue dresses, I love my winter ones and summer ones. My cocktail ones and my cotton day dresses. I've managed to only pack 5 pairs of earrings - that's what long hair is for. But dresses. And clothes in general. Maybe living in Mongolia will teach me to live with less clothes. I doubt it; I've tried before and it's never worked.

As a matter of general interest, so far it's taken 4 hours to upload the video on this blog. I hope you like it!

Saturday came around.....

Saturday was a big day. I can't even remember what I did in the morning; played with puppies, helped dad a bit maybe. And then drove to Orange.

I got me some new sneakers that hopefully will last the duration in Mongolia. I got some new weight lifting gloves because mine shrunk when mum told me it was okay to put leather in the washing machine and then dry them in the sun. And then I went to Philli's.

one corner of Nyrang - so pretty!

Philli's house is so beautiful. She was still working when I arrived but we chatted and then packed and got on the road to Yass. It's a 2.25hour drive to Yass from Nyrang and we did it in the dark, in the rain, at 6pm. It was totally worth it. We surprised Ben and Anna and then got to spend the night playing with friends and watching the Addams Family Values.

I subconsiously categorise people. I'm sure most people do. I met a guy on Saturday night that I placed in my 'marriage material' category. Which is always weird, especially when you hardly know them. But weird in a nice way. It's so nice meeting new people that you just click with. Or not even click with; just feel so comfortable around.

After warming Ben and Anna's house in Yass (which is great and they even have a 'study' room dedicated to writing essays and learning portfolios and uploading squillions of photos), Philli and I drove north to Orange, albeit without my one coat I was going to take to Mongolia and Philli's tupperware container. NEVERFEAR, that's what the post is for. Even though it lost my jewellery that I was going to take to Mongolia.

Philli and I were feeling pretty stinky. She'd had a big night and I hadn't slept, so we were both due for a nap and a shower. NO REST FOR THE WICKED. We showered and felt a bazillion times better and headed into town to meet the one and only Kate Bills and go to the food and wine festival.

We drank a few glasses of local wine. I ate a venison pie. Yum. Yum. Yum. I got a few different phone calls and Philli and Kate rested on the lawn while I found out that Darmo's engaged. It was approaching sundown and an ambulance officer approached us and woke Philli and Kate thinking they'd passed out on the lawn from intoxication. Pretty funny. We packed up and left to have a proper nap.

Post-nap we headed to the pub for dinner, had a lovely time and drove home for an early night - we were all pooped from our respective big nights. Sleep was sooooooooo good.

Monday - our day of rest. Amazing. We took our time, headed into town to the park and had a little picnic (see previous blog for photos). Tiny little melting moments and cupcakes that were bloody fantastic.

THEN it was the drive to Wirrinya to see Ashleigh Webb. 2 hours later and one dead emu, I arrived. Ashleigh lives in the bumfuck of no where. But it's awesome. She's got dogs and birds and a puppy and a lot of mice. So many mice that within the space of 10minutes, hundreds of filty maggots had flooded the floor of the kitchen, obviously born in a dead mouse - that were trying to move on to greener pastures. They didn't; they got drowned. Dirty little things. Mouse plagues are so gross. They just get everywhere and no matter what you do, they're always STILL there. Like at breakfast, I spotted this fatty mouse trying to sneak around Ashleigh. I donned a teatowel and caught the squirmy thing in the towel. I definitely hadn't thought about it as once I'd caught it, I had a live bloody squirmy mouse in my hands.

We tried drowning it to no avail (it just swam and squeaked). The solution was simple. We both put boots on our feet and hands. I slowly poured the water out and as soon as the mouse hit the lawn we were to bong it on the head. And I did. But it was still moving (nerves I'd say; I banged pretty hard). So I banged again. And it still was moving. So Ashleigh jumped on it and it popped and we freaked out and ran away. But then the dog was going to eat it so I had to pick it up and bin it. GROSS.

I hate mouse plagues.

Ash and I drank wine and ate chips and talked and talked and then took lots of photos with my camera.

She's most proud of this one. I am not. But it's kind of funny. I am so lucky. I have so many friends from all over the place. I never imagined it because at school I was liked I guess, but I was different (have a cry...) and I never had any super close friends. It was probably my fault for prioritising everything else over maintaining friendships - but it takes a while to learn these things, right!
So I guess I slowly learnt, and now I have so many beautiful groups of friends from boarding school, hockey, college, uni, Maitland, Brisbane, work and all the cool peeps you meet overseas. Driving home after an epic extended weekend of visiting friends I was just a bit overwhelmed by how much I love them all and how much they mean to me - and how lucky I am to have friends that I actually like, as opposed to having to like them.

I still haven't cried though, which is weird. I know in my head I'm ready to go, but I usually cry occasionally before I leave to go somewhere. Perhaps it's the vitamin B I so vigilantly take now (mmmmmmm anti stress tablets), perhaps I've just grown up a bit. Perhaps I'm just saving it ALL for the airport on Sunday.

Are you a big chip eater or a small chip eater? I much prefer little chips because they last longer. I'm eating my final packet of Smith's chicken chips right now (I hardly ever eat them but I miss them when I don't have them).