30/12/10: New Year's Eve Eveness. Margarita anyone?

Just finished: Watching yet another episode of How I Met Your Mother... must peel oneself away to blog. Barney would be proud.
Listening to: No music, fan whirring away, late night traffic swishing down the street. Because traffic swishes.
Eating: Just finished a big plate of potato gems, with tomato sauce and peri-peri mayonaise. Late night nibblies attack. Yup, I will admit I have 'pudged' a bit over the past few weeks. Damn you festive unguilt!
Drinking: Made a homemade margarita, with lemonade, gold tequila, lime juice and triple sec. Used awesome ice crusher for extra 'classy' effect. Totally worked. Had over a few hours ago though, have been might thirsty for water all day today.
Mood: Way tired, have no idea why, I slept in late today and it's only 11pm. I think I'm old. Must blog...

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Awww, don't tell myself I am too tired to blog, it's only Day #2 and already this blog is taking it out of me. Well, not really. I just had to shoehorn myself off my couch after watching about 5 episodes of How I Met Your Mother to come up and blog. Paul was happy. He wanted to play 'Just Cause 2'. Aren't I nice?

So, here we are! New Years Eve Eve (hey, I just wrote New Years Eve Even... I like that....)... and the time has come for us all to have a good hard look at our 2010's and make a few changes - some for the sake of ourselves and some for the sake of others and most for the sake of our sanity. Well, mine anyway. I will admit today has been an interesting day in terms of realising resolutions for next year. I have made many with myself. Most of them should be simple enough...

A!rTester's New Year's Resolutions

1. Get back to the gym. Pudginess has ensued over Christmas and I must get back to yoga bliss. And maybe one cardio class, maybe. It's hard trying to cram in a full time job and domestic crap with the gym - sooooo easy to find an excuse. Not anymore! I can achieve 2, maybe three classes a week. Stuff the gym itself, I couldn't be bothered following my program anymore. Weights are soooo boring and again it takes up soooo much time (am I overdoing the sooooooooo's yet? I thought you'd like that, just adds that extra juvenile diary feel to it, don't ya think?)

2. Keep up my blog. As reasons mentioned in yesterdays blog (see? We already have a history, so proud!!), the blog will act as a daily or bi-daily (or demi daily?? What would be every two days?).... venting/diary/wind down space. For myself if not anyone else. I am liking it so far, as I go along I hope to add piccies and all sorts of useless crap these blogs are supposed to have. 

3. Animate another film. Enough bludge time is enough. I haven't animated, for myself in at least 2-3 years, and that blows. I always forget how much I truly enjoy shutting myself away for days on end animating a few seconds of short animated amazingness. Once I get into it, I can't get enough. And I need to brush up my portfolio, it's over 3 years old now and that's pathetic. I have a Peter Sellers skit in my mind and want to work mostly on getting the lip syncing to perfection - that's my favourite part. But this is boring you so I shall digress...

4. Get our house looking might schmick. Right now it's a sh!theap, crap everywhere and no real organisation of anything, upstairs anyway. Study room needs to be transformed into ART ROOM HAVEN. Which leads me to next resolution...

5. Get back into drawing and illustrating! Very important, even if the animation doesn't pull off for another 6 months, this one I don't have an excuse with. I can find the time to get back into my artwork. My portfolio looks like it came out of Tutenkharmen's tomb... in a digital metaphorical way... needs brushing up and I need to DRAW DRAW DRAW. And post up here to prove it. My first assignment: Caricatures of the How I Met Your Mother cast. Hey, it may be lame but at least it's a start.

6. Get out of debt and save money. Nuff said.

7. Change a few minor personality flaws... but I shan't delve into that, for we shall be here all night long ♫

8. Do more things! Ie. Roadtrips, short courses, language lessons, daytrips, nighttrips... anything! Must endeavour to get one's arse out there with friends and family to embrace life and have more exciting experiences to look back on. While 2010 was amazing in terms of major events.. there weren't so many 'quieter' moments that I can remember. I want to go star gazing, take a trip out west, go on a short cruise up the QLD coast, take french classes, do a first aid course... all that jazz and more!!! Time to live life, not playing it so safe this time round...

So there lay a few starters. Get more creative, get more active and embrace new things. Shouldn't be so hard...

And now, onto my day... though tiredness is creeping up my dried and probably reddening eyeballs...

I began my day being woken up by Paul jumping on the bed at 6:45am. He had an early job to do with a friend this morning and it only ended taking... like... no time. Because friend didn't have the right key to get into this place to do this job. 

So I hear a growling ute, in the wee hours of the morn... (on holiday time, 7am is 'wee'). Paul getting dropped home. So Paul comes in to say 'hehro'. God, I'm delirious and wanting more snoozey time. Go away. He did. Maybe telepathy works, or maybe my slurring grunts actually made some sort of sense. 

Slept in til 9am. Excellent.

Stumble down the stairs and find the house in some other sort of hell shambles. The understairs cupboard was getting pulled out by early riser and can't-go-back-to-bedster-cause-I'm-wide-awake Paul. It looked like we were ready to move house, amazing how much that cupboard under the stairs contains. We even yanked some crazy kid with specs out as well, dunno what he was doing in there...

Chowed down some Coco Pops and got sorted to do a bit of running around. Go to Westpac, go to Big W for new laundry basket and printer cartridge (wheeeeee!!!) and also pick up some new inscents (huh... spelling, got me stumped!). 

So, as a side note, we are turning hippy and like burning off  insents as of two days ago. We got a tiny box of candles and about 5 insents from a present years ago and only recently cracked it and burned one of the insents. We like it. So we went to Loot and loaded up on inscents. We now have 'Nirvana' 'Tranquility' 'Frangipanni' 'Sandlewood' 'Rainforest' and 'Jasmine'. We tried Tranquility, smelled like heshian... Frangipanni smelled like off soap and Sandlewood just smelled like old people. Yuck. So we are yet to try the others, let's hope we tried the worst ones first.... I always love how scent makers try and hinge that 'Rainforest' smell. It never smells like rainforest!! Just some sort of feral tropical flower or what they think rain smells like. Such a laff. 

SO. Moving along, we came through to Stocklands, and while it was only 10:30am we both had a hankering for Bunnings sausage sizzle. But to our dismay, and even though it is the SCHOOL HOLIDAYS, the stall was not there. Curses!! So we ventured into Stockland and picked up our items and also some BBQ sausages and a big fat onion to beer fry up.

Went home. Ate mighty awesome sausage sizzle and onions. 

Decided on not heading up to Surfers Paradise for the afternoon (our original plan) to play laser tag and get pithed. Instead, had the sudden urge to want to look at furniture. After our start to moving the house around we decided we hated most of our furntiture and wanted to start getting some nice display cabinets, book cases and other domestic things to make us like our house more (how sad). 

Took a drive up to Bundall where all furniture stores gather in pods.

Went into 'Super (crap) Amart' and had a browse through their many tackily made, seemingly real-wood but really chipboard with veneer, TV display cabinets and shelving. Nothing grabbed us. It was all expensive, wobbly and was really crap quality. Left in a bit of a poop and counted the amount of times someone asked if we needed assistance. It was about 6 times. For some reason we suggested going to Ikea. On the verge of making the decision to go...

 Cue awesome beacon for quiet-seller handscrafted wooden furniture across the road. WE ARE SAVED!!

And 2 hours later we became the proud parents of a bouncing, solid recycled timber tv display cabinet. He's so cute!! He's over 2 metres long! Such gorgeous woodwork, the grain is beautiful and has so much glorious texture in it - our dream for furniture. No way do we want straight lines, neat, polished down to a smooth squeaky plastic look. Texture is gold, Jerry. GOLD!

My god my eyeballs are being sucked out of their sockets. I have plans for tomorrow. Starts with dishes and ends with a late night port at 3 the following morning. Let's see how that goes. 

To you all, I will sign off for two evenings. I hope you all have a glorious New Year's Even tomorrow, whatever it is you end up doing, be that massive beach party or quiet night at home with cocktails and a movie. I myself will be busy eating cob loaf, drinking many a wine and dancing around my sister's house like a fool. 

Only word of advice, nothing good ever happens after 2am. Be safe, have a blast and I will see y'all in 2011. 

Wa-hey!!

- Peace, Love and Mungbeans -

xxx

29/12/10: Brand spanking shiny new blog!

Last thing I did: Had a bubble bath... Epson salts and lavender essentials oils... no bollocks...

Listening to: Diana Krall 'The Girl in the Other Room'
Eating: Soon-to-be homemade Chicken Tikka Misala
Drinking: Rather extensive (as in, large) glass of bubbly. Why the hell not?

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OUT  WITH: Facebook
IN WITH: AirTester's Daily Dribbling Blog!

Why, hello there. If you have found me, welcome welcome. You have either been redirected off my recently decided Facebook non-existence or have haplessly stumbled across the soon-to-be daily ramblings of myself. Lucky you!

See, this is the deal: I have been pondering for a while what it is exactly that I do with my time when I decide to jump on the internet... and would you believe it, all I ever do is sit for many useless hours pouring over many a hundred people's Facebook pages, browsing through their recent photos and not really doing anything of value or productivity. I do not want to join Twitter, or no longer hang on no ones comments that will never come when I post up new things. Facebook has become an awfully solitary exercise. It's supposed to be a networking site, and yet no one bothers to comment on anything anymore or 'keep in touch' as what the site originally should be about. Where is the comradeship? Where is the sociality (though that in itself is highly ironic, and no sociality is not a word...), where are my COMMENTS??? How often I see people simply putting up a status update for the 'screaming out for attention' that they really don't get. 3 or 4 comments at the most. You know what the funniest part is? These commenters that response with.... "you ok?".... wow, such sincerity, such closeness right there. Seriously, guys, what is the point? No one really cares anymore. Facebook had its time, and yes I will keep my profile page (so you don't need to fret about losing a valuble 'friend'), it is a fantastic way of keeping tabs on 2/3's of people that you don't really care about. I took a good hard  look at what Facebook has turned people into and I decided that it is a poisoness exercise. Time to move on. If you want to keep in touch with me visit me on my blog, it's where I will be from now on!

*Sip of slightly luke warm sparkling wine* Something I pulled out of the fridge, something I didn't buy, but it somehow managed to magically appear, in my fridge between the avocadoes and my homemade white chocolate caramel slice (yes, it is as good as it sounds...)... between the time of Christmas Eve and now. Hey, free booze is free booze, down the hatch we go!

2011, will be time for a change. I made the executive decision to wipe clean the cupboard that is my Facebook page, clear it of its many pointless contents and make a fresh start at Blogger.com! I am not ignoring you, so please feel free to keep dropping me emails/comments/sms's or hey... a phonecall!!

I enjoy writing, a lot - more than I actually realised until about ten seconds ago... and have decided to start up a useless but conscience-clearing blog, for anyone or no one to read! It will act as my personal, yet not revealing diary, with a post every day or every few days.. depending if anything overly exciting has happened in my life. It will act as my 'vent' for the wind-down of an evening. Writing isn't particularly strenuous, and I always struggle to find things to do once husband Paul has retired for the evening. Yes yes, TV is all very well, but all I need is another hour or so of an evening other than TV that is my own thing to do of an evening, and this will act as an excellent wind-down. Well, we will see I suppose in the coming weeks whether this works or not. I hope so, cause I am rather self obsessed and enjoy re-reading everything I have written over the last few posts.

Eeeew. Warm alcohol shudder...

So. My Christmas was lovely, and New Years is looming once again. Actually have a plan for this year, which is nice for a change! Sadly, I will not be seeing any of my gorgeous lady friends as we will all be in different locations come New Years, but I have a plan none the less! Cocktail party at my sister's house - WOO!! Should be a blast. I wanted a costume party, but then there's the sweat and effort to consider. It originally was going to be a 'party animal' costume theme, I was going to go as a generic 'animal', and Paul was going to go dressed up as a 'party'... you know... balloons... beer hat and the like... maybe we will still do it, why not??

I feel a sneeze coming on. For those of you who know me... yes, it is about that time.... luke warm alcohol will do that to you. Yuck. I just oozed on my hand. Jayzus, 6 sneezes and counting... what is the science behind this? Someone please tell me! I can't be bothered googling it.

As I look out my study window I see the sun setting - yes, the weather has cleared for us down the Gold Coast, how lovely seeing as we've ... sneeze... had about 4 days of non stop cloud dribbling. It can drive one mad. Paul and I have had an arvo of 'beer with the boys' and 'bubble bath, wine and internet blogging'... sneeze... for ourselves has been in order. Just what the holiday doctor ordered!

We've spent the day... well... that's a lie right there... a few hours this afternoon attempting to rearrange our study.. the one I am sitting in right now... We are in 'reshuffle entire house' mode at the moment. We attacked the downstairs loungeroom and dining area, which turned out to be a HUGE success, so we were really eager to get onto the rest of the house - sorting through every nook and cranny and chucking out EVERYTHING that isn't useful, joyful or beautiful... or something like that (I have affirmations on my pantry door, that is one of them...)

Yuck... my wine has floaties... I really should make myself a cocktail, this is getting bad....

So yes, back to the reshuffling.... after a morning of Paul being knocked out with panedine fortes (due to an excrutiatingly.. [that's a tough word to type...] ... sore back from the night before (no reason, he just has bad muscles people...), and me making a start on our wedding 'Thank You' cards... only 2 months late... we came together around lunchtime and made a start on our study - the biggest pile of human un-excrement in the world. Papers everywhere, art materials in every which-way... basically crap EVERYWHERE. In desperate need of a sort out.

We got as far as moving the furniture into the semi-right place when we realised we were getting at each others throats and decided to stop. It can be an ongoing process, we decided. Better not inhale too much dust, might be unhealthy or something... and so we stopped.

Paul ducked out for the afternoon to his friends house and as for myself, I took a drive down to the beach where I sat and absorbed the beachness for an hour: the salt air, people walking their dogs, the oncoming black clouds (or going away? Couldn't decide...), the sand getting into my slide phone. I thought I saw someone drowning out to sea, but as I am severely short sighted after a minute I realised it was a surfer, way out the back of the waves... oopth. It was nice to get out of the house for a bit, we had been stuck in there for nearly 4 days straight with the rain... one can get a little 'cabin fever' with the biggest of patience.

I must say I am getting rather peckish, Tikka Misala in my belly soon!! Oh yeah...

My Diana Krall CD has finished. Oh bother. Do I put in another to keep me going an extra few songs? Meh. Could not be arsed.

I think the time has come for me to 'sign off' on this very first post - how exciting!! It is very easy just to write any random thoughts that come into one's head, I think I will definitely make a good effort to keep this up, I enjoy blurting out any random crap to the world. Not that I'm expecting comments.... that time is over! Secretly though I crave them... stupid Facebook poison shit.....

Tikka Misala and cocktails of any random sort await....

Until I blog again,

- Peace, love and mungbeans -
xxx