another for today...

I feel a change in the air.
I can't explain what- whether it's something in me, spurring me on to join the gym and do some yoga classes (finally), or to keep in touch with girlfriends (now that I finally have a couple), or whether it's just being back in warm weather which, let's face it, is always a good excuse to be more proactive about life... Plus I get to eat fruit (stone fruit! Yum) with abandon, and suggest salads as a suitable dinner option because it's not 10 degrees outside and soup makes much more sense.

Yesterday we bought our chicken from the chicken shop, after I'd had a couple of moments while in North Am over where my meat was from. Nic and I are pretty close to vegetarianism- we just use chicken as a staple part of a lot of our meals, we have ham in our rolls and we love bacon on occasion. While we were in North Am we got some (exquisitely delicious) pork ribs and I looked down and there were the ribs of a whole pig shared between Nic and I. (Maybe not so much but it was a LOT). And I thought: My god. This pig gave up its life just so we could have this meal. And I felt horrible. Another time I had a lobster pie, and the meat from the claws was still in the shape of the claws and I thought: Jeez... this was a real animal. Sometimes it's easy to forget- you can't really picture where a chicken breast GOES once it has no skin and feathers and bones attached, and drumsticks don't look anything like legs, and bacon is just meat, hey? But the point was, we came back wanting to try and be a little more ethical about our meat, knowing there's only so many beans and lentils we can eat, and still liking protein and bacon too much... So we found our chicken at the chicken shop because it's free range, grain fed, no chemical processing, hopefully more happy chickens. We'd buy things at the farmers market but it's so, so expensive. So that will have to wait until we both have real jobs. On that note, I desperately want one of these. Because they're cool, and I want to grow year-round fruit and I don't want to have to wait 3 years and for the trees to get too big and to wait until I own my own house so I can actually plant them. These guys are meant to stay little! Nic would be able to reach the tall branches. And I could eat my own apricots and peaches. Yum!!

I also feel like I'm still stuck here at work, doing this crappy job for a crappy wage. The other day we did a 'focus group' where they asked what was keeping us with the company, and I said I stay because if I need to work only 5 hours a week, I can. Then, if I want to work full time, I can. I'd love to somehow work from home though, or start up a business, I just don't know what it is yet. I feel there's a distinct lack of 'indie-friendly' wedding stuff in Aus. I feel that the idea of the 'perfect wedding' is still really big and if you want a left-of-center dress, you'll struggle to find it... Or if you want to get married outside somewhere you have to know somebody with land.. Maybe I need to learn to sew... that being said, wedding dresses probably require a bit of work, and a short course in dress making mightn't be quite enough!!! I'll keep thinking on it- maybe I'm just disappointed in what I've found so far.