ch-ch-ch-changes.... / in sickness....

Good morning!

So, after little to no prompting, I changed my layout around. I'm a bit obsessive like this. I love changing layouts. Right from when I taught myself HTML back in the day, when it was still relevant, and then taught myself photoshop. I love layouts. So, I've been very restrained this time. I've tried to not go overboard on the colours, here. Usually I'm like PINK AND BLUE AND ORANGE AND GREEN AND PURPLE ALL GO TOGETHER IN A MAGICAL WEBSITE RAINBOW!!!! And it ends up looking like something a kindergarten child vomited up.

So, I was aiming for 'adult' this time. 

I think it worked.

For all of you in readers, come, visit. It's blue, and subdued, and kind of wintery, but not. Do tell me if anything looks weird or if the characters show up in Chinese or anything.

Unless you are Chinese, and translating this. Or something.

In which case, 欢迎.

Apparently. 

Anyhoo. 

I've been ordered by Nic that I'm not to go to School today, even though it's the first week of term and I want to be there, it's ok. 

This is because yesterday I had a headache all day, which at about 4pm turned in to me feeling terrible and wanting to go to sleep. Nic came home, and I was quite chilly, so we turned on the heat and wrapped me in a blanket. When he got back from his run at about 6.30 I was trying to have a nap on the futon. I realise that this is a completely inappropriate time to be having a nap, because if you nap at 6.30 there's no way you can get to sleep at 10, even if you're LTU Postgrads in the Art of Going to Bed Early. Nic came in and I huddled, wrapped in the huge blanket of luxury in front of the heater. Burning on the outside, shivering on the inside. Liken when you cook a sausage on too-high heat and the outside is charcoal and the inside is goo. Right. That was me. 

Clearly, not doing so well.

Nic says:
"Um... are you still cold? It's really hot in here..."

And I'm shivering away.

He does his looking-after-me thing which I think he secretly loves. We have a running in-joke that he's meant to look after me, but he's the one who gets sick all the time. I get random injuries/muscle/joint pains, and he gets catastrophically sick. Well, maybe not that bad. But he does get sick more than me. So he makes me soup from a packet which I eat, even though I'm not hungry, and them some chamomile tea, and then sets me up on the couch with Private Practice. Mallei is at my feet, Mia is passed out on the blanket of luxury, on my lap. I'm cocooned in it. I can feel my face burning, but the rest of me feels cold. On the inside. I watch the show, back and legs aching, then at 8.30, drag myself to bed. I shiver, and cuddle Mallei, who lays in the crook of my stomach- my little spoon. 

I wake up several times drenched in sweat. (Tell me when this gets to be TMI for y'all). 

Feeling much better today, at least.

Part of my problem, I think, is that I work myself into a frenzy.

I'm like: HOLY CRAP I'M GOING TO DIE I HAVE SOME DISEASE THAT'S GOING TO KILL ME.

And then, like Dr. House, try and diagnose myself based on what knowledge I have from medical shows on TV. Which I think makes things worse.

I run through lists of symptoms in my head, studying my internal feelings and body messages with microscopic attention.

Fever, aches, headache (oh god, what if I have a brain tumour? They run in the family), sudden tiredness, loss of appetite, occasional nausea, been drinking water all day and lips still dry.... heart beating really fast! Breath shallow! (as I work myself in a panic)... Oh, maybe that's just me. Scrap the last two. And then I run through the list again... looking for anything else to add. After all, the more symptoms, the more serious, right? 

But I feel better now. So, lord knows. 24 hour fever? The old adage of "sweating out the fever" might actually be true? (research done: apparently it helps fight off an infection. Go figure.)

Anyway, I got a little off topic here from where I started but that's ok. 

Also tomorrow is Saturday, huzzah!

Also, if anyone wants to write to Dr. Mallei for advice, please do. He's a good advice giver.

Also (again), next Tuesday I'll try and remember to do tasty-tuesday. I have a super easy, super tasty and only slightly healthy cobbler recipe. If you're like me and don't know what a cobbler is, it's certainly yummy. 

Let me know what you think of the redesign!

running away to the mountains.

After looking at some other potential venues last weekend, and having had lunch with my Mum again the other day, I was beginning to solidify the fact that I didn't want to do this traditional wedding thing.
And I don't mean that I didn't want a traditional wedding... Because we all knew it was going to be offbeat, anyway... but that I was beginning to want, less and less, to deal with the hassle of the big hooplah that is the wedding. Of worrying about catering for people having to drive 'too far' from the city (as my mum said, again, when I suggested a place that's about an hour and a half out of Melbourne, and I had to remind her that half of Nic's family (beside the immediate family all being overseas) are at least a 6 hour drive from Melbourne itself.)... of worrying about costs, of etiquette, of my mother being uninvolved... literally and emotionally.

So Nic and I were laying in bed last night, both of us tired and about to fall asleep, which seems to be when we have our best discussions sometimes. I said:
"I think I'm about ready to throw in the towel on this wedding thing. I mean, not the wedding (I meant 'marriage' here), but the wedding."
Nic looked at me from across the pillow, confusion smudged across his tired little face. After all, I'd just said I wanted to throw in the towel on the wedding thing, not the wedding, but the wedding.
Which he kindly repeated to me, to make sure I knew how ridiculous I sounded.
"Not the marriage, but like, the whole ordeal that is the wedding."
You know things aren't good when you're using the word ordeal to describe something that's meant to be fun. Ok, so the planning probably isn't 'meant to be' fun, but the wedding itself should be. Nic looks at me as though I've lost my marbles (this happens often).
"I've said this ages ago! Just the two of us should go somewhere and do it, and then we'll have the party later, some time! You said we couldn't though, cos your family would tear us a new one!"  He's so eloquent, my fiance.
"Well, they probably would," I reply.
"Weddings are so trite and traditional. I don't want people to sit there and go Wtf are Yay flags, and why are they doing that? And being bored or confused. I want to get married and then have a party later!"
We discuss this for a little while- I don't necessarily want it to be just us, but with a select few people, sure! Somewhere awesome, in mountains. Nic feels it should be somewhere (in mountains) that's special to us, not just randomly in the Swiss alps. Nic tells me he's desperate to wear the ring, to do this, that he can't wait. I tease him, in a sing-song, mocking kind of way: "You wanna be my huuuusband".
"Nah," He replies, eyes closing tiredly, "I just want to wear some bling."
I love him.

looking to november...

A really quick follow-up, wondering if it's too late to change my blog name to something completely different. I feel like since we're not getting married April 2012, 'Looking to April' is deceptive and doesn't make sense any more...

But I can't think of anything else right now. Suggestions?? (and I'm not keen on "Looking to November"!!)

friends, dates and life changing...

Last night I traipsed across this site, meetup.com, which is basically full of a bunch of dodgy 'spiritual' groups, supposedly teaching people how to 'live their best life' (my mum would benefit from joining some of them, no doubt), groups for men wanting to 'attract the most amazing women', and then some little ones for people who like hiking and walking, kayaking, for 20-something women wanting more friends, french speakers, ex-pat Canadians, etc. So I joined a couple. The more I think about it, the less satisfied I am with my group of friends. I have them, and they're awesome, but I don't see any of them regularly (except from the Uni girls, and a few of them are finishing this year so I won't see them in March), and I just don't feel that close. I think about my 'wedding party' or whatever terminology I'll end up using, and feel like I'd be picking bridespeople just because they're people I get along with, and not because I'm hugely close and want to share all my secrets with them over a tub of icecream.

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.