Luck

In the last couple of days, without deliberately doing it, I've come across three articles or presentations on luck.  Which has really stuck in my mind, because I think it's really out of the ordinary for it to happen with that frequency in so short a period of time, and you are supposed to take notice of coincidences.  Is the universe trying to tell me something?  What?  Am I lucky?  Do I need to do something to be luckier?  I don't know... So then I got thinking about whether I consider myself a lucky person - which I definitely think I am in the general sense, but on a daily basis I don't consider myself lucky, you know, in the "gee it's lucky I won lotto, found this pair of diamond earrings and got sent to France on a food tour for work" kind of way (come on universe, come through with that one).  In large part, I do think people make their own luck - if you put energy out and work hard for what you want, things come back to you.  But that isn't really luck, it's more like a return on the investment you put in.  I don't think I actually believe in luck just happening to people.  Apparently you can make yourself luckier and lucky people have certain traits.  But I think I'll just stick to more tangible ways to get what I want (but feel free to come through with the lotto, diamonds, France scenario, universe.  I'd really like that).

Snore. Wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and if you want to shock me.

Gaga is at it again.  Surely she's running out of ways to get more extreme?

Blog additions

I spend a lot of time reading things online - just an FYI to blog readers - I've decided that I'm going to post more links to stuff I find interesting.
Starting with this atricle on the Guardian (which I suspect will heavily feature in my stuff I find interesting links) about the Pentagon buying up an entire run of a book so they can pulp it, which I find extraordinary - really Pentagon??  Is this the best way you can manage this?

Time off and first day

So, I was going to be a good blogger in my three weeks off work.  Turns out no.  I can't believe it, but I was actually really busy!  I got loads of jobs done that have been building up for ages, and crossed almost everything off the list.  We also squeezed in a week in Fiji, which was nice.  I mean it certainly wasn't awful lying around doing nothing but it was all just so... totally non challenging.  Plus the food was average.  It would be great if you had kids (which most people did), but in terms of what we were looking for, it missed the mark a bit.  Even though we were upgraded to the presidential suite after I became livid after we were woken up by construction on our first morning(!!!).  I definitely prefer a bit more activity in my holidays, but taking the time to watch the sun set every night (aided by a large bottle of duty free gin) and wind down was just what I needed.

And then in the blink of an eye, the three weeks was up and my alarm was going off on Monday morning.  But it was accompanied by a lot more anticipation, excitement, and general feelings of positiveness than usual.  Today I had my first day at work!  It was quiet (for me, everyone else was busy), but it feels like it's going to be really good.  Everyone was very thoughtful, and I can't wait to actually be useful, rather than just asking a million annoying questions.

Being unemployed is exhausting.

I thought that having three weeks off work would send me up the wall a bit.  I'm no good at doing nothing, so I've made myself a really long list of tasks to do.  I'm only at the end of day two, but I'm pleased to say I'm pooped and not bored.
Today I went to yoga, supervised the nice man who works at Bunnings who offered to come over and change the lock for a reasonable fee (much more reasonable than what the locksmith wanted to charge anyway), caught up with Carita and Rob who were in town from Melbourne, dropped off my wedding dress and a pashmina to be dyed, got a pair of shoes re-heeled, got my hair cut, and made meatballs.
The dress is going ribbon (also known as Country Road blue to fans of CR) - I'm a bit nervous about it, but the ladies in the shop assured me it will dye well, and this means I can get loads more wears out of it.  I really love the dress, so it will be perfect for any fancy events we need to go to in its new colour.  And it will match the sapphires in my wedding earrings - important.  Right now I'm kicking myself a bit that I didn't try it on one last time in the wedding colour, but we've got loads of photos of the wedding day, and I am unlikely to wear it out in the wedding colour, so I just need to let go.  I'll update when it's done!

A trip to the zoo!

It's not too often that you get two baby elephants and a baby pigmy hippo in one place.  Especially when one of the baby elephants is a MIRACLE.  If you don't know the story, it's amazing - the zoo keepers thought he'd died on the womb, and announced he had died, but he'd actually put himself in a coma, and then his mum gave birth in the middle of the night, and they didn't even know until they came in for the morning feed and he was moving.  Then they called him Mr Shuffles before he got his proper Thai name because he shuffled like an old man when he walked. Cuuuuute.  The baby hippo was napping, but we saw the two elephants.

Hi - I'm Mr Shuffles:

Other zoo highlights included seeing the tiger being fed Whiskas milk (emasculating much?):

The meerkats are always my favourite, because they are always doing stuff and being curious and hilarious.  Sure, snow leopards are cool, but when you can only see a hindquarter having a nap, it's not so exciting.  But meerkats are always on the go and running around.  Even when they are lapping up the sunshine they are active.

Case in point for meerkats being funny - they have been given little cereal boxes to play with, and one of them got it stuck on its head and ran around for a good few minutes running into things trying to get it off.  All ended well, and the little guy got it off in the end.  And I got some serious comedy value.

Our zoo trip was curtailed by this nasty storm which hit us about five minutes after the pic was taken.  By the way - this is actually the view from the zoo.  Pretty amazing.

We had to go and see these little guys - the red pandas.  They are Em's favourite, and we all think she looks a bit like a red panda too.

A weekend at Cupitts

Last weekend we hired a little farm cottage on a winery just near Ulladulla that looked out over this:

And we spent a lot of time in these chairs looking at the above view.  It was beautiful, and quiet, and serene, and really nice to just have a weekend to wind down.  All we did was drink, eat, read, sleep, and stoke the fireplace.  Bliss.

Lady of leisure

Yesterday was my last day of work, and I now have THREE weeks off before starting the new gig to be a lady of leisure.  I'm thinking we'll go somewhere (Fiji is the front runner) for a week, but the rest I'll be here doing lots of jobs that need to be done and also taking some time to just chillax and clear out some headspace.  And since I'll be home with loads of hours to fill in, I'll also be a better blogger.  More frequent anyway.
I had fun drinks last night with some peeps from the office, and before that we had cake, and I was given a beautiful bunch of flowers and a book voucher to spend at my leisure.  A lot of people have said really nice things to me, which has made me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I certainly didn't look back when I walked out for the last time.
It feels like I've been at the centre of attention for a couple of days now, which, naturally, is fine with me, but I'm enjoying being alone now for the first time in a while, and just reflecting on everything.  I'm feeling a lot of relief, and happy, light, and at peace with everything. And I'm really excited about my new job and all the challenges ahead.

I've resigned!

It's been coming for a while.  I haven't been happy, and when you aren't happy, you do something to change it.  So I did.  I'm leaving journalism.  It took me a while to get here, but here I am.  I am going to a really great job.  It's going to be totally different from what I'm used to, but I'm excited and ready for the challenge, and I'll be working with a really great team.  I just want to get in there and start learning, but not before a little holiday with the hubby first... destination as yet undecided, we'll wait to see the timing of when I leave the paper first, which hasn't been determined.
Last night bubbles and steak at Rockpool to celebrate.  So delicious.  They cook their steaks like the Americans do - over an insanely hot grill, so you get that crunchy charred outside, and the meat is still perfectly red on the inside.  They also honour the very American tradition of giving you a piece of meat the size of your head.  I was nearly defeated, but managed to get through it all in the end.  It was a lovely celebration - my only complaint is that the Rockpool menu is waaay too long.  There's around 40 entrees to choose from and about 50 mains.  Option overload.  My personal dining out philosophy is that restaurants with extensive menus should be avoided as much as possible - generally it means they have tons of things sitting around for ages, and don't turn over enough to have it fresh all the time - but this is Rockpool, so the rules don't need to apply.  The food was all excellent, the waiter full of adjectives, and Marsha full of steak and French champagne.  Tick, tick, tick.

I've got a new gadget, you guys, it's great, you may have heard of it, it's called an i-pod.

I've always been ridiculously stubborn about refusing to have an i-pod or a facebook page.  It's just so predictable and gen y-ish, and I like to set myself apart from the masses.  I've been using a little MP3 player I bought duty free five years ago, and have always been very happy with it.  That is until it died mid-run last week.  What?!?  You mean I have to listen to the birds rather than misogynist rap?  Boring.

I was going to buy another one just because it's not an i-pod, but I have been convinced that the world of music is a lot easier with one of these puppies... so off to the shops, for not one but two i-pods (one for running and the other for home).  I felt pretty old being all "so, tell me how this crazy thing works, 19 year old boy with eyeliner", but of course, I've become totally obsessed immediately.  You know you can buy music off the internets and not even have to leave home??  Crazy, I know.  I just took the baby one out for a run to Centennial Park, tucked into the pocket on the back of my running pants that has always been underutilised, and had a great time.

But I'm definitely not getting a facebook page.