I may be a little uncool but...

       I love 90's TV shows. LOVE them! I have my favourites, Friends, Frasier, and my guilty pleasure, 7th Heaven. But my all time favourite is Mad About You. It doesn't get nearly enough credit these days for being so darn good! Unfortunately they've only released three of the seasons on dvd in Australia, so this had led me to watch the few episodes I'll ever get over and over and over again, and I laugh every time.

       If I were in my mid twenties back in the early 90's rather than now, I think I would have had a bit of a crush on Paul Reiser, who plays Paul in Mad About You. I can't really explain why...you might just have to watch some episodes to understand.

       As I mentioned in my previous post (here) I read Paul Reiser's book on marriage. After I bought it online for $9.95 (including postage) I excitedly waited for it to arrive in my mail box, and when it came I read it in one afternoon.

       It gives a really humorous view into marriage & living with another person, and the quirks we all have and discover in one another.
   
Clip -

Excerpt from "Couplehood"

(When Paul is talking to his wife about fishing)

I tried to convince my wife that fish don't feel the hook.
    She says, "How do you know?"
    I said, "I don't, but that's what they say."
    She had no argument. "Well, okay then, if you're sure that's what they say..."
    Again, why would they lie?
But I'm sure animals say the same things about us.    Go into the woods and you'll hear grizzly bears saying, "You know when you bite people's arms off? They don't feel it. Believe me, if I thought they felt it, I could never do it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. No, you know why they're screaming and jumping around like that? It's a dance. It's the Dance of Joy. They're saying, 'Yippee! Thanks for trimming that section off me.' Every six months, they shed that part of their bodies naturally... That's why they have those short-sleeve shirts. It's part of nature - don't worry about it."

(Talking about dinner party conversations)

Sometimes you're in the middle of your story, you look around the table, and you realise -                nobody's listening. They're talking amongst themselves, paying the check... And you're thinking, "Am I the dullest person in the world? What happened here?"  

And then, the saddest moment in the world: You look at your wife and discover that she's listening. She, who's heard the story a thousand times. But, God bless her, she doesn't have the heart to let your story plummet like a boulder. So she sits there pretending she's interested. And what's even more pathetic is you continue to tell her. You don't want to stop. 

Love it!

Last week

       Well this week hasn't been a good one. It hasn't been bad, but not so good (I feel like there is a difference between the two). Side Effects were kicking in. Monday I felt like death warmed up so I spent the morning in bed, then rose to watch my taping of "A Place to Call Home" then, thoroughly exhausted, went back to bed until dinner time. Tuesday wasn't too different, except I'd moved onto the lounge. The next few days however I started to feel less nauseous, less headachy and more mobile. I could deal with the sore throat and tiredness.

        As this week was mainly me being horizontal, my activities were all a bit random and odd - and all inside the house.
       I grew a matchbox garden horrendously overgrown yard, watched too many episodes of Cheers than I'd like to admit (I don't even enjoy the show, yet I watched it...sad), read a 90's book about marriage (in one day), knitted, got overly excited when 7th Heaven and Frasier were on TV straight after each other, ate four packets of jelly, etc etc.

       Today I'm venturing out on my own (Jake is at work) to meet some friends for lunch. The biggest thing I'd done all week is buy wool at Lincraft, so I'm excited to get out of the house today!

ps: I visit the Radiotherapy doctor on Monday to see how it all went.

It's a jungle out there!

Sisters

       I am lucky to have a sister in my life. She is two years younger than I and we have always been close. In fact, when I remember back when we were young and she was more like my best friend than my little sister. We'd play games using only our imaginations, running around the backyard each of us in our mind envisioning a wild forest, or holding our dolls imagining they were sweet little babies crying and needing our undivided attention. We'd teach our imaginary students, drawing large letters and diagrams on our blackboards, and we'd play tennis in Nan and Pops backyard, as well as being the commentators for our 'outstanding' game.

       A few posts ago (here) I shared some of our funny childhood stories, and it inspired me to try and record some of these memories. I decided a fun way to do so would be to capture them all in the form of a type of children's story book - funny little cartoon illustrations and our funny little stories to go along with them.

       So I bundled all the childhood photos together and took them home and started sorting and reminiscing. I've only done two illustrations so far, and I have a feeling it will be a long project, but a fun one.

Obviously it's not my birthday

Playing dress-ups with Great - Aunty Ethel

The first time I really realised Steph was going to be taller than me

Baywatch Babes

Flannel Flowers were a theme for our family photos in the late 90's

The tennis racquet was the flower girl 

Re-creating the photo at my real wedding

Radiotherapy - 1 Week Down!

       Well it's been a while since I have written. Mainly just because I've had a quiet week, and nothing too exciting happened. Although on Monday I got a phone call saying that I had missed my first radiotherapy appointment! Whoops! Turns out they forgot to mention to me that rather than putting my treatment back for another week, the wanted me to start on my original date. So after work I rushed into my first radiotherapy session feeling a little underprepared. It all went well though, and I had four more sessions this week gone.

      Each morning I come out of the radiotherapy room with a lovely honeycomb pattern on my forehead. Even though the sessions only take about 15 minutes, the pattern is so impressed on my head it takes a good two hours to full fade.

I enjoy snap-chatting these unique pic to some lucky friends

       So I have 10 days of radiotherapy left, and then it will be straight back in to all the tests and scans. Hoping that radiotherapy does the trick, and I won't need further treatment. That is something I am nervous about.

A Busy Birthday Weekend - Part 2

       On Sunday we had planned a trip to the Hunter Valley with our friends Tom, Nikita & Alex to celebrate Tom's Birthday! Tom and Nikita just moved down to Jindabyne, so it was fun to catch up with them again.

       After all meeting at our house, we all excitedly jumped in the car and Jake began to pull away from the edge of the road a little too excitedly, as poor Alex wasn't even in the car yet. Don't worry, she didn't get left behind. Although Jake did run over her foot! She barely made a fuss though, "Jake, you're on my foot" she said in a calm voice. We all laughed. Then we realised she was being serious. Luckily she had boots on, and her foot was only a little numb for awhile.

       It only takes a little over an hour to get to the Hunter Valley so with all our chatting in the car it seemed we were there in no time.

       First stop was Chateau Francois, a lovely little winery atop a hill. Don Francois, the wine maker was a lovely old man, who had unfortunately suffered a stroke which impaired his speech a little. His wines were lovely and are rated very highly by wine critic James Halliday. Don Francois bought the land his winery is on in 1969 for $1000!

Chateau Francois land

       From Chateau Francois we headed to Piggs Peake Winery. Jake and I love their wines, so we were all very excited to get tasting. We must have sampled about 15 different wines, and they were all beautiful. I recommend Piggs Peake to anyone!

       Alex really wanted to get some photos of a winery up close, so as we were leaving Piggs Peake we came across a winery that was near the road. We took this opportunity to take some (crazy) photos:

       And then we stopped for a group hug (we aren't weird at all).

       Just before lunch we went to Keith Tulloch's Cellar Door. It is in the most beautiful building, and we sat out on the deck sampling wines in the sun, telling funny stories, and laughing at my appalling math skills (we were getting a little giggly by then).

       For lunch we walked across the courtyard to Muse Kitchen. We sat in the garden and had the most amazing food.

We sat at the white table

So fresh and beautiful. Look at the crispy skin on that duck leg!!

(Nikita's Photos)

     
       The rest of the day was spent going to the champagne house, Chocolate shop, buying a large cheese platter for dinner and lastly, the brewery. It was such a beautiful sunny day and we all had a great time together!

A Busy Birthday Weekend - Part 1

       This weekend I had the pleasure of celebrating the birthdays of two lovely people!

       Saturday was Mum's birthday. We kicked off the celebrations with a sunny breakfast at my sisters place, filling our bellies with fruit and croissants (a common birthday breakfast in our little family). The seven of us chatted away as we nibbled on pastries, our conversation eventually turning to funny childhood memories - the time my sister, Steph got a new Baby Born doll, and when I carefully nursed it for the first time, it (somehow) managed to do a little vom on me. And when I was jealous that Steph's Baby Born could go in the pool with us, when my dolls had soft fabric bodies, so I took them in the pool anyway, and then hung them on the washing line to dry afterwards spinning it 'round and 'round and 'round. Funny doll memories.

Georgie was excited to wish Mum a Happy Birthday too.

              That afternoon Jake and I prepared a huge roast lamb for dinner. We warily left it in the oven as we headed off to Jake's soccer game. It was the first time that we had left something in the oven while we were out, and to me it felt like leaving our child at home alone for the first time. However, the difference between a child and a roast is that the roast can't answer the phone when we are checking how it is going. (I'm sure there is other differences between children and roasts as well).

       Jacob's soccer game was a great one to watch, he even scored a goal which he headed in!

       After soccer we rescued our roast (which was doing just fine) and transported it over to Mum and Dad's house to finish cooking. Had a beautiful three course meal, nice wine, and so many laughs I began to feel sick!

       One of the presents I gave Mum was a really interesting book plant. I got it from a cute new florist  called The Octopus' Garden. It is a really unique store and has a lot of great gift ideas.

Part two of our busy weekend to come soon!
x

Sleepovers & Red Dresses

     
       I have such great friends. They keep me entertained while my husband is away for work. This week I had an old fashioned sleepover at my friend Emma's. The only real difference to the 'old sleepovers' was that one of the members of our little slumber club group was an 8 month old baby. My little friend, and Emma's little daughter, Alexis. She loved having a big girl sleepover. I think. She didn't tell me, but I kind of got the vibe.

      We started off our sleepover with some good old shopping. We checked out the op shops along Long Jetty. Emma and I both got some gorgeous vintage dresses from The Glass Onion Society. They sell Oh Deer brand dresses which are truly one of a kind. I got a lovely red one, made out of flowy polka dot fabric. I don't usually wear red clothes, but I decided it was time to be bold!

       Below are some pics, but excuse me now while I lounge lazily on the couch, and recover from eating way too much chocolate...