What will the New Year bring?

Who knows?

New Year's Eve is not my favourite day of the year - too much expectation, too much pressure. Who are you going to kiss at midnight? No mystery there. Pretty much a given for me for the past 15 years. What are you going to wear? Generally something that becomes uncomfortable by about 9:30pm. And then there are the dreaded New Year's resolutions - eek. As I never drank enough to feel the need to give it up, one year I actually made the resolution to drink more - but less than a month later, I discovered I was pregnant. [Note to self: Possible correlation? Maybe.] So although joyful news, it was a bummer only because I actually believed I had discovered a resolution I could really get behind, for once.

The best New Year's Eve I ever had was six years ago - 31 December, 2000. The year 2000 was the crappiest year of my life - both my Dad and Grandpa died (within weeks of each other) and by the end of the year, my husband and I had been trying to get pregnant for 3 years. Things got better with the birth of my niece in early December and as I was a witness to her birth, (more or less - I was loading the freaking camera with high-speed film with my back turned to the action when she suddenly emerged - goddamned non-digital cameras and their film-requiring ways!) I think things got mentally (and obviously physically) unstuck as New Year's Eve saw me making that trip to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. My husband and I were giddy and sick to our stomachs with the anticipation and lo and behold, after peeing all over my hand, the little line showed its pretty little line-like face. Sigh.

Apart from the joy of actually being pregnant - finally, at last, finally - the best part of the night was telling my Mum, who had sustained such loss. She was planning a very morose New Year's Eve, by herself at home but once we told her the news - she was recharged. It was wonderful. We spent the night with good friends who had also been through the crapper, V, emerging from chemotherapy for breast cancer and her husband K, having to witness his new bride enduring that hideous treatment. So K got smashed for all of us, my Mum and husband not being huge drinkers and it was a fabulous and glorious end to a shitty year and a wonderful start to the next.

So that's my Best New Year's Eve story.

Hope this one is full of joy for all and you get to kiss the person you want to and you're still comfortable in your stilettoes at midnight.

The Christmas Spirit hits... and not a moment too soon.

Is 6:30pm on Christmas Eve too late to be hit by the Christmas Spirit? I think what happened was I shared so much of my pre-Christmas angst with so many that I infected my loved ones and so by comparison, I seemed almost cheerful. Thanks to all who listened to my ranting and basically absorbed it for me - I feel a lot better now.

The summer of my discontent...

Okay, so maybe I should have titled this blog The Whiny Bitch - would be more apt at the moment. I really did start this blog with the intention of highlighting all those annoying spelling mistakes I stumble across on a fairly regular basis...

[NEWSFLASH: Was out at dinner the other night and on the menu, without a hint of apology was:

Brushetta

Now - what could I possibly say to that? At least, at least, they had the chutzpah to spell it the way most people pronounce it and I found myself in that surreal situation where I actually mispronounced it in order to not be wrong. Good grief.]

...but it seems as those it metamorphosed into a therapy session with the potential of having eleventy million therapists (although I am not that mired in my own sense of self-importance - I know that only 3 people actually read this - and I thank each and every one of you - you know who you are).

The humbugedness I wrote of earlier is not dissipating, but is actually getting a little worse.

Maybe it's just the heat.

Maybe it's just me.

Ho Ho Hum...

I suppose I should be thinking about Christmas but as it's still 6 days away, what's the hurry?

We're not hosting this year, which is fine by me as for some reason, I'm totally bah humbug about the whole thing. I think the reason is that, for some bizarre reason, I have most of my Christmas shopping done and the fact of being relatively organised is sitting so badly with me, I'm finding it hard to cope. I'm also in a soul-searching time in my life (in case you hadn't noticed) and while yes, I like Christmas and I like shopping and I like consuming - I also feel a little paralysed and confronted by the total sham of Christmas and what it's become. Actually, why stop there - it's not just Christmas but pretty much the whole world.

Is this the first true sign of "My Midlife Crisis"?

Why are people so mean to each other? Why do people continue to ignore warning signs - of relationships in crisis, of political games, of global warming? Am I the only one who SEES?? Surely that can't be true. Surely more people know that we're in that handbasket and where we're heading?

Ack. I'm depressing myself. Time to make cookies.

Elvis has left the building

Here I am posting in an undisclosed location, far away from home...

The first time I have left my kids and already the Guilt Gods (who travel with me wherever I go) have reared their ugly heads and bestowed their punishment upon me for daring to leave my sweet, sweet children behind: the airline lost my bag.

There is a happy ending as it should be here in a couple of hours but there was a good period of misery time in there, so the gods should be placated and I will be able to change my underwear by lunch time so everything is hunky-dory.

The real stinger? The airline made me pay excess baggage charges for the bloody thing.

Not happy.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, many happy returns and all that for moi. And I'm not afraid to tell how old I am. I am now 39 years old. Yes and hopefully I will be turning 40 next year. Funny, that.

I had a great day - went out a bought a bicycle for a combined birthday/Christmas present (people may feel that having a birthday close to Christmas is unfortunate but it actually has its advantages, one being that you can justify buying a big present for your birthday and tell people, ie. your husband, that the one present will do for both occasions and then by the time Christmas rolls around, they/he would have forgotten and then feels compelled to buy another - bwah ha ha!). I rode it home and didn't die. The boy (and he was a boy, bless him) at the cycle shop exchanged the seat from a ball-buster to one that didn't impinge on my ladybits too much - reasonably comfortable and no need to wear 17 sanitary napkins, a la my friend J.

Went out to lunch with dear friend, C. - we went to a Japanese place with a conveyor and were speculating on the success of a similar concept with cake. Should the conveyor proceed in a clockwise rotation, heaven help the poor schlubs who would be sitting to the left of us, is what I say. NO CAKE FOR YOU!

Found a nice work dress - in black, of course - is there any other non-colour? And of course, because it was my birthday, it was reduced and then when I went to pay, it was reduced again - the Shopping Gods really do look out for me, they surely do.

Went and spent a blissful hour in an unnamed chain bookstore which deep in my soul, I know is an abomination as I am a diehard independent bookstore gal from way back but DAMN - they have a fantastic cookbook section - what's a girl to do? Plus I had a 30% voucher to use so at least I know they were only making 10% off that deal which assuaged the chainstore guilt somewhat.

Friends came over for an easy dinner. Made some stunning cupcakes - Magnolia Bakery Vanilla with cream cheese frosting - used C's piping tip and bugger me if they didn't look like they came straight from a bakery. Blew out my one candle and made my wish and all was right with the world as I watched fireworks from the local fair to finish the day.

Aaaaaahhhh. Lovely.