Happy Monday

What a crazy, sad, funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking week it has been. Last week's Happy Monday post went live right just before I found out that it most certainly was not a happy Monday. I'm not going to talk about the siege, because I need to stop thinking about it. Danielle from Keeping Up With The Holsbys wrote the most beautiful post that really just sums it all up for me.

I am getting better at not letting horrible things drag me down into the mire. As I was hearing the siege unfold I just felt grateful that my loved ones were safe. I checked in with my dear ones in Sydney and was so relieved that hadn't gone chocolate shopping that morning. I lived the day of the siege and those that followed clinging onto the happy stuff, feeling so privileged to be able to feel happiness when there are people in the world that may never know happiness again. That is how we can get by and not let the bad guys win. There is so much goodness in the world that we just need to give it the same amount of attention as the bad.

Things that made me happy this week:

:: Listening to a friend tell a "7 minute joke" that lasted about 20. She corpsed about 200 times and the joke was just dreadful (sorry darling if you are reading this) but I would happily lose another 20 minutes of my life just to see her tell it again.

:: Being called a free spirit by an old (young) friend. I have never really felt that about myself but always liked the idea of 'those kind of people.' I mentioned this to The Bookworm and he pointed out that I am not scared to follow my heart and do something different and unexpected.  I had never recognised that part of me that is brave enough to leave the path and bush-bash for a while. I've spent that last few years bush-bashing and while I really like paths with their lack of bugs and scratchy bits, life is more interesting and satisfying in the wilderness.

:: A quick chat and a hug from a friend on Tuesday afternoon when I just could not make sense of the world. She is a wise old soul (in a young vibrant body). She grounded me and helped me on my way.

:: Christmas drinks with a new group of friends. I think if I had to name the most cherished thing that 2014 gave me, it would be all the new friends. So many. I spent my first few years in Melbourne clinging tightly to the handful of people I knew here. Then at the beginning of this year I decided to just start saying yes to catch-ups and opportunities to meet people, even if they were a bit scary for this little introvert.

:: Cramming into the bathroom of a wine bar with said group of new friends to take a selfie and potentially win a bottle of Champagne. Marvellous stuff.

:: Hanging out with Miss Carly. and eating lots of dumplings. Dumplings are good for the soul, as is time with the life-force that is Carly.

:: My first paid-for work Christmas party in 10 years and by-geez it was a good one. So much good wine and lovely chats with a great team of people. I have a lot of whinges about my work (which I deliberately never share here) but I can't fault the people; absolute delights.

:: Surprise Christmas trees. I am not really feeling the love this year. We are having an orphan Christmas- I can't get back to family in Brisbane due to study/work/finance restraints. I am picking up some retail work which means eight days in a row in the lead-up to Christmas. However, I arrived home from work yesterday to a little tree in the corner of the lounge room which we decorated together last night. We did'nt have a star for the top so The Bookworm created an angel out of a champagne cork. It feels like Christmas might be happening after all.

How are you doing? It has been a tough week for so many people. Take care of yourself x

Happy Monday

Happy Monday

Oh gosh I'm feeling a bit tired. All this pre-Christmas socialising is just so wonderful but I do really need a little bit more couch-time in my life (not that we own a couch:). It has been another lovely week with some gorgeous clear days, too much good food and lovely time spent with friends.

Things that made me happy this week:

:: A little dally through the Abbotsford Convent. Such a pretty place with such a warm, loving communinity vibe.

:: Dinner with Mel from Eat Quaff Laugh. We ate baked boozy cheese and Blitzen venison, and drank lovely wine from her impressive little cellar.

:: An entire night evening spent with The Bookworm at Prix Fixe for their December "Nutcrackers Christmas" menu. I know that sounds odd but we really never get to just hang out anymore. We don't have days off together, nights are always busy catching up on work and housework and he goes to bed hours before me. Time together without distraction is so precious. You can read a review of our dinner on Champagne and Chips.

:: Baking some absolutely ridiculous chocolate brownies for a work Christmas party. I will be talking about them more soon on Champagne and Chips. Isn't it just so much fun to make something completely OTT and decadent!?!

:: Square-dancing in the local community hall. We take Ted for a wander around the block last thing before bed so he can check his pee-mail. Sometimes as we walk back through the park there is a square-dancing group boot-scooting in the community hall. I love to stop and stare watch for a bit at the fierce concentration on their faces and perfectly ordered lines of naff dancing. It looks almost cultish. Gosh I chuckle, it just tickles my fancy. At the same time I have the utmost respect for this gorgeous little organisation who have apparently been running for 20 years (overheard in a speech the other night). 

PS. How wrong is the expression 'tickles my fancy' if you think about it. I'm bringing this one back. I just love it.

How is your pre-Christmas socialising going? Are you tired out yet? :)

Happy Monday
N x

Happy Monday

Isn't this time of year crazy!?! The world shuts done for a whole week at the end of December so we spend the three weeks before seeing everybody we have been meaning to see all year just in case the world ends. Cynicism aside I actually love this time of year for all the catch-ups with friends but I really do not understand why we can't have the same drive to see each other in August...

Anyway it has been another lovely week. I have had a dear one from Brisbane visiting who I have not seen for about four years, ridiculous, I know. That has meant lots of eating out, which you know I really hate ;) as well as time spent showing her my city and rediscovering it for myself.

Things that made me happy this week:

3 days in Sydney

I have had another glorious week. A few months ago while desperately yearning for a holiday it occurred to me that a trip to visit one of my dear ones in Sydney might be an option. Then, a second dear one moved to Sydney for a three month window. The stars aligned and early Tuesday morning I jumped on a plane.

I have never been that into Sydney but I now know I was just doing it wrong. I have previously stayed in the city, which is uninspiring, whereas the inner suburbs are full of character and fun. I also think that I am looking at the world differently these days and appreciating all the little moments of wonderful more keenly. Plus Sydney is beautiful. I suspect it has Melbournised a little since my last trip four years ago- the coffee is better and cheaper and there has been a move towards more of the casual dining I enjoy.

You simply cannot argue with this scenery

Such a delightful week

It has been just the most delightful week! I can't even focus on the little moments of happiness because I've been too busy with the big ones :)

Tuesday morning I launched my new blog! For some time I have been pondering the future of Seeking Victory. It is not quite a food blog and I have less focus on wine than what I would like given that wine (and the blog) is such a huge part of my life. I wanted to create a blog that focussed on wine and food and one that I could direct professional contacts to without worrying they would stumble across a post about my dog or breast cancer awareness. So Champagne and Chips was born. I would love you to head over and have a look. Don't worry though, Seeking Victory is here to stay with its usual mish mash of posts on the things I want to say; just there won't be as much food here anymore (I'm sure it will still creep in :)

Happy Monday

It has been such a big week! My grandma's funeral, a lot of family time, flights to and from Brisbane, catching up at work, the final planning stages for a blogger meetup I have happening on Tuesday, working on a new project- just so much going on. It has actually been a very lovely week. The funeral was quite small and simple, just as grandma would have wanted. I managed to slip some funny little stories into the eulogy which I think she would have liked. Seeing my family is always good, even under the circumstances, and my impending aunty status felt very real with my sister in law sporting quite a baby bump (16 weeks along).

Things that made me happy this week:

Happy Monday

I am feeling a bit conquered by the universe lately. I try really hard to focus on the positive things rather than wallow in the bad but I feel like I have had months (and months and months) of swimming upstream. I am exhausted emotionally and I should be exhausted physically except I seem constantly high on a stream of adrenaline. I headed upstairs at 2:30 on Sunday morning purely because I thought I should lie still for a bit. I think I maybe slept two hours.

The upside is that I am often awake to see the sky do amazing things.

3am Saturday morning...

Happy Monday

Straight up I need to apologise to those who follow me on Instagram or Twitter. I had a sick day on Friday and seemed to be on social media all day posting very dull updates about my food and snot. Not together, the food and snot, separate updates. Although I did post pictures of custard at one point...

I've just struggled out the other end of my third cold/flu thing in as many months. This time it was a horrendous hayfever hybrid (alliteration was the only literary device I ever really understood at school).

I'm going to keep my introductory rant a little shorter today as I am really supposed to be studying, got my second WSET diploma exam in just 10 days. Yikes!

Happy Monday

I've had a week of ranting and frustration, mostly at myself. You know that Wake Up Call post I published, oh, 5 days ago? Yah, forgotten it already. Hit snooze by focusing on the really unimportant detritus like worrying about not enough people 'liking' me on Facebook or 'following' me on Twitter and Instagram. Has it ever occurred to anybody else how banal these terms are- follow and like. People 'followed' Jesus and I am not promising anything like the kind of stuff he was; and well, we all want to be 'liked' but I would much prefer to be 'loved' or 'respected' or any number of other less passive conjugated verbs. Even 'hated' is a much better, more passionate emotion (is 'liking' an emotion) and so much less schoolyard. I was never very popular at school. I always wanted to be 'liked.' I thought I had grown out of that need but it seems not.

I think it's time to move on from 'liked.' By all means please 'like' me on Facebook if that is a way you will keep up with me and read my words. I want you to read my words. But I'm going to try not to worry about those silly little numbers anymore.

Wanna know who doesn't 'like' me?
Ted.
Nothing passive about my boy. He LOVES me, he WIGGLES me, he IDOLISES me and sometimes he FARTS on me. All big passionate verbs and far more important.

Things that made me happy this week:

Happy Monday

On Friday night The Bookworm went to bed earlyish, about 9pm. As usual I said I would be up soon. At 10:30 I realised that I had been almost obsessively cycling through my social media accounts for over an hour. I was waiting for a reply to something, hoping the person was online but also just looking at all the new things slide into my newsfeeds, cycling between so that I didn't miss anything new and exciting while catching up on a bit of Bloglovin. I kept telling myself "Just one more post, I'll just read one more, something positive to go to sleep with."

I need an intervention.

I am time-poor. I work full-time, with a daily commute (drive) approaching 2 hours, I study part time and write in my free time. I bemoan the fact I don't have enough time to write but Lady, there's your problem - an hour and a half of random social media. I consider that social media isn't time wasted, there is a friendship-maintaining/networking/contact-making/positive-ju-ju-giving aspect to it; but not if it is taking away from the things I want to be doing. I can't 'detox' because so much of building my blog is about interacting with you, my treasured readers, and it is the only way I can keep up with so many of my friends. I realised I felt very lonely on this Friday night, that I was aiming to fill the void with human contact, even if it was on the other side of the computer screen. Many of my friends are interstate and many of my local friends are also time-poor with schedules that completely contrast with mine. In those brief times we do actually manage to meet, it helps if I have an awareness of what has been going on in their lives for the last six months (yep, sometimes that long or longer). However,  I do need to cut back and perhaps allocate time to social media rather than allowing it to fill my moments in between.

How do you deal with social media? Have you found a balance?

Anyway, there were some moments in-between the scrolling and the work to enjoy the little moments and that is why we are here.

Things that made me happy this week:

Happy Monday

Whoah life has changed in a week. Last Monday after I hit publish on my Happy Monday post, I headed off to a specialist appointment and finally (after five weeks) got the all clear on a very worrying health thing (post to come). I feel like a weight has been lifted. I have again started to make plans to do things, see friends, conquer the world. I no longer have that horrible niggle in the back of my mind telling me to wait, to not think too far ahead, just in case. It has been a GOOD WEEK folks. A timely reminder that I need to enjoy each day as it comes.

Happy Monday

Stress is a horrible thing. For the last month I have been riding a wave of cortisol, constantly preparing my body for fight or flight, yet I can do neither. I fully anticipate that in the future we will find a way of studying the effects stress has on the body more thoroughly and discover that it is just as bad for you as sugar or even tobacco. I bet it causes cancer. I feel rubbish. I have not been sleeping well and I have lost my appetite. My body is so busy diverting blood flow to my extremities (for the fight/flight) that my digestive system doesn't get a look in. I have been eating at all the right times but only because I know I need to to keep myself strong. I feel light and barely connected to the earth and I hate it.

A couple of weeks ago someone commented on my Happy Monday post that I had obviously had a great week. I hadn't. It had been a horrible week in which much of the source for the current stress had been unearthed (sorry to be cryptic but I'm not ready to talk about it until I know where it's heading). I try not to be a 'sunshine and lollipops' blogger, making my life sound styled and perfect; but constant whining about my (mostly first world) problems is dull and quite frankly is a little toxic. It was interesting that by focussing on the positive I had given the illusion that life was sweet (even with my usual 'disclaimer' at the beginning).

This year I have been focussing on the positive things- I started with #100happydays (here, here and here). It has been a pretty tough year so far but I am coping with it much better than I would have in the past. If you are having a tough time of things I certainly recommend recording the moments of joy in whatever way is convenient for you, it provides a great perspective.

Happy Monday

It has been a big week. There has been a lot of worry, a bit of busyness, very little business and a few exquisite moments that remind me why we keep battling on day after day. So, without further ado...

Things that made me happy this week:

:: A new word by one of the Shakespeares of our time: Conundrumified. If you have never read Eden's blog you just gotta. It can be hard-going, her younger brother committed suicide almost a year ago and she is grieving hard, but the way she writes cuts through so much of the fluffy fakeness in the world and deals the the stuff that matters. And she creates new words, or at least is influential enough that new words she uses may just become part of the Oxford dictionary. In the same post I saw this awesome new word, she shared this extraordinary little film by Shane Koyczan, spoken word poet, writer and performer. Another Shakespeare. Extraordinary people.

Happy Monday

It has been a big two weeks since my last Happy Monday post. I think The Sweet Swap was a worthy diversion though (I am linking back the recipes as they become available so keep an eye out - if you want to get your inner child squealing with delight I suggest you make the Musk Sticks). I do enjoy writing my Happy Monday posts though. Do you enjoy reading them? Or are they just self-indulgent and dull? Someone commented the other day that bloggers are narcissistic, which is kind of sitting with me. I think some are, but the vast majority are pretty humble, empathetic individuals just striving to be a part of something- whatever that means for them. I met a whole bunch on Saturday and that is certainly the impression I got. Anyway, feedback appreciated :)

Things that made me happy this week (well, fortnight really):

Happy Monday

I have been lurgy-lugging again this week. I think perhaps I cursed myself; about three weeks ago I though 'Hey! I haven't been sick all winter, those green smoothies must be working to make me invincible.'

Happy Monday

It has been a crazy couple of weeks.

The first big, scary WSET Diploma exam went quite well. I was looking so forward to some chill out time but all the things I had been deferring until after the exam mounted up and so this has been a full-on week as well. Today is the first day in about a month I haven't had to do something or be somewhere, so I intend to spend some quality time with Ted and catch up on the last couple of episodes of 'Time of Our Lives' - such a good show! Guilt-free free-time is the best, and such a rare commodity. I probably need to start on my next subject as soon as tomorrow.

Things that made me happy this week:

Happy Monday

I am not supposed to be writing this. I am supposed to be studying because I will be very mad at myself if I stuff up my exam next week.While the winemaking stuff rocks my socks off, trellising and soil types bore me to distraction (and I love me a bit of distraction). Let's keep this on track though.

Things that made me happy this week:

:: Feeling like I belong. I have been hovering around the edges of the wine industry for a few years, forcing myself to go to industry tastings for the experience and exposure to a whole bunch of wines I will never be able to afford; but hating the awkwardness of not knowing anybody and feeling like a giant (a tiny giant) goofball. Starting the WSET Diploma means I have just met a whole bunch of really cool people so when I went to an enormous, very posh, tasting on Tuesday I knew a bunch of people and I felt much less awkward. Although I did apparently ignore someone I knew because I had my wine-nerd blinkers on.

:: Wandering the streets of Melbourne. I am a bit of a broken record on this topic. My days off are when nobody else has days off and usually involve a mixture of exercise, study, getting jobs done and (ashamedly) surfing social media. Melbourne is such a beautiful city, I love wandering around absorbing the energy but do not do it often enough.

Happy Monday

Rolling your bottom around on a spiky ball is not the most pleasant way to start the morning, though it does wake you up. My back is sore again. Though really, that is its natural state; the pain free days are the anomalies. On the upside, I am a redhead, which apparently makes me more tolerant to pain than the average Joe (or blond)- there has to be at least one upside to this pesky 'more prone to skin cancer and jokes about orangutans' gene. My osteopath is often a bit impressed when I saunter in with a two-week-old injury and then he discovers how bad it actually is. Hooray, I'm tough! Now I just wish I could quit with old-lady back pain. This time it was sneaky, I woke up with a mild niggle, nothing really, a bit stiff. It has evolved into complete lower back jam (and not the fruity kind). I will however develop abs of steel because I am constantly reminded to suck them in because my stability without switching on the core is bugger-all.

Happy Monday. Injury is such a fun thing to read about isn't it. I apologise, let's get down to the moments.


As it turns out, the pot at the end of my rainbow is a spittoon.

Happy Monday

This week I feel very sad for my baby brother. Friday morning I awoke to the news that Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over the Ukraine. There were thirty-six Australian citizens on board and one of them is my brother's friend. My brother has suffered the shocking, unexpected loss of three loved ones in as many months and I can't begin to imagine the sadness in his heart.

I am so grateful, rather selfishly, that my brother wasn't on that plane. He is a jet-setting corporate and whenever there is a disaster my parents can expect an early morning phone call answered with a panicked "Where in the would is D at the moment?"

It seems futile to make a list of half a dozen things that made me happy when there are so many families out there wondering is they can ever be happy again. Much of what happens to us is outside of our control; what we can do is focus on making our own short time on the earth, and that of those whose lives we touch, the best it can be.

Things that made me happy this week:

:: Running for the train on Monday morning, and making it! It was a real 'Sliding Doors' moment. I'd prefer nothing else to mirror that film though...(pregnancy, death, short blond hair).
In fact I had very good public transport luck every day this week when I had to travel across town for my teaching block; managing to get connecting trains and trams. I know this sounds terribly mundane, but trust me, in Melbourne it's significant. There is also nothing like a 200m sprint to get the endorphins going of a morning.

:: Noticing this enormous clock in Melbourne Central. I am a bit in love with it but have never noticed it before. On Monday after the 'Sliding Doors' moment, it was gonging (is that a word) its 9 o'clock gongs as I ran through to catch the connecting tram. I got up a bit earlier the next day to take a picture of it.

Happy Monday

Oh dear! Another week of the universe being a huge meanie. This time it was the loss of a job (that I was ready for really, a management restructure thing) but the loss of those work-friends has really hit me hard. People that you grow to know so well without actually being close enough to hang out for coffee. I remember details about people's lives, ask after their kids, their parents; and to suddenly not know how J's final exams went or whether A got on OK with her braces has really made me very sad. Plus, I am now officially on a very low income until something else comes bounding around the corner so there may just be a series of 'interesting ways to serve beans on toast' coming up.

The good thing about the tough weeks is that focussing on the happy stuff is a challenge and I do like a good challenge. It is really important though. Most of the time you don't have that much control over the things that happen in your life but, without meaning to sound like a self-help book, you do have control over the way you deal with them and move on. Looking for the moments of joy stops the moments of darkness, crippling self doubt, betrayal and loss from being overwhelming (yep, that has been my week).

Things that made me happy this week:

:: I finally watch "The Grand Budapest Hotel"; heartstring-tugging, hilarious and poignant. Just magical. Visually beautiful too. Just go see it.

:: This amazing chocolate pudding that a friend brought over for dinner. I haven't even edited this picture- just look at the gorgeous natural ooze.