To do..NYE checklist.

Since I've been out and about the last few days- mostly shopping-- I have a lot to do between tonight and tomorrow morning, before we go away for 4 nights for new years to the South Coast- we got a unit accross the road from the beach in Jervis Bay! yeay!! I can't wait.
Between now and then I must:
-finish washing/ironing
-pack bags
-plan NYE menu
-ring friends' Mum, as my friend has gone to Cuba and Mexico and can't get in touch with her!
-clean house or it will be too much to do after the holiday.
Thing is, the past few days, I have been in the city shopping as the huge end of year sales are on , and oh god I am just addicted to shopping. It is exhausting though, and I am beginning to think that shopping is a great workout, but not for my bank balance. Takes it out of me, and even now at almost 11pm am still deciding what to pack.
Really looking forward to spending time away with gorgeous friends, hope we have a happy, safe and cheerful new year..I have so much to be thankful for this year and I am really looking forward to spending it in great company- pity my family won't be there but I'm looking forward to spending a few days at home when we get back!
I hate making resolutions but I'm going to try and stick to them (some) :
- save money! (cut back on shopping!)
-eat less junkfood and bad foods
-excercise more, play more broomball.
-Learn more on tech writing, after all it is my profession of choice at the moment :)
Have a wonderful NYE ahead.... and if you want to visit Sydney while I'm away :
www.sydneynewyearseve.com.au the fireworks are spectacular!!! I hear they're putting a heart on the bridge this year for the fireworks.

Bushfires, fire bans, muggy heat and other post xmas stories.

Merry xmas! Feliz Navidad! Despite living here all my life, my family still celebrates xmas on xmas Eve and we get to open the pressies at midnight. This time my boyfriend came around and I think he loved opening his pressies the night before everyone else! hehe
It is really really hot and muggy (humid) at this time of the year, and it is usually bushfire season..on my last day of work ( a week ago now! crazy) i was driving home and there was this beautiful yellow hue in the air and this distant very yellow and orange sunset...and it was rather hazy..i could smell some smoke , and i just knew there were bushfires around. Luckily not close to us- I'm not near a bushy area but my work is and if there was a bushfire and the roads had been closed, it would have been awful. Now, it's well after xmas and the firebans and fires continue, but there haven't been too many which is good. The weather is still hot, muggy and very sunny. I do love that - I don't need much sleep or rest in summer and the weather always makes me happy. I also get to spend lots of time at the beach which is great.
I had a wonderful xmas, got very very spoiled, a Jurlique massage and facial voucher, a book on Bono, a Spencer and Rutherford handbag!! ( my mother knows me well!) and a gorgeous chest of drawers from my fave french country furniture store that I love, amongst other things. I really can't complain!
Only if we had won that Broomball final :( we lost and it was quite sad..but we played well and I played my guts out, I can't wait for next season. All the seating around during holidays is making me antsy. Not that I miss being at work!

Candles and shopping

I'm so nervous about tomorrow nite, that I've been feeling kind of queasy all day. It's a shame I really can't practice much on ice but I've been hitting my ball a bit with the stick, if that counts for anything? I have such a great team, they work so hard I hope I can be of some use tomorrow nite. go team!
Anyway, today i did a little xmas shopping, mostly because tomorrow and on Sunday i'll be seeing some friends and we have to give them our xmas presents. I don't know how I do it, but I always manage to buy something for myself when I go shopping for other people. that sounds really selfish, but when I go shopping for something I want i can never find anything, yet when I'm not looking, I find lots of stuff. Isn't that always the way.
I've been addicted to Dusk candles this year, mostly because they're in the shopping centre I go to accross from work and their shop is like being in a fairy land.
You walk in and its all dark, with colourful candles lit all around and flowers ..the sparkles and the delicious candle scents mesmerise you and really want to make you buy a whole shop! I am not sure if there's any of them overseas- but i highly recommend them.
The other day I went to check out the new Penrith westfields (far from Sydney but that's where Broomball is) and the shopping centre was fabulous. I went into Lush and bought a tonne of stuff. I love their buttercreams and shampoos.. I'll see if I can start using them instead of normal ones. I was reading their newsletter and catalogue and it says that all shampoos and conditioners off the shelf have a lot of preservatives and detergent, or they wouldnt' keep. I never thought of that. Even though I buy expensive Salon shampoo and conditioner, I guess its full of preservatives. and even my super cool Austrian hairdresser (who I always thought was gay but turns out he has a big family and kids!) says not to bother with expensive hair products that you're just paying for marketing.. I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow morning..so I'll ask him what he thinks of Lush!
wish us luck everybody :)

U2 tickets and THE Grand Final!

I am so beyond tired but I am so excited I just had to post my supah news.
I got U2 tickets! Yeay! after lining up since 5am on Monday morning, and even though the tickets went on sale at 9 am and I did not get mine till 11.30, I was stoked!!!! U2 here we come. I have tickets to both shows, so I am tempted to go to boths if some of my friends don't want to go! I don't care how super expensive they are (A reserve at $200 each- is this just in Australia or is U2 expensive everywhere?) but I am going in March and I can't wait.
Now for the best bit- Our broomball team made it to the grand final! YEAY! the irony was that I had to play last nite after my short sleep the nite before and after lining up for an ungodly amount of time and then being half awake at work. To make things worse, the game was so late I did not get home until after midnight. But while I was playing, I was so pumped and so awake I did not think that was possible. Next time I'm feeling half asleep I'll get to the nearest ice rink and run a few laps!
It was so great though, we played so well. I even managed to be of some use and blocked a couple of idiotic guys that kept pushing me- which they are not allowed to do! ha! take that you bullies ! i might be half your size but I did learn a lot from playing all girl hockey at school. So, I've had a great few days, I'm so happy and thankful for everything. I can't wait till Saturday, my friends and family are coming to watch- I"m scared but excited. They all think I'm crazy for playing this obscure sport but I love it. I hope I can get better at it! and be half as good as my boyfriend is at it- although he doens't play anymore and thought his broomball days were over until he introduced me to it :)
Now time to catch up on sleep. Good nite!
PS. That's not us in the photo that's a random broomball photo I found, but I thought I'd post it in case people haven't any idea on what the hell broomball is!

U2 down under

It's so hot at the moment, 33C as I type this, 9.30pm. Today it was 45C in some suburbs, probably close to where I work since I"m not in the CBD. Thank God for Air conditioning, even if it makes you feel even hotter when you get outside.
Well summer's begun and I can't really complain, after all its the only season I looove and I can stand the heat pretty well. It also means my bday is not too far away and for the first time ever, I'm just not looking forward to it! why is that? is getting older just sadder? even though I'm still so young?
U2 are playing in Australia in March next year. YEAY! we hardly get many bands come out here because we're so far away..secluded on our own continent, and its been 8 years since U2 have played here. So, I tried like crazy to get tickets on Monday morning, on the net. But Ticketek
is such a nightmare of a website..the bastards...I finally got through after clicking 'reload' a million times, selected my tickets, put my credit card details through, and just as it was 'processing payment' the bastards page hung on me and the page died and the session timed out! i've been trying to call them to find out if the payment went though (nothing's come out of my account), but they're still engaged. Why? how? there's nothing going on sale! maybe there's more frustrated people like me ringing them and telling them off :)
Oh well they've announced a second show, and I am going to get up early, or even possibly line up overnight to get tickets. I'm not missing out this time!!
Nor am I going to be stupid enough to pay $4000 for tickets.

Long nights

Now that daylight has changed, and the evenings get longer, it's great to be outside. But for the first time ever, it's really annoying me.The thing is , that you could be outside , enjoying the sun, waiting for the sunset, then all of a sudden you check the time and it's 8pm! what the? where did time go? what about all i have to do tonite at home, have dinner, etc. It's like the day has slipped away and taken the evening with it. The sun is setting at around 8.30-9pm and whereas that's lovely, I am really missing time! i loved leaving work while it's still light, but I also liked leaving when it's dark and then knowing what time it was depending on how dark the night was.
Anyway, I've had a lovely weekend..busy catching up with friends, showing our photos and talking about our trip. The funny thing is , we went to visit three different places, and all our friends basically made the same thing.. a barbeque! it cracks me up, because it's just so Aussie. Even though there's no such thing as Australian food, or a particular dish that can be really Australian (unless you count meat pies or Vegemite on toast!) at least Australians have claimed barbequeing everything, as our own. Fits in nicely with the long summer days/nights, so I can't complain really.

First day of summer?

That's a beautiful waterfall 'Mele Cascades' from Vanuatu...I miss it!!
I am so tired... getting back in to normal life has been hectic, and not a nice adjustment!. Last week I spent time not doing much at all, shopping here and there and getting my photos in order. But somehow I was really busy and didn't have much time to sit down on the computer and update on things, also email some family overseas that I've been wanting to do for ages. Back at work this week has been even harder- maybe because of the weather. It hasn't stopped raining basically since I got back- it's been cloudy and cold and thundery basically every day. It's so dark, just like winter. Where did spring go? Today is the first day of summer so let's hope that it turns the weather a bit, as I am running out of winter clothes to wear and I just bought some funky summer stuff that I really want to start wearing!!!

It's almost Christmas and , well I am probably one of those few people in the world that hate Christmas- I like being around family and all, but since all of my family is overseas except for my parents, and xmas was always another excuse for my parents to argue whose turn it would to spend it with, then I didn't particularly enjoy it. Even now after so many years of being used to this, it's still a drama because they'd argue it through my sister and I. If I'd say, 'we're spending xmas eve with Dad' then my mum would get annoyed and say it was her turn or soemthing or something..and I can't really remember a xmas when we were all happy about it. Also, I just feel its all one big commercial thing, there's no spirit of anything except xmas shopping and crazy people. I could not care less about it , and I almost always get my xmas presents on xmas eve! Crazy I know :) But it's all the same to me, and I never really have the energy to face the xmas crowds, so I'll just do it all in one go.I enjoy getting the weird looks from people who religiously do their xmas shopping a month early or something stupid like that.

Well this year it will be a little different, since we won't see my Dad, and I'll hopefully spend some of it with my boyfriend's family as well. That's a huge thing for me as I'm so family oriented, but it will be fun to be around them as they're so happy and fun to be around. Also being far away feels really nice, to get away from it all for a little while.

Oops..this post seems a bit gloomy and sad. Well I'll post again soon with more cheery news or exciting tales..it must be the weather and lack of sleep !! One exciting thing I'm looking forward to is more broomball- we won this week and the finals are too weeks away! yeay! and some further exciting news but I'll post that later.