The Holiday

Two more sleeps. Have I packed? Lordy, no. I have written helpful lists for my mother (who is here to look after Kid 1 and Kid 2, although they are largely self-propelling). I have not finished work. I have not even made plans for what to do while in NYC, although some things are completely obvious.
The only thing I have decided to pack is my DKNY Cozy, because it strikes me as an ideal flying companion - blankie and cardigan-type-arrangement all in one.

It's Halloween tomorrow night, and the kids would kill me if I didn't decorate the house, carve the pumpkins, dress up and hand out treats. It's not ideal when we have to be at the airport by 8am the next day, but there you go ...

Saturday Night Fever

We went to a party. AGAIN. We are such gadflies. I wore my maxi skirt with this top. Obviously this is not me, and equally obviously I was not wearing a hat like this (although I may need to consider one in NY).

Yesterday we had people over for lunch. AGAIN.

One of them is a vegetarian, so I had to cook accordingly. Here's the menu:

Taramasalata & olives & Greek bread (from the Fish Markets) for nibbles.
Chilled cucumber and yoghurt soup that I ended up not serving as the weather was too miserable for summery food.
Greek spinach and feta brown rice with roasted tomatoes.
Swordfish and prawns marinated with oregano, garlic, olive oil and lemon zest then pan-fried (too wet outside for barbecue).
Baklava for dessert.

Apart from someone's child affixing silly putty to one of our armchairs (no, it doesn't come off), it was an enjoyable afternoon.

The Demon Barber

Kid 1 shaved for the first time today. This makes me feel unspeakably old and sad. He does still sit on my lap from time to time (mostly to annoy me, of course), and hug me when the mood takes him, but he's not my baby anymore. And of course I don't wish an endless infancy on him, but ...

The Hobbit

Yesterday was chaotic. [Later: Today has been worse.] I was hoping that I could squeeze in a little time to look at the shops, maybe buy a scarf or some nail polish. Actually, I wanted to buy THIS nailpolish (one, two, maybe all three).

But I ran short of time - what with work and all that nonsense - and when the lovely Chanel man in DJs told me that I'd only be able to get it in the 'Chanel Makeup Studio' in the Other Department Store, it was too late to dash back.

I did manage to buy a little netbook, just so that I can video call the kids when we're in New York. It's totally justifiable from a work perspective ...

Spouse and I had a discussion about whether we should buy an iPad instead. Sadly, we concluded that although it is sexy and pretty, it wasn't really the most functional option. I hate it when function triumphs over form - I want BOTH.

On a completely different note, ages ago TNMA posted pics that made me want a maxi skirt. Then she also suggested that even short people like me can wear them. I got one (black jersey). I love it. I'm worried I might look a little like one of those Olsen Hobbits, so I haven't tested the look outside the house yet ... And speaking of the Olsen Hobbits, I LOVE The Row. I can't believe they're 24. I also can't believe how much the clothes cost. Oh well.

Bright Lights, Big City

Planning for the escape to NYC is proceeding apace. Actually, no, it's not. We're both so flat-out with work - and Kid 1 is studying for exams - that we've done barely a thing. We do have tix to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on November 5. And November 7 is the big run. Spouse says I should do the 4km international friends and family run on November 6. I haven't decided yet. Oh, and I have a yoga class with Martha Stewart's niece (long story ...) at Brooklyn on November 2. So a few things to do. I want to go and see a show on Broadway, but I haven't yet decided which one.

I plan to do some shopping while there, but even if I go with a virtually empty suitcase, I will need something to wear while doing said shopping. This has been worrying me rather. In fact, I had a ridiculous dream the other night that I was in NYC, minus anything to wear even to get out the door (except I had managed to pack my mustard yellow suede heels, well known as practical shopping shoes). Spouse gave me all kinds of Freudian interpretations which didn't help much.

The unfailingly stylish and lovely Pseu kindly said she'd do me a Polyvore for the trip if I sent her a list of possibilities, but what she didn't realise is that I have so few options that I could quite easily fit my entire wardrobe into a small suitcase (not including shoes and a couple of coats ...).

Today I am heading into the city (yes, a whole 10 minutes away) to work in-house for a client. This is usually my opportunity to shop, but since Sydney's going into summer (albeit slowly) and I'm going into a NY autumn (much colder than our winters) there's not much point buying anything.

Except, perhaps, some lippy or nailpolish ...

Saturday Night Fever

As promised, I actually cooked. We had herbed salmon en croute, using a tweaked version of  Maggie Beer's sour cream pastry recipe (250g plain flour, 150g butter, 1/2 cup sour cream). I love pastry ...

I made creme caramel for dessert. It set perfectly, and looked exactly right, but I just wasn't that happy with it. I'm pondering whether to try again some time or just stick to my beloved creme brulee.

I think breakfast was actually more successful than dinner - after Spouse got back from early morning run, before Kid 1 went off to sailing, I fried up some mashed potatoes (yes, getting through those spuds) with chives and parsley and served it with a fried egg on top. The menfolk were happy.

Although it is Sunday, today is a work day. I'd much rather be gardening ...

Up

Yesterday I was supposed to turn 30 kilos of potatoes into potato salad for an outdoor movie night at Kid 2's school. The forecast was dire, and we made the call at 10am to postpone. I found homes for all the potatoes (guess what we'll be eating for a while?) ... and of course the damn sun came out in the afternoon. But the wind was crazy, so that would have been a bit disastrous.

So instead of churning out potato salad, I worked, which was probably a good thing. With our dollar almost at parity with the greenback, I see some shopping in NYC in my future.

After a day schlepping spuds and editing a book on criminal law (who knew I was so multi-talented?) I decided I needed to do some yoga. And ... tada ... I kicked up into handstand for the first time in my whole life! Ok, yeah, I know this means nothing to most people, but it is a HUGE deal to me. 1. I hate being upside down. 2. I have hypermobile elbow joints that make standing on my hands seem both illogical and dangerous. 3. I am completely uncoordinated.

I do apologise to all three (or was it two?) of my readers for the yoga-ness of this blog at the moment. I promise to cook and buy clothes and do other things as well, at some point. In fact, I am planning to cook something interesting for dinner tonight, given that it is the first 'regular' Saturday night at home for a while (although we will be missing Kid 2, at a sleepover ...).

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

My yoga teacher went on holiday for two weeks. Very very unkind of her. I had to subsist on home practice. And then she came back and tortured me. She made me do this pose.

Pic from http://www.yogaartandscience.com/: Supta padangusthasana III

This guy is clearly some super-yoga dude, and even HE looks uncomfortable. Maybe that's why it's the only picture of this pose I could find.

I suggested my teacher might like to head off on holiday again soon.

But ... I also managed to do this pose Off The Wall (for about 5 seconds, it's true, but STILL).

Pic from http://www.sarawhitney.net/

Of course, I didn't look anything like that. I probably looked like some crazy flailing thing. But progress is exciting.

Saturday Night Fever

I had an interesting experience on Friday. A friend dropped by late afternoon, and was trying to work out how to get back to her place to drop off her son and get changed, in order to get back closer to town for work drinks by a certain time.

I suggested she leave her son with us overnight (he is Kid 1's best friend, after all) and go from our place. 'But look at my hair. And my clothes. And my FACE', she said.

'Use my makeup and borrow my clothes', I said.

So she did. Strangely, rummaging through my tiny wardrobe for someone else was much more fun that trying to work out what to wear myself. And when she was ready I thought 'wow, I like that outfit'. It's certainly a new way to look at one's clothes.

Last night the boys went to watch Australia vs Paraguay (soccer) so Kid 2 and I had a girls' night in. We watched telly and I enjoyed NOT cooking.

I sort of made up for it today. We had friends over for lunch, so I made a Spanish tortilla, snapper ceviche and a salad of roasted sweet potatoes with chorizo and chargrilled asparagus with a green chilli dressing. Dessert was crema Catalan, which is pretty much the same as creme brulee except the milk & cream are infused with lemon & orange zest and cinnamon instead of vanilla. I thought we'd killed it because I put it in the oven in the bain marie as we went out to drop the boys off last night - but instead of 30 minutes, the round trip took closer to an hour. But it was fine ...

And tomorrow both kids are back to school. Sigh.

Eat, Pray, Love

Yes, I have to admit, I did read it, a while back. As I expected, it was self-indulgent. It was also patronising towards the Indians (those few she actually had to be exposed to in the ashram) and the Balinese, although Gilbert probably didn't mean it that way.



(pic: our last holiday in Bali)

And her writing style did start to wear me down - enough bubbling, really. Did I mention self-indulgent? Good Lord, the woman needs a real problem. I shouldn't be too harsh - Gilbert does seem to be aware, albeit in flashes, of this fact ... but it doesn't stop her.

So I probably won't see the movie. I do love Julia Roberts - she seems to be illuminated from the inside, I think they call it 'star presence'? - but not enough to pay to watch her in this.

But I was thinking about it this morning, the three-word mantra. I've decided on one for myself. Stretch, pray, write - this translates to yoga, meditation and work. It's my recipe for a calm, productive day. Of course I like to eat too, but I don't really need any help with that aspect of my life. Actually, I could come up with a whole collection of these mantras to fit the day: a pleasant, relaxing day might be 'stretch, pray, cook', or 'stretch, pray, dig'. A typical, as opposed to ideal, work day could be summed up as 'wake, groan, write'.

On that note, time to get back to work ...

Running on Empty

I have a brief blogging hiatus and they change Blogger on me?! I used to link all my post titles to relevant movie reviews, but I don't seem to be able to do that any more. Progress, pah ... am I becoming a Luddite?

That's not what this post is about. Neither is it about the idiotic busy-ness of my life at the moment, although I could probably go on about that for ever. It's about something else altogether more worthy.

As I've mentioned a few times, we're off to New York in four weeks' time. Andrew is running the marathon and has decided to use it as a fundraising opportunity, which I think is rather good of him. Little Miss Sunshine was born 14 weeks premature, and spent a long time in hospital, so he's trying to use his run to raise a few dollars for the hospital she was in.

My feelings towards the hospital are a little more ambivalent than his, but I'm eternally grateful for our healthcare system - in the US, we would have been bankrupted by the care she required; in many other countries, she simply would not have made it.

Saturday Night Fever

It's spring here, and everything seems to have gone into overdrive as a result. More work, more clients, more sport, more chaos. And more rain. We've been trying to get up to our favourite camping spot for Phoebe's September birthday for years, and something always goes wrong.

This year, we had to change the booking to a different weekend, then half her friends couldn't come, so we threw her a surprise party last Sunday afternoon. I only decided to do this on Wednesday, and trying to organise it with Phoebe home on school holidays and a stack of work deadlines was, um, challenging. But it happened and she pretended to be surprised (we think she'd worked it out).

Undaunted by one party, we persisted with the camping plan. We were supposed to drive up Friday afternoon, but we'd had people for dinner Wednesday and Thursday, plus I had an urgent job come in at 9pm Thursday, so we postponed to Saturday morning.

We drove up to Palm Beach. It rained. We looked at the rain. We ate egg and bacon rolls and watched miserable people getting off the ferry. We turned around, drove home and pitched the tent in the backyard. Then, in a break in the weather, we went down with all the kids to the tiny beach in our nearby park and everyone (especially the dogs) got soaked and had a great time. The girls camped in the backyard overnight without mishap (it poured) and we finally packed them up and sent them home about ten on Sunday morning.

Thank goodness she only has one birthday a year.