When I grow up...

It's Boxing Day. I'm eating some chocolate (one of many chocolate related presents I recieved). It's hot. I've just read Rosy's blog about Christmas, and it's prompted me to write what I was going to write last night but decided against at the last minute.

Wait, let me unwrap a lovely little chocolate first. Ooooo there're chupa chups in this little gift bag too. I love my Mum's best friend...she's such a doll. Ok mmmm minitaire mars bar. Now I can get started. I wrote this in my journal late last night, again whilst trying to keep cool and letting all my Christmas lunch go down. It probably will sound pretty gay because it's all dreams and hopes and things that will probably never happen. But hey that's what these things are for right? You can laugh, I won't care. At least you'll understand Rosy! I was just all frustrated at the state of Christmas with the family. And so this diary entry was born...

Christmas Day '06

When I'm older and don't live at home anymore and then when I have a family of my own, Christmas is going to be sooooo different. It's going to be good. Enjoyable. Fun. Never ending. It's going to be something to look forward to rather than something to dread.

Because with my family right now Christmas is always celebrated with my Nanna and my Aunty and occasionally my Grandad. And it's because we have to. It's never really fun. Like sure, it's Christmas and I love that (everyone knows what a Christmas nut I am) but I wish I could spend it with people I really really enjoy being with. People like my best friends.

So, when I have a family of my own, Christmas is going to be celebrated with best friends and all their kids, the house is going to be packed -- and not just on Christmas Day, but also Christmas Eve and the whole week surrounding the big day. The house will be full of food and laughter. There will be lots of space and everyone will walk around in their bathers and thongs and be all sun tanned and glowing from spending already days in the sunshine by the pool. We'll barbecue everyday and every night, eat seafood and sit outside at dusk and the mosquitoes will bite our ankles.

The kids will chase each other and swim all day long. At night we'll play Christmas carols, even after Christmas Day is over and they'll be all my old Aussie favourites like Paul Kelly and Farnsey and Jimmy Barnes. And we'll drink as we chat together, laughing and enjoying each others company while the kids all fall asleep in front of the telly or on the loungeroom floor playing the new boardgames Santa bought them. A mess of Cheezels wil be all over the floor around them.

The house will be double storied (or more if I'm lucky! hehe) with lots of balcomies with french doors open to let the house be airy and summer smelling. Big decks of pine by the pool and by the back door. Every bedroom will be full with mattresses on the floor for all our extra guests. The house will just be bursting at the seams - but the more the merrier I say.

Everyone will roam free during the day and it will be all relaxed and free and fun and there'll be no tension between anybody and it'll be nothing like what I've grown up with. Maybe we won't even have family around at Christmas. Just friends. Friends that will have become like family for all the great times we spend together, but not take on that annoyingness you can't escape about blood relatives. This of course means that I'll probably have to take up residence at my beachside place at Noosa or anywhere stylish and gorgeous in Sydney...rather than here in Perth. But whatever.

On New Years Eve we'll hop onto my boat on the harbour early in the morning and drink and talk and sunbake and laugh all day long and then toast each other at midnight as the fireworks explode over our heads and fall like rain off the Harbour Bridge.

Paradise. One day I'll have all of this. I will I will I will. You just wait.




Wanna join me Rosy? :)

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Just reading this poem/song every Christmas is one of my favourite things, and since I didn't get to do it last year, I am doing it this year :o) MERRY CHRISTMAS!

'Twas the night before Christmas
when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there
The children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter
Away to the window I flew like a flash
tore open the shutters and threw up the sash
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave the lustre of midday to objects below
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer
With a little old driver, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof
As I drew in my hand, and was turning around, down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack
His eyes -- how they twinkled!
His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath
He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk
And laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

YEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

Got my exam results today! And omg, I actually passed all my subjects! Never thought that'd happen! (Seriously...I got 52% for my major youth issues essay...and the exam was shocking)

Youth Issues - Credit
Biographical and Autobiographical Writing - Credit
Writing and Editing - Credit
Print Journalism - DISTINCTION!!

Carols By Candlelight

Even though it seems all I am using this blog for lately is to advertise other stuff and other sites, I'm gonna do exactly that again. Sorry guys. I promise a new warm and fuzzy Christmas blog later in the week...I promise!

Perth friends...

I reckon you should all come to the IGA Carols By Candlelight this Sunday night, December 17, on Langley Park. I will be volunteering there, and it's really a top night, and the money is going to an AMAZING charity and and and....WHERE'S YOUR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT!

Fact of the day: Carols By Candlelight began here in Oz, when a Melbourne late night radio announcer was walking home after his shift one Christmas Eve and looked up to see an elderly woman sitting by the window of her flat, holding a candle and singing along to the Christmas carols playing on her radio. The next year this radio announcer began the first Carols By Candlelight in Melbourne.

YouTube is my new best friend

I have been burning up the airwaves in the last few days because I have rediscovered yet again all the great vids on youtube. Ahhh I love montages and fluff pieces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODeM9xvVLDQ

Check out precious little Dominique Moceanu falling on her head on beam at about the 1:30 mark, and Kerri Strug having the scariest fall ever from bars at 3:58.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWEgnEmLmOE

Still love her :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEp18Mtxfsg

Amy and Jonesy. Best team....yewwwwwwwwww

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OCcxrtS4ZI

PJ and Amy...even better team. Yewwww :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxojWc13f4I

Awweee little tiny Zamo and all the bitchy Russians in Sydney. I love it! (Oh and Elena Produnova's ugly eyebrow at the 1:37 mark - don't like that)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXo23UniVmc

Amy and PJ again...can't get enough. They are too cute. This montage is very much a 'PJ the Hero' montage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC5ABtyjZcY

The travesty of the womens gymnastics in Sydney

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUIlf-TXuY

And another cool one from Sydney and Athens


Sorry to bombard you. I am just in love with youtube right now. But they're all great vids, and so anyone who reads this - watch them if you've got nothing else to do. They're worth it.