An Exciting Day - Photo Diary

Twelve

...is the number of days before I go back to Europe.

The summer vacation is booked, the little house at the end of the village on a remote island is reserved, the ferry rides are timed, and the excitement is growing.

I'm down to the last couple of atoms of strength, patience, communication, sleep, energy, will and what not. I really need this break.

I just hope it zens me out instead of push me over the edge.

Peace Love Unity Respect

Third summer out of four

Yupp, waiting eagerly for my summer vacation. Exciting.

It's almost been a full year that I've lived in Australia and, even though it's been exciting, it was also quite long. A lot of new things to get used to, people to get along with, tasks to commit to, responsibilities to take etc.

I'm slowly wrapping up the stuff I need sorted out; writing the final reports, preparing for the two last trips before I take off, organising stuff for when I'm away - and at the same time planning and scheduling my vacation, detailing and sorting out ferry rides, bookings and similar.

The good thing is I have a bunch of people helping me out and waiting eagerly for the summer.

Let the games begin, I say... In twenty-four days.

Let the planning begin!

My annual leave is getting closer, and it's almost a month away from now. Thirty-two days, to be exact.

I've already started planning what to do over the Croatian summer. Well, my friends have, since it's a bit harder for me to plan from so far away. Luckily, I have people around me who are equally eager, so I'm sure it'll be fun.

I still have tons to do. There are lots of small projects I need to wrap up before I go, but I also need to pre-plan some for September, when I start work again.

I'll also have to have my living room ceiling changed while I'm away, which means moving everything from the room while packing, preparing, sorting stuff out etc. It will be an interesting couple of weeks, especially since I only have a certain amount of time in between finishing work and leaving to the airport. It's plenty, of course, but the weeks before that day will be busy busy busy.

This makes it a bit easier.

Tuesday Tick-Off List

Inspired by Bitchy Dust's regular update on life and all the stuff that goes with it...

I'm grateful for:

• being here right now (God knows it took me ages, but it has obviously paid off)

• friends who start squeaking on the phone when I give them a surprise buzz

• friends who find the time in their super busy lives to email something like supr busy, ll email later, hug

• a beer on the terrace and the double episode of Friends when I get home from work

• co-workers who enjoy lying in the grass during lunch break as much as me

• crazy, unexpected, fun weekends

• beautiful weather on a crappy day

• my annual leave in five weeks (if I make it)

• random walks around the neighbourhood

• friends I didn't even know I had

• a nice cup of tea

• Soup Mondays at work

• those tiny glimpses of light in the darkest hour.

I'm not thrilled about:

• a pile of crap on a beautiful day

• self-involved people who make it even crappier

• when shit start snowballing in front of your eyes and you can only watch in shock

• no heating at the office on a cold day

• plans, ideas and opinions being pushed aside while being overrun by the snowball of shit

• short days and long nights (although I'm a night owl)

• never-ending piles of dirty dishes

• this mess in my head.

Old posts

Ran into some old posts of mine and read them.

Gosh...

Three days in the kitchen

Okay, this weekend was both lazy and busy. Lazy because I spent three days at home, lying on my couch in the dark, and going through unwatched movies from my hard drive.

Busy because I had people over on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so there was a lot of cooking, preparing and cleaning up involved. Nevertheless, it was nice and fun, even though I felt a bit tired and, for lack of a better word, bland. I don't know if it's the cold weather or the busy times at work or something else, but it was nice to have people over.

I hope they had a good time and that they didn't get food poisoning... ^^

Burrito ingredients ready! It has been brought to my attention that burrito necessarily contains meat, so I should maybe make a note that this was a vegetarian burrito. One of those endless conundrums, I guess, like cheese burek (for everyone who's familiar with it)...

After three of these, I was up for a snack...

No, this is not a human heart. It's capsicum stuffed with potato and rice, in a tomato sauce.

Puff pastry with berries and cherries. Simple and yum!

This is the worst part of the whole thing. Had to do the dishes what felt like a hundred times. Brrr! It's still better than ironing though.

A day off

I took a day off today.

It's been a while since I've done it, and my body and mind were both telling me it was about time to do it again.

I'm not one of those people who'll ditch everything they're doing just because they need a break. That hits people pretty hard, especially when the busy times are up, but sometimes you just have to go through it.

Being raised up in a somewhat controlled environment by super strict parents and living with an older brother and an older sister, I had to find my ways in doing things and sorting my stuff out. Living in a full house meant the bathroom's not free when you need it, it's not quite when you have tasks to finish etc.

Perhaps thanks to that, I'm one of those responsible people. At least I like to think so. At least I'm trying to be aware of my surroundings, especially since I work with a lot of people on a daily basis, so it's not only me.

This makes me take time off rarely, or when I really need to. And as I'm going to be flying out on three trips in four weeks, I reckoned it would be wise to take a day off sooner rather than later. I sorted everything at the office (or as much as I was able to) and chilled out all day.

I slept for must've been 14 hours, so I didn't have a big portion of the day left, but that being said, I guess I must've been very close to burning out. Especially since we drive a lot and there's a lot of responsibility on our back, it's important to be sane and rested.

Tomorrow will be hectic, as I have tons to do around the office, but at least I'll get in there with a somewhat clear mind, after having gotten some proper sleep and having eaten a cream pumpkin soup.

I still have to make the soup, so excuse me...

Edit: added the dinner photo.

 

A busy weekend

Compared to me usually being quite lazy on weekends, this one was super busy.

Went to a concert on Friday, got shitfaced and hungover, went out for a burger on Saturday, chilled out, cooked lunch and then went to a housewarming party on Sunday, went out for lunch with A today, as it's Westralia day and we didn't go to work...

Not that I didn't do any work today, but I didn't go to the office.

Plus I kind of like and cherish the peace and quite of my home, so I'll enjoy it a bit longer before I go to bed...

●

I think I might create a new blog and keep it private, just so I can express how annoyed I am and get it over with.

A friend from Kenya

Still thinking of a name

Breathe

The business and the stress and annoying people and early dusks and busy streets.

Breathe...

The field season from the 4WD

It's been busy.

It feels a tad unfair to keep saying that, but it's true. It's no excuse in itself, but it's definitely a reason. When I'm back from a field trip, or even simply tired from a long day at work, I simply have to get lost.

Lost in bad TV, in eating junk food, in playing games online. Yes, very unhealthy and unproductive – and that's the worst part. It took me long enough to start doing something actively, but even riding my bicycle has become quite hard with all the bad weather, as well as some technical issues.

Excuses, I know – but let me slide for a bit longer...

I spent most of the day yesterday lazing around and eating. Yes, eating. I had to pay my parent back, so I was down to my last 12 dollars for almost 10 days. As you can imagine, it turned out into a daily going-through-drawers-looking-for-coins ritual. But I survived.

Preparing cottage cheese with sour cream, spring onions, radishes and garlic, including fresh bread, made me think of Croatia. Well, Bosnia in fact, but you know what I mean. Being that Saturdays are usually the busiest on Skype, I used the time to talk to family and friends.

There's a lot of planning ahead: first of all, I'm going to Croatia for my annual leave in August, so there's a lot of excited people with ideas in their minds. Exciting as hell, as I'll only have three weeks and I don't even want to lose an hour I don't need to. On the other hand, it's hard to organise things from half a world away, but luckily the people are awesome, so they're coming up with options.

Secondly, my sister is going to be coming over for a visit in December/January, which will be exciting. I don't really go out as much as I'd like (and should), so it'll take some more preparing and planning to go to some nice places. That'll hopefully get me out of the house as well. She's working on booking a flight, applying for a visa etc.

Exciting times.

I also talked to my mum, who asked me if the time's running fast. It took me a couple of seconds to analyse that, after which I realised that it actually isn't. The last nine months just flew past, but the time has slowed down in a way – of course, only in my head – let's not get philosophical.


The next couple of weeks is going to be busy. I spent the last week on a very long, but fun survey. We went down to an area where I haven't previously been, so it was exciting to see emus, kangaroos, a snake (scary!), drive over sand dunes, revving through the sand etc.

The next week is going to keep me busy at the office; finishing up my report, preparing for the upcoming survey, and then reports following after that. I'll need a couple of weeks to wrap up all of that, which will make it mid July and it'll almost be time for my annual. Yay!

Oh, and I got myself a new phone – a smartphone – so I'll hopefully be able to update on the go easier. Another yay!

Here's a couple of photos from the last trip (it's very hard to choose), so take a look at what it's like (hover with your mouse to see the description text), have a nice Sunday and simply enjoy...