It never rains, but it pours. It feels like so much is going on again at the moment that the best I can offer her is lip service. But hey, i'm game! Let's see what I can list here...
1) Rob & Ange's engagement party - beautiful affair held out in Port Melbourne. Due to my inability to read invitations, totally missed the point that it was a formal affair and turned up in jeans. Ant and I ended up sneaking home, getting changed, and heading back. Was also trying to recover from a flu at the time, which meant that I spent most of the party (believe it or not) drinking skinny Cafe Latte's and a Pepsi. Ange looked gorgeous. Rob looked great, and probably was sick of me constantly asking him if I could have his shirt. I would show pictures... but I looked like a tired, sick, fat faced guy so I ain't sharing that.
2) Ant and my 2nd Anniversary - Of what?, I hear you ask. Yes, the elusive starting point of gay relationships. Ant and I consider it from the night we first met, and celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in the club we met while celebrating Michael Sakellaris' birthday at the same time. Tres romantic! The actual night, we had fish and chips and stayed at home with the kids... just what we wanted lately.
3) The return of the Margeaux - David Watson came back down from Sydney and brought the alter-ego Margeaux along with him. Let's just say that having Tapas with alcohol are a bad mix... especially when the restuarant is in St Kilda on the night of the St Kilda Vs Sydney match... and Margeaux is a massive Swans fan, singing their theme at high volume at a drop of a hat. But hey, THIS is why we love our Margeaux and would not want him any other way.
4) Matt & Colin's engagement - Another great affair, with a lot of nostaglia for me, seeing that it had so many friends from interstate down... catching up with an ex of mine Jon, and also seeing Andrew, Will and the boys from Sydney. And of course, celebrating Matt and Colin. I do really like Colin and think he is just a lovely man, and that they make a great couple; and can't wait for when they eventually relocated back to Australia.
5) ...after the engagement - One of the best nights out i've had at The Market in a long time. So many friends there. We were meant to be celebrating Dale's birthday, but he went home... so we celebrated it anyhow. I won't share what time we got home in the morning, but it was one of the more memorable and fun nights i've had in ages, with a lot of it spent on the dancefloor or just enjoying friends company.
Work - still frantic. I'm actually beginning to feel a little burned out at the moment, and feel that a short break might be good soon, just so that I can try to rest up a bit and not feel that this relentless period is taking too much of a toll. We're still having massive hours week after week, achieving more than the target for September.
Better make a move - wash 'n' walk tonight (do the laundry and do some exercise), but hope that things will become a little more even paced before too long.
Because a picture can tell a thousand words, i've decided to post a few pictures relating to the recent posts that i've made here.
Firstly, for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of the roof of my apartments the morning after the 'roof fell down'.
For those who aren't sure what kind of damage it can achieve, here is a picture of our upstair neighbour's car's after the bricks and debris fell on top of them...
And here is our home's current fashionable look... kinda smurf hut meets dominatrix accomodation...
The problem with this, of course, is that our bedroom window is just where that the bottom of the blue sheet is, and we've had many a frightening night lately where the wind has been blowing the blue sheet so hard, i've been afraid it will come down and through our window. Glass ain't that thick, y'know... and I tend to think that some of the loose ends on that sheet, with the right amount of wind assisted gusto, could just go straight through. Not a thrilling thought!
Lastly, here is the picture from the recent school reunion, although you might need to save it to your desktop and enlarge it a little. I'm at the top back left, looking rather tired and somewhat overwhelmed since this picture was taken literally minutes after walking through the door. Rein, Matt and Kirsty are also in there, in the second row.
I've been rather flu ridden lately, and even took the day off work on Friday to try to recoup. Strangely, I had Michael and the guys phone me at 7.30pm on Friday night to say they were going to the pub and asking if I cared to join them. I pointed out that I was actually sick and would probably give it a miss this time around. We are currently in the middle of the busy season - lots of birthdays, and a few engagements to add to that lately. We had Angie and Rob's engagement on Saturday, which was fun although I was still feeling rather tired and seedy from the flu. Today, i've just laid low and trying to get myself psyched for work tomorrow.
Next weekend - David is down from Sydney, which is going to be wonderful, and then we have Colin and Matt's engagement on Saturday. Dale's birthday is also this weekend, and we might even try to fit a little bump n bowl in there as well. After this weekend though, i'm going to be very pick and choose with my weekend plans, as it just can become all too much and take a toll in so many ways - physically, mentally, and financially.
Work to do, although it is 10.16pm on a Sunday night - just finished writing my reviews for Bnews this week (don't forget my review blog), and wanting to try to wrap up the Esprit shipment I currently have. In fact, have not heard from Esprit for months, so i'm guessing our little arrangement is off. But they had some funds left over and so I thought I better do the right thing and finish it off for them.
Thinking that this week is going to be rather stressful on the work front, I thought i'd take a few moments to update my blog, since this month tis the season of late nights, wild mornings, long work hours, continual promises of catching up, and the best laid plans of mice and men.
First thing I wanted to comment on was something that happened to me Friday morning. I woke up, feeling in a somewhat crabby mood, and just finding myself feeling that I was going to have a bad day. I left home, walking up to work, and letting my mind take in what I had to achieve for today. Now, i'm sure we all have these experiences where, during transit from one place to another, you catch the sight of something that just has an immediate impact and makes you really re-evaluate things. This happened to me on Friday morning.
I was walking up to Prahran Market Clinic when I noticed a man crouched over, leaning against the railing on the side of the footpath. As I moved closer, I realised that the man was quietly sobbing to himself, his arms folded across his chest as he hunched over, and beside him where two large envelopes that they send Xray scan results in. Whatever the news was that this man received, it was clearly obvious that it wasn't good.
At this point, I felt like such a dick! I spent the rest of the walk saying to myself, "I was having a bad day? Are you kidding? That man was having a bad day. I was just being lazy and making excuses for small inconveniences in my life that will, ultimately, mean little or nothing in a day, week, month, year..." I often find comparison to be such a cop out when people aim to comfort you on things (ie, "Yeah, but who isn't in debt? I have a mortage and two kids to pay for so I know what it's like to be in debt!"). It's all very well and good to compare one circumstance with another, but ultimately provides no real solution or positive outcome other than suggesting that we're all as screwed as each other. However, these sudden moments of truth, where you see how bad the world could be, and realise how absolutely tiny many of our own issues are; they're the ones that bring home the difference. Whoever that man was, I will be thinking of him for some time, and while I hope he is all right, at least his courage to react openly in public brought home to one person how much bullshit we can all really be full of.
On to a more lighter note... birthdays... so many... and engagements... two in one month! I barely go to a wedding a year! This weekend, we celebrate Michael Sakellaris' birthday in a MASSIVE way (I will be feeling it for days), while sending love to best wishes out to David "Margeaux" Watson, who celebrated his 30th in Sydney, and Jodi, who celebrated her birthday as well. Next weekend is Lyle's birthday, and so Ant and I are keen to help him celebrate in some way too. My budget is entirely out the door. I'm keeping an eye on everything at the moment, and educating myself on financial management. It's a long hard road ahead, but for someone who has never really been that good with money, I feel more clued in now than ever before. I think home life has a lot to do with that as well, content with the company of Ant and the kids and not so concerned about superficial spends. In fact, I think i've nearly lost the ability to impulse shop!
Work... ahh, what to say about it. Last week, I brought in nearly more hours in one week than the first three months of the companies history. I've had two consecutive weeks of record breaking hours for the company, and look set to redo that this week for a hat trick. I'm feeling good about work; i'm getting results and feeling successful, and feeling empowered from it too. In fact, the past few weeks have had me feeling the most happy about my work life than I have been since FMR, which, as it is abundently clear, will always be a golden age for me. I do have some frustrations, and found myself dreaming about work over the weekend, which was not great. I do find many candidates, in this high demand period, are being rather fickle and fussy about what they will and won't do, and as a result, are telling me no more than a day or HOURS before an assignment that they've "changed their minds" and don't want to do it. Or clients, who feel the need to see a CV and Efolio on a candidate before bringing them in a for a temp assignment... crazy! If they're any good, they'll be snapped up and gone by the time they've read the CV, looked at the folio and then deliberated and procrastinated over it for hours. ...And then lose out cause they're gone, and wonder why they can't find the right backup resources! Truly, this job has given me so much insight into what is the perfect candidate, client, and how businesses should ideally be run.
Time for bed. My lovely boyfriend is already asleep and looking very peaceful. He has his own work issues to contend with, but at least we have each other to give us support. For someone who spent much of their life claiming that The Twins "Not The Loving Kind" was virtually a self-anthem, it feels like it has all been a refreshing change and one that can only make me grow more and more.
So, here we ae on the 1st day of September, and I can't help wonder at both how the year is just flying by (as usual) and secondly, what a rather peculiar year it has proven to be. Honestly, I can't recall experiencing a year that has seemingly had so much crammed into it in a long time... well, not since 2003... so I guess I can recall... but still, crammed in such a different way.
Things don't seem to stop happening at the moment. Lots of extreme things. This isn't a bad thing, by any means. When things feel like they happen, it gives me more than years where things DON'T feel like things happen.
The latest is due to the recent stormy weather Melbourne has experienced, and definitely effects Andrew and Mark upstairs more that Ant and myself. In short, many of the bricks on our roof at the front of the place decided that they really didn't feel like being on the roof anymore, and promptly decided to depart... straight down onto Andrew and Mark's cars, waiting directly below. It totally destroyed the cars, shattering the fronts and pushing the engines down and back into the car bodies themselves. Fortunately, I had taken my car to work that morning or else it would've been hit too, and since I just had it returned to me, this was rather fortunate.
The insurance company instructed Andrew and Mark NOT to move the cars. The SES came out to inspect, since the roof was open and exposed, and the wind showed no signs of letting up, and promptly told the guys that if they could not move the cars, they couldn't do anything. The insurance company was called again, and finally gave in, saying that if they could take photos, they could move the cars. By the time this happened, the rain had started to pelt down and the SES said that there was nothing they could do and wished the guys luck. They brought some of their belongings downstairs, as the chances of the roof just lifting off seemed fairly high, and I was terrified that additional tiles would come smashing down through our bedroom window (also directly below) - or worse, that the kids would get out! In the end, nothing more happened. However, there is now a giant blue sheet covering one half of the house, including our bedroom window, so I hope I don't wake up in the morning and sleep in because I cannot see any natural sunlight coming through. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a likelihood.
Thank you to everyone who has shown concern over Ant. After some mix ups, he has a specialist appointment this coming Tuesday and so we hope to find out more then. He has been feeling better and, although exhausted from work, in good spirits.
Speaking of work, we have been going through a MASSIVE period lately. And if the truth be known, although I am tired, exhausted and sometimes overwhelmed, I am rather enjoying it. I love results. I love seeing things go the right way. I love a happy boss and a productive team. And I feel more back on track with work than I have since the whole FMR deal, which left me rather shattered and down. Since taking over the temp desk solely on my own, i've brought in two consecutive weeks of the highest freelance hours in the companies history - an achievement i'm feeling rather proud of myself for and feeling justifies the black bags under my eyes. Still, there is a lot of work to do and, if the pattern follows as it usually does historically, it won't let up.
Of course, all this just in time for the massive birthday season. And to add to this, engagements galore lately too. Firstly, many happy returns to my gorgeous friend Michael Sakellaris, who had his birthday yesterday, and who we'll celebrate on the weekend. But then, this weekend also sees the wonderful Margeaux and Jodi celebrate their 30th birthdays (and they both look so young!), and then shortly after that will be Lyle's. It's just one big party season, so lets see how I shape up in about a month, shall we... wonder how much of me will be left?
I've been in party retro mode lately. Since MMM have had their 80's mix tape promotion on, i've pulled out many of my old favourite 80's compilations and started converting them to CD and taking them to work. The first one I did was my absolute favourite - 'Throbbin' 84'. What a compilation! Cyndi Lauper, The Cure, Lionel Richie, Mi-Sex, The Romantics, Quiet Riot, Matthew Wilder, Marilyn, Elton John, Van Halen, Bette Midler, Big Country, INXS, Paul Young, Mondo Rock and Michael Jackson all on one compilation... they don't make them like that anymore!
