I can count to ten

We're off to the country tomorrow for a long weekend of eating my Mum's food, seeing some pregnant ladies, and hopefully wrestling with some dogs on Tracey's farm. It's a bit of a technology dead zone out there so I will not be posting any blogs until Monday. Don't cry! Here's a picture from the archives of childhood amazingness (in preparation for my scrapbooking adventures) to tide you over:

I got a typewriter for my 5th birthday. Is that weird? I didn't know what was inside the package and I picked it up and immediately dropped it on my knee because it was so fricking heavy. Because it was a typewriter. Given to a 5 year old. Incentally, I did love that typewriter after I got past the bruising. As you can see, it spawned the beginning of an outpouring of literary works - after "i can count to ten" there was also the classic "i love my nanna and poppa", but I don't want to peak too soon by giving too much away here.

There was also a drawing of Rainbow Brite waving an Australian flag (?!) on the other side of the page that you can see there too. MAD SKILLZ!!!

Laterz.

Yap yap yap

So I bought plane tickets to Hobart yesterday, meaning that “Dee’s Mad Bad Dash & Splash” is locked in for the first weekend of February next year. Kat, the harbinger of this challenge, has decreed that Ben is not allowed to come (sorry Ben). This is an adventure for three ladies, and three ladies alone: best friends since leaving their respective regional towns and converging in the university housing of the ‘big city’ back in 2000. In our ten years together, when was the last time we had a road trip, just the three of us? Well, frankly, never. And that’s just ridiculous.

So, we’ll be landing in Tasmania on a Friday morning, travelling to the gloriousness that is sure to be the Dee River, and following it to the wondrous Dee Lagoon. We hope. For all we know, it could be a swamp. Oh, no it’s ok, I just googled it. Apparently a lot of trout fishing goes on there. Sustainable life! High five!

I spoke to Mel on the phone last night and she was all:
“Wow, so we’re really going to Tasmania! It’s actually happening!”
“Of course it’s actually happening,” I said, “Were you not expecting it to?”
“Well… no. You know how we say we’re going to do things, and then they never happen?”
I thought about it. “No. Other people say they’re going to do things, and then they never happen. I actually do things.”

Fortunately, she had to concur this was true. But it was enough to give me steel. I pride myself on the follow through. If my own best friend wasn’t expecting this to come to fruition, does that mean that people aren’t taking me seriously? Because that would kind of explain a few things. I felt resentful. I put my ‘tough little dog’ face on and mentally yapped. I will complete 29 challenges! I WILL! Yap yap yap! Grrrr! Yap yap!

To illustrate this, here is a picture I drew of myself as a tough little dog. I also drew myself as a placid, slightly uncertain dog (above) for the fun of contrast.

Pie chart... mmmm

Because I have nothing of substance to say today, I have decided to draw you a pie chart of my challenges according to what kind of time and/or effort is required of them.


My categories are:
1) Postcard not received. Self explanatory (you slack so-and-sos).

2) One off task. A slightly misleading title, as this doesn't necessarily mean that I can just do it in one go. The bike ride is a good example of this: the task itself, being a charity ride from Sydney to Wollongong, will only take a few hours. But I still had to register, do the fundraising, do enough training that I don't collapse in a heap before I've even made it to Cooks River... you get the gist.

3) Ongoing - small tasks. This means things like the meditation, the songwriting and the make-people-laugh-ing. Small, but somehow still big.

4) Ongoing - commitment to task. This means the task involves a dedicated length of time to complete, such as joining a choir or learning to breakdance. It's not something I can just knock out in a weekend, I have to make the effort to work at this over weeks or months...

5) Requires multiple weekends. Things like walking around Sydney Harbour will take a while, but I'm not restricted to a specific time frame as I would be if I was attending classes or something. The horseriding looks like it will take 3 weekends, for example.

6) Gradual process. Like learning to drive, or learning to cook.

7) HELP! The stuff that I couldn't fit in any of those other categories and can't figure out how to achieve (So basically, the fundraising ball).


I'm glad they're spread out like this, because it has been almost a full month since I started and while I'm definitely making progress, I can't say I've actually completed any one thing yet. The small ongoings will technically never have a completion date, I just have to continue them for the whole year. The large ongoings I'll have to space out. The one offs I just need to lock in dates for, and I've just got to chip away at everything else.

End of month summary (corresponding to challenges):
#1 - Brain. Stalling.
#2 - Not sure what to do about this one.
#3 - I am crap at making strangers laugh. But I'm working on it.
#4 - I am meditating (almost) every day with increasing success.
#5 - I have completed Song 1 of my 12 months worth of songs-about-challenges (to be posted over the weekend depending on severity of my headcold)
#6 - Did some basic research on gig opportunities in Bathurst (the area that Jason now lives with his family) AND saw them for the first time in about 8 years when they happened to be passing through Sydney.
#7 - Looked into local gospel choirs. Many don't take newcomers but one looked particularly good, and said they would be recruiting for a musical later in the year. BAM! That's 2 of Ros's suggested challenges in one hit. Just waiting for the callback...
#8 - Heather's postcard actually asked to volunteer at the school, but I have asked permission to take up the second challenge, which is to sing at a hospital. I would actually love to help a kinder reading group but the fact is I have a 9 to 5 office job which may not be so supportive of me taking a few hours off every week to read to five year olds. Heather has yet to respond...
#9 - I really am going to do the Manly to Spit walk this weekend.
#10 - My first driving lesson is next Wednesday.
#11 - We have negotiated the date for Tasmania and it currently looks like the first weekend in February 2011. We want it to be hot enough to jump into the lagoon. However we're on the lookout for cheap flights and we'll go when it is opportunistic for us to do so.
#12 - I am going back to my parents' home in September and plan to raid their photo collection then. Since they live in the country and there isn't much to do there, I thought that would be a great place to start scrapbooking.
#13 - I have cooked one mostly-successful meal so far, sans recipe. I'm also cooking dinner for Carla & Jeremy next Friday, but am undecided on what will be on the menu yet.
#14 - Have nervously applied for numerous game shows.
#15 - Haven't set aside a time for horseriding, but it is on the cards.
#16 - Have both registered and hit my minimum donation target for the Sydney to Gong bike ride. Wowee zowee!
#17 - I am trying to find out exactly who was at this mysterious dinner. I've contacted a couple of people I know were there. They were surprisingly accommodating. It's so crazy it might just work.
#18 - I asked Cassie if she would join me in my breakdancing adventures. She has ignored my requests...
#19 - Purchased 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' and am a couple of chapters into it. I like John Singer. He's a good guy.
#20 - Haven't even looked into local theatre groups... may end up taking the multi-media option due to time and energy restraints.
#21 - I'm trying to negotiate a film crew so my band can make a video clip. We've already written and storyboarded the whole thing, we just need someone to make it real...
#22 - Haven't thought too much about busking, except that I may need a licence for certain cities. And that I may need to learn a few Oasis songs.
#23 - #29 are empty boxes.

Ok, well for a short post this has become exceptionally long. Still, seeing it all written out like that makes me feel a little less like a loser. F*ck the what! (a joke only Bart will understand)

Fact of the day

Most Sydneysiders probably already knew this, but I just learnt that Sydney Harbour is actually called Port Jackson. We just call it Sydney Harbour because we’re lazy, which is ironic because it has a whole extra syllable in it. How about that, eh?

As per Mel’s challenge, I am trying to grasp exactly how far it is from the North Head in Manly to Watsons Bay. It looks kind of like this:

(sorry I don't know how to make the picture bigger)

Since there is not one route that seems to go the whole length around, the best I can muster is that the whole thing is probably around 100kms, dependant on where you count Parramatta River as starting from. Mel’s original request states that I start at Watsons Bay and work my way around, but I think I might do it backwards and start from the furthest away point. As long as I resume my travels from the same place as I finished previously, it all still counts. I’ve never actually walked the Manly to Spit Bridge route and I know that it is stunning, so I’m keen to try it out. Watsons Bay is glorious as well – Ben and I spent the day after our wedding there scoffing ourselves stupid on seafood paella - so it will make a fine finish line. I’d like to find out what parts of the coastline are able to be navigated by bike, so that I can cycle as much as possible. I have already established that Manly to The Spit is not one of those parts. So! A leisurely Sunday walk will see the initiation of this particular challenge. I’m planning a ferry ride across, walk up to the North Head, walk back and have lunch, then the rest of the track round to the Bridge, bus home. Any takers?

Of course, I may just sleep all weekend instead. That seems incredibly appealing just now...

Oh and my band is playing at the Lansdowne on City Road tonight, in case anyone reads this at the last minute and is in the area. We're on at 8pm.

I'm a fish, yo!

Carla and Jez and junior (very recently discovered to be pink flavoured) have decided I should learn to cook a meal for each day of the week without using a recipe. Kitchen anxiety is something Carla and I have shared over many years, but I think we’re getting better at it. I like this challenge.

I cooked salmon and fried rice last night, which I kind of already knew how to do, so I’m not sure if that’s cheating. But I didn’t use a recipe, and Ben ate all of it, so it must have been ok. Admittedly I did have to make 2 trips to the shops after realising we didn’t have certain ingredients, and in the end still didn’t have soy sauce, but I couldn’t be bothered going back a third time. So, I can definitely get better at this.

I forgot to take a photo of it, so instead here’s a picture I drew in Paint: As tasty as it looks!
(ok, picture may not be entirely accurate. Fish was filleted and therefore did not have creepy head still attached and was certainly not speaking. And come to think of it, it was not nearly as phallic as that. Also, bed of rice looked a lot more like rice and less like kitty litter. Anyway.)

Planning to next tackle a vegetarian dish - we practice “Meat is Murder Thursday” (thank you Morrissey for the name) so as to make sure we have at least one meat-free day a week, plus we have loads of vegetarian friends so it would be nice to be able to cook for them too. To counter, there’s a lamb cutlet recipe on Masterchef I’m keen to take on. And if Heath’s challenge pans out, I’ll need to learn how to make lasagne too... but that’s another story for another time.