Northey Street Organic Markets and other happenings....

A couple of weeks ago we ventured to a Sunday market we'd heard people talk about. It's one of those start really early in the morning ones so we hadn't been organised enough previously, despite out best intentions. But finally we got ourselves up and out and made it there before 8am.

WELL... I am in love with it. I've seen a few produce markets in my time but this one has the most lovely energy about it. I can't put my finger on what it is. It's just got a vibe. It's relaxed and friendly and quite big so there's a great range of products available. I kicked myself for not taking my proper camera so I've stolen this pic from the web...


I stocked up on organic fruit and vegies, bought a book for the princess, painted her in mud, had an organic fairtrade coffee and eventually wandered home again. oooh and I also got a lovely purple teapot and cups for my Buddha Tears tea, which I highly recommend if you haven't tried it already. :)

I did manage to snap a couple of quick pics with my iPhone.


We will definitely be going back there again. In fact after watching Food Inc. The Movie I am even more determined than I was to shop locally and buy organic! Besides, how much more relaxing is it to hang out and drink coffee and shop at your leisure on a casual Sunday morning than trying to fit it into a busy week?! :)

Having said that, Northey Street Markets are off the agenda for the next few weeks as I frantically scramble to get my thesis submitted on October 5th. EEEEKK!!!

Mav took the Princess to my parents' place on the weekend to give me the whole weekend to work on it, which was great AND he's going to do the same this coming weekend. I have a feeling I'm going to need every weekend between now and Oct 5th to get this thing done. There are four of them. Weekends that is. I've counted.

So if there is not too much blogging happening, you'll know it's because I'm buried under a pile of mindfulness papers but I will resurface in the near future.

Rugs A Million

So I've gone a bit crazy with the rug shopping. But there's nothing like a shaggy rug to brighten up a place, right?

The place is really feeling like home now. Mav built the coolest storage shed under the carport (more photos of that later) so we were able to move all the clutter out of the house and finally get tidied up and organised. We love this place.

Here are the rugs I've collected so far. I already showed you the green one in the lounge room, right? Here it is again, just so I can remind you of our amazing outlook. Who would know we were 6km from the city?!

This one was on sale at Ikea so I got it for my little study corner so it can double as my meditation space. Made good use of all the red cushions I turfed out of the lounge room!




We decided that we needed another green shaggy one for the bedroom so while we were at Ikea we got the same-same as the lounge-room.


But my absolute favourite is this fuschia one. The second I saw it I knew I had to have it. We've put it in the upstairs landing area, which is a funny kind of space that can't be used for much but totally needed a fuschia rug.

View from top of stairs..


And from our bedroom facing out to the balcony...

How good is that rug? Eh? It's FAB isn't it?!!

I still need another rug for the 3rd bedroom and maybe one for the front entry to the house. Mav reckons it's ok - we'll just take out a 2nd mortgage to fund my rug fetish. Money well spent, I say.

Had a placement, didn't have a placement...

So my placement got cancelled because it came to light that I don't have any of the required paperwork in Queensland. Up here, students have always needed to be provisionally registered to do clinical placements but not so in SA (though that has changed now because psychology will now have National Registration).

Anyway, I also need a blue card to work with kids and a Hep B vax (or immunity) to work in the health department.

All the waiting times were too uncertain so my placement got given to another student... and meanwhile I got going with organising all the paperwork.

Just when I was counting my blessings that the placement got cancelled because otherwise how would I ever get my thesis written up in time????......... they gave me another placement!! ARGH!!

So my only little window to get this stupid thesis done is the next two weeks before I start having to go to planning meetings etc etc.. and then however long it takes for my paperwork to come through. Because I can't actually start until I get that provisional registration.

If it takes 3-4 weeks I won't be complaining. I'm having little palpitations at the thought of how I will manage to do it all. My Literature Review AND my thesis are both due in... SEVEN WEEKS?! *faints*

In other news, Annabelle started at her new daycare. Not the one we went to look at because it turns out that she was as dissatisfied with that one as I was. So, long story short, we looked at a couple of others and picked a different one that was a bit more friendly. They call it "Pre-school" but really it's childcare with a pre-prep program. She kind of loves it but she is also very, very shy and nervous about being the new kid after having ruled the roost for so long in Adelaide. She has had a little cry most days she's been there. :( I hope she settles in quickly because it breaks my heart seeing that look of quiet panic on her face as I leave her in the mornings.

And of course the shop is back up and running. I was having some pretty major palpitations about that too, since it all came to a grinding halt while I was moving and then I had to outlay a heap of cash on more stock. I was actually awake at 3am wondering what the hell I was doing. But since sending out my last newsletter, sales have picked up again and I'm feeling a lot more confident that it might not send us completely broke. In fact.. I'm off to order more stock and run up some more debt. Hey... gotta spend money to make money. Right?

Got a house, got a placement

So we took the house with the big deck and LOVE it. I've moved into "green" mode and I don't mean I'm composting. I mean I'm loving the colour green. I've got rid of all my reds and oranges from the other house and bought a new shaggy green rug for the lounge, some green (and blue and purple and brown) cushions, a new green saucepan set and hung my new green painting on the wall. This house has such a green feel to it and I'm running with it.

Pictures....

Look - even green tea towels. :)

I raced out and bought this painting in Adelaide right before the packers arrived. I had no idea where we would be living but wanted to be among the trees so I figured this picture would work well. And it does! See how I did a little park bench underneath it? I should totally give away this psychology bizzo and be an interior decorator.


Loving the inside/outside flow happening here. Shame I can't get the really really high A-frame windows in the picture. They're fab.

Feral child in pink mucking up my colour co-ordination.


When we invited people over for a drink we realised we would need a new outdoor setting. So Mel went to Bunnings for the sixth time this weekend and got this one. It's going to get a workout.

And the view from the deck off the main bedroom. This is even higher than the really high back deck. It's waaayyy up in the trees.




And in other news YIPPEE, I got a placement. I'm glad we took this house because the placement is 5km up the road! Getting a placement sadly means I had to ditch the UQ Kindy (boohoo) because I can't manage with only two days a week and that's all they had available. :( I found a satisfactory alternative (not fabulous - your standard daycare centre) about halfway between the new house and the new placement. I'm not kidding, it's all basically off the same main road. I'm putting her in for 4 days because OMFG my thesis is due in like... 10 weeks. EEEK!!! *faints* So from next week it's all systems go.

That's all for now. I have to get the shop running again so I can pay for all that new green stuff.

Transitions

Have you heard of William Bridges' Transitions Model? Basically any change that happens compromises of three phases - Ending, The Neutral Zone, New Beginning. Sounds simple but what it means is that even thoughchange can happen overnight, i.e. you can move from one house to the next, change jobs, separate from a partner etc, the psychological aspect of change takes longer. This is where the three phases of transition come in.

The neutral zone is the hard part. It's where the old thing isn't relevant or existent anymore but the new beginning hasn't taken shape yet. So you kind of hang around in this strange limbo for a while feeling like nothing really fits or sticks. It can be easy to grab onto anything just to feel like you have a direction again but that can be a danger. You have to go through the whole uncomfortable nothing-ness of the neutral zone before you are ready to start again.

So I think we're just beginning to head into the neutral zone. We're going through the motions of finding a house, enrolling Annabelle at kindy, enrolling me at uni... but it all feels like I'm organising someone else's life because I haven't really got into the swing of anything yet.

So on the subject of HOUSE, we had decided to look out in the western suburbs for easy access to both UQ (since all three of us will be attending there on some or all days of the week) and my parents in Toowoomba. Mel found a great house at Jamboree Heights and it's all been approved but it isn't available until mid-August and I really feel like I want to be in our own place sooner rather than later. Staying with friends when you have a small child is quite an imposition and 3 weeks is too long to impose. I also want to unpack all my stuff and get my shop going again. So that, combined with the fact that I think the location is just a bit too far out for my liking means that I decided to spend a couple of days looking for something a bit closer before signing on the dotted line for Jamboree Heights.

I've found a huge HUGE house at Chapel Hill for a good price. Huge being four bedrooms plus rumpus plus extra storage room, 2 bathrooms, 3 toilets, double lock up garage. It's massive. Its downside is that it's quite "original" (brown and yellow feature strongly in the decor) but that's ok. The thing that mainly puts me off it is that I've never lived out there and don't know the area at all. I'd get to know it of course, so it's still an option. We are deciding whether to put in an application today.

The other one I've found is not so big but is a reburbished place in Alderley about six streets away from good friends of ours (the ones we will be staying with). It's handy to transport and shops and we know the area a lot better. It's just had an enormous deck put on it so even though the house is small it has a good outdoor area. Its downside is that it has zero storage space. No lock up garage, no shed. And only 3 bedrooms so nowhere for our camping stuff, bikes, Annabelle's old baby stuff (that I'll need for the next baby when the time comes) etc. But we think if we get a garden shed from Bunnings we can overcome that.

Our heart is with the Alderley one. Here it is:




We have put in an application on that one so we'll see how that goes. Both of them are available now so we could get our furniture brought up next week instead of waiting three more weeks.

In other news, we took a City Cat ride to the uni yesterday and took Annabelle to see her new kindy. She will go 2 days a week to Campus Kindy. It's a proper C&K kindy program but with long daycare hours (bonus) and it's next to Mel's building so very handy, especially since I'll be doing some study at UQ too. She absolutely LOVED it. Even though we were just popping in to introduce ourselves, she wanted to stay. Bless! The teachers are all 4-year trained and the centre is all based on the Reggio Emilia philosophy. I just wish she could have started at this place earlier and got a full year there before going to prep next year. Her old daycare was great but much more academic in its focus whereas I really love the 'engagement and empowerment' approach to learning that this centre focuses on.

So she will start next week and I start uni the following week. Still no placement for me but I have a subject to do and my thesis to write up so I'll be busy enough. Not to mention re-opening my shop which was going great guns before I had to close it. In many ways, doing my final placement over Christmas after I hand in my thesis would make life much easier.

But now I'm rambling. I should blog more often so I don't have so much catching up to do. :)

We are off to hand in kindy enrolment forms today then some girly shopping in the mall. Hopefully we will hear about a house and arrange for our stuff to arrive next week. And then I can start getting on with those new beginnings and get out of the yucky neutral zone, thank you William Bridges.

So had I decided to stay in Adelaide to finish my degree...

Adelaide Uni wouldn't have had a placement for me next semester.

I'm not even kidding.

They were short of placements and had to rationalise so I got *ahem* let's just say prioritised to the bottom of the list. Can you honestly believe that? I honestly CANNOT! So they have most certainly got a placement for me in October which is very helpful.. not!!!

I'm taking it as a sign that I was absolutely supposed to go to Queensland in July, which of course I am doing. You know what though? They didn't even call to tell me. I had to call them to ask what was happening. Had I not already been making plans to move to Qld, what the fuck would I have done and when would they have told me? It does not even bear thinking about.

SO.... 3 more days of placement, 2 more weekends and then HELLO packers. I'm so BLOODY excited.

And the wheels crank into motion again....

ok so now I remember writing that post below.

UPDATE:

Head Honcho at U of Q is back. I updated him on my progress which has slowed somewhat in the past 2 weeks that he has been away. All his troops have snapped to attention it seems and things are happening again. Short version is that there is an option on offer from UQ but it requires Adelaide to pay some cash to UQ for their services.

Waiting to see if Adelaide agrees which they won't. But even if they don't, we have offered to pay UQ for their services out of our own pockets. So surely... SURELY... it has to work.

Getting removalist quotes in the meantime because if we are going (and I think we are going) it will happen in .... wait for it..... FOUR WEEKS! :-0

I'm so bloody excited.

Guess who has finished Semester One of 2nd year?

Yippee!!!!! I attended my last lecture on Friday. I have about 4-5 weeks to go on this current placement and then I'm off to sunny Mooloolaba for 5 days of R&R with husband and child. I can't wait. :)

I am a little bit amazed at how quickly the first half of this year has gone. Even if things don't pan out and we can't go to Qld in July (more on that later), I feel reassured that the 2nd half of the year is going to fly by just as quickly. How bloody exciting to be almost finished my Masters! :-D

The waiting is torture

Things have settled down here somewhat and it was lovely to have husband home for the weekend. Even lovelier that he got a taste of the less-than-lovely Miss Annabelle. Such a contrast to what she's normally like, so at least he knows now that I'm not actually making it up. She's definitely not her usual laid-back, easy-going self these days... though right now she's playing happily in the bath on her own so she's not ALL devil-child.

But I've got it in my head now that we'll go to Qld in July. That's it. Decided. And I would like all the necessary approvals and paperwork to be done... errrr... yesterday if you don't mind. Patience is not my strong point at the best of times and right now time is of the essence. So of course the head honcho at the U of Q is overseas for 2 weeks and our program coordinator here at U of A was not available today. Things are not progressing at the lightning speed that I would prefer.

The only thing to do is to use this as a practice in mindfulness.



Just this breath in....

I got a feelin'...

.. as the Black Eyed Peas would say. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen the clip below.. do yourself a favour. But before you get side-tracked with that, how's this?

I keep doing my cards and I keep getting the Tower. For those of you who don't know, the Tower means everything being turned totally on its head. Sudden, unexpected change of the hugely chaotic kind. BIG change. Sometimes catastrophic, sometimes not. But either way, not something you'd expect.
I also get a lot of moving cards (fairly self-explanatory given the upcoming move to Qld) and a lot of happy cards. So my interpretation of all this was that while I'm coasting along thinking that I'm going to stay in Adelaide until the end of the year given that all my investigations into moving up earlier have come to a big fat NOTHING, what's the bet something sudden and out-of-the-blue is going to happen which means we can go earlier? I think I might have even said to my friend Carley that I reckon I'll get an offer in June and have to be gone by July. That would be the Tower.

Fast-forward to now and I had a bit of a melt-down this week. Annabelle has turned into some rampant feral child who I feel like I don't even know and I've turned into an angry, intolerant mother who I feel like I don't even know. I called husband and told him that this is not going to work and I'm pulling the pin on uni and will finish it in Qld next year (ok, possibly a slight over-reaction on my part and may or may not have been influenced by hormonal instability but never mind that).

So Mav being Mav and all firing off emails and punching out letters got straight onto the head of program at UQ, introduced himself as a new member of staff and asked for help with our relocation.

WELL... are they rolling out the red carpet or WHAT?! They could not be more helpful if they flew a private jet down to collect me.

So there will be some logistical nightmares to sort out and all of this still depends on Adelaide Uni approving my final subject up there, but it is looking very promising indeed. Did I mention that the only week I would have to move interstate (pack up, move house, settle child into a new kindy, settle me into a new uni, find a new house, not to mention move the whole shop that I've worked so hard to set up here... ET CETERA!) is the very same week that I have booked a non-refundable holiday at the Sunshine Coast? That is the Tower.

Fingers crossed it all works out. Then I'll be getting these ones...



And now you can watch the Black Eyed Peas.

I'm over it now

When Mav first moved to sunny Qld I figured it would be no big deal since he travels so much anyway.

I was wrong. It is completely different.

He comes home for the weekend about every three weeks. That's two brief days home and then three long weeks in between that he doesn't get to see Annabelle or me and that I have to do it all on my own. He's practically missing a year of her life.

I have to admit it's ok when I need to do my uni stuff because it's easier when there's not someone else around trying to talk to me or watch TV or generally be distracting. I can be super focused when he's not here.

But the downside is that I have to do all the parenting on my own. All the drop offs and pick ups, all the baths and getting dressed, all the bedtimes and just the general answering all the constant "Why's" and responding to all the whining and the complaining and the arguing with every little thing I say (which seems to be a delightful four-year-old thing). All the setting up the paints and getting more water and taking the kitchen outside then bringing it inside and photocopying the colouring paper and getting out the play-dough and getting a drink of water, no cordial, no water, no not in that cup in this cup please, and making a sandwich, and negotiating whether she can have a marshmallow, and tying ponytails, no not one but two ponies, one up one down please and of course the never-ending picking up of mess that gets strewn from one end of the house to the other.

And of course she got nits this week. De-lousing, combing, checking for eggs morning and night and needing the negotiating skills of the UN to get her to let me do it because she hates having her hair wet.

And all the washing and folding. And putting the bins out and bringing them back in. Those are the things that Mav does and it usually annoys me that he is obsessed with washing because he normally just washes, hangs out, brings in and leaves me huge mounds of clean clothes to deal with when I was quite happy leaving them in the hamper with a lid on so I didn't have to deal with them. But now I'm so sick of washing I can't even begin to tell you. All I do is wash. And I don't know how many times I've almost forgotten the bins because usually I never have to do it.

So yeah.. I'm over it. I'm getting snappy and irritable and I seem to have a permanent head-cold just from being run-down and tired. I can't wait to be done with uni and then I'm taking six months off and lazing around on a big farm in Qld and taking daily trips to the beach with Annabelle before she starts school next year. I'm having one LONG holiday when this is all over.

Birthday photos as promised!

Very early in the morning. Table is set up for the party and presents are waiting to be opened!


ooh yay! A keyboard!! Hasn't been touched since the day of the party! But I haven't given up. I'll bloody make a musician of her yet dammit.

Obligatory early morning photos of mum and dad. Looking fab at 6am!


Husband got a bit creative with the doll's house....

And then it was time to par-tay!





HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!! XXX

Even closer to being ready...

This shop is taking up a lot of my time lately. Well it's not that it takes up a lot of time - it's more that I have precious little spare time as it is (only the evenings after Annabelle is in bed) and I've been using that time to get the shop set up instead of doing other things.... such as my thesis.... or my neuro assignment....

So I'm going to have to open the doors with some basic stock and then just build it as I go. I had this idea of it being fully stocked but that's a bit unrealistic especially in terms of my own cash flow.

So the real site is up now and it's www.theveganstore.com.au

We had Annabelle's FOURTH birthday party on the weekend. Oh my goodness, where does the time go?! She had a party at home because I thought that would be cheaper. Silly me. By the time I got the party paraphernalia and the Tinkerbell cake and spent $120 on party food (which four year olds tend not to eat as it turns out..)I could have just as easily taken her to Groovy Chicks and Pirate Ships for the $300 they were going to charge me. Ah well.. I think we all need to have the home party experience just once. I'll put photos up soon!

It might not be promoting a meatless diet, but still....

... it's a great message. I think I'll be buying the DVD!

Not sure if you can view this properly unless perhaps you click 'Full Screen'. Otherwise, click the link below to go straight to the Website. And thanks Danielle for bringing this to my attention. :)



Food Inc. - The Movie

Almost ready!

Here is the working model of my shop. This is the test site so none of the links will work. I've disabled the real shop until the products are all in and ready to go so that my competition can't sniff around until I'm ready to launch...

http://www.theveganstore.ashop.com.au/

Meanwhile, back in my real life I'm still LOVING placement. I've got my own outpatient clinic with a pretty full caseload of clients and today I am starting my first mindfulness group for mums in the sick babies ward (up to 12 months old). Some of the babies and mums are there for a very, very long time so we hope this gives them some break and some skills for coping with the stress. Wish me luck with that. I hope it goes well!

Still looking for a final placement in Queensland so we might be able to move up there early (like July) but no luck just yet. I'm allowed to enrol in my final subject at Griffith Uni - Gold Coast campus. That would just be one class per week. Mel thinks he can get 3 days of kindy for Annabelle at the UQ kindergarten right next to his office so if I can just get a placement we're good to go. Keep all your fingers crossed.

Later... x

Counting down to launch date

My web design is DONE. HOORAH!!!! And it looks amazing. The lovely Sarah from Crackers Art is a total legend. I've been getting some good advice from some friends who have their own online businesses and might have a bit of work to do with re-jigging the back end set-up so that it all runs smoothly but that's ok. I'm getting very excited!

My placement is going well too. But it's going oh so quickly! I can't believe I've done six weeks already. I'm seeing my own patients and doing some ward rounds etc. I'm all Grey's Anatomy and loving it. Call me Meredith.

Mav is home for the long weekend and Miss Annabelle is super excited about that. She's totally over me at the moment. All she wants is her dad.

And I think that's it for updates. Hopefully I'll be announcing the Grand Opening very soon!!

The irony

ok, so irony probably isn't the word because "irony" apparently has some really complicated meaning and we all use it incorrectly. I highlight this so that all the would-be English teachers and grammar nazis don't feel the urge to correct my use of the word. I know it's not right but I'm using it anyway.

So... the irony is this:

I didn't want to move to Adelaide. I kicked and screamed and protested loudly. But I had to come here to be with husband. (Husband who spent almost half the year overseas last year mind you, but that's another whinge...)

So I left my house and friends and my beautiful little Summer Hill community and came to Adelaide and I was unhappy for quite a long time despite my best efforts to make the most of it. But that's ok because I like it now. I'm not complaining about Adelaide.

But here's the irony... now husband has gone. Husband who convinced me of what a great place Adelaide would be to raise a family, and of how he had a long term career path with his employer (people have been there for 25 years, you know!) and how happy we would be if I just gave it a chance.

So here I am in Adelaide, where I never wanted to be, and husband has headed off to greener pastures while I finish what I started here. As Alanis Morrissette would say.....

One of my favourite songs at the moment

If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe

Anna Nalick - Breathe lyrics | LyricsMode.com

Sydney visit

I don't know if I mentioned that Miss Annabelle and I had a flying trip to Sydney last week. We finally got rid of the tenant-from-hell and had a 2-week gap before the new tenants moved in (THANK GOD we got new tenants straight away!) so we used the time to get a few maintenance things done on the house. I was really keen to get in and see the place while it was empty and check up on the work that was done (some polished floors, some painting etc).

I know it's 'just' a rental property now but I love that house! I want to maintain it really well because it's also a big investment.

Anyway, I also LOVE any excuse to see my Sydney mates because oh, how I miss them so.....

We stayed overnight with our next door neighbours. Had a smashing time. Here's a few pics..

Annabelle and Julian having ice-blocks while they check out the moon:

Annabelle at the Summer Hill playground (great pic, Beany!!)

Master Callum. Oh he is GORGEOUS!!

Miss Annabelle in a contemplative mood..

Was going to upload more photos but it's not working dammit! So I'll just post this and upload more later.

oh and PS. First draft of my logo just arrived in inbox. YIPPEEEEE!!!!

News update

Sorry for being so absent. I can't keep up with everything at the moment and I haven't even started my uni placement yet so it's only going to get worse!! So here's the very quick update of all the latest goings on around here...

#1. Most of you have heard by now that Mav got a job in Queensland and we are moving back there. I have never been particularly interested in moving back to Qld but seeing how much fun Annabelle had at Christmas time helping her grandma feed horses, swinging on gates at the farm and even riding a horse (not to mention how much she looooves her grandparents and her cousins) made me realise it would be really good to be back up there again. So I'm excited! This time we don't want to live in the city so we'll be looking for a few acres out of town. I want a big vegie patch, chickens and a horse. :)

Mel starts work up there next month and at this stage, the plan is that me and Annabelle will have to hang around in Adelaide until I finish uni in October. But I am going to look at the possibility of moving up at the end of first semester (June/July) and finishing off my degree up there. It will be tricky because I have to do a placement of 45 days and they're hard to come by but all I can do is try. If it doesn't work out, we'll manage. We've managed before! And I'll be a bit sad to leave all our friends here in Adelaide, as will Annabelle. She's got a pretty tight little circle of mates and I don't think she fully comprehends what it will mean to move interstate. I never thought I'd say it, but I will REALLY miss Adelaide. :(

In other news (News item #2), I've been trying out being vegan. I don't have time to go into all the thinking behind this decision except to say:

1. Animal cruelty
2. The environment
3. Health benefits

No doubt I'll come back and rant about that another time when I have more time. :) But tell me if I get preachy because that's the last thing I want to be. Like a vegan version of a JW. Gawd help you all!! haha

But before I move on to the next topic, I just want to say that the dairy and egg industries are every bit as cruel as the slaughterhouse. Probably even worse because at least slaughtered animals get put out of their misery UNLIKE dairy cows. And even with free-range chickens, all the baby boy chickens are killed at birth AND you're still getting factory eggs in your mayonnaise and other sauces and products that contain eggs. AND if you think you need animal protein for your good health, think again. Can I recommend that you all go online and order The China Study for the full lo-down on exactly what animal protein is doing to us all. (Think cancer, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune disease...). It's $17 and free shipping. You can afford it. Did I say I wasn't going to get preachy? Ok, shutting up now.



So in my soiree into the world of veganism I have found that it is bloody hard work buying products that don't contain any dairy or egg. I'm sure anyone who is allergic to dairy can sympathise. Far out, they hide milk in EVERYTHING. (well, ok they don't hide it.. it's in bold on the label but you know what I mean...)

Not to mention that how can I possibly never have a pizza again?? The vegan thing wasn't looking promising, but I found a solution. It is vegan cheese. I'll give you a moment to stop gagging. Look, I know it sounds gross but there are bigger issues at hand here and I have decided that I can suck it up and eat vegan cheese if it means taking a stand. So I went online and found some vegan cheese and had it shipped from Sydney.

This was because it was farking impossible to work out where to buy it from a shop in Adelaide (I have since found them). I bought $40 worth of vegan cheese, mayonnaise (which is bloody amazing, I might add. I'd eat it if I wasn't vegan) as well as "fish" cakes (YUMMY) and "chicken" nuggets (Annabelle spat them out so I guess that's a big thumbs down for those ones :-). For my $40 worth of food, I paid $18 in postage. *faints*

Which brings me to Item #3. I am opening an online vegan store. You may have gathered I'm quite keen to spread the word about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle and I figure what better way to make a contribution than to have a little shop where you can come and buy all your vegan stuff in one spot. It isn't just food, mind you. It is skin care, make-up, haircare, perfume, cleaning products. Everything entirely without animal products. Animal products means milk, honey, beeswax, crushed up beetles, fish bladder, calf stomach, urea... etc... You are getting all those goodies in your non-vegan products. Urea. MMMMMMM

So the shop is being built. I am lining up suppliers, getting a logo designed and uploading product constantly. I'm hoping for a late March launch. Then of course I'm going to move to Qld but I guess that's the beauty of it being online....

I think that's all I have time for right now.

It's 11.30am and my Lit Review isn't going to write itself dammit.

Cats and stuff

Yesterday we dropped Annabelle off at a friend's place at about 3pm, hopped into the car and drove to the city where we checked into the Intercontinental Hotel. Very flash! (shitty service but I'm not going to complain). We got to our room about 3.45pm, I ran a lovely bath, and Mel poured me a glass of champagne. It would have been utter bliss except that somehow the fishing show on TV which Mel was watching in the other room was being piped into the bathroom. Took away from the serenity of the experience somewhat, but never mind. :)

At 5pm, we were all glammed up and headed to the cocktail lounge downstairs and met up with some of our really, really good friends from Sydney who are down her for the Tour Down Under (mad cyclists that they are). We haven't seen them since we left Sydney and it was great to catch up with them.




After drinks, we farewelled our friends and popped into a delightful restaurant where the service was fab and the food was DIVINE! I had Japanese spiced Tofu. I know you think that sounds crap but even Mel was jealous because it was SO good.

At 7:30pm, we headed next door to the Festival Theatre where we saw "Cats". I wasn't sure what to expect but I really enjoyed the singing and dancing. Weird-arse storyline (Andrew Lloyd Webber was on some serious drugs for sure) but a great musical theatrical experience. At half-time I had a text advising that Annabelle was fast asleep so if I'd had any concerns about her they would have been put to rest.

After the show, we headed back to the hotel for one more drink, listened to some live music and had a civilised adult-like conversation about what's been going on in our lives, plans for the future etc. Gosh, how I miss those conversations! We then slept uninterrupted until about 7:15am and chatted over coffee without having to "get up! get up! get up!!!" or make weet-bix or load a DVD or yell at anyone to not spill juice all over their clothes.

I'm telling you. Child-free nights. There should be a LOT more of them!