Monday, February 3, 2014

End of 2013 & Start of 2014

...and I'm back after a 5+ week hiatus of blogging!

Is there some sort of award for sucking at blogging?  If so, I'd be preparing my acceptance speech to the Academy right now.  Case in point: My one and only New Years resolution for 2013 was to blog more.  I find blogging akin to writing a diary, and I know that in the future I'll be grateful for the photographic evidence of my awesome life that once was.

2013 post count: 26
2012 post count: 28

Epic fail!  I squeezed one a post every other week.  Clearly I didn't bust my hide too much on this dog and pony show last year.

And yet I managed to write all those posts while employed, from the very first day of the year to the very last.  I wish I could say the same for 2014.

My job was a maternity leave cover contract, that morphed into an extended maternity leave cover contract.  But it didn't morph again into a permanent maternity leave cover contract.  18 great months I had at my job.  So where does that leave me now?


Unemployed!

At this stage I'm still able to keep a smile on my face and call it funemployment, because thankfully I've got a sugar daddy named Martin who is willing to indulge my frivolous desires such as food and shelter.  It's been a month now (34 days sans paycheck, but who's counting?) and the first time around it took me 10 weeks to get a job offer.  Ten weeks is not unreasonable, I keep telling myself, so I'm hoping I have to wait even less time this time around until I convince somebody to hire me.

We'll see what happens first, an offer of employment or the release of my grip on sanity.  In related news: I made rice and beans for dinner tonight.  It did contain ground beef, though, and was quite tasty if I do say so myself!  But if ever there comes a time when the ground beef is left out I know it will be time to sell my body to the night.  Watch this space for updates.

Back in December something awesome happened.  No, I'm not talking about receiving a paycheck.  Martin's parents visited!

It has been waaaaaaaay too long since we had seen them, since we left Norway in February 2012.  We prioritized local travel in 2013 and couldn't make it back to the northern hemisphere to see them.  So they came to us!

For 2 glorious weeks we participated in our favorite activities: Eating, drinking, napping and reading.

To keep the 5 of us properly boozed up for the first week (where we were on an island with no access to more booze) we loaded up the trunk of our car with $600+ worth of tasty alcoholic beverages:


We turned our car into a low rider with all that sweet hooch!  We got through most of it, too!  The beer and wine, at least.  Liquor and liqueur was harder to get through, so we did manage to have a little bit of that leftover.  Note I said this was for the first week only!  We had to restock for the second week back on the mainland.

Martin's family = hardcore

Christmas in a warm climate is....bizarre.


It's the dead of summer here over Christmas, so the weather is at its hottest.

During our week on the mainland we did a bunch of day trips to places around Brisbane, including the main tourist attraction in town that we hadn't made it to in 22 months of living here, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

In our defense, I didn't want to go there by ourselves and then have to go back again when visitors come.  I like looking at koalas as much as the next person, but a trip out there ain't cheap, yo!

They have lots of other Aussie animals besides koalas, many of which are tame because people feed them (let me be clear: not the koalas, though. Sadly).  I thought this was funny: Martin, his dad and brother were totally scared to get near this emu:


But not me!


Speaking of emu, I had a burger made out of one just the other day (bottom dish):


The top dish is a kangaroo steak sandwich.  Both of these delish dishes were consumed at Tukka, a really awesome restaurant in Brisbane that serves native "tucker", Australian food.  I highly recommend it if you're ever in town.

To wrap up what I've been doing on my hiatus from blogging:

-Spending time with family
-Drinking
-Being unemployed
-Not being scared of an emu
-Eating emu

That about wraps it up nicely!  I'll try my damnest to be better at this in the coming months because 1) I've got the time and 2) who knows how long this amazing Aussie adventure will last.

Wish me luck, folks!

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