An update of sorts.

• Earlier this summer I was fired up to write a post about how I was seeing a lot of rudeness in society these days. But....eh. I decided not to.
• This is partially because we escaped away from it all and spent a month in Australia. A month in Australia can do remarkable things, including reducing levels of annoyance.

Photo credit: S

Photo credit: S

• See? It does wonders.
• The jet lag I had after coming back was the worst I've ever had. It took me ten days to get back on our Canadian time zone. But hey, it was fun staying up to dawn again; it had been an unbelievably long time since I'd done that.
• Speaking of lack of sleep, I've also been up to some grant application writing in my free time. What could be more fun than that? Oh, yes, I know! Doing it in French!
• For my birthday this summer, we got a necklace designed for me by our jeweler friend who made our wedding rings and my pre-marriage ring. We just picked it up this past weekend, and I have had it on for most of the waking hours since then. It's a transformer necklace—more than meets the eye! The pendant can be flipped. One side has one look, and the other is different. Our jeweler is awesome.
• It's been over three years since I've been home-as-in-where-I-grew-up-and-where-my-parents-are-home. That is too long and thinking about it makes me sad. We are trying to schedule a trip for the not-too-distant future.
• It's hard to arrange stuff like that when your spouse travels a lot for work. I went to Australia because S was already going for work, and it makes sense to us to take advantage of the fact that one ticket is already paid for, along with the hotel room for the work portion of the trip. There are lots of benefits to traveling this way, but going to your personal first-choice destination is usually not one of them. Australia was wonderful—possibly my best trip thus far in life—but it had not been at the top of my list. Right now less exotic locations are at the top because I miss people I love. And I want to re-connect with my roots and the homes of my past.
• I made two dresses earlier in the summer without patterns. Surprisingly, they look good enough I can wear them out of the house. (And I don't think people can look at them and immediately tell that I made them.)
• I bought a hat, as you might of guessed from the above photo. I'm not sure how to wear it, other than when doing something outdoorsy. Does anyone have any tips on how to wear hats in day-to-day life?
• We almost ended up with an amazing apartment in a great neighborhood with a snow-removed parking place and a GIANT pantry-size Lazy Susan (I mean, it is as tall as I am!)....for less than our current rent. We lost it even though we were the first to say we would like it, and that was a week earlier than the person the landlords decided to give it to. This brought up reminders of the last time we lost a "perfect" apartment.
• When I first wrote that last bulleted thought I wrote, "GIANT panty-size Lazy Susan."
• Thankfully we can stay in our current apartment. We like it a lot...it's just that the other was remarkably better. The apartment-that-got-away beat our current apartment 21-4 in the twenty or so criteria most valued. Ah well.
• We wonder if we will ever be able to buy a house one day. Most days it seems out of reach.
• S is gone for work again, but I have yet another grant application to do, so I have days of fun ahead to keep me entertained.
• The night before he left, we discovered our car has a problem that makes it currently undrive-able (and might be its demise, considering it's 18 years old). That same night S also discovered that the bathroom sink leaks into the cabinet area underneath at a significantly fast rate of speed if you fill it up halfway with water. I should probably follow up on that. So far I have been avoiding letting the sink half-fill with water. Which is about what I am doing with the car: I plan to take the bus so I won't be faced with the decision of whether or not to send my car out to pasture while he is off in Europe eating schnitzel.
• When S is away for work, I tend to survive on sandwiches and cereal.
• And with that I will return to this photo. Because how could I not keep looking at adorable pictures from our trip? Just look at that petit bébé in the mama wallaby's pouch with its little tail sticking out!

Photo credit: S