Mutterings

This past week has been a tad uneventful, I was sick all week. Not properly sick, just constantly exhausted and coughing all the time (literally). I spent Sunday in bed with a headache and then finally woke up on Monday with some energy. I even did a proper grocery shop, laundry and tidied my room. Of course I didn't really need to do my washing, I had enough clothes to hold out for at least another two or three weeks. However, the grocery shop and room tidy have made a huge improvement to my mood. As always my life revolves around food, and it is VERY good to be back to my weekly meal plan and weekly grocery shop. Last week I lived on challah, chummus, polenta and Special K. By the way I fully recommend boiling polenta in soy milk (I'm guessing normal milk works as well) adding some sugar and vanilla essence and eating for dessert. It tastes very similar to rice pudding but takes five minutes.

On another note my mummy has been in Sydney this week. She managed to leave a couple of children in NZ and she didn't give the one in Melbourne enough warning to come for a visit. Basically, she's on her own! Something she has not done since my little brother was a baby, he's now a teenager. An odd thing about growing up is realising parents are real people. However, it is even odder when they are living a similar life to you! The word mum is supposed to describe someone bogged down by running a taxi service, catering business and cleaning company. Not someone living a nice indepedent life in Sydney. It's left me pondering how far an apple can actually fall from the tree. If you remove the life situation, I don't feel all that different from my mum. Granted, I am more organised, more analytical in my approach to everything. However my mum is more giving of her time, more relaxed, less judgemental (Hmmm perhaps we are quite different now I think of it!!) Really though, if you put us both on a plane and sent us to China (place where we would be as lost as each other!!!) I think we'd go about our days in a very similar way. I might have a list, but Mum could actually remember what she was doing without that list. Neither of us would be able to get on the right train and if you gave us a car we'd both be sure to lose it in the first parking lot we found.
She is returning to NZ tomorrow and back to mum life. There's a good few years till Lizzy moves out of home, so thankfully I won't have to ponder our similarities for a while yet. I am glad my mum didn't get away so much when I was at home! I have a feeling if she'd known what non mum life was like she might have been a little less useful as chauffer, chef and cleaner.

Sick again :(

I have spent the entirety of the weekend in bed with a nasty little bug. Finally last night I felt like I could see some light coming and then what? I get conjunctivitis, I'd had an itchy eye since Thursday so I wasn't so surprised. Thanks to Dr. Google it looks like I have the viral version which means time is the only cure. I don't know if I'm allowed to go to work with conjunctivitis (guessing not) and on top of that I may have to go and see the doctor to prove to my bosses I have it, and also so he can tell me there's nothing he can to do about it. With my new attempt at a budget and saving I did not plan on this and I'm not impressed! I haven't worked long enough to have accrued much sick leave (although I am guessing at least part of this day must be paid) plus the last thing I want to do is pay for a doctor. Up until now my savings money has gone into my account and sat there, I'm liking the growing money and am becoming a tad scroogish with it! Plus I have plans for that money and it does not involve paying copious amounts of money to talk to a doctor for five minutes, after having waited for him for two hours.

On the bright side I tried out Mum's 'tea tree oil cures all' theory (somewhat similar to the windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding). I diluted the tea tree and then proceeded to put an undiluted drop of oil on my eye, it stung for a little while and then my eye felt a lot better. Since then I have proceeded with the endeavour, double checking the tea tree is actually diluted first. It does appear to be working, for example now I can actually see for long periods of time without getting a pussy layer covering my eye. Last night I was forever cleaning my glasses because of course they are the only possible reason for blurry vision.

I have discovered something very interesting this weekend as well. As you've probably noticed there are now ads on my blog. No I'm not trying to capitalise on whoever it is that actually reads this blog. I signed up to adsense because I was interested to see how many page views I was getting. I discovered that last week I got more than 100 views. Provided no one realised my research gathering mission, and decided to mess with me by opening my page 50 times, I'm feeling flattered! 100 views sounds like a reasonable audience for my life! In a week not only did I get more than 100 views I also got a few clicks on the ads. I was surprised to log in and discover my income is sitting at just over $8. So it's not exactly the hourly wage, but then I wasn't trying to actually earn money with this. If it keeps up then that is $400 a year for doing nothing. I now understand why people have websites! I am contemplating staring another one geared around making money. Any ideas?

Just before I sign out I thought I'd better make it clear, from the data adsense gathers I don't know who is reading my blog, where they come from or basically anything. All I know is how many people open the page in a day. The whole internet thing creeps me out, I like reading blogs however I don't necessarily want the author to know how many times I read their blog. Particularly howtobeisraeli.blogspot.com, if that woman knew how many times I read her blog she'd think I was obssessed with her! By the way, how to be Israeli is a hilarious blog spot however please don't all run over to it. Give my blog a year and it will be pretty much the same thing, so I don't want you all to get all knowledgeable on Israel before I get there. The idea is what I say is supposed to sound unique :)

Free clothes anyone?

I'm pretty sure when I get up in the morning I put on a normal amount of respectable looking, clean clothing prior to leaving the house. However, recent events have made me question whether perhaps I am actually just slapping on some pieces of news paper or some garbage bags.

Anyone who saw my clothing in New Zealand knows I had a LOT of clothes. There were clothes under the bed (in suction bag things), clothes in the wardrobe, clothes in the laundry hamper, clothes on the floor and yet there was still no room in my drawers. My aunt can attest to my usage of a wardrobe and 2 chests of draws, and that was after I'd got rid of 3/4's of my clothing!

So, here I did feel a little bereft when I realised I would have to wear the same top about once a week. However over the last few weeks my wardrobe has gone forth and multiplied. I have a theory that the community has got together and organised all this clothing for me to ensure I will stop wearing the less tznius newspaper and garbage bag options. Suddenly all these perfectly sized clothes are flying out of no where. Sapir found a recycling bag of clothing a wee while ago (here those sorts of things are up for grabs), then last week one of the mother's gave me a skirt as a present, then comes the weekend and Sapir announces there are more clothes. Basically in the space of a month I have gone from my meager suitcase of clothing (plus the extras Mum brought over) to a full wardrobe, suitcase and draws. I now cannot remember what clothes I have. Usually I decide my clothes before I get up in the morning, it's my motivation to get up :) However this morning I had to stand at the wardrobe and pull everything out to figure out what clothes I own. I am going to guess I now have about 30 or 40 skirts, and somewhere near 100 tops. The worst news is I can't actually keep them all. My wardrobe is going to have to be carefully sorted and many surrendered in about 6 months time. On the plus side if it continues to multiply I could open a second hand clothing shop in my bedroom.

Dreams are what make the stars sparkle and the moon shine :)

My roomate and I have a habit of exchanging gifts before Shabbat. This week she gave me a gorgeous, PINK notebook with the title of this blog on the front. For me I thought it was quite apt. My dream for the last few years was to go give it a go in Israel, moving to Australia was exciting until I got here and realised it wasn't the big move. The scary thing about being a grown up is that dreams aren't just dreams. I am not 15 sitting at Mum's imagining the kotel, I am 21 with the freedom to move there. In some ways the next move will be easier than here. I am being met at the airport, I have close friends who I don't feel bad to stay with. I won't be alone like I was when I got here etc. etc.

I have now set myself a budget and stuck to it, which means I am saving well. I have so far managed to rangle one extra hour of work, and I'm contemplating (as in hoping something will pop up in the Jewish news) getting some babysitting sometime soon to help me save. However I've realised tonight that this isn't quite enough. It will be great to arrive in Israel with some money to go shopping, and with my small grasp of Hebrew I could probably survive it. But I can only read the block Hebrew writing, and I will need cursive. Also my vocabulary is great if you want to talk about food, colours or numbers however beyond this you may as well speak chinese to me. So with an attempt to be a grown up and think ahead, I am going to begin concerted Hebrew learning! My focus: Vocabulary and cursive hebrew with some handy phrases thrown in for good measure. I think it is finally time to pull the flash cards out of my Hebrew book and use them!!!

I just have to figure out some sort of study programme that I will actually do. I'm contemplating beautiful sticker charts and perhaps employing roomates to help.

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month

One month left of winter!!! This morning I was skiting to my parents that it feels like spring already. It was true at that specific time it did feel like spring, it also felt like spring when i walked down to the laundromat. When I left the laundromat it still felt like spring but about 5 minutes into the walk home the wind turned, suddenly cafe umbrella's were rolling on the ground, random lose objects were flying around and anyone with some semblance of a brain had taken cover. Two minutes later the wind brought a new present RAIN! Lots of nice heavy rain! If you can imagine, I am walking down the street holding my laptop case under my poncho, my other hand is holding my skirt, my hair is out and flying in all directions and I am lugging a massive pack on my back. The rain quickly transformed into hail which managed to get down my back and in my shoes. It only lasted 5 minutes tops but I arrived home drenched from head to toe. Literally all three layers of clothing were soaked. Thankfully I took my waterproof pack and my laptop case is waterproof.