Filling

This time three years ago I think I was at about the slimmest I’m ever likely to be.

Pre-season rugby training consists of a high level of fitness work, with more skills training added as the season approaches. For two months I did not only that, but also went along to the voluntary third training night each week that was solely devoted to fitness. Not surprisingly, I quickly shed the kilos I was still carrying from when I left the US.

The first photo below was taken in December 2002, while visiting my sister in London on my way back to Australia (note my impeccable dress sense). The second? About six months later.

So around the time we got married eight months ago I was thinking, “I could stand to lose about four or five kilos to get back to that ideal weight.” So, I thought about the exercise needed to get there but, contrary to wishful thinking, positive thoughts do not kilos lose.

Then, a few weeks ago, my mother had the audacity to tell me I should exercise a bit more since my weight gain was starting to become obvious. If you compare those two photos you can see my cheeks just below my eyes really puff up – which is what my mother pointed out to me.

So I stepped on the scales to see where I was at. Instead of the four or five kilos I thought I could lose, I’ve gained five or six. It’s a good thing Kate and I are starting an exercise regime to help her relieve the stresses of the day once she starts her new job on Monday.

Josh

I have mentioned several university friends on this blog, recently Dan, Milton, and Grace have rated a mention.

But I was recently reminded of one regular reader who has felt particularly left out.

That’s Josh. This one’s for you, buddy.

A Google search on “Josh Marsoke” didn’t yield as many links I had thought it might, given Josh’s self-appointed title of “The Man”, but did reveal one as-yet unknown fact about our lanky journalism friend.

He’s a keen bridge player.

Word up, journo pal.

Less is More

Bren mentioned that he didn’t read my posts when I used the read more links.

I asked why not, and considered focusing on the post intro to make people think, “Actually, yes I do want to read more!”

I was going to conduct a poll asking what other people thought of the use of read more links, but then realised 50% of the vote was already in.

I didn’t think my wife really read the comments, but she told me last night she agreed with Bren – she never reads more.

This shocking revelation has led to the immediate canning of the read more feature.

Big Wheels

“Looking for a job in the city
Working for the man every night and day”

Well, this is to let you all know the great news. The big wheels have indeed kept on turning – they’ve floated across the river to the West End from the city, and working for the woman more than for the man, but Kate has a new job!

She had an interview on Monday, got the call Tuesday, and she’s the new full-time social worker advocate at a domestic violence service! But the news gets better than that – on telling her she had the job, it was also mentioned that they had been talking for several months about getting a solicitor to work at the service as well.

So the doubly great news is that they want Kate to be that solicitor, although she’ll be working at the job she applied for, as a social worker, until they get funding for a solicitor’s position. The amazing thing is that this specific agency is exactly where Kate has wanted to work since studying law. She went back to university to do a social work degree after working for a year in property and planning law, and has at times felt like the social work was a waste of two years – not only in time but in earnings. There’s a big gulf between a lawyer’s and a student’s earnings, and someone who has made the step down is more keenly aware of what has been given up. Naturally, you question if you’ve made the right choices.

But now, amazingly, her social work degree and her application for a social worker position are the exact things that have given her the opportunity to be a lawyer in the field she wants. Simply the job as a social worker in domestic violence is an answer to sometimes impatient and frustrated prayer over the last eight months. The opportunity to practice law in the same field is, in church-speak, an overabundance of blessing.

She doesn’t know exactly when she’ll start yet, but this is better news than we could have imagined.

The title of the post and first lines are from the Nutbush.

Graduation

Mine? Ha, I wish. Graduation sometimes seems like Shangri-La, or an academic Valhalla – two mythical places, the latter only reached if slain in the throes of study.

Kate and I trekked over to UQ to congratulate Milton, Grace and Dan on their graduation ceremony day. Unfortunately Milton had already returned his gown and left, but Dan and Grace were still waiting to go into their ceremony at 6pm.

These three have been my closest university friends over the last three-and-a-half years. I’ll miss you Milton and Grace, but I promise we’ll see you in Singapore sometime! Dan will be half a world away, in Beaudesert, so I’ll probably see him less.

This is the only photo I took. It is of the back of Dan Tang’s head. Although you wouldn’t necessarily have known that. He’s a hairy fellow. There were other photos, and hopefully Dan or Grace will post them soon. Whose camera was that, anyway?

I hope you enjoyed your time with your dad, Grace.

And Milton – big, big congratulations on your Masters!

Hello, Mother

In perhaps the most disturbing blog post I have had to yet compose, but far and away the most humbling because I know family will read this, I am becoming my mother.

Our bible study group was on supper at church tonight, and since Kate was leading the service and left at 3.30pm, I stayed at home baking a cake to bring later. Now, despite the apparent evidence just presented, this is not how I am becoming my mother. Besides, it was an ‘instant’ cake – all I had to do was mix some butter, eggs and water in with the powder and then stick it in the oven. Repeat procedure for the icing and you’re done.

As an aside, I really hope it wasn’t terrible because anyone would have thought Kate made it and thought less of her cooking abilities. Just between you and I, she’s a brilliant cook and looked upon the instant cake with disdain. It just happened to be a marketing gimmick that came for free with the plastic cake holder we bought two weeks ago.

I’ve wandered, but not too far from the story I’m telling, as you’ll soon see.

On returning home I looked at the large array of dirty dishes and cookware around the sink and thought about how I would tackle the problem. A man’s brain sees problems in need of a solution. I just thought I should point that out. Despite having finished baking an instant cake no more than four hours earlier, I was still thinking like a man.

Things needed to be organised. Put in their place. Fitted. You see, a large mound of dishes is much less daunting when it’s tidy before you start washing things. On the stovetop there was a stack of plates on the right burner, the wok from lunch straddled the two back burners, the sink was full to overflowing with cooking bowls and utensils – and every inch of counter space betwixt the two was taken.

The only free space in this menagerie was the left burner on the stovetop.

It was here that I placed our new cake holder that had this very evening experienced for the first time the fullness of its purpose – to hold cakes.

My family will no doubt at this point be laughing with glee, knowing what invariably comes next.

I turned to attend to other things and smelt that acrid stench of melting plastic. Yes, after melting the 1 ½ tablespoons of butter with 1 ½ tablespoons of milk, the front-left burner remained on for three hours while out of the house.

The picture is of the distraught cake-holder, the offending burner, and the wine I used to soothe my ego as I wrote this post.

My much-maligned mother has been the butt of many a joke over the years for the melted pots, pans and plastic that have been the result of occasions such as this. I must unjustifiably apologise to her. And to those who will now ridicule me, can I help what I have become? I think not.

Cookware

Mammoth cooking effort tonight. Seriously just finishing now at 2am. Will post tomorrow, with pics!

Born in the USA

I was, and today is the day to celebrate 230 years of independence from those nasty Britons. Learn a bit from the White House website about how, on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.
Read more

Life

Apparently this blog is to tell people what’s happening in my life, so quickly: Read more

Rendezvous – Part II

(l to r: Paul, Bren, Dave, Dan)

Dan’s cousin Chris had a camera, and thus the meeting of three blogging legends was immoralised immortalised. I’m watching Australia versus The Netherlands on the TV as I write this, and it took me a few seconds to realise the moment had not been immoralised by the taking of a photo. If anything it was immoralised by my hand tightly clasped around Dan’s waist. But I digress, because by legends, of course, I am referring to the definition of a person who inspires a legend. At the same link a legend is defined as:

1 a : a story coming down from the past; especially : one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable

That would be this story.

Paul, a lifelong friend of Bren’s, joined us for the evening, as did Chris and Remi (spelling?), Dan’s cousin and friend, both visiting from Singapore. After meeting outside Hungry Jacks in the Queen Street Mall there was brief indecision about where to go for a drink, until Dan saved the day and suggested an Irish bar he knew.

Paul is from Caboolture and Dan from the Gold Coast. As a Brisbane resident the thought, “I should get out more”, did cross my mind. Then I considered blogging about it, and happily went on my way.

To the lilting sound of Irish folk music, and some other terrible tunes, we found some seats and promptly vacated them as Guinness, XXXX and, a little surprisingly, champagne thanks to Chris, made its way back to the table. The night’s conversation consisted of politics and religion, although it moved on to journalism and media towards the end of the evening.

And towards the end of this post, I’ve run out of steam. I thought it held such promise at the start there. Nonetheless, I’ll kill it and let Dan and Bren pick up the slack if they choose to blog about it.

Before I do that I apologise to Allister for not inviting him to this blogger’s retreat. I thought of it on the way home at 11pm. Sorry mate.

Uncle David

My sister-in-law and oldest brother are 12 weeks pregnant with their first child!

I will be an uncle again in early December. Hoo-rah.

I will also be an uncle again before then when Kate’s sister has her fifth!

It’s a baby-fest, and I’m right in the middle of it.

The Game

Last week I made mention of some soccer games I was playing. It’s on again today with the first game at 9 am – I think that’s punishment for being in the lower divisions – and the last game at noon. Unless of course we make the final, then we’ll play one more game. My body was done after three games last week, I don’t know if it can handle four. The results last weekend were a loss (0-1) and two wins (1-0 and 2-0). These are still grading matches to decide which division we end up in, and are admittedly only 30 minutes long each, but tiring.

After finishing work at midnight last night I got up at 5am to see Kate off to work, the intention being to do the stretches and exercises the physio has given me. It’s now 7am as I surf the net, so I will head off to finish doing that, then get into some stretching that will hopefully keep me mobile today.

If you think this is the most boring post you’ve ever read go squeeze some lemon in your eye. That should jiffy up your day. It did mine.

U2

Tuesday was the day U2 were supposed to be playing in Brisbane. The tour was postponed until November, even though no firm dates have been given, but when they do come down under I suspect it’s going to go mental. And I’m looking forward to that.

Sunday I’m going to a Singaporean style barbeque. I’m not quite sure if that’s different from a regular barbeque (other than I’m expected to bring nothing), but I do know that if you’ve got 10 Singaporeans in a room that means you’ve probably got 15 bloggers. Add me to that list and it’s a regular blogger ho-down. The three people I know who will be there are Dan, Milton and our hostess Grace. Although to be perfectly honest, I don’t know if Grace actually blogs anymore, having closed down that link a year ago now.

Let them eat cake

UPDATE & insert: I’m not sure what’s going on, but the pictures are playing up.

This is a piece of baked cheesecake just before it’s tasty cheesity passed my lips, pleased my tastebuds and warmed the cockles of my heart. The best part of it is my beautiful wife made this and there’s still enough for five to six more pieces,meaning I have more sweet indulgence to come. Read it and weep. Calories, carbs, sugar, fat? Piffle, I say!

I’m going away to Sydney this weekend for the Katoomba Men’s Convention on my brother’s invitation. It’s not the first time my wife and I will spend a night apart – she often has to sleep over at her casual job – but I think it will be the first time we will be apart for three full days. I’m also writing this at 2.15am, when she starts work at 6, which means getting up at 5am. I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s the cheesecake…

String Anniversary

I don’t think it really is, but one year is paper I think, so what’s one month? That’s what we went by last Tuesday.

Married life is good, if challenging at times as we’re stretched and shaped. You know, finding out more intimately how we each react (or sometimes in my case don’t react) to different situations. Better communication of my emotions could probably be improved to help Kate out.

If my personality doesn’t change, I’ll just have to verbalise. At the moment when I think I need to say how I’m feeling, it comes out stilted, Lurch-like.

I am pleased.

I’m not annoyed.

That’s an important one.

And I am quite pleased with our most recent purchase. I find it more than worth the cost, a good bargain! We went to IKEA to get the $249 2-seater couch we had chosen a while ago, but on the way out stopped in the ‘bargain bin’ to see what was there. Instead of purchasing the one we had planned, we saw a different couch, 3-seater, marked down because of dirt marks (minimal) which will never be seen once the separately purchased new cover is put on. So, this couch we bought for $239, marked down from $800. Sweet. Paid $80 to get it delivered and it arrived today. Kate had no idea how I felt so, in her words, was being “extra enthusiastic to try and elicit a response”.

I am happy.

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