Thanksgiving!

It all turned out great despite my extended bout of homesickness in the weeks prior. We had a couple of folks over for dinner Thursday evening which was fun. The food was tasty (oooo asparagus casserole, why don't I make you more often?). The champagne was cold. And we were done by 9PM since it was a work night. Friday was work but I got to go on a lovely 4 hour sunset river cruise as part of work which was very fun (clients in town). Saturday we had another nice day, shopped early and got Mike a tux ordered, I dragged him to the pet store to oogle puppies too, read books, made cornbread, went to the beach for several hours, walked, and had tasty leftovers for dinner. Today, Sunday, I've been cooking up a storm for another Thanksgiving party this afternoon and even made hand print cut out construction paper turkeys :-) Should be a fun afternoon. However, I have discovered that cornbread dressing, even with fresh imported pecans, just doesn't taste right without poultry seasoning. But thats ok. So Happy Thanksgiving one and all! Its been lovely.

Work, dang it

They offered me a full time project manager role on Friday. I don't want to work full time. Part of me is tickled that they offered and the other part is 'why did they have to go and ruin a good thing". What I really want to do is put together their documentation on an ad hoc basis. Pay me and let me do it on my own schedule. On the other hand, working full time in project management will be great for the old resume when ever we get shipped back. Mike and I have talked it over and are about to come to the conclusion that it doesn't make sense for me to get consumed by job stress too. I like working three days but more than that is going to start impacting quality of life for both of us. We want to savor living in Perth and both of us being tied up in the daily slog is not savoring. Dang.

It's just not the holidays when it's summertime

Thanksgiving week, and it's beach season. This is so, so wrong. I'm going to make a chicken and dressing casserole for Mike and I for Thursday the actual day, and then we're invited to a big Thanksgiving party on Sunday with a whole bunch of Aussies, so there will be some semblance of celebration, but its just not right. And lets not even talk about Christmas. Good thing we've got the kids coming to liven things up. I have gingerbread house kits for each of them and we'll manage to cobble together some sort of festive atmosphere I'm sure, but man. In the spirit of the season I just ordered pie crust mix and Karo syrup from USA Foods in Melbourne. From all the dire warnings on the website about the holiday rush I suspect it will take a couple of weeks to arrive but I'm thinking by Christmas I should at least have the makings of a pecan pie. This is just going to feel weird this year.

ooooo - presents!

Met some new arrivals to Perth from the states yesterday and they came bearing presents! I have fresh shiny new boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix, Bisquick, and Mexican cooking spices. We can feast for Christmas! I am very grateful :-) Looks like it's starting to really settle in to summer. Warm sunny days with a cooling breeze picking up in the afternoon. I'm starting to experience mild urges to go swimming even and I am a hot weather only swimmer (*unless it's a hot tub*) All is well.

Finally got a breather

October was a blur. Between starting a job, going to Hong Kong, a whole bunch of work entertaining, some serious non-work related entertaining, and five weekends of sailing lessons this week was the first one in about 5 weeks that felt normal and settled. I have savoured it :-) Monday was lovely. I had time to get up and clean the house, do a couple of loads of laundry, start some dinner, and head out to mahjong. Had a lovely day with my buddies and a lovely dinner at home with Mike. Tuesday was a nice normal work day - headed to work at 7:45 and was home by 5PM. Today I got up, talked to my folks, went up to Swan Valley and bought some wine, had a lovely lunch date with my husband, and went sailing (we did pretty good on the river too). Settled back at the house now and still savouring the relaxed yet moderately busy week. I do have to work the next two days, and we are meeting up with folks on Friday and Sat, but it's been, and I trust will continue to be, a lovely week. And I'm re-reading the rather lengthy Aubrey/Mautarin series by Patrick O'Brien - always a treat.

Melbourne Cup Part 2

Photos of the day (click here) So more about Melbourne Cup. It's been an Aussie tradition since 1861 or something like that. We decided it's pretty much the equivalent of Super Bowl except it is always on a Tuesday. You'd think they'd have planned that part of the event a bit better because especially here on the west coast, it means that all work stops by about 11AM for the festivities, and offices everywhere empty as their staff heads to the nearest bar or betting shop to whoop it up. The other thing about Melbourne Cup is that it is a dress up occasion for both women and men. We were dolled up for the race but I was thrilled to see how gorgeous the men looked too. My pal Robbie and I joined a group of ladies who have been celebrating Melbourne Cup together for 20 years. They have identical dresses made and are a fixture for the celebrants at the Ruby Room at the Burswood Casino complex. Robbie and I had quite a time finding coordinating dresses, shoes, and jewelry - we ended up finding our pashminas and bling in Hong Kong at the Peak tram terminal of all places. The day started at 9:45 AM - which meant up and primping by crack o'dawn. We arrived and were photographed endlessly, placed our bets, and went into the gorgeous ballroom to mingle with the beautiful people of Perth :-) Champagne started promptly at 10AM, dancing to a live band started at 11AM, and the race went off at noon. Robbie and I both backed the winner - Shocked - and most happily collected our winnings. After lunch there was a fashion show, then more dancing till 3PM. We'd booked the Hummerzine for 3:30 as a break and photo op. I confess the excess of a Hummerzine is not exactly my style but it sure was fun! We headed up to Kings Park for photos (we learned later that some of our business associates actually spotted us up there!) and enjoyed just driving around and about for an hour or so. Back at the Burswood we made the rounds of all the bars, danced some more, and finally met up with spouses for dinner at 7PM. I was done by 10PM (13 hours of partying will make your toes ache) so Mike got me home and poured me into bed. Robbie went on to the casino and won $1500 so apparently it was a lucky day and I should have stuck with her! Thankfully I don't work on Wednesdays - I was a somewhat delicate flower all day. It was a blast and if called to attend next year, I expect I'll answer the call!

Melbourne Cup Race

Click here for evidence :-) Picture number 47. I probably shouldn't put this out for everyone to see. My political aspirations will be utterly derailed. Suffice it to say champagne was indeed involved.