The brightness in the dark

Hi readers!  Okay, I PROMISE to give you good news in today's blog post.  This is despite the tragic news of the death of five Australian troops in Afghanistan - but I'm NOT going there today.  If you check my Twitter feed you can read my rant there.  I won't do it here.  Phew! So, I will set the tone with this photo (from our garden) of my favourite flower, taken last summer.

I have been learning SO MUCH excellent stuff at uni!  Last night we learned about Eastern thinking and about those religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism etc.  It did actually Blow My Mind - sorry to be so cliched but that's the way it was.  I am really "enjoying" challenging my thinking and seeing different ways of doing things.  Part of me is resisting, but only a very small part and I like to think it's a natural instinct rather than a conscious decision. 

Here is my cousin Peter's wife and three gorgeous and smart daughters.  They live in Austin, Texas and I miss seeing them So Much!  I am very "into" my family.  I'm just in conversation with my brother who is texting me from Sydney, telling me he's been to the doctor and been started on cholesterol medication!  I am staying Jolly, despite the knowledge that he is a) overweight b) he smokes c) mum just had a heart attack and d) one man of every generation on my dad's side has died of a heart attack.  Tra, la la!  Maybe this will encourage my bro' to give up the smokes...  How great would that be?  

Speaking of heart attacks, I baked this cake over the weekend instead of doing my uni work.  I am finding that when a little stressed, I am having an urge to bake!  Where does THAT come from?  I was going to take it to class but Spud hooked into it and I thought it would look bad to take half a cake....  

Interestingly, I am also getting a mild urge to use Spray 'n Wipe around the office.  This is the sports desk (above) and I am itching to get stuck into it but there is always a journo hanging around that end of the newsroom.  This photo actually doesn't do it full justice.  I didn't capture the "below desk" action in this photo where last week I managed to retrieve an unopened copy of a Walkley magazine from late 2011 which was excellent reading! 

I took this photo last Saturday at my beginner running session.  This is Wanese, my best "pupil" who is going to run her first 10km this weekend at the Bridge to Brisbane.  I know she can do it.  When she first came to my group her goal was to run the 5km event and now, about six weeks later, she is doing the 10km and even talking about running the Noosa Half Marathon next year!!  I am So Proud of her.  She is going to smash it on Sunday.

The best part of today's tragic news day has been the Paralympic Opening Ceremony tonight. It has been sensational and to see all those athletes having so much fun and preparing to challenge themselves and ..... OMG!  The Beach Boys are on the news and - I'm sorry but they are seriously "senior"!  I can't believe I typed that.  Me, who is about to enter her 50th year.  It's just that my mind is still back in 1981, pashing my first boyfriend at Whale Beach to the sound of these guys.  They aren't supposed to get so... so ... wrinkly!! 

Life.  There it is again, in all its forms.  Don't blame me for all this philosophising!  Blame university.  Spud is sitting here convinced that your ears get bigger as you age and I have to say, after seeing these guys, that I agree!! 

My obituary research is going Really, Really Well. I have cast my net and found about five new contacts this week, all enthusiastic and willing to help me.  I spoke to Harry de Quetteville, the Editor of The Telegraph Obituaries, who was incredibly helpful and patient with me. Next time I'm in London, I am invited to drop in and visit (get me a ticket to London, stat!!).  Today I made contact with the Editor of the obits column at the Sydney Morning Herald who kindly emailed me back, despite half of her colleagues working their last day at the 'paper today, secondary to brutal journalism staff cuts.  

Speaking of obituaries, vale Neil Armstrong (on left) who died this week.  What an incredible life that man had.  His death, whilst sad for his family, has reignited the excitement of space travel and the miracle of the moon landing, enabling a younger generation to get a feel of how incredible that time was.  I like to think that Neil held off dying until Curiosity had safely landed on Mars.....  What do you think?  

Okay, time to watch some Paraylympic action.  Or perhaps I will go to bed with my fascinating obituary book?  I am not even going to tell you the time as you will be disgusted.  I DID get up at 4.30am to run you know!  

Dusty bibles lead to dirty lives 

Sign on church in America's Deep South (courtesy of ABC 7:30 Report)

PS:  just want to spend one minute, in the final moments, to ask "what is the point of Photoshop?"  It ruins so much hope for so many....  This morning, in the cold light of dawn, I fell for this Tweeted photo of a cow photobombing (I love that word) a horse stuck in a gate.

Now, of course, I hear that it is Photoshopped!  Of course, now that I am more awake, fourteen hours later, I wonder how I ever thought it was real.  Anyway, who really DID invent that horrible, evil program?  It should be banned. It's the same program that makes "normal" shaped women look like freaks of nature and destroys womens' confidences.  Bah humbug.

Shock and awe

Yes, shock and awe works pretty well for me as a post title. I've just been examining my blog's statistics and I am quite amazed at who is looking at my blog, how they come to my blog (via Google mostly) and what words bring them to me (I must avoid "breasts" and "Nigella Lawson").  It makes quite fascinating reading, but is also a little disconcerting, in a manner I can't really explain.  

The other shock for the week is that we are not in Vanuatu, as we are supposed to be but instead, ended up at the hospital extracting mum from the coronary care unit after she decided to have a heart attack, 16 hours before we were due to fly out.  So, we cancelled our holiday and instead, we're enjoying the pleasures of northern NSW during winter.  It's actually been very pleasant and relaxing, though it's a full-time job corralling mum who wants to get into her garden and dig up some shrubbery.  She called the cardiologist's office yesterday to make a follow-up appointment and told the dour secretary that she was going for a jog on the beach!

We had brunch on Sunday at The Beach Cafe at Byron Bay (this was the view) to cheer her up but unfortunately, there weren't many "heart healthy" items on the menu really.  Well, nothing that looked as tasty as the bad stuff.  Isnt' that always the way?  So, with heart disease now evident on both sides of the family, I guess I'd better start kissing goodbye to cheese and ice-cream myself - and keep up the running!  

Mum is threatening a 100% pure carrot diet for her heart health but I'm sure this is just a knee-jerk reaction.  I've seen it before.  Spud was stented himself about eight years ago and I haven't seen him eat a raw carrot since!  Instead of Vanuatu (currently 26 degrees C) we are going to fly down to Melbourne (currently 9 degrees C) for a few days.  We love Melbourne and really, with my skin cancer "issue", it's much better to be fully clothed and out of the sun, don't you think?  Can't wait to be in Melbourne again as it has been several years since we were there and it will be great to have a little bit of a holiday before uni starts again next week.  

This wattle is in mum's garden - together with black cockatoos flying overhead.  Fabulous!

Ahhh-ha.  Mum has just woken up and is in an all together different frame of mind this morning. Instead of thinking her heart attack is all a bit of a laugh and adventure, she is starting to be worried about it, thinking she is having another attack.  I think she's moving into the next stage.  We were wondering when she would stop being so relaxed about it all.  Luckily my sensible brother has arrived from Sydney and he will straighten her out.  

I made these French macarons yesterday.  Yes, they are macarons - not geological specimens from the Simpson desert!  They are my first attempt and they were utterly awful.  I think I over beat the egg white so when they cooked, they seemed to separate.  They were so chewy that our jaws ached.  Priority Number One in Melbourne is to find a decent macaron. After that, it's off to the Napoleon exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.  

Just had to post this photo, taken at the local BWS store, attached to the supermarket.  Yes, that's a bottle of Grange for $699.  And it's right by the automatic-opening doors, so it can have lots of lovely temperature changes throughout each day.  I am not a "wine wanker" but I know this is some fancy wine and shouldn't fancy wine be kept in a fancy 'fridge so the delicate (expensive) flavours aren't ruined?  By the way, isn't red wine good for your heart?