DAY 9: My Own Jokes

This is sad. It's pathetic. But I love it when I find myself funny. I find other people funny too but, most of the time, I laugh at my internal dialogue because she is a cross between Bette Midler, Whoopi Goldberg and that housecleaning lady in Two and a Half Men.......Berta?

Do you ever have those moments when your life starts to resemble a comedy? I LIVE life like that. Some people say I'm a nuff nuff magnet because funny things always happen to me. Maybe it's because I always see the funny side of life......maybe not ALWAYS but most times. And maybe not always appropriately but then that's me.

I like laughing. My favourite people are comedians....Billy Connolly is an uber icon of mine. Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg.....they make me laugh.

I guess what I'm essentially but rather verbosely trying to say is that I love laughter and laughing. I love being with people who make me laugh.

DAY 8: Coming Back To The Middle

I like quiet days.....days when you stop long enough to recalibrate and collect your thoughts.......days when nothing happens and you potter and tinker and practically do nothing much but think and have internal dialogues while pottering and tinkering.

I ran a gamut of emotions, like most human beings, and most days I'm happy and 'up'...but I really love the days when my body says "STOP SHAZ"...and we both consolidate thoughts and actions so that the next day is full of happiness and 'up'ness again. Upness??? Anyway....

Today was 40 degrees Celsius. It was too hot for me to do anything of any consequence so, with the aircon on, I stopped and relcalibrated. I came back to the middle.

Our lives are programmed to DO...and we DO a lot, a lot of the time. We leave our centres to go out there and it's always good for the soul to come back to the middle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaqxX3agmp0

DAY 7: Reinventing Myself

 

I can't properly express what a bloody good haircut can do for your soul. As I said, this is my year for doing. I am embracing change and THIS was part of Stage One (so far every change I've made has been categorised as Stage One. Not sure when it actually advances to Stage 2).

I am deliriously happy with my new haircut. I've never liked myself with short hair and so I've consequently hung onto the same ole same ole.....but part of this new MEEEEE, walked into a grande hairdressers in town, parted with a shiteload of $$$ and I am one happy camper with the result!

Not sure it's Beyonce so much as just Sharon and that's okay, you know?

I loved the haircut so much that I brought it home with me in my gorgeous convertible in Melbourne's brilliant sunshine while listening to Aerosmith really LOUD.

Huzzah for change!! And Aerosmith!!

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DAY 7: Reinventing Myself I can't properly express what a bloody good haircut can do for your soul. As I said, this is my year for doing. I am embracing change and THIS was part of Stage One (so far every change I've made has been categorised as Stage One. Not sure when it actually advances to Stage 2). I am deliriously happy with my new haircut. I've never liked myself with short hair and so I've consequently hung onto the same ole same ole.....but part of this new MEEEEE, walked into a grande hairdressers, parted with a @#!*% load of $$$ and I am one happy camper with the result! Not sure it's Beyonce so much as just Sharon and that's okay, you know? I loved the haircut so much that I brought it home with me in my gorgeous convertible in melbourne's brilliant sunshine while listening to Aerosmith really LOUD. Huzzah for change!! And Aerosmith!!

DAY 6: Liane, It's A Cold Day For Pontooning

I had lunch today with a good good friend (well, she's more family really), Liane. I love Liane's company so much. Our normal ritual (which has only JUST struck me as I write this) is to email each other and say "Did you bring your lunch today?" and the correct response is "No, I forgot". We repeat this every single time as if we're spies and this is our secret code... like saying "The spotted cuckoo is flying backwards" and the response is "It's a cold day for pontooning. " That kinda thing.....

So, we buy our lunch and take it to the Treasury Gardens across the road and watch the world go by, which is also secret code for watching all the near-naked joggers go by. Nudity shall also feature as a future topic as something to be grateful for and something that makes me VERY happy....but I digress....

In previous meetings in the park, we've almost found the cure for cancer and diabetes (which we both have.......diabetes that is), found a working solution to world hunger and poverty and the most fun thing we've done is randomly plonked ourselves in the background of unsuspecting weddings purely to appear in their photos as guests. It's funnier still when the wedding party is predominantly Asian and then there's this Sri Lankan and Indian chick tacked onto the end like a pair of inappropriate punctuation marks. Allll good. Nod.

Anyway, one of my favourite feelgood things to do is have lunch with Liane. An hour flies by too quickly and she leaves you feeling lighter and fluffier for being in her company.

The only thing warmer and fuzzier is the feeling you get when you pee in your own wetsuit...........I hear.

DAY 5: Coffee

Coffee makes me happy. My day starts with a pathetic coffee that I make myself in the hope that it tastes like the coffee that my barrista makes me, and more often, it just doesn't. Which escalates the value of my barrista tenfold.

I MUST have a coffee first thing in the morning. It signals the breaking of a new day, the start of something grand. It is tantamount to scratching my balls if I had any to scratch. THAT'S how good a good coffee feels first thing in the morning.

Just before I get to work, I pop into my favourite cafe, Cafe 201, and Yale makes me the MOST delicious coffee, as he always does. He knows how I like it....weak, skinny milk and halfa sugar. Why do I even bother, right? BUT I don't even have to ask anymore, he sees me coming in and starts it - he's brilliant!!

Why does coffee make me feel happy? It has the aroma of friendship and intimacy. It says "I don't have to look up the obituaries to see if I'm alive because I just smelled LIFE and it's my own". It bonds friends over gossip and laughter.....

In Bali, I intend to try kopi luwak. "Kopi" is the Indonesian word for coffee and "Luwak" is the local name of this animal which eats the raw red coffee 'cherries' as part of its usual diet. This animal eats a mixed diet of insects, small mammals and fruits along with the softer outer part of the coffee cherry but does not digest the inner beans, instead excreting them still covered in some inner layers of the cherry. Locals then gather the beans -- which come through the 'animal stage' fairly intact -- and sell them on to dealers. It is believed that enzymes in the stomach of the civet add to the coffee's flavour through fermentation of some type.

Cat poo coffee....... retails for about $50 a cup or $1,400 per kilo. I wouldn't recommend using the garden variety house cat for this. Apparently it doesn't taste the same.

DAY 4: Australia Day!

There's no more poignant day to express my heartfelt gratitude to my beautiful parents for choosing this magnificently glorious country, from ALL the choices that they had, to call our home.

I am a VERY proud Australian. I am also a proud Indian too, that's my heritage and one I never forget. Being Australian (and if you've heard my voice, you'll know that I AM 100% Aussie, from the half-eaten jar of Vegemite in my pantry, to the BBQ on my decking, to the stash of beer in my laundry) means a tremendous amount to me.

Everytime my plane touches back down after a trip away, I cry like a baby because it's like coming home to the safety of a mother's welcoming arms. It's safe, it's gorgeous, it's generous and humble, it's home.

I've travelled a lot and have to honestly say, there is no country better than our little patch of Antipodean soil. I am thankful to ALL my gorgeous gorgeous Aussie mates who've accepted and loved me as I am (an Austrindian - I just made that up - hehehe) and have made me forget, from time to time, that I don't LOOK like your typical Australian.

My birth certificate says I wasn't born here but I AM AUSTRALIAN and I love love the feeling that it gives me when I say that.

CARN THE PIES!!!!

For the record, I have lived here for 37 years and I have been an Australian for 35 of those years - oh, it's home awrighty!

DAY 3: My Husband

Despite thinking you would appear on Day 365 of my list (and making me laugh in the process), YOU are one of the bestest decisions I've ever made.

You are right up there with adding choc bits to my pear muffins, up there with eating Granny Smith apples with salt and chilli powder.....you are right up there with skydiving and microlighting.

You are up there with my hot pink paisley gumboots (and you know much I LOVE those) and when I really come to think of it, you are the best adventure I've taken to date and the best decision I've made of late.

Jeefer, you rock my world and I love how we roll. Remember what I said to you in Samoa? "When I see a cracked mirror, you see a beautiful mosaic. When I see noise and confusion, you see Star Wars".

You're on dish duty tonight. I love youuuuuuuuu meeces to peeces!!

DAY 2: My Kids

DAY TWO: In no particular order....My kids!!

They've definitely taken me down the more "scenic" route of parenting but given their DNA, what else could I have expected? I love them as adults - they're such good company.

Funny as all @#!*% (I... hope they don't read this) and such gorgeously intriguing human beings. I'm more than just grateful that I had them and that they are mine (and their Dad's too). I can't imagine how my life would have panned out without them nor the lessons that I've learned as a by-product of having them.

I love what they bring to our family (and not just the happy happy joy joy stuff, the whole kit and caboodle) and my heart and my world is the richest place for ever wanting them and having them.

That said, I love the one who keeps their room cleaner MOST! Tee hee hee...

P.S. I also love the fact that I was clever enough to have a white one and a light brown moccha chocca latte one. How clever was I???

Day 1: My sister, Karen

I am grateful for my brilliant sister, Karen aka Nigel.

We are 8.5 years apart in age but we have a connection that goes beyond words. I am grateful that we share the same type of humour because she makes it okay to laugh at your own jokes in the most narcissistic way (they ARE funny).

She also makes it okay to cry and be human, to make mistakes and blame someone else for them, to inappropriately laugh at someone else getting hurt physically (see Oz Home Videos).....and to be free to be ME. Just me.

Love you Spakalicious (Can I have your CD collection when you're dead and gone?)