Plans.

I just charged up an old iPod and relived my early teens by listening to the amazing album, Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. It is such timeless, beautiful and melancholy music. It truly makes my heart hurt and yearn and sing and cry all at once.

Have a listen. It's on iTunes, Spotify and probably Youtube too.

Other things of note: 

Met with my Honours supervisor yesterday and we have some exciting ideas for my research project. Now I'm reading up on statistics and it's scary as hell. 

Dusky is setting in like a dream.

Got my hair cut. I doubt that you could really even tell but I can. The mullety bit has gone.

Still haven't started studying for my exam on Tuesday.

Bye now!

Dee x.

Sleepy Sundays.

Introducing Dusky.


Dusky likes hiding from me and giving me heart attacks, headbutting my phone when I am not giving him my full attention, camouflaging with the couch, purring, eating, sleeping, sitting on the thermarest under my bed, playing with mr fish.

P.S I grew tomatoes! I've picked 40 of the little buggers since the crop started to ripen! They are so delicious and sweet. When I planted Terry I worked out that I had spent about $20 on the plant, pot, potting mix, manure etc so I remember thinking that I'd be stoked if I got the equivalent of four punnets of cherry toms out of him. Well, not only has Terry provided me with ample fruit, he brings me so much joy simply because a) I grew him b) he is green. Win win win win.

Dee x.

Summer in Sandy Bay, Tasmania

It's my first summer at Osborne Street and it's been a ripper so far. The glorious sun streams in our windows at all hours of the day and I'm almost certain that the windows aren't glazed so I can lie on the couch with my morning coffee and tan and then do the same with a cold beer in my hand on my bed.

The front step is a bit of an afternoon sun trap and it's also my garden! I think I'm inherently lazy and so I fear that anything grown in the actual garden (e.g. not directly outside my front door) would get neglected and die.

However, what I am growing is going for glory; I have two types of parsley, mint, thyme, chillies who were munched by a caterpillar and infested with aphids but I think I have won the battle after giving them a good spray with some tomato leaf juice, some delightfully fragrant sweet peas and TOMATOES! Oh my sweet Terry (the tomato), you have done me proud. After many sleepless nights of wind and a few frosty mornings, Terry has come through with the goods- SO MANY TOMATOES! Now, let the January sun ripen them so I can throw them into my mouth.

Garden dreams for the future: daffodils in pots, sweet smelling daphne and something to eat over winter (any ideas?).

The other highlights of Sandy Bay life include access to numerous scrumpable fruit trees, a resident pademelon who hangs out in my garden, friendly neighbours who grow beautiful roses and give them to me as I am walking home.

Even more excitingly, the love of my life (Dusky, the burmese kitten) is arriving in just over a fortnight. Be prepared for vol I- infinity of Dusky updates and instagram spam in the near future.

Dee x.

2016.

Here's a little list of goals for 2016. Let's hope that publishing it keeps me accountable.

1. Write something down every day. Thoughts, goals, events, a song lyric, whatever. 


2. Start a fabulous Honours project. Graduating with First Class Honours is on the 2017 list!


3. Run 400km over the year. I know that doesn't sound like much but it'll be a hell of a lot more than I did in 2015! I'm going to log on my runs on MapMyRun and keep tabs on my progress that way. 


4. Shop local. Specifically, aim to buy as little from the big supermarkets as I can (especially fresh produce). My frequent shopper card tells me that last year, I spent around $2800 at Woolworths; I hope to halve this in 2016. 

Wishing you all the very best for 2016. I hope it brings you everything you want and need and more!

Dee x.

Shades of hydrangea in my garden. 

Summer Solstice.

Highlights of the past 24 hours. 

1. Chocolate milkshakes in Huonville.

2. Walking one of Tassie's best day walks with friends.

3. Eating salsa and drinking IPA on the edge of a mountain tarn in the last of the afternoon sunshine.

4. Watching the sun set on the longest day of the year. 

5. Sleeping under the wide open sky and waking in the middle of the night to see the Milky Way. 

6. Watching the sunrise, and feeling the warmth of it's rays whilst lazing about on our thermarests drinking cowboy coffee and poached eggs on pumpkin bread. 

Dee x. 

December.

December, the month of overindulgence, the warming sea, the longest days. L'heure bleue lingers for hours after the sun sets. This time of year is full of beauty but is so melancholic to me, as if every glorious moment is tinged with the sadness of something lost.

It's my birthday soon, the tenth without my Dad. Christmas and the New Year haunt me in the same way, each one like turning the page on a book that you've almost finished reading but never want to end. The book is called When You've Lived Longer Without Your Father Than With. It's a pretty depressing read but it's not over yet, I'll let you know what happens when I find out.

I think what troubles me the most about the silly season is how a single moment is so often filled with the greatest joys and the deepest sadness. So many occasions to celebrate, so much joy. Yet for me, with such joy comes such an overwhelming awareness of who is missing. It's kind of torturous you know because the better things get, the more I feel the sting of grief.

Anywhooo, they are my thoughts and I've been thinking them a lot lately but haven't been able to put them into words until now.

Thanks 2015, I'll be glad to see the back of you in many ways but you showed me so much. How to survive a grueling year of study and prac, how to survive on the lowest income I've had since I was 17, how to be loved, how to fall apart and survive.

Here's to a new year dawning.

Dee x.

Things that make it better.

1. Reading books. Good stories, Buddhist enlightenment, abstract poetry- the lot. Whatever takes your fancy and helps you escape your own mind for even just one moment at a time. For me, Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed has been the stand out- it's wit, realism and compassion provide solace and optimism despite the bleak and hopeless words. I wish I had a Dear Sugar to write to right now but alas, not.

2. While I can't write in to a famous author with an alias for life advice, I can hound my friends and family to show me the ways of the world. Oh, my poor friends and family! They who have listened to my woes, held me as I have wept, reasoned with me when I have uttered the craziest, most outlandish and ridiculous possible versions of the reality out loud, met me at the gym to hear me out through gasps for air; you deserve medals of bravery from the Queen and a lifetime free from emotional pain for holding my hand through the dark and wild aisles of my mind. Thank you for all you have done.

3. Nature. Nature constantly reminds me that although there are aspects of my life will never be okay, there will always be beauty in the world regardless. Mountain tops, beautiful spring gardens, the early morning light that floods my lounge room when I'm listless and unable to sleep. That is nature's way of keeping on and it's constant proof to me that I can do the same.

4. Hope. I guess having been through the ringer before, and despite the low it was, I know I survived. Some days, it's tough to convince myself that surviving is enough, it feels like life is pretty black and white and it's either a success or failure sort of situation. I'm working hard internally to remind myself that surviving is a win in itself, that everyday I keep the hope alive I am one day closer to thriving again.

Find the things that make it okay, I know yours are out there.


Dee x.