I have the travel bug... or is it itch?

In an ideal world, I would say to my boss,

"hey dude, I'm just gonna pop overseas for an all expenses paid holiday

so won't be in to work for the next few months"

And he would cheerfully say,

"No probs Shauna, take all the time you need and here is a big fat bonus just for being awesome!"

But life isn't that ideal.

Life is still good... just not that good.

So instead I have to resort to simply writing a list of the top five 5 places

that I am determined to visit in my lifetime.

Norway

Specifically the northern town of Tromso

This is a very pretty looking town but the real reason I have to go here is

to see the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis.

This beautiful display occurs when charged particles, travelling super fast, are captured by our glorious planet's magnetic field. As the particles are drawn down and hit the ionsphere they collide with the gases in our atmosphere producing photons (light particles) that glow green, blue, red and violet.

I know this.

Yet even so, I still find it a little magical.

As if I might spy little fairies up there sprinkling dust over the night sky.

For me, the Northern Lights are a perfect little package of things I love.

Night sky, science, travel, wonder and magic.

Santorini, Greece

I need to go here and that's all there is to it.

If I am denied this travel venture then I don't doubt that I will

cry, throw things, sulk, stamp my feet and probably even die from sadness.

My partner and I decided to not visit Greece while planning our last Europe trip due to both

lack of time over there and also money. If I think about it too much I begin to regret leaving it out.

But what it means is that when we do go there it will be a much longer and better stay than what we would have been able to have if we had of squeezed it in.

Japan

This place seems like a lot of fun.

Lots to see and lots to buy.

I know quite a lot of people who love Japan and say it's a must.

One place my younger sister recommends is one of Japan's themed restaurants, Lockup.

The costumed staff  'lock' you in a cell and you order food that resembles human body parts

 and order cocktails in beakers and test tubes.

On top of all the glittering city lights Japan has another pretty side which I would love to see in person.

There are loads of temples and gardens to escape to.

Montreal, Canada

From what friends have told me this place rocks.

I want to go here in winter to enjoy the fire places and the poutine.

Quebec looks like a really lovely town and with all the people speaking french how could I not love it?

And I forgot to mention Maple trees.

Indescribably love these trees.

Yellowstone National Park

This place both amazes me and frightens me.

It's so picturesque yet is literally just one big volcano.

Geysers, mud pools and bears.

But just look at it.

Incredible.

The reason for all the geysers and hot springs is that water is still passing through extremely hot rock underground, which is still cooling down from a volcanic eruption thousands of years ago.

An eruption that covered most of North America in a deep layer of ash.

I should probably mention that the volcano is still active.

But I have to see it.

So there you have it, my top five.

I do have a couple of bonus destinations however.

Edam, Melbourne and Bora Bora.

Edam, Netherlands

Now this one is a bit of a cheat as I have actually already visited here in my lifetime.

But I really wanna go back! I could happily live here.

It's quiet, green and so peaceful.

Bike riding through this town is one of my happiest travel memories.

Even though we woke up with crippling hangovers that morning and were a little unsteady on our bicycles,
the ridiculously fresh air was exactly what we needed.

It's a simple town of beer and clogs.

Could it get any better then that?

Yes, quite frankly it could.

That's right folks, they have cheese markets.

Cheese.

Cheese.

Cheese.

Did I mention I could happily live here?

Melbourne

This is a bonus destination because it's just so damn close and easy to get to.

The amount of times I have thought about flying down for the weekend and then not is stupid.

Heaps of shopping, bars and restaurants to keep me very happy.

Plus the beach is close enough to enjoy.



Bora Bora, French Polynesia

This one is a bonus destination because this is where I would love to go for a honeymoon

(if the Australian government ever grows a heart and allows me to marry the person I love)

Simply because all there is to do here is eat & drink lots of goodness and laze about on a beach.

Also the flight is quite shortish which is a big plus.

And there you have it.

I bet you have a bit of an itch to travel now too.



Sewing on a Sunday

Today I felt like making something.

Sewing something.

Why not an owl eye mask?

I work in a 24 hour laboratory which means I'm on a weekly shift rotation.

Day shift, afternoon shift and graveyard shift.

It can at times be really hard to sleep in daylight so I am quite dependent on my eye mask.

But it's boring and black.

If you too need darkness to sleep,

today I'm going to show you how to make yourself a nice new one.

Firstly you will need all these things...

• a few sheets of felt
• basic sewing kit
• coloured string
• approx 40 cm elastic
• some buttons

(A sewing machine is also handy but if you don't have one you can always just stitch by hand)

Roughly draw the shape of your mask onto a sheet of felt and cut it out.

Trace that piece onto another sheet of felt except this time add a sort of unicorn horn to the top.

Cut out big circles for eyes and choose your buttons.

The button choosing part of this was an especially time consuming one.

I loved them all.

But in the end settled for two big purple ones and two green heart ones.

Gather your bits.

Next step is to join the front and back of your mask.

Once you have done that, it's time to fold down the unicorn horn to give the owl a nose.

For the next step I decided to hand stitch instead of using the machine.

This is partly due to my terrible sewing skills but mostly due to the fact that sometimes

 hand stiched things look way cuter.

It's that little bit of love.

I chose to use green string and an over sized needle.

Once you have finished all the stitching you can attach the buttons.

Because I chose to use 4 buttons instead of two I decided to sew each pair together first.

Then I could hand sew them on a little easier.

All that is left to do now is attach the elastic to the back.

Obviously it depends on the size of your head.

I cut off approx 40cm

but ended up having to shorten it to about 36cm to make it nice and snug.

I made the decision to hand sew the elastic onto the back because I thought it

 would be neater than using my machine.

I still managed to make it look messy but taking in to consideration that my eyes would be shut

while wearing it I figured it didn't really matter.

In retrospect I also realise that sewing the eyes on before joining the front and back of the mask would have made it much neater on the back also.

Oh well.

This revelation simply means that not only did I make something new today I also learnt something new.

Plus it means the raccoon one I'm going to make for my lady will be even better.

Though mine is still fucking awesome.

Sweet dreams.

Last four

I'm starting to realise that as someone who hates moving, I tend to relocate far too often.

The next place I had my mail delivered to was this one.

This is also taken by Google Maps.

It's actually more a photo of the garage rather than the actual house if you want my opinion.

Those few bricks you see hidden behind all the trees, that's where Candice and I slept.

It was a 2 bedroom unit but was really just a big house with a wall down the middle.

On the other side of the wall lived an elderly lady who drank a lot of cask wine.

A few unlucky things happened while living here.

The first was when

I came home from work one day and after reaching the top of the internal staircase I was greeted by a trail of big footprints going from the bathroom to our bedroom.

I froze for a second then ran back down the stairs and outside.
 I called Candice.

For some reason calling the police didn't enter my frightened little mind.

She then called her Dad who turned up 5 minutes later.

That guy needs a cape or something.

Anyway he went in and checked under every bed, inside cupboards, behind doors.

Our intruder wasn't there. He had already left.

Taking with him a few expensive items including my beloved laptop, a camera and a DS.

We had left the second story bathroom window unlocked.

We very quickly locked it.

The second unlucky thing was

about a month later when he came back.

This time breaking in from the spare room also on the second level.

A friend who had stayed over opened the window and had forgotten to shut it.

All our intruder took this time was taken was our second laptop and a dress.

A DRESS. Seriously dude, why?

I loved that dress.

Third unlucky thing that we encountered

happened late one night while feeling very relaxed on the couch.

All of sudden we heard a big smash come from outside.

Candice freaked out saying that it sounded really close.

Trying to calm her down I told her that it didn't sound that loud and was probably nothing.

She peeked out the window and saw headlights and a car chugging down the street.

Then we saw my car.

All smashed up the butt and parked diagonally in our driveway.

Some douche bag had been joyriding and due to his lack of driving skills

had lost control and let his car beat up my car.

A few neighbours also saw the car chugging off but no one managed to get a number plate so

unfortunately I had to pay the excess on my car insurance to get it fixed.

This douche bag was an asshole!

I could never do something like that... the guilt would eat me up.

Besides those 3 unfortunate events I didn't mind living here.

We had our own space and our kitten Merlot.

Yes, he is named after wine.

No, I'm not ashamed.

I think we lived here for 18 months.

After some time though I started to miss being close to the city.

Then some friends mentioned that they wanted to to move too and we all thought it would be great to get a big enough place and share house again.

It seeeeeemed like a good idea.

I had already lived with Mat at Rylatt St so kinda thought I knew what I was in for.

This new home was back in Indooroopilly and was huge.

Candice, Bel and myself were upstairs and the two boys were downstairs.

And my friend Dena unofficially kinda just lived in the spare room upstairs with us.

This house had a massive rear deck.

It was big enough for couches down one end and an outdoor setting and hammock down the other end.

We had good neighbours. And bad neighbours.

Our awesome neighbours were to the left of the house and our lovely neighbours were to the right.

Extremely hostile neighbours were to the rear of the house.

I first became aware of the grumpy neighbours a few weeks after we moved in.

Mat and I were sitting on the back deck chatting when we received a visit from police for a noise complaint. This isn't your usual noise complaint.

This was no crazy party.

Or domestic violence.

We were told that we were chatting too loudly.

I can honestly tell you I'm not a loud talker!

Neither is Mat.

Plus their house wasn't close to ours.

We immediately hated those neighbours and focused all our energy on pissing them off

for the rest of them we lived there.

I hope with all my heart we achieved that.

I had an incredible amount of fun while living here but as previously mentioned, share housing is difficult.

My career demands I work at lot of annoying hours, including graveyard shifts

and let me tell you, day time sleep was quite frustrating and at times impossible to achieve.

 And it was a first time share house for Candice. She struggled and so did I.

After living with just the two of us for so long it was hard to share a living space with so many people.

At the end of 12 months we decided to move out on our own again.

 We moved a few streets away to good old Disraeli St.

This place was really cute.

Dark wooden flooring, modern bathroom and a rear deck for us to have afternoon drinks on.

There was a bus stop 100m from our house.

On weekdays Candice used it to get to work.

On most weekends we both used it to head out for drinks in the valley.

 We lived here for 12 months.

The reason we left was because we wanted a puppy so badly.

We applied for approval from the owner but got a big fat fucking NO.

After looking around for houses close by that allowed dogs we realised that inner city rentals hated dogs.

So we had to make a decision.

Stay close to the city and be dogless or move further out and finally have the chocolate

 Labrador we so badly wanted.

So we moved.

All the way out to Springfield... and we got our puppy.

And after just recently getting approval from the owners, a second puppy is now 

coming to live with us and we couldn't be happier!

Luna arrives in 8 days to keep our little Yoshi company.

There are loads of things I like about living here.

It's easy to keep neat and clean.

A big yard for our dogs.

Quiet street with no annoying children.

Ridiculous mountain views from our backyard. (yay for being perched on a hill)

They're hard to see from this photo (thanks again Google) but the mountains make me feel happy.

I really DO hate moving.

 Honestly.

I don't know why I have moved so much...every time I do move I say it will will the last time.

So I'll finish by saying I'm staying put in this rental for now.

Candice and I are saving our hearts out to buy a place so that we never have to move again. 

Kinda hoping that the owners just randomly decide to sell at the time we wanna buy.

That way we would wouldn't need to pack up, move house and then unpack again.

We could just crack a beer, chink and be done.

Ideal.

Mt Cotton to Indro...

After landing in Brisbane (and jumping for joy)

Wendy and I were picked up from the airport by her older sister Sally.

We drove off in the direction of her house to make a new home.

Her place was little and cute and had echidnas digging up the front garden.

So, pretty much adorable.

I lived here with Wendy, Sally and (for the last 6 months) a girl called Nelly.

It was a house of lesbians.

Hoorah!

L Word marathons, a vegetarian kitchen, herb/vege gardens.

Open conversations.

One housemate, however, was an irritation.

Nelly was a pain in the ass. It wasn't even her real name. 

 Her name was actually Rachel or Jennifer or something.

But Nelly is what she insisted people called her all of a sudden.

She was one of those people who craved attention.

It was difficult to stand her.

Despite one bad gay egg I really did enjoy living here, however there comes a time when you just need your own house. Your own living space, cooking space and drinking space.

Our time had come.

I missed living close to the city so we started looking around Toowong/Indrooroopilly.

We very quickly found a place.

Rylatt St, Indro.

I'm pretty sure that the people who lived here before us were evicted.

I remember getting there early for the house inspection and being completely hung over.

Wendy was always the responsible one.

We got it.

I loved moving in and exploring every little imperfection.

The kitchen was big but ridiculous.

The bathroom was pink and even more ridiculous.

But it was ours and we were happy.

Our kitten Maibe loved it too.

After a few months 2 good friends of ours went though a break up.

Sue came to live with us.

At the time it was a breath of fresh air for me.

It was the beginning of a relationship breakdown for Wendy and me.

The kind that's hard to end.

I still loved her but I couldn't breathe.

I wanted it to work so badly but the more I tried the more suffocated I felt.

As previously mentioned I don't deal well with drama.

This house had so much of that it's difficult for me to think about sometimes.

Wendy and I broke up.

Slept together.

Got back together.

Broke up again. Slept together. Broke up again.

A cycle I wasn't comfortable with.

It's hard when you live in the same house and one wall away from each other.

Something had to change.

A second suicide attempt from Wendy changed it all.

Waiting in the emergency room with Sally for 4 hours and then having Wendy refuse to see me.

All because I had called her sister for support.

I was in tears. Sally and I sat down and talked.

 We decided  that it would be best for Wendy to move back in with her.

This time was difficult for both Wendy and me.

We stayed close.
But it was difficult.

A friend of mine moved into Rylatt St house with myself and Sue.

Mat.

We have know each other since we were were 13 and are still very close friends.

It was a crazy house.

At one point we had 3 pet snakes, 1 chihuahua, 1 feline, 2 shit happy turtles, a dozen cannibal goldfish and 4 free range chickens.
I named mine Pepper, Sue called hers Noodle and Mat called his Riffraff

TOO free range at times.

I recall Mat and myself looking like odd city hippies walking down our street (after our chickens got a little too free range) with a cat curled up in my arms and Mat throwing breadcrumbs over his shoulder at the following of chickens we bribed to come home.

I lived here for a few more months until Sally called to tell me that Wendy had died.
She had taken her life.

There were too many memories in that house.

I had to leave.

The place I escaped to was a unit I moved into with Candice.
In case I hadn't mentioned her yet ... She is my rock.

Two in one.

Okay so I'm starting to get bored with this house thing.

Time to compact a few into one post.

A bad break up left me 'temporarily' living with my older sister.

She was absolutely wonderful and I could never thank her enough for letting me

and my damaged little heart cramp her style.

She told me I could stay in my 7 year old niece, Emily's room as she could share with her younger sister.

Emily liked pink and glitter.

LOADS of it.

To be honest I was just so grateful to have somewhere comfortable to stay.

But let me be clear.

 The walls were literally pink and glittery.

 I didn't even know glitter paint existed.

My stay was temporary. Week by week. Temporary.

My very patient sister, husband and their two kids put up with me for almost 12 months.

I grew very close to my sister during that time.

I love and respect her more than she will probably ever know.

While living with my sister I met someone.

Her name was Wendy.

She was a zoo keeper at Australia Zoo.

Things moved very quickly and all of a sudden I was in another relationship.

Laying in bed one night I mentioned that I wanted to leave.

I wanted to be far away from where I was... And she said ok. Let's do that.

Which leads to my next home.

Western Australia.

Our plane landed in Perth a week before xmas.

We were picked up from the airport by a zoo keeper workmate of Wendy's.

He had just bought a zoo in WA and we were coming to work for him.

It became apparent very quickly that this guy was a moron.

We had to live with him.

Him and his 'lady friend'.

I call her that because this guy was the son of a pastor and was certainly not allowed sex before marriage.

They would have all their churchy friends around and display our spare room as her room.

Saints they were.

We kept hidden.

Sinners we certaintanly were.

I have never said a single prayer because... you know... I have a brain.

This is probably why I was so panicky when we were invited to Christmas dinner with the previously mentioned pastor.

The whole family were hateful jerks.

To be honest, I wanted to leave a few weeks after arriving but it wasn't until I had to sit down for dinner with this horrible family and listen to them say grace that I realised how bad this situation was.

The whole time they lowered their heads in prayer, I creepily observed with one eye open watching them...

I silently whipered "what the fuck".

Spent christmas here.

As well as new years eve.

Also my 21st birthday.

I felt pretty damn lonely on all on these occasions.

Despite all the halfwits, I did meet a lot of amazing people.

I was also able to visit the gorgeous Margaret River and taste a lot of delicious wine.

The beaches are pristine... but beware of nudist beaches.

They're so damn pretty.

They trick you.

You  feel totally comfortable, completely fucking free.

That is until a shadow covers you.

He wants to know the time.

It's an old dude stooped over you with his man bit just dangling there while he stars at you.

Can't help but notice his watch.

Then FINALLY luck changed.

Homeward bound.

Eeeee friends.

Home.

We were so glad to move back to Brissy.

Next place is Mt Cotton...

Moving on...

The next place I called home was just down the road from the last.

I had just decided to take on a Bachelor of Science Psychology and I couldn't afford anywhere else.

This unit was TINY. And shit.

I found this image on google maps because I was feeling too unmotivated today to actually drive 20 minutes over to Toowong to take a snap myself.

Yeah I'm lazy. Yeah I'm okay with that.

I probably drank a little too much red wine while living here.

I lived here with Nicci.

We often locked ourselves out of this place.

One night we had just returned home from a romantic bike ride to the bottle shop to realise we had locked ourselves out again. This wasn't stressful as it was a very common occurrence.

Only this time our usual break in plan was foiled. This was due to us actually

remembering to lock the front windows.

Some may call that responsible.

To us it was annoying.

We were absolutely drenched and freezing from the rain and it was Xmas eve.

Let me just mention that we were pretty much broke all the time so even though a locksmith may seem like an obvious solution it really wasn't. Also we didn't know locksmiths existed.

So we decided to smash in a back window with a heavy spanner.

I know what you're thinking... Clever, right.

Nicci wrapped a cloth around her hand and got angry at the glass.

Took a few hits but we got there in the end.

Yep, damn right we high fived.

There was a hole in the glass pane big enough to reach in and turn the key.

But unfortunately,

we had latched the chain from the inside so could only get the door open 2cm.

Plan B came into  action... Nicci kicked the door in.

Only problem was that, she also ripped the skirting and light switch cover off the wall exposing live wires.

Did I mention it was that year we had the crazy scary storm the night before Xmas?

Rain was pouring in and even though we tried calling for an electrician we were out of luck.

We were leaving for Woodford Folk Festival the next afternoon so our solution was to drag a chest of drawers out from the spare room to lean against the back door. Totally secure.

We topped it off by sticky taping some cardboard to the smashed window.

Nicci told me it would be fine.

I pretty much believed everything she said.

We stayed here for 12 months.

There were many, many fun times.

But it was a long 12 months... lots of drama.

I can't stand drama!

Our lease ended with Nicci saying she was going away up north for a few weeks fruit picking.

I packed up our stuff and dropped most of her things off at her mother's house.

My older sister said she could take me in for a couple of weeks or so until Nicci got back and we got another place.

A few weeks went by and Nicci told me she had met someone.

A man.

He was 52.

And a man.

I was a little lost.

Did I mention he was a man?

It was a pretty big blow to the ego.

So I wasn't moving anywhere.

I guess the next post will be detailing how my 'couple of weeks' merged into almost 12 months of residency. 

And how I learnt to deal with the colour pink.

Home sweet home

They say that home is where the heart is.

But is it always?

Sometimes home is simply a dodgy house or apartment that is just cheap enough to afford.

Sometimes home feels more like a halfway house.

Sometimes home is a pink room with fairy dust on the walls.

And if you're as lucky as me, sometimes home can feel like a christian camp.

I'm going to take you on a little journey through all of the places that I have called home.

Let's go back 11 years to when I was still 17...

Home number 1

This cottage was the first place I payed rent.

It was on Milton Rd, Auchenflower and at the time I think the rent was only $220 a week.

3 bedrooms, big kitchen and a vertical backyard.

I moved in with a bed, a chest of drawers and a hideous second hand brown couch and I couldn't have been happier about it. I was living with a guy called Adrian and a girl called Nicci.

Between the 3 of us we managed to fill it up with enough items for it to constitute a home.

I was free! Living independently was fanfuckingtastic.Why hadn't I done this sooner?

Six months into our lease however, it became apparent that the honeymoon was over.

Share housing was hard.

Adrian got a horrible girlfriend who would insist on being at our house 24/7 and made an annoying habit of screaming the fucking house down with these obviously fake orgasms at any time of the day or night.

Adrian stopped cleaning up after himself. There was a peculiar smell wafting from his room.
 Used condoms were scattered all over his bedside and floor.
Then one day I came home to find his emptying out him room.
The bastard was doing a runner!
He grudgingly gave us the rest of the week's rent and that was it.
Despite it being quite an asshole thing for him to do midway through a lease, we were happy to see the back of him and his fuckface girlfriend.

I forgot to mention that by this point Nicci and I had hooked up.
She was my first live-in girlfriend.
We decided not to have anyone else move in and stayed there until the lease was up. There was a lot of beer consumed in that house. But also a lot of green tea.
So it evened out. I made amazing friendships and learnt a LOT about myself in this cottage.
Despite it looking like a house that a crack whore might live in, it holds many, many good memories.
I'm pretty sure my heart was in this house.

So that's house number 1 in a nutshell. I have realised that if I put all my homes in one post it will be way too long so I'm gonna do them separately.
The next post will be on a shitty old Toowong unit. Thrilling I know.
Stay tuned folks ;-)

And to close..

So as I predicted being a vegan isn't something I would like to do permanently, though it was interesting to discover just how much food contains some kind of animal by-product.

During the week I finally made myself watch this doco film, Earthlings.

It's free to view online though it can be quite brutal in parts.

http://www.earthlings.com/

I think it says a lot about people.

I cried a few times, covered my eyes repeatedly and even hid behind my knees in some parts.

It may not affect you the same way it did me but given that I was a vegetarian for so long I started to question why I had started eating meat again.

So while being a vegan isn't for me, I have decided to take a break from meat again. I won't say permanently as I don't want to look like a silly liar if I change my mind later on.

Red meat and chicken are easy to give up but fish is actually something I miss already.

I feel really good about this decision though :-)

Mid week update...

Three days in and what do I think so far?

I'm hungry.

That's not to say there isn't plenty to eat it's more that I just don't stay full for very long.

The meals are quite delicious. My partner and I made a huge vegetable & chickpea curry that we ate for dinner over 2 days. Then last night we made vegan pizza.

Yes. There is a bite taken out of that.

And yes, it was me.

But like I said I'm so hungry all the time!

So big deal, the pizza wasn't cooked yet. But the base was fresh & warm straight out of the oven...

I don't need to justify myself. You're just the internet.

You don't even get hungry.

Getting back on track, this vegan pizza was super easy and quick to make. As are all pizzas I guess.

To make 2 small pizzas bases you need

• 500g plain flour
• 35g dried yeast
• 1tp salt
• 300ml warm water
• 4tp olive oil

Then you know, mix that shit up. Knead it real good for 5 minutes or so.

I like my bases thin but as the dough was so springy I just couldn't get it there so due to pure impatience I had to settle with a fairly thick base.

Then you top with vegan pesto (hard to find but it exists!) or whatever sauce you want. Next step involves throwing handfuls of goodness at your pizza.

We all have different tastes but on mine I included

onion, garlic, mushroom, sundried tomato, baby spinach, capsicum,

fresh tomato, soy sausage & vegan tofutti 'cream cheese'.

The smell that this pizza created was amazing. It also tasted goooooooooooood.

But I couldn't help but wonder if some feta and a light sprinkling of parmesan would have made this better.

I think it would.

A few days in and I don't think being a vegan is something I could do long term.

Only four days to go :-)

Oh and as for cravings.

CHEESE.