So about that list of very low-key things I wanted to Achieve in October:

➕ complete 5 of the 50before50 projects (ambitious!)
❌ – I don’t think I got even one crossed off!

➕ dinner and theatre date with Don (Saturday)
✅ – very lovely it was too 

➕ stop stress-eating biscuits at SML
❌ – not really, and have moved onto chocolate biscuits

➕ get into the habit of recording my impressions of books immediately upon completing them
✅ – very much helped by the fact that I barely read any books

➕ investigate acquiring a larger fish tank
✅ – definitely investigated (unkind people might say over-investigated!), but we remain undecided

➕ compile prep and packing list for birthday getaway
❌ – conceptually we have a fair idea what we need to take, but no actual list was produced!

Hey, actually way better than I thought!

xxx

And let’s try six low-key things for November:

➕ no bad snacks at work

➕ use foam roller on ITB morning and evening

➕ meditiate every day

➕ complete that list of getaway necessities

➕ grab some fiction to read on my getaway

➕ go hard at the 50 list

Courtesy of Joan: How the big 50 became the new 21st: Brits are no longer quiet about hitting the half century milestone (it’s a daily mail article, you probably don’t want to click the link!)

While I am unlikely to host a festival (what?), design my own wine or road-trip across America, there is one project I can get behind.

50 AT 50

The 50 Challenge is a list of 50 ideas that will give you 12 months of new experiences, designed to whisk you from your comfort zone and enliven your life. Challenges can range from ‘follow a gourmet recipe’ to ‘try golf’ to ‘get up at dawn and photograph the sunrise’.

Aim for one-off ideas that will inspire you, and avoid anything arduous or long-term (‘Learn fluent French’ is a life decision, not a birthday challenge.) This way, the birthday joy will last until your 51st.

Though, no matter how much Don would like it, I definitely won’t be adding ‘try golf’ to my list.

xxx

** Admittedly, I’ve been rather leisurely in pursuing this, but it’s taken me over 3.5 years to get even part-way through my list – 50 things in one year seems very ambitious!

We’ve had our fish tank for just over two months now – so worth an update.

It was super exciting the first time lady guppy gave birth – we weren’t really expecting it and were delighted to discover a single tiny wee baby fish darting about one day. It was amazing and cute watching him grow up and then, after about a month – dead. Poor baby fishy.

vale baby fish

Then the next day – excitement! Lady Guppy gave birth again! I came down in the morning and there were at least twenty very tiny babies in the tank – then I watched in horror as she chased some down and gobbled them up! We’re now calling her Medea.

Fortunately some babies survived the feeding frenzy and provided more joy – until I watched one being sucked into the filter when trying to escape from Hungry Medea. Luckily it passed straight through without being turned to slurry, but on rescuing found a couple more less lucky babies that must have been sucked up earlier. So then I was on Filter Watch until I found a solution (InformationSuperhighway to the rescue again).

tiny fish at about 10 o’clock

So we were left with 8 babies – who are growing nicely! Until yesterday when yet another died. Apparently this is pretty common with babies, but ugh!

guppy family – babies totes looking like Mum

Now Medea is knocked up again and is about to drop more babies at any minute – and I’m rapidly running out of space. I’ve toyed with the idea of getting a larger volume tank with the idea that it would be kinder to the fish and maybe less work? But maybe it would increase the workload, and we don’t really have an ideal place to put it.

I kept fish – both tropical and marine – back in the early 1990s, but I’d not remembered it being so challenging and requiring so much attention!

I don’t know whether it is because our tank is on the small side, but there is a LOT of stuff required. I’m forever measuring water levels (science!), doing endless water changes, endless filter cleanings (being careful to retain the beneficial bacteria), reading hundreds of forum posts, watching youtube videos and general fussing about.

science!

There’s a huge difference between fishy advice on the internet and in the fish store. This is one of those rare instances where the InformationSuperhighway has been proved right over and over again! Things I have learned which are contrary to what various fishy shops have advised – I should not have introduced fish so quickly, the original catfish I bought were not really suitable for a new set-up, I am way (way) overstocked. In short, I am a MONSTER.

I’d expected this to be a relatively relaxing endeavour – giving minimal attention and being rewarded with soothing fishiness. Instead it plays into all my insecurities and obsessive tendencies and amplifies them. There’s really very little that is soothing going on.

xxx

Body Count:
– 2 x original oto catfish | 1 x yellow male guppy | 1 x white cloud | 2 x bristlenose catfish | 2 x 1 month old guppy babies – all to Mystery causes
– 6 very tiny babies – to filter
– unknown number of very tiny babies – to ravenous mother

On Saturday afternoon Don and I took a little outing to the other art fair.

There wasn’t a whole lot which grabbed me, but I immediately gravitated toward the works of Jennifer Lia. Don says blue paintings are like a magnet to me and that I immediately head straight for anything predominantly blue. I was completely unaware of this, but he’s right – which is kind of crazy because I wouldn’t have said I even like blue.

We grabbed a postcard which current sits nicely on the shelf above the television alongside a postcard of Robert Malherbe’s south coast 2 (which I was slightly disappointed to miss out on it at Sydney Contemporary this year). Yep, more blue.

I was really very taken with Lia’s Bronte 2 which was available as a print (already sold). Unfortunately the original wasn’t being shown, so I couldn’t see it in person, but I’m quite tempted by it – love that curve and the whole summerishness of it.

Well tempted apart from that whole wanting to be a bit more frugal thing.

xxx

Gorgeous afternoon so we walked home from Redfern via Newtown where we stopped off for Thai for lunch and I indulged in a pretty excellent watermelon drink. 

Interestingly, my right ankle was in agony by the time we got home (it’s a bit of a hike). I’d always attributed that ankle pain and swelling to running – but I haven’t run for a while now and have had the pain a couple of times after long walks I’m not-great footwear** so maybe I need to revisit that whole thing.

xxx

** flats with some arch support both times, I don’t do heels, but still not proper supportive walking shoes, designed for (well) walking.

Not much reading happening this month – I picked up a few samples, but not many compelling enough for me to actually go to the effort of buying.

One positive outcome of this is that it’s definitely easier to remember what I’ve read because it was barely anything!

xxx

Gabriella Coslovich: Whiteley on Trial
This is actually very good, am reading in fits and starts. Who doesn’t love an art fraud case? 
24% in.

xxx

Annie Raser-Rowland, Adam Grubb: The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More
Love the idea behind this book, it’s Australian too – which is pretty excellent – most of this genre is written overseas and can tend toward the less relatible. Found the voice occasionally a-little-too-trying-too-hard-to-be-funny. Many, many good things in here and though I’m unlikely to resort to freeganism, or start a huge garden, I liked the reminder that it’s completely not mandatory to upgrade / renovate your house (sometimes this is something I forget, with all those design blogs I follow and renovation programmes I watch!). Also loved the prod that I don’t always need the latest *thing*, but that it’s definitely still okay to spend money on *stuff* – particularly on quality and experiential *stuff*.

Some excellent Excerpts:

+ You’ve likely heard the following advice before, but given that so many of us forget to do it, here goes: when you’re food shopping, check what you already have before you go. This isn’t just about avoiding ending up with three jars of mayonnaise in the fridge, it’s about buying stuff to complement the food you’ve already got.

+ (on lifestyle journalists) They are not you. In fact They are mostly not even Them, but just writers attempting on satisfy an expected tone, spitting out blurbs about an Ethiopian fusion restaurant with award winning decor, or a great new line of handbags in the shape of marine mammals. Meanwhile, they muddle on with their imperfect lives, eat pasta and go to the shops carrying an old tote with a frayed strap, just like we all do.

Very few people actually do much of the stuff that the media implies people do, and those who do work hard to keep it up. But lifestyle journalism makes it easy to feel there is a world out there effortlessly dressing, holidaying, exercising, eating and thinking in certain appropriate ways, and it is human nature to not want to be terribly out of line with what everyone else is up to. Steer clear of this homogenising influence is you authors’ suggestion. Spend your Sunday morning breakfasts perusing odd facts about breeding piranhas in captivity instead.

+ Beware Fake Frugal … if it is cheap to buy, but at the expense of someone or something else, it’s Fake Frugal, and it’s just not fair. Factory-farmed eggs, end-less brand new clothes made by tired women in far away countries, “value packs” of disposable razors that end up as bobbing carpets in the North Atlantic. You get the gist. Buying cheap disposable, or crummy quality things that quickly need replacing, is not only Fake Frugal because it leads to you spending more money later on, but because it leads to us all living in a very non-hedonism-compatible rubbish dump.

Will definitely read again.

Would recommend if you’re into this sort of thing.

xxx

Nicholas Carr: The Shallows – How the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember
What it says on the tin. This was published in 2010, so I we’re 7 years further down the path of shallowness!
I’m at 29% – it’s a very good read, but I’m finding it a little depressing we’re doomed and this-is-exactly-what-has-happened-to-me kind of way. Occasionally picking up, putting down, thinking, digesting, picking up &etc – which is probably the way to read it

Fiction, where art thou?

xxx

And in audiobooks – finished Wallander #1 – kind of gentle, easy-listening murder, good for slow Sundays. Went to start #2, only to find it not available on the Australian audible. Geo-restrictions make me stabby (just take my frigging money, already!) – so I was forced to acquire it by less conventional means. Also, non-challenging and easy listening (though with a different – very american – narrator, which was a little disconcerting at first).

Now I’m on #3, which audible also did not want to sell to me. Fortunately it appears I can actually pay for #4 if I want to keep going.

➕ 4x tea
➕ tea ball
➕ quite likely out-of-date soup-in-a-cup
➕ vitamin c tablets
➕ 2 USB cables for 2 types of bike lights
➕ eye drops
➕ plastic knives (why?)
➕ deodorant
➕ ibuprofen
➕ paracetamol
➕ antihistamine
➕ zantac
➕ cold and flu tablets
➕ nail clippers
➕ sewing kit
➕ dental floss
➕ hand cream
➕ glasses cleaning cloth
➕ metal fork
➕ lip balm
➕ cuticle oil
➕ small magnifying mirror <edited to add>

I could open a shop!

I am very glad it is Friday tomorrow.

Today I snuck out at lunch, went for a wee stroll in the opposite direction to the CBD hustle and bustle and sat in the pocket park for a short while listening to my latest audiobook. 

It was very peaceful and I hope to do it again – maybe even tomorrow.

I have one goal for this weekend: not to bring my laptop home and to do no worky work. (hmmm … maybe that’s two goals?). I’d like to give my brain a break and not even think about SML.

I reckon I’ve put on around 5kg in the last few months and was attributing this to not running, and eating work biscuits on the odd occasion.

It was only yesterday that I realised that my relatively newly acquired habit of two coffees (flat whites) during the day at SML has been contibuting around 500 calories to my daily intake**! Yikes! This pretty much coincides with the start of the weight gain. Add a wee chocolate bar each night (~250 calories) and I think we have our explanation for the tighter clothing.

So today I decided to take the bold and crazy step of moving to a macchiato. 

Strong, bitter, delicious – and had me bouncing off the walls.

I’m converted!

Probably less converted to abandoning the chocolate.

xxx

** I should have actually known this from back when I was doing 5-2.

Tonight I defied traditional gender roles and for the first time used the BBQ by myself!

Because pouring rain isn’t really conducive to busting out the BBQ, we’d had to carry over last night’s planned meal (BBQ butterflied lamb leg) to today. Don has Japanese class on Monday evenings, so I took a deep breath, assured myself that I’m a grown-up lady who is perfectly capable of working a simple machine and of throwing meat on naked flames – and did so.

And it worked! I was wildly excited by the results which were really quite delicious.

I could totally do this again.