an abyss of ignorance

Recently I considered my lack of understanding of weather. I have seen and heard a weather report just about every day of my life, yet I don't know what pressure patterns or pressure centres or pressure troughs or cold fronts are. Zanne wondered: "didn't you learn about weather in primary school?". Of course, and I'm great at recognising cumulonimbus clouds, but what about the pressure stuff? What about hearing words and not understanding them, and not even realising that I don't understand them until my late 20s, and then not researching their meaning because this all happened while we were driving home and by the time I exited the car this train of thought was long gone.

A few days later I purchased the latest edition of Adbusters in which I read the following:

"My life is suspended above an abyss of ignorance. Virtually nothing I own makes sense to me. What happens when I flick on my light switch? Why does my refrigerator keep my food cold? How does my answering machine record the voices of my friends? When I delete a paragraph on my word processor, what make it disappear and where in the world does it go? In the interest of saving time, as well as out of pure laziness, I, like most people, have deliberately chosen to leave these questions unanswered, preferring to remain unenlightened rather than undertake a lengthy - and, more likely than not, futile - education in thermoelectric currents, vector fields and ionic conduction. I live quite happily hemmed in on all sides by an impenetrable wall of technological riddles. I do not know how the toilet flushes or why water comes out of my faucet or what make my Hoover suck up dust, and yet - to my credit - I continue to flush, wash my dishes and vacuum, entirely unaware of how I am doing these things." *

Isn't it great when you read of someone on the same vibe as you? And when they manage to articulate your thoughts far better than you could ever dream?

Shan

* From Daniel Harris's Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism.

umbrella-ella-ella

The other day Zanne and I were driving home in the rain (read about our recent severe weather here) when we saw a high school student waiting for a bus without so much as a jacket to keep her dry. Immediately Zanne exclaimed, "baby, give her our umbrella!" (which I did). As we drove on I thought: this is the reason I love her... As well as being effortlessly cool, Zanne is also an effortlessly kind and generous person. She gives rides no matter the inconvenience, she helps random strangers change their tyre by offering her car jack, she offers financial aid to family, she stops to hand back toys dropped by children in supermarkets, she offers catering and cleaning help for friends' parties and get-togethers, she reviews and edits assignments/presentations for friends... the list goes on.

Her kindness is automatic and she never mentions any good deeds or acts of kindness. She will likely be embarassed of my blog but I wanted to pay her a little tribute here because I think she's wonderful and I sure hope that karma is for reals because Zanne deserves sugar and spice and all things nice, that's for sure.

But it's not all about kindness... I also love her because when she falls asleep on the couch at 8pm this is how cute she looks:

PS. There are times when people don't appreciate Zanne's generosity, perhaps even exploit it, and, I'll be honest, I want to karate chop those people in the face. Just sayin'.

Shan

super happy fun ladyboy (happy birthday cass!)

May 23: this morning we took Noah to breakfast at a funky little place in Redcliffe, The Retro Cafe.
Going to breakfast is pretty much our favourite weekend thing and having Noah with us made it even more fun - so we bought him a new bike. What? We couldn't help it, he's too cute.
May 22: here we are celebrating our friend Cassie's birthday. awesome food, awesome company - we totally have a couple crush on Cassie and Milena! the night ended with some faux kissing between Zanne and Cass (who, by that time, was wearing a lab coat). good times fo sho.

Shan

no milk

May 21: the rain eased early this morning and the floodwaters have lowered slightly.

here Zanne is standing on a local bridge which was yesterday covered by water and today is covered with grass and reeds

May 20: South East Queensland is flooding - we have received one third of our yearly rainfall in just two days. as a result, schools are sending children home, roads are cut, and there's no milk in our supermarkets!

*see flooding pics here*

May 19: a blank space - stay tuned for a rad photo!

I work for a Union and on this day attended my first strike - it was so exciting!

I made sure to bring along my camera in order to capture a lively and dramatic daily photo but alas, I didn't bring my camera's batteries. So silly! Anyways, I asked my colleague to take a few snaps for me and hopefully she'll send those through soon.


May 18: Zanne's hair is getting longer and this week she has started wearing a little pony (so cute!)

Shan

spell check can't spell

my computer just tried to tell me that the more correct way to say "most high-quality" is to say "high-qualityest". I'm 99% sure that's the stupidest word I've ever heard. 

mongrel bastard!

May 17: my friend Lala came by our place for a visit.
Lala and I travelled eastern europe together 2 years ago. It is her 21st birthday in a couple of days - times flies! It seems only yesterday we were celebrating her 19th birthday in Belfast with a Jaffa Cakes cake. Lala is the raddest!
May 16: we went for a motorbike ride with my parents to Lake Baroon - it was a radical day that included a big breakfast by the lake (for us and a local Kookaburra - "mongrel bastard!")

May 15: our car's dash notes the current cold snap
Bris-dwellers are not accustomed to cold weather brr!

May 14: a date at Groove Train on Eagle St

Shan

in case you're wondering..

Time until Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 11:00:00 AM (Brisbane time)

98 days

2356 hours

141408 minutes

8484489 seconds

... but who's counting?

335 days of love

Today is our 11 month anniversary, which means it's only one month to our 1 year anniversary and the official end of our monthly celebrations. I'm going to miss them. I've fallen more in love with Shan everyday we've been together and I've looked forward to our anniversary every month knowing that each month I'm going to love her more than I ever have before - mushy I know, but it's true.

Shan is an awesome girlfriend when it comes to gifts as she has the perfect combination of creativity and thoughtfulness, always giving me things that make me smile on the inside and out. I have hand-made cards, some of which I keep at work, some at home. I have a picture on my desk of a scrabble board that reads "baby it's fact" in scrabble tiles. I have a Rubic's cube of photos of us. I have origami flowers and a dozen Roses roses. I have a crossword with questions about us. I've come home to love letters on the mirror. Today, I have a Taylor Swift CD, possibly the greatest show of her love for me given her dislike of Taylor Swift but knowing I would want to play it in the car on the way to work.

Baby, I love you. It hardly ever feels like enough just to say that, but I do. With all my heart. And just as you said this morning - I hope we're still this in love after 11 years.

where's the IGA?

May 13: another traffic photo. as you can see from the speedometer, we are at a total stop. traffic is frustrating, that's for sure
May 12: Zanne gets a parking tickets - oopsies!

May 11: Uncle Toby's Oats means winter - wahooooo!

May 10: Happy Mothers Day!
Here is an old pic to celebrate - this is a one year old me with my Mum, Grandma and Great-Grandma. I was lucky to grow up with these wonderful women.

May 9: Zanne and Noah rocking out on her guitar (and playing a game involving putting the pick inside the guitar)

Shan

rainbows and lollipops everywhere!

I was up at 5am today to finish writing a report I didn't get to over the weekend. As hard as it is to wake up and be on a deadline first thing on a Monday morning, there's just some part of me that refuses to do work on a weekend. So by 8am the report was finished and emailed, and so began the regular monday morning internet surfing - Facebook, Twitter, The Shazanne Show, etc.

After a weekend of Mother's Day and meals out and about, I thought I would check our bank account to see the damage and work out what we had to play with for the rest of the week. And also to see if Shan's government stimulus payment had been deposited (mine came last week - half a credit card paid off wooo!).

When the internet banking page opened I was confused. I double-checked our savings account and then our everday account again. I yelled out to Shan - "baby, there's an extra lump o' cash in our account!" She came to see what I was yelling about and we realised our account had been debited with several thousand dollars overnight. We figured maybe our bond had been repaid sooner than expected, but that didn't work out, this was much more than anything we were owed. We started to get excited but then calmed down, thinking we'd better work out exactly where it came from in case it was a mistake and it wasn't ours to play with.

Some investigating found the money had been deposited by the Australian Taxation Office, which we both figured had to be a mistake since we'd both received our tax returns last year and it was much more than the stimulus payment we were still waiting on. I called them to check, part of me wanting to know, the other just wanting to say 'thanks!' before transferring it to savings, hoping they never realised their mistake. I got a really friendly guy on the phone who checked it out and after a few questions and answers he kinda giggled and said "yay the money is really yours!". I giggled with him, thanked him for his help and turned to tell Shan the good news.

Last year I put in a tax return for the 2005-06 tax year that I hadn't done before I went to London. I got a letter back saying I owed the ATO about $2,500. Freaked out, I called them and another lovely guy explained to me what I'd done wrong and told me how to put in an amendment. The amendment, he said, would take 2-3 months to process. So it was more like 6 months, but it turns out the amendment went through and they were able to pay me the money I was really owed. I had completely forgotten about the amendment!

Shan and I danced around the computer room, ecstatic that we'd just doubled our Canada savings in one day! We've been kinda floating all day and are finally starting to see some reality in what seemed like such a far away dream just a few weeks ago. Having this huge injection into our savings means we can breathe easy now and by sticking to our current budget, we'll have more than we had hoped to start our new life in Vancouver.

For the first time ever, Shan and I were able to look at each other and say "we're really going" without trying to convince ourselves it was true. We're really going.

we moved house (106 days to go)

It seems like we’ve been worried about money for a while now: I was made redundant late last year and was out of work for two months. We survived the Christmas period on one wage and credit cards but fortunately I landed a new job in January. Unfortunately, that was the same week Zanne took a paycut. The paycut situation has been a massive drama for Zanne involving negotiations and verbal agreements and phone calls and tears. Sucks! In any case, everything should be resolved next week as it has been promised her wage will then be returned to normal. Honestly, if it weren’t for our plans to relocate to Vancouver, I don’t think the redundancy or paycut would have been such a stress. We have still been paying rent and otherwise getting by, however we haven’t been saving anywhere near enough money for Vancouver. Thus, two weeks ago, we made the decision to move to my parents’ house and save our pennies good and proper – Vancouver here we come!

We packed and moved and cleaned all last weekend. We said goodbye to our wonderful apartment and I cried. We filled my parents’ garage with boxes, Zanne’s parents’ basement with whitegoods and here we are living in the ‘burbs. Previously we walked, skated or rode to work, now we drive an hour in traffic. But it’s all good, we are together, and my parents spoil us with dinner and attention. Even though we’re exhausted and definitely sad to leave our apartment (and the Valley), we’re also excited because we now know for sure that we are on our way to Vancouver. Saving the money we were spending on rent each week means that we will arrive in Vancouver with enough in the bank to (hopefully!) make the whole process of relocation (setting ourselves up, getting jobs, etc) relatively painless.

Now that the moving is done and our savings are sorted, we plan to make the most of our remaining 106 days(!) in Brisbane by spending maximum time with family and friends and visiting our favourite spots in and around our “big country town”. Exciting, exciting! See, totally rainbows and lollipops ;-)

Shan

would you like 'burbs with that?

2 assignments, 1 exam, 2 parties and 4 days of moving, packing and cleaning interrupted my posting of daily pics so a bulk upload it is!


May 8: morning traffic on the highway - holy moly! May 7: Zanne wasn't feeling well today so guess what my Mum did? Made her a baked dinner and gave her a cupcake. Aw!!

May 6: Zanne receives more flowers from clients (gotta lift my game!)

May 5: in memory of our apartment (sept 08 - may 09)

goodbye home, you will always be our first
goodbye stumbling back from The Beat only two blocks aways
goodbye carspace and fob, futon and photos
goodbye walking to work, your hand in mine
goodbye backpackers across the street, your music sucks
goodbye nachos on the shag and napping under air con
goodbye China Town and students crowding the path
goodbye all day breakfast and "see you in 5"
goodbye home, I loved you so

May 4: our new street sign

May 3: Moving Day - here is just one of the towers of our stuff currently in my parents' garage

May 2: Naomi's boardgame themed birthday party complete with a Jenga cake - radical!
the birthday girl was a "hungry, hungry hippo", we were "operation". we laughed all night, we posed with inflatable dinosaurs and made up new high fives involving feet, we wore stack hats and top hats and met a girl from San Diego. i have a crush on my friends

May 1: Zanne and I at my work function, the Labour Day Ball...
Labour Day resulted from the labour union movement and celebrates the economic and social achievements of workers. I work for a Union so Labour Day and the Labour Day Ball are particularly significant. The Ball was actually my first work function with the Union (I've only worked there about 4 months) and it was a lot of fun, even with all of the coming out ("I didn't know you were gay blah blah"). It amuses me to see my (well respected, intelligent) colleagues all dressed up, slurring their words and dancing with pointed fingers and gyrating hips

Apr 30: one of Zanne's clients gave her this rather tall bunch of flowers

Shan

and breathe...

this is what I keep telling myself - just breathe. the last 2 weeks have been hectic, hence the lack of posts, and I'm going to keep this one short.

We moved over the weekend. We packed up our inner city apartment, palmed furniture off to various family members and stored all of our belongings in plastic boxes. Three months out and we are all ready to go. It was sad to say goodbye to our home, but at the same time it feels like it's really happening now. We're really going. So if we can tough out the traffic-jammed drive to work and the early starts/late finishes we will be fine, and most importantly - we'll have saved the money we need.

I'm tired, shan is tired, but we can't slow down yet. Shan has assignments due, I have the QBCA in 5 weeks and we're both trying to work on the website all at the same time. Talk to us in 6 weeks and we might actually have our breathing under control by then.