Perhaps I need to suck it up and buy one of these...

What I failed to mention when I made you all jealous yesterday with thoughts of summer was the flies.

Ohhhh the flies.

See, Melbourne (well Australia as a whole) has a plethora of common flies (like the ones you see on dog-poop all the time.) Nobody warned me about the flies, and as someone who grew up spending her summers in the wilds of Northern Ontario, I thought I knew all there was to know about bugs.

Because, you see, in Canada we have mosquitos that itch. And blackflies that leave bleeding rings of tiny bites wherever they can manage to get under your clothes. Canada has massive Deer Flies that take such huge chunks out of you it hurts more than you can imagine when they bite. Canada has more biting/flying bugs than you can imagine and so after spending more than one spring canoe-trip with mosquito nets over your heads and somehow still managing to eat, you figure you can handle anything.

Except I HATE these G-DAMN flies. The ones I am certain just alighted off that pile of fresh poop over there and are now CRAWLING ALL OVER MY FACE. Seriously, I feel like the poor starving children from the World Vision commercials. Except I'm obviously not poor, or starving, or a child.

These flies follow you when you run, with masses of them (10+) clinging to the back of your shirt in whichever spot you get sweaty first.

They take any opportunity they can to rush, swarming, into the building whenever you open the door and then live swirling around your kitchen light. It doesn't matter how meticulously you clean every single crumb of food up off the floor, or how often you poor vinegar and baking soda down your drains.

They buzz when you swat at them, and manage to stick themselves under your sunglasses. They crawl into every drink and walk all over any uncovered picnic spread. I look like someone with Tourette's swatting at them all the time and no other Aussie's seem to notice them as much.

But most annoying? See above. THEY CRAWL ALL OVER MY FACE.

EW.

The End.

via

Pink toenails...

Summer is sticky popsicles that dye your tongue blue.

Summer is sweaty beer bottles with lime. Nachos and salsa.

Summer is flip flops and bright toenail polish.

It's marshmallows and corn-on-the cob.

Summer is maxi dresses and shell jewellry.

It's fashion magazines in your backyard.

Summer is jazz afternoons and sangria.

Summer is night markets and food on a stick.

Summer is not having a plan because you don't need one.

It's laughing too hard and too long with friends you love.

Summer is moonlight cinemas, climbing fences and watching bats.

Summer is floating in the res and swinging off rope-swings.

It's picnics in the park and long-weekend camping trips.

Summer is when work matters less.

Summer is eating outside with lanterns and candlelight.

Summer is being too hot to move.

It's sleeping outside.

It's summer love, even if it's the same love as the rest of your life.

What is summer (or winter) for you?

Gimme dollah, gimme dollah... Challenge: Month 2

So my plan this month is to record every cent of money I spend and then evaluate my spending habits at the end. The reason for this is because I currently don't have a concrete budget, nor have I since I started earning money.

I was lucky enough to have parents and grandparents who covered the costs of my university education and who are generally very generous with their money. However, as a full-time working adult I no longer feel comfortable borrowing money (I don't!) and would like to start to pay back my debt.

I get paid once per month which thus requires a certain amount of budgeting but I've never written it down or stuck to many hard and fast rules. AB and I both contribute an equal amount of money into a joint account from which we pay rent, bills and groceries. Everything else is up to us individually. I don't have many individual bills (only my mobile on a monthly basis and transit tickets), no credit card and earn a low-ish but decent wage. I manage to put something into savings on a regular basis, and rarely have to dip into it to make ends meet.

Lately I've gotten pretty good, out of necessity, at not spending money on things like clothes and books. Even more recently I've gotten better at cutting down on food purchases. Part of that is not having a shopping strip on my nightly walk home anymore, part of it is a shift to healthier eating habits, and part is the anticipation of getting to spend all my hard-earned dollars on my favourite North American treats. Like sushi for 5 weeks straight. (Yes, I may have gills by the time I leave Vancouver.)

However, I know a lot of my money is spent on a $5 coffee here, or a $7 glass of wine there without really paying attention to WHERE it's all going; Especially if it's cash.

I'd like to be able to stop stressing about money. Or at least stress less. Because yes, we get by with all our bills paid on time, and can afford a few extras at the grocery store and dinner out about once a week, but we're also scarily lucky... We both have full-time jobs, and are healthy people. But I know our savings couldn't cover one of us being without a paycheck for more than a month or two.We haven't had any major, required purchases or emergencies, and should said things happen, the savings for my 5-week holiday would disappear pretty quickly.

I'm only in debt to my parents, who don't charge interest, or even demand regular payments. But it makes me feel guilty. And I've made some stupid money decisions in the past and don't want to do that anymore.

I'd like to one day be able to buy a house. I'd like to be able to travel the country and the world and be able to indulge in some shopping on occasion.

And so I've started tracking, simply by writing everything down, to find out where my money goes. Because $7 wines add up quickly and I'd always rather have a weekend away than a few more drinks each week. We'll see how it goes.

How do you budget your money?

Found: Around the Blogosphere

Some days I'll scroll though Google Reader without finding much I'm interested in commenting on. Other days -like today- I find half an Internet's worth of interesting tidbits. Here's what caught my eye recently...

Nory posted the most adorable "Overheard" I've come across. Seriously, while I'm happily unmarried and childless, I'm looking forward to the day the men in my life discuss braids and bows. That being said, Doniree's comment made me spit water at the computer screen. Much more the type of conversation I'd overhear these days...

E.P. echoed my (unspoken) thoughts exactly when she blogged about disorganization and being a 'planner'. I am the same way, despite not always being neat. I'm always organized and I always have a plan.

Lacy's wedding nightmare about the purple dress? I had a wedding nightmare and my dress looked scarily similar. It was a brighter shade of purple. And gold. Thing is? I'm not even engaged yet!!! I'm worried what my nightmares will be once I'm actually planning a wedding.

Arielle re-capped a recent speech. If you had 20-minutes to tell peers, co-workers, etc. about yourself, what would you say? What are the key defining moments of your life?

Finally, Amber has started a new Monday feature. Her first post is very much in line with how I view my career/job. What do other 20-something's think? I'll be keeping tabs on the comments this time!

Anyway, just a few of the things that struck me, while wandering though the blogosphere lately. Have you come across anything interesting?

4 days...

You can do a whole lot in 4 days. You can also do very little...

*I finished work Friday with plans for a wonderful dinner, and 4 days of fun, socializing, Halloween and relaxing. Unfortunately I came home to 18-year old boys invading my living room, along with far more beer and pizza than I could handle. AB is doing an apprenticeship and at 25, has developed a little following of 18-year old classmates who think he's the shizz... He's put them off as long as possible, but finally couldn't avoid having them over. FML.

*Due to the previous evening's shenanigans I slept in an extra hour while trying to psych myself up for a long-run. Alas, I left it for far too long and the heat got to me. It was awful and after feeling freezing cold, and like I was going to faint/puke I walked the remaining 7km of the loop. Note to self: Melbs is only going to get hotter. Get used to getting out of bed earlier to get those runs in!

*I left the house to grocery shop on Saturday, and to run some errands on Monday, but otherwise I've had a gloriously blissful 4-day weekend of reading, relaxing and painting my fireplace!

*I didn't celebrate Halloween or Melbourne Cup day at all, but am fairly okay with missing both. Mostly I was just lazy (and paint-covered!)

*I have a busy month coming up with weekend work engagements, the start of the holiday season, and many more as-yet-unplanned shenanigans. Looking forward to it! It seems November is such an exciting month when it's spring-time not fall/winter.

Is November a blah month for you or an exciting/busy one?

Challenge Month 1: October

After reflecting from my no-alcohol month I decided to jump into each month with a new challenge to help motivate myself to take the steps I know will make my life the one I want to live.

October's Challenge was To be active at least 4x per week.

Unfortunately it was a lot harder than I thought it would be!

Just over a month ago, I decided to get back into running, and have a plan for 3x weekly runs. It's been great and I have been 100% successful over the past month. I look forward to running days, and to challenging myself to tackle distances I haven't run in more than a year! Some weeks are particularly harder than others, like this past one where I had a busy schedule and a lazy butt, meaning fitting in an 8km tempo run ended up being a 5km walk in the rain when my legs felt like lead. Then my Saturday long-run came after an interesting night and my sleep-in pushed the temperature up to 30*C and after the first 5.5km I struggled to even walk the last 7km loop due to the heat. Lessons learned and I've chosen to repeat last week's schedule instead of moving up to even more mileage.

The hard part was the extra 1x/week of exercise. Initially I didn't think it was going to be hard to do. We semi-regularly schedule sports-breaks at work to try out basketball, squash, badminton but for some reason, despite my efforts, they just haven't happened this month. It's been busy for everyone. I scheduled a rock-climbing date with a friend, only to have her cancel on me at the last minute, and climbing isn't a solo activity*. I did a lot of gardening, cleaning, and backyard soccer, but nothing that consistently got my heart-rate up.

So, unfortunately this month is a fail overall, but I'm excited I did consistently get 3x a week exercise. A lot more than I've been doing over the past few years. Keep it up, and work harder to get 'social' exercise in.

November Challenge: Track my spending and evaluate my finances over a week and month.

Looking forward...

So last week, I reviewed the past, but what's to come? I mentioned in my birthday post (Thanks for all the Birthday Wishes!!) that if my celebration was any indication, 24 will shape up to be a very good year indeed.

I'm not quite sure where I stand on the whole 'fate' vs 'choice' issue, but from what I've learned, life has a way of mixing both in a pretty interesting way. So if I don't plan out a few key things that I want to accomplish in the next year, I probably won't head in any direction I necessarily want to go.

Thus, not goals necessarily, but thoughts or possibilities for the next 365-ish days.

At 24 I want to...

*decide with some certainty which direction I want my sport career to go. Event management? Teaching? Health and recreation?

*make plans and take steps towards post-grad education. Regardless of career choice, some post-grad study required.

*enroll in french classes.

*travel somewhere I've never been before.

*make movements towards a new job, but don't move just for the sake of it. Hold out for something worthwhile.

*save equivalent of 3 months salary and don't spend it. Also start saving for a house/property.

*do something that scares me.

*learn something totally new. Like quantum physics. But not.

What do you plan to do at *this* age?