Not a very good housewife

Hi everyone!

Kel, thanks for your year in review. I miss you. I hope your sponsorship stuff is coming along so you can come home for a visit soon.

Well as you all know, Jack and I have moved into a new place – a tiny little flat in Kirribilli that seems bigger than it is because of the lovely park, harbour and bridge outlook from the loungeroom windows. I can empathise with Kelly’s excitement/amazement at having paid rent, signed contracts, shrunk clothes and bought kitchen utensils – although I was living between Jack’s house and Dad’s, I now realise that I wasn’t quite as independent as I imagined, and that making home is a lot of effort. So, I’ve discovered something that most of you have known for years – cleaning, shopping, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, washing, and more cleaning, along with working four days to pay bills, going to uni, doing assignments and trying to have a life seeing friends and family, as well as getting some sleep, is rather exhausting. Gab, you’ve got the right idea – hang in there as long as possible.

Of course, the cleaning, washing and food preparation tend to be the things that get done last, but I think we’re doing well – especially with the occasional visit from mum and dad who have helped us unpack, hang blinds, and get new plates that fit in our new dishwasher… that’s right, I said dishwasher! Our hectic schedules and disdain for cleaning dishes after working and cooking, led us to make this wonderful acquisition! And we’re extremely happy with Thaw, our benchtop dishwasher, despite the gibes of all our friends – despite common beliefs that dishwashers waste lots of precious water, don’t adequately clean dishes and scratch glasses, we happen to know that household water consumption is only 7% of total water consumption, and that dishwashers are more hygienic since they wash at such high temperatures.

On the other hand, I’m not so happy with the washing machine – I spent most of last Sunday washing and ruining clothes while I should have been doing assignments, simply because it rained for so long up until then and I had to make the most of the sunshine. My black pants ended up covered in washing powder because I didn’t put it in the right place, Jack’s work pants ended up covered in white towel fluff and everything is so dull looking despite my use of more than enough Softly. And everything was so wrinkly, which means even more work – ironing!! Luckily the washing machine is only on lend from a friend who is storing it at our place, and once he needs it back, I’ll be following in the footsteps of Dad and heading to the laundromat where we can pay $7 for a big bag of laundry that comes back smelling fresh, and looking smooth and bright.

Lunckily I don't have to do any cooking because Jack does that.

So enough about chores… am I ranting like my dad? (Not that there's anything wrong with ranting, Dad.)

Work’s good. I get moved onto different magazines constantly depending on who resigns, but for the moment it looks like I’ll be writing for Weight Watchers magazine permanently. It’s quite a good magazine actually, since I get to research and write about a lot of health and body issues, and science/health journalism is something I’m increasingly interested in. Unfortunately I paid no attention in science class at school so I have a lot to learn if I ever want to be a science reporter. And although there are some more exciting jobs out there that I could go for right now, I think I’ll stick it out here till I finish uni at the end of this year.

Jack’s great, he’s very happy with our new home and dishwasher, and is also busy with work and uni – he’s studying a Masters of Dispute Resolution, with the aim of becoming a mediator, and he’s looking at doing a post-grad law degree for the next 2 years so our lives definitely aren’t going to get less busy any time soon.

Busy life has got in the way of wedding plans so nothing much has happened there, I’ll make sure you’re all the first to know when something does happen – the only news is that I’ve asked Gabby to be my one and only bridesmaid.

I better get back to work. This has been long but I haven’t posted for so long and I’m hoping this’ll make up for it. By the way, I misplaced my diary during the move and haven’t been able to find it – when’s the date and location of our next family day?? Don’t tell me it’s my dad’s!

Love to all and although I don’t blog often myself, I love reading all of yours,
Alice

P.S. to Cat – have you found out what’s happening with the Cannes trip, and when are you going to Adelaide?

P.S. to Kel – you should get on Facebook with Cat, Hugh and I. You should too Gab!