Being A Lady of Leisure

I've been on holidays for 12 days and have spent it doing pretty much whatever I wanted, which so far has involved a fair amount of sweet stuff all. Usually I'm trying to pack 30 hours of stuff into a 24 hour day so being able to move at a snails pace if I choose has been seriously refreshing. This being (temporarily) unemployed thing is working out pretty well.

The first thing I did was go on holidays for a week. And drink cocktails with Little Miss Sunshine. In Queensland. That's really far away from where I live. 

Dessert and cocktails in one glass is very special (or a sign of alcoholism..or laziness - I'm not sure which) so this one gets its own photo. Citron vodka and a pine-lime ice cream combo. I highly recommend it. 

I had high hopes that LMS would have given up on the idea of trying to get me to eat vegetables and salads and my first meal was very heartening in this regard ....yes..chocolate is a meal. And there's fruit in there so this is actually healthy. 

However it was all downhill from there . I was force fed REAL healthy food. Every time this occured I had a (not so) subtle whinge about how my body was going into shock from lack of Maccas...

And eventually I turned my captors over to the dark side. 

Stockholm syndrome in reverse. Those psychology classes really paid off...

I had the amazing pleasure of meeting one of my long time blog friends, Michelle from Rag-Tag Stitchin' for brunch and she is about ten times as awesome in person as she is in emails and on her blog. This was one of my favourite parts of the week because it was just so much fun. 

See that gingerbread house? That's living at my house now. Hand made by Michelle herself. Look at those little gingerbread man buttons! That pattern is for quilt labels and is one of Michelle's too. And the hanging plaque was made by one of Michelle's super talented friends. I was thrilled and blown away by this little parcel of goodies. Thankyou Michelle. 

We went to the farmers market on Sunday at o'dark o'clock - seriously who leaves the house at this time of the morning for FUN? Freaking crazy people - that's who. 

And since I was still half asleep I can't recall much of what we saw but I'd woken sufficiently by the time we got round to these so I took a picture...

Queensland is an awesome place - or it would be if not for the sucky humidity which made my hair look like this for my entire stay ...

So once I got home I decided the time was right for a bit of a change. I've left the purple behind and gone for something more grown up. 

  

And finally - Drumroll please ....a couple of you suggested that my big exciting news might be that I was pregnant. Come on people - I'm 48 - that's not very likely and if I was I certainly wouldn't be celebrating it. So without further ado or stuffing around,  the second thing I've done since being on holidays was to buy my dream car, which screams mid life crisis but I don't care. I was too busy being a sensible sole parent when I should have been buying one of these and now I don't have to be sensible anymore.  

That is all -  you can go back to doing what you were doing now. I'm going for a drive....

Saying Goodbye

Last week was a week of fluctuating emotions , an inevitable dash to the finish line to wrap up work related matters ( I failed because some things were left undone)and a week where I think I cornered the world market on tissue use. I burst into tears at the most inopportune times (pretty much every time someone looked at me- woe betide if they also got teary - the resultant flood threatened to engulf us both). A number of people refused to actually say the G-word , which means there was a healthy dose of denial going on from both sides of the fence. 

I started the week by taking a picture of the space where I've sat my butt for the last 13 years. Walking out of here for the last time on Friday felt very surreal. My office was completely bare and devoid of any sort of personality. This little office has been very good to me. I've worked hard and occasionally played here , had serious and not so serious conversations here , and solved some big problems while sitting at that desk.  

People kept popping in to my office doorway and bursting into tears (I'm looking at you Nerida , Netta and kind of looking at you Bronwyn although you beat a hasty exit when your eyes welled up) To Maria , who hugged me tight every single time she saw me all week, which felt like it was far more often than usual (are you sure you weren't stalking me ?) - thank you . I'm not a huggy person but it was actually not too bad in that I didn't want to punch you when you did it. To Rachel who couldn't trust herself to actually speak to me one last time and tell me what she thought - girl it was a good choice to email because by the time you sent that through I was pretty much gone emotionally and if you had come and said those nice things in person I would have probably gone and immediately withdrawn my resignation.

The work crew threw me a high tea on Thursday to say goodbye. 

Some of the crew. Many thanks to Kathy, our office manager , who did most of the organising for this spectacular event . 

I think the fact that I was given a salad bowl as a gift must have been some sort of joke. These people have eaten lunch with me every day for umpteen years and know I don't eat salad. But no matter- this bowl will look excellent filled with salt and vinegar chips. Or chocolate. 

Redemption for the great salad bowl incident of 2014 came in the form of a cash card which I used to buy these to remind me of the wonderful people I've just spent the last 13 years with. 

My last job on Friday was an email to my immediate team which they will open today telling them how much I have appreciated working with them. Since I balled like a baby writing it - there might be a few tears in the office this morning. (possibly of relief that I'm actually gone....)

And as for me ? I'm now on holidays between jobs and am going to be packing today to head off for a week visiting Little Miss Sunshine. I may also have some other big news to share when I get back. 

Highlights of the week

• Feeling a lot of love from everyone ( a lot!) 
• Super E telling me that he was worried because he didn't know all the letters of the alphabet and that he's "going to school next year you know" but then proceeding to verbally recite them perfectly. He also expressed disgust that they aren't teaching him how to write them at kindy "because you know Bella, kids won't be quiet when they tell us about the alphabet". I bought you a book Super E and we can practice the alphabet together. You'll be ready to write all those letters when school starts- don't worry.