Here we go again (PM)

Love sure is hard. And it's especially hard when it's your first time. There's this new girl at my work who just moved to Melbourne from Canberra. Winters in Canberra can be very cruel and long and by comparison, Melbourne winter seems manageable, so she told me. She seems kind of naive and optimistic and so I didn't want to discourage her by telling her that the trick to surviving a Melbourne winter is to tell yourself it lasts until November. That way the springy Spring  days seem like a delightful bonus as opposed to the hallmark of a season that keeps writing cheques it can't keep. She turned up at work on Wednesday in a sleeveless dress all giddy and grinning. I felt like I was watching someone falling in love for the first time with a person I happen to know is a total jerk. I still can't quite bear to tell it to her straight. You just have to learn these things for yourself. 

Good luck, new kid. 

Here we go again (AM)

I know that spring is the most fickle of mistresses. And I know that the forecast for tomorrow suggests there'll be 40mm of rain. But it's weeks like these you understand why people stick around with  fickle mistresses. I mean all the promise and delight spring makes you feel. Even though you know that after tomorrow this kind of sunshine and warmth may disappear for weeks on end, the sweet floral scents may be nothing but a tease of a promise on a cold wind, right now all you can think about is spring's beauty and how good it makes you feel when it's around. Sheesh. Love's hard. 

New seasons resolutions (AM)

I guess to an extent I make resolutions at the start of every season. Probably at the start of autumn and winter I resolve to dress well in the season-appropriate look in which I've imagined myself for weeks leading into the ever colder weather. And of course my resolve weakens into a slump of jeans and the same jumper  after about three days of rain. At the start of spring my resolutions are far more serious. Oh sure I want to commit to looking good in cool colours and red lipstick, wear white shoes, always have smooth legs, but there's more to seasons than the clothes. Even I know that.  

We all now I feel about spring. I love her, but she is one fickle bitch. Here one minute, gone the next. But what am I gonna do? This weather is so beautiful and full of promise and I'm already making my spring resolutions. 

Spring is of course the time when you decide to increase your exercise regime. Partly, I guess, because everyone wants a "summer-ready" "bikini body", right? A magazine told me I wanted one. But it's not just that. It's that the spring air makes you feel happy! Alive! And you want more of that in your lungs, right! Plus more of that sweet serotonin that you've been synthesising in all the sunlight. Check. I have made that resolution. And one day I will act on it!

I have resolved to "slough away dead winter skin" by exfoliating! Eating a delicious Vietnamese egg and salad roll with chilli sauce at lunch yesterday I resolved to make myself delicious salad rolls for lunch at home instead of just eating five peanut butter toasts between the hours of 11 and 2. I decided to make myself green juices with the awesome old, yet incredibly space-consuming juicer I cant bring myself to throw away with all the green things that smell like spring! Mint! Lime! Cucumber! Green!

I've resolved to try and stay on top of the weeding, plant hings, keep them alive!

I guess all this stuff is typical spring resolution material. I'm just another sucker falling for spring's charms. But what are you going to do about it!? Imagine if I do all this stuff, this may just be the best season of the year!

Acrostic Monday (AM)

Instantly you arrived 

The very day you were meant to,

Summertime. 

How come spring didn't do that?

Expected us to be so grateful for the scraps it threw our way. 

Respecting us so little along the way. 

Eff Spring. Long live the summertime!

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Goodbye Spring

I'd like to thank you

For showing up and acting

Like a good spring should. 

You made me forget

Winter. You made my garden

Grow with sun and rain. 

You made promises

And you kept more thank you broke. 

You're a lovely thing. 

Haiku Thursday meets spring racing carnival (PM)

I love spring racing haiku....

I

Hi Mischa Barton. 

Your hat seems to say to me: 

Coffee anyone?

II

Twigley. Your hat says:

Who's for wedding Cake?! Oh wait:

That's something else. Soz.

III

I feel like Kate Bush

Could maybe pull this look off.

But not you, Delta. 

Haiku Thursday (AM)

If I was a bumblebee

I

I would shove my face

In every last rose I saw.

I would love the spring. 

II

I would take short breaks.

From collecting the pollen. 

I'd perch on a leaf. 

III

There, I'd close my eyes. 

Feel the sun on my wings and 

Dream about the queen. 

Nature, you're so fine (AM)

On the weekend K and I were lying in the park rejoicing in the sunshine and how great spring can be but although spring can be so great and we all love it, really it is just like the girl Caroline in the smash hit Outkast single, 'Roses':
..all the guys would say she's mighty fine
But mighty fine only got you somewhere half the time
And the other half either got you cursed out, or coming up short

Right?! I mean spring can be so pretty and great, but the other half either got you cursed out or too cold, wet or windy. But unlike Andre 3000 I don't want spring to be:
...speeding on the way to the club
Trying to hurry up to get to some
Baller or singer or somebody like that
And try to put on her makeup in the mirror
And crash, crash, crash.. into a ditch!

Me, I'd rather things worked out like in Mean Girls, you know, how Rachel McAdams figures out she can be pretty and nice. Spring, be more like that.

Anyway yesterday on that weird cool grey day I was wishing spring could just be more warm and sunny and springy, but then I went into my Mum's garden and I saw another thing that is really good about spring. PLANTS!

I guess there is more to spring than sunshine and warmth. Maybe spring isn't the bitch in this outfit at all. Maybe its me.

Flowery succulent!

Red succulent!

Nasturtium!

In real life this flower is practically neon!

Fern covered in adorable little green things

Adorable green things up close

Sorry I said you were like Caroline in Roses, spring.

Haiku Thursday (AM)

 

 

Sweet sights of spring

 

I

Bees collect pollen

Take it home to make honey

Those guys are awesome 

 

II

Take a little sun

Then you add a little rain

What you got? Rainbows!

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Rain

Since the drought done broke

The countryside's gotten green

So soft on my eyes

Springtime

How'd you get so fine

Sweetest of seasons, springtime

Want to make you mine

Taquitos

If life was good as 

Trippy taco taquitos

Life would be so good

I once was blind (PM)

The bit where J said  "I really hope my fingers aren't writing cheques my butt can't cash" is, hands down, the best thing about my spring so far. As if the use of the term "wazoo" wasn't good enough.

I'm not even going to write a proper post today* because I don't want to detract from  finger-cheque/butt-cash  in any way.

But I will say that I am so glad that J's brain and spring have found one another, and that they're so into one another she is inspired to write such great things. I think this image, which I found through searching 'spring' and 'love', pretty accurately depicts what's going on here between spring and J's brain. 

It's like Spring is taking J's brain for a walk amongst the cherry blossoms, and spring is all "hey baby, I don't want to put any pressure on you, but I think you'll really like what's down here" and J's brain is all outwardly coquettish, but inside thinking serve it up, let's go. I hope their love is everlasting. 

*I goddamned love the sound of J's kit. 

I once was blind (AM)

I don't want you guys to think I've got a one-track mind, but the arrival of Spring has made my goddamn year. Just four days of sunshine and I feel brand new. Or like a new release of a pre-existing model. Like my brain has emerged from hibernation. And I know there are more cold days ahead, but I'm sure they will be like water off the back of a duck to me now that I have seen the light (of spring)!

In the last four days I've thought of TWO brand new outfits using clothes I've had for ages. Clothes that have been sitting there in my cupboard and I have not thought to team because my brain has been mush. (The outfits, for those intimate with my wardrobe and curious or those in need of some AWESOME inspiration*, included pinky peach pleated pants with a pink shirt and a little jumper I like to call quilty tucked in, and a cream skivvy with pale denim skirt, burnt orange stockings and burnt orange boots. I looked so cute.)

Last night I made a dinner that was a variation of a meal I make plenty in warm weather but that I'd never quite made before. A brand new prawn marinating recipe sprung to my brain (ginger, mint, coriander, lime juice, pineapple juice).

I served the prawns with salad and coconut rice.

Then do you know what happened? I had left over coconut rice and I thought "what should I do with that?" I realised that probably if I fried it into little rice cakes, spread those with the salted caramel spread K made for chutney club and ate them with some fried bananas they'd probably be pretty effing delicious. Hopefully I will have confirmation on that that by the end of today.
 
Brain and spring, if you were horoscopes you'd be as compatible as Taurus and Virgo. If you filled out your profiles on e-harmony you would totally get match-made (I guess. If you believe the ads). Spring, you complete Brain.

If these last four days are anything to go on I'm going to be having great ideas out the wazoo for the next few months! So stay tuned readers!!!**


*This is included pretty much for K only. I know she will care.
**I really hope that my fingers aren't writing cheques my butt can't cash

Haiku Thursday (AM)

Springtime

Pretending I could 

Love other seasons ends with

The first breath of you

Magnolia

You're the herald of

Springtime. And also one of my

Favourite movies. 

Irritation

You turn up some days

And you refuse to fuck off

For love nor money.

Friday, I've got springtime on my mind (AM)

I think that it would be fair to say that this winter really has been a winter. It has been cold and wet. And sometimes cold and sunny. I'm not complaining. No way. A season that acts the way a season is meant to! I respect that. And I know it is only early August and there 3 more official weeks of winter and probably 6 more unofficial ones, but gee, all that sunshine last week really whet my spring fashion appetite. The killer of it is that the cold, sunny days - though lovely, really I am not complaining, just observing - they give me a taste for spring, but you still got to rug up. So in my mind I'm already fantasising about the outfits I will bust out as soon as I can, even though in reality those outfits are months away. Yeah, I run cold and I'll be wearing jumpers and socks for what feels like ever.

Some of the things I can not stop thinking about wearing include:

T-shirts. God I love t-shirts. I just fantasise about wearing t-shirts with jeans all the time. And when I really let myself go, I imagine wearing t-shirts with shorts! I don't even like wearing shorts that much but I just like to imagine it because it means that it would be so warm.

You know what else I want to wear? Shirts. 

Oh man, I've got this one floral shirt that saw about 15 minutes of daylight the other day. All my poor pretty shirts have been stuck under jumpers for so long, they've probably got rickets.

How about shoes that aren't boots.




Oh yeah baby. A shoe that sits right on my foot without socks or stockings. Shut up!

And how about colours! Shit!

Colours. I mean, I know I was all "Navy is the colour for me!" And "Monochrome for life!" and I still feel that way, but imagine wearing some other colours, just once in a while, you know. Ooooh, colours, I'm gonna wear you so good come springtime!

Haiku Thursday, PM edition

Ikea Meatballs

I have scoffed at you.

But then I ate you. Mon dieu!

What a sensation!

Ryan Gosling

It's unpopular

But I thought Blue Valentine

sucked. Sorry Gosling. 

Spring

I'm crushing on you 

so damn hard. Lets go to the

park and make out, 'k?

Haiku Thursday - AM Edition

Spring I

You've got a nerve, spring,

Showing your face around here.

Almost two months late!

Spring II 

Wait, spring, I'm sorry.

We always hurt who we love.

I love you. Don't go.

Herbs

Mint. Coriander.

Basil. Rosemary and thyme.

I effing love herbs

Mangoes
You thought I loved herbs!
Those feelings pale compared to
My love of mangoes

All the other stuff
Who am I kidding?
I love so many foodstuffs.
Most of them, really.

Spring is the best. Almost.

I know it was fricking freezing this morning but at least it was sunny. It is almost as if you wrote that post some other time than this morning. Surely not.

Thank god at least the sun is here. On that rainy and miserable mother of a Saturday that could only be salvaged by the Cats’ win and Jimmy Bartell and Joel Selwood’s pretty faces and mad skillz I was virtually in tears, so over the winter am I.

I love spring, but she is a fickle mistress. I love the sun, the blossoms, the blue sky, the floral smells. I love it all. Except for the way spring inexplicably becomes colder and more miserable than winter sometimes. Oh and I hate the goddamn plane trees. Cute little green seed pods, you say. Itchy bombs I say. I can feel them in my throat right now. Taste them in my mouth. I hate the way they get everywhere. The house, my coffee, my throat, my everything. The only good thing about plane trees is singing about them to the tune of Flame Trees. I best stop now, because no-one needs to hear about my hate for plane trees on such a lovely afternoon.