I’m the kind of blogger that has a weeks worth of posts scheduled ahead of time. When there’s alot going on, and I’m on a writing kick, that number can amp itself up to two, sometimes three weeks worth of scheduled posts.

Well, I’m out of scheduled posts.

That’s not entirely true. I had posts that were good to go. They were posts about ‘The Year of Elly’, and about what its like to be single, and about some of the drama that I’m not down with thats been going on.

And I’ve decided that I’m not going to post them. Since breaking up with The Ex I’ve been pretty open about where I am at, and what I was feeling. At the time, it was more important to me to express and figure out what I was doing than it was to worry about who was reading it.

Now I think I’m going to pull back, a bit. Because what I’d planned to post was not only my personal business, but a few other peoples, too. And I’m not willing to add to drama, no matter how vague or civil the post may be.

I’m going to pull back, a bit. Because there are some people that I would prefer didn’t know the details of my life. People from work, for example. Or from the bar. Or people who try read through the lines that aren’t there.

I’m going to pull back, a bit. Because I think I’d like to keep some of the details of my life for me.

So, I’m not going to post those posts. And I’m going to take a week or so to take some time and figure some things out.

In the meantime, for your viewing hilarity, here is me and The Second Quarter dressed in ridiculous costumes:

I hope you have a brilliant week, and I’ll see you on the flip side.

I did it. I made pumpkin soup from scratch. I thought it was going to be alot harder than it was, just quietly. I’m impressed it came out okay with only a vague idea of how you make soup, and I’m even more impressed that people other than me ate it and thought it was good.

(View it on Vimeo if you can’t see it here)

Number 12, done! Woo!

I wanted to call them children. Sitting around with their expansive gestures and passionate generalisations. With their “we need to”s and their “we should”s. Boys who wanted to play at being men. But its easy to drive from the backseat. Its easy to play when you haven’t got anything on the line, when you only know part of the story, when you can still pick yourself up, and dust yourself off and carry on with something else. It’s easy when you’re young, and not next in the batting lineup.

I wanted to roll my eyes at them, and their big plans. I wiped the looks of disbelief from my face, and carefully repainted it with polite disinterest. I didn’t point out the holes in their arguments, how futile I thought it to sit around and discuss what isn’t up to them. Its not their place, I thought. They can’t change anything, and I thought this converastion a waste of time.

So I bit my tongue, and said nothing. They mistook my silence for exhaustion, and after a while I stopped listening to their words. Its funny how when you do that, you hear the truth of it. I heard their dedication, their loyalty. Their love for the game, and their frustration at where they were at. I heard their optimism for moving forward and I heard their commitment. I heard their fear, and their courage in sticking it out. I heard their hopes, I heard their love, and I heard their passion.

I heard all that these boys, with their bravado, don’t say with words.

And I wondered when it was that I got so old and cynical. When it was that I stopped noticing how it was these boys who pushed the game along, who kept it moving with their ideas and determination. That it was this, the sitting around and expressing and sharing and verbalising that gives them something to hold on to. That keeps them in the game, instead of being chewed up and spat out. They are boys with big plans. They may be plans that may or may not be given the chance to fly, but plans that keep them striving for the top just the same.

I felt bad, after that. For not listening to what they were saying. For not giving weight to their ideas. For thinking that such conversations were of little consequence, a waste of time. For not remembering that sometimes its not the words, but what drives the words to the surface that matter. That the indefinable something that keeps you going can be hidden in a conversation. In the “we should”s and “we need to”s. That the meaningless can have meaning. That a conversation can be used to touch base, and reconfirm that they are right to keep pushing, keep moving, keep playing the game.

In the end I left them to it. Driving away before they could really get down to the bones of it. I felt like I was intruding, with my pessimism and lack of understanding. I hope that these boys find what they are looking for in the game they are playing. I hope that they come up smelling of roses, and that all their hard work is rewarded. I wish them all the best, really. Fingers crossed they find what they are looking for.

Yorkies need regular haircuts. As amusing as it is to watch Quinn walk into doors because he can’t see out behind his eyebrows, it’s not awesome grooming fur that long. So he gets regular cuts. He gets haircuts more often than I do, actually. And Barkley Manor make it so easy. I drop him off at daycare, and when I pick him up he’s all sorted.

So, he got a cut last week. And usually the most photogenic dog in the world was not happy about me taking his photo:

I got one in the end, but goodness, I must have taken a billion silly ones before I got this:

Still, super cute, right?

A friend of mine moved back to NZ a few months ago, and we met up for coffee. Since then it’s quickly become a weekly, sometimes even bi-weekly thing. Coffee, gossip, cocktails or dinner. It doesn’t matter where, in a fancy upmarket bar in heels, a small cafe out in the suburbs or in our pjs at home. And it makes me laugh, it does. Because she of all people understands why I do what I do. And she plays similar games, gets herself into just as mischief, has just as many hilarous adventures as I do.

She’ll laugh when I tell her about how I triple booked myself and as a solution invited all the boys down the bar. And I’ll feel less silly when she tells me about her random excursions because of a boy. We have in jokes (How old is he? Does he have kids? Does he do coke? Has he ever hired a hooker?) and we’ll laugh and laugh as we recount our last week, or so. As we plan the next weekend out.

Sometimes I’m tempted to call her, or email her before we meet, but I never do. I save my news, hold it close to my chest till we meet. She does too, I think. And when it all comes out I know that its safe to do so, there’s no judgement. We’ll laugh, or commiserate or puzzle over whatever it is.

It’s not often that you find someone whose happy to support you in everything you do. Thats happy to listen to your day in and day out ordinary, who understands because in the here and now they are in the exact same place as you. That doesn’t produce unnecessary drama or get upset over nothing. I don’t have to alter my news to make it digestible, I don’t have to be careful about how I am or what I say. I can cancel one of our meetings if I need to, and not have it backfire with unnecessary drama. It’s easy with her, and I appreciate it.

This is what friendship is, I think. Enjoying a friends company in an honest and open way, knowing that there is understanding there, respect and support. Knowing that good times and a laugh are inevitable, that there is no agenda, and being genuinely glad to be in their company. Sometimes? Rediscovering friends is brilliant.

It’s pretty common knowledge that my dog goes to Doggy Daycare. And it’s been good for him, I think. I also think that its been good for me. Every now and then, when I have a couple of hours free from work, I’ll take my camera in with me when I drop him off. And I’ll ask if I can photograph their dogs for a little while.

There is nothing like puppy love to start your day right. Its maddness, in the little dogs room. It was pretty amazing how openly they shared their love. Alot of the little dogs just wanted, just for a moment, to sit on your lap and be comforted. And it was amazing to have them do just that. Honestly, the number of dogs that clambered onto my lap, whether for a pat, or just to have a better view than from the floor, was mad. There were so many dogs. This is about half of them:

I found taking photos of the dogs was really difficult. It was in a super low light situation, and I didn’t want to use a flash. I upped the ISO a bit, and fiddled around with the apeture and shutter speed. I’m still new at using these kind of settings, but I still got some good shots. It wasn’t hard though, look at these faces:

The most difficult thing I found was that with these dogs there was ALOT of movement going on. They were moving all the time, watching other dogs, other toys, other treats. It was also really difficult to get them to look at me, and once I did have their attention they’d come right up to me, and try clamber into my lap or eat the lens. It was easier when I had a toy in my hand, some of them sat very still, eyes glued to the toy in my hand. I tried treats too, but that mostly encouraged madness and too much excited movement. Still, I got some good shots, I think.

I think what I liked best was that all had such brilliant little personalities! Some of them were a little timid, some a bit cheeky and some were incredibly mad characters. I must have grinned the whole time I was there, talking to the dogs and laughing and generally hanging out. Watching them chase each other, there was much play fighting, and barking and emotive noise.

It was a pretty brilliant morning, actually. Like I said, there isn’t much that beats puppy <3.

I’ve recently joined the gym. I have, and if you told me 6 months ago that I would be a person that joins the gym I would have slapped you upside the head and called you mad. But, nonetheless its true, I’ve joined a gym.

I could say that it was because I wanted to lose weight, or because I’d given up all my nothings and now had ooddles and ooddles of time. I could say that it works nice with my schedule, or that its now dark when I leave the office and that makes it easy to go to the gym, or I could tell you I wasn’t doing anything anyway. I could give you a million reasons, really. I don’t think any of them would hold any weight (ha!).

So, I joined the gym . . . it’s still sinking in that I’m now one of those gym going people. Three times a week, spin classes, training sessions, running on treadmills, breaking the elliptical, or riding on the bikes where you can sit down and read a book while your legs do all the work . . .

The first training session I had, it wasn’t a great one. I’m terribly unfit, and I never use the muscles that I have. They are there simply to make my clothes fit better, I think. Because something had to go over my bones, and don’t they look just fine doing nothing? I made it clear to my trainer guy that I wasn’t fit. At all. And he kind of nodded and didn’t believe me, and then he made me USE my muscles. And I tried, I really really tried to do what he was asking me to do. Except my body wasn’t on the same page as me. and I fainted. In a room full of people, I fainted into the capable arms of my personal trainer.

See, in anyone elses life, they faint into their personal trainers arms and when they come to they discover that their personal trainer is gorgeous, and amazing and has somehow magically fallen in love with you, and together you live you happily ever after with many happy children.

Me? I come to and feel like I’m going to vomit, hit my trainer in the face and all I can think of is that the room full of sweaty big men I’m in smells really really horrid.

Needless to say we cut that training session short.

Since then its been weeks and weeks of pain. Not the gym visits themselves, they are fine. When you’re doing your exercises, you might hurt a little bit when you’re trying to push yourself. But you stop, take a break, and then do another set and its fine. The weeks of pain are the days after. When you laugh and your abs hurt because you tried that fancy new peice of equipment where you have to lift your legs up to your chest like a messed up grasshopper. Or when the backs of your arms hurt, and who even knew that you had muscles there? Or when you get up off a chair, and discover that somehow all those lunges made your legs into jelly, and your not quite sure if they’re able to hold your weight anymore. When you want to open a jar, and YOU CAN’T, because it means you have to use those muscles that sit just under your collarbone, and they really HURT right now.

And Oh! Oh the eating! I am starving, ALL THE TIME now. For everything, and anything. Someone walks by with a half an apple, and I’m ravenous. My trainer said something about kicking my metobolism into gear or whatever. I think I’d much rather turn it off, because I don’t have the willpower to say no to food. I’m eating like an industrial wastebin, I’m eating like a BOY eats. Anything, and everything, and lots of it.

I really wasn’t expecting that to happen, it kind of blindsided me. Which meant for the first week or so I was eating things like donuts, and fries, and cookies from across the way and pies from the bakery and chocolate bars from the dairy and burgers and just, everything I shouldn’t have been eating. I was hungry, nay, RAVENOUS, and I brought whatever it was that was going to going to take the least amount of time to get from wherever it was, into my stomach. Namely, convenience food. It took some doing to realise that perhaps eating crap is a little bit counter-productive to going to the gym. So I’m a bit better with what and when I’m eating.

So, its been a few weeks of this (the gym going, not the mad eating), and to be honest I haven’t noticed any changes with my body. I still weigh the same, I still fit my jeans like I did last month, and I still get puffed walking up the hill home. But I do feel better about myself, for doing this. They say that the endorphins released when you exercise can be addictive, and I think thats true. The first week I had to drag myself to the gym, and would take any excuse not to go. Now? Now I’m thinking about gym going on my days off . . . its a bit mad.

Still, I’m enjoying it (mostly). It uses up alot of the spare time I have, and I get to see Feidi a few times a week. Is there something that you never thought you’d do, that you did, and enjoyed?

I know, dogs aren’t hats. They really really aren’t. But I did a week of random headgear in my 365 project a couple of weeks ago, and Quinn is almost hat size. You can see where this is going. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Right up until I realised how wriggly he is, and how confused he was about hanging out on my head . . . I got an okay shot in the end, but it took a few times before Quinn realised that if he stayed still, he could be a brilliant, brilliant hat.