Don’t call me bear

I saw seven, honest-to-goodness-in-their-own-natural-habitat koalas while out driving today. It was a good day! Unfortunately I didn’t get useable photos of each individual koala, but here, look:

Are they not the cutest!? I love that guy on the bottom left, just chilling with his eyes closed and arms crossed.

They look like teddy bears, but they are not bears, not related to bears, nowhere near the bear family, actually I’m pretty sure they haven’t even met any bears, unless you count the ones at international zoos and stuff.  Say no to calling them bears! And to making those “how much can a koala bear” jokes… (End rant.)

Down in the weeds

If you’ve visited here before you’ll have noticed I really like taking photos of grass and leaves and trees and stuff. I don’t know why, I just do. So I’ll continue to post photos of grass here, even though I clearly recognise it’s a bit weird. Some of these are at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane, where the lights on the cliff face illuminate the grass and plants at night. It’s pretty.

31 March

In March…

* The first hoodie of the year was donned and I pulled my favourite blanket out of storage. Here comes winter…

* I clocked up another birthday cake.

* I read Paper Towns by John Green and very much enjoyed it, despite nothing much even happening for the last half of the book.

* I reread Neither here nor there by Bill Bryson and again enjoyed it. You know, he does basically nothing but board trains, check into hotels and walk around towns in Europe, but it’s still interesting and most importantly, caustically funny.

* I ate so much chocolate!

* I ran 10km in a fun run. As we ran a massive storm hit Brisbane. It was a surreal and terrifying experience to run along an unknown road, in the dark, in pelting rain, with massive tree branches cracking and falling overhead. Sadly, one man was hit by a falling tree and today it has been reported he has now died in hospital from his injuries. A tragic end to something that was meant to be fun – my thoughts are with his family.

* And I continued taking a photo each day; these five are my favourite.

Clockwise from left to right: You today, big personality, contained, renew, process.

Chicken check in

Party lights

Pink ice

Dandelion

The horse and the purple flower

Fence

“I am so sick of this rain. Remind me not to take my honeymoon at Niagara Falls.”

I could not agree with Lisa Houseman more. It has been raining so much and this isn’t just me whinging, the actual facts are Brisbane has received more than half its annual rainfall in the first two months of this year alone, and we’re only five days into March and already up over the annual monthly average. So it’s been raining an absurd amount and now there is some stupid tropical low thinking about turning into a cyclone in the Coral Sea and I think I speak for everyone in Queensland when I say tropical low you can just pack up shop and leave us alone.

In the meantime, lucky I’ve taken a photo of almost every sunset I’ve seen since Instagram was invented, so here’s one to remind us all the sun does exist.

February 28

I’m not sure how this works but for the shortest month, February seemed long. Maybe because my regular trips to the beach dried up as real life started taking its toll again.

I have been continuing the Project Life 365 photo taking. This month, with 12 hour work days the wheels fell off my creativity but hey, I gave it a red hot go still. If you haven’t been to the Project Life website I recommend you check it out. Some of the photos being uploaded are just wow. Here are five of mine for the month:

Clockwise from top left: centre, you today, saved up, my view and more.

In February I went back to school with my reading choices, knocking off rereads of The Outsiders and To Kill a Mockingbird. Isn’t To Kill a Mockingbird the business? I don’t remember reading it at school, although I know I did, so it was like reading it for the first time. It didn’t grab me to start with; it wasn’t until a quarter of the way through that I realised I was turning off the tv and hopping into bed early so I could spend some time with Scout, Jem and Atticus. I know it’s a super important literary work and all that, but over and above those things it is a highly enjoyable story. I think my most favourite part is the kids call their dad Atticus and they never think that’s weird, or something to explain, it’s just the way their family works.

Off the back of my love affair with The Fault in our Stars by John Green I read another one of his - Looking for Alaska. Is this man intent on making sure I cry whenever I read his books? I immediately liked Miles – a boy looking for his ‘Great Perhaps’ who moves to boarding school to find it, but finds Alaska (a strangely named girl) instead. I’m seeing a Michael Cera-esq guy playing Miles in a film version in my head.

My musical addition to my library this month was Runaround Sue by Dion and the Belmonts. I’m making a playlist for my Dad’s 60th birthday party wanted this song for it. Also, I’ve always loved this song – it’s so boppy and upbeat but if you focus on his voice you can really hear a rasp of conviction in the singer’s voice that this Sue girl really did him over.

And I watched 10 Years, mostly because it had Channing Tatum in it, but it wasn’t just Channing that made this movie enjoyable for me. It was an ensemble cast about, obviously, a 10 year high school reunion, and there was a sweet storyline about a boy who always loved a girl and used the reunion to tell her. We didn’t have a reunion and if we did I wouldn’t have gone, because this is what would have happened:

1. I freak out for months beforehand about being fat. Don’t do anything to lose weight until the week before when all hope is lost.

2. Arrive with the people I’m still friends with, and spend the whole night with the people I’m still friends with.

3. Avoid the awkward conversations with the several people I have banished from my life and never want to see again.

4. Endure awkward conversations with everyone else, who I either can’t remember, or am now Facebook friends with and have blocked anyway because all they do is post about their kids.

5. Feel like a pariah/Bridget Jones for not being married.

I GUARANTEE you that’s what would have happened.

Also in my goal to run my 10km fun run in March I have managed to run 5km twice. So things are going well on that front (that was sarcasm).

And that was February.