I watched the movie Men in Black the other night on Netflix, before I went to bed. I’ve seen it so many times… I have a really vivid memory of going out to watch it in the lounge room at mum and dad’s place after everyone had gone to bed, back when I was working at Apple and finishing work at 9:00pm. I think I probably had a month or more of watching it at least a couple of times a week. There’s just something about it I really love; I think it’s the thought of there being a whole other unseen… civilisation? System of life? I don’t know what the best word for it is.

It’s the same reason I always enjoyed being out and about in the city (way back when) in the really wee hours of the morning when all the garbage trucks and cleaning people were doing their thing, and nobody has any idea that they’re there. There was a book I bought for dad from the Harvard book store in Boston called The Works: Anatomy of a City, and it had a similar theme, all about the things that have to go on behind the scenes of a modern city to keep things running.

Maybe I just like feeling insignificant in the grand scheme of things? I certainly love that feeling when gazing up at the stars and looking at space and such.

How is it now 2015?! I have no idea where last year went!

We went over to a friends’ place for New Year’s Eve, there were two fondue sets and a raclette grill plus the cheese of the same name. It was so. Good. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much cheese. kungfupolarbear made both a spinach dip and sweet potato pie, and both went over an absolute treat, they were delicious! Our friends’ live in an apartment, so unfortunately we couldn’t bring Beanie, and they don’t have air conditioning either, so it ended up being pretty toasty with all the dinner accoutrements that produce heat!

Next year is either going to be at ours, or at another couple’s place (they just bought a house, so we could bring Beanie and it has air conditioning).

Today has been a very lazy day consisting mostly of puttering around on the Internet, and playing Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Nanny’s funeral was yesterday. It was sad, of course, but mum made a really nice speech with lots of funny stories, and she was holding up really well. Several people commented that mum looked much more relaxed how — I can’t imagine how stressful the last few months had been for her. They had a slideshow of photos from Nanny’s life, and I was happy to see a number of my photos of Nanny from various Christmases being used. The music played as everyone was leaving the ceremony was Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, which everyone cracked up at.

There were quite a few relatives there that I’d never even laid on eyes before, apparently we have a number of them from Queensland. It was nice to catch up with some of my other relatives that we don’t see too often, too. We’ve never really been a family who had those stereotypical massive family gatherings, which I’m quite okay with, heh.

Today we’re off to see the Dogs on Show, well, show. It’s only purebred dogs, which is a bit annoying, but it’s great to wander around and see all the different breeds that you’ve never seen before. There will of course be lots of photos taken.

Good lord. FIVE YEARS. Crazy! It’s seriously just so effortless, I think that’s why it’s gone so quickly. kungfupolarbear has commented that it feels like we’re having one big long sleepover, and it’s totally true.

Every marriage should be between people who are best friends, and that’s absolutely the case with us. <3

Nanny passed away yesterday, at about 2:15pm.

My grandma (my mum’s mum, who’s my sole remaining grandparent, known as “Nanny”) has been in and out of hospital a fair bit in recent years. She’s turning 90 at the end of this year and has been having heart troubles for a while, though her mind is still sharp as a tack.

I got a call from mum on Monday night saying that Nanny had decided that she was sick of hospital, wanted to be discharged, wasn’t going to be taking any medicine anymore, and was just going to let nature take its course. She was going to have to take thirteen tablets in one hit, which is astonishing (and horrible, and I can see why she decided to do what she did). I said we could come to visit on Saturday, and mum said that she wasn’t sure Nanny would still be around by then. Naturally there was a whole lot of sadness and tears. Nanny had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, so I took the day off work today and kungfupolarbear and I went over to visit today.

It was actually quite a happy visit, Nanny was in really good spirits, much better than I’ve seen her for a while. Mum was there, my sister had driven up from Nowra, and my uncle was up too. We had a good chat for a couple of hours, filled Nanny in on all Beanie’s latest happenings (she’d been absolutely delighted by him when she came over a month or so ago), and griped about the state of politics, hehe.

Both kungfupolarbear and I feel a lot better about things now, and who knows, now that Nanny’s not on a heap of medicines she may last another number of months. Either way, she was really happy to see the both of us, which was nice.

Not quite five years marriage yet (that’s next month), but kungfupolarbear and I arrived back in the country five years ago to the day today! So many changes since then (we have our own house and little doggie!), but everything is still so effortless. <3

We’re heading up to Newcastle tomorrow for gypocalypse‘s wedding! Should be nice, we have enough spare time that we’ll do some wandering around and photo-taking too (the rehearsal is tomorrow, but the actual wedding isn’t until Sunday).

In the fitness news, I just tonight did a full five kilometres! That was including the warm-up and cool-down, so it wasn’t actually 5km of running, but still. Definitely glad we bought the treadmill.

I just jogged for 20 minutes straight! \o/

I’ve been doing the Couch to 5K (the goal at the end is to be able to jog for 5km) on our treadmill, and the day I just completed was just purely “jog for 20 minutes”. And I did it! It got slightly rough towards the end, but nothing terrible.

Pretty happy right now. 🙂

So we finally got a dog on Sunday! His name is Beanie and he’s a one year-old dachshund/maltese cross. kungfupolarbear took some photos yesterday.

He’s house-trained already, though he’s a bit clingy at the moment and we can’t leave the house for very long without him getting all anxious, but overall he’s such an adorable little thing!

The treadmill mentioned in my previous entry was able to fit fine, thanks to some clever rearranging by kungfupolarbear! We had it delivered on the 23rd of last month, and I’ve been giving it a good go since then. I’m using C25K to do a Couch to 5K program, and am using one of the treadmill’s built-in workout routine thingies in between (just walking, basically).

I’m still on holidays next week, and we’re going down to Canberra on the 9th and 10th to see the Mapping Our World exhibit at the National Library of Australia, and also visiting some relatives who live there. Canberra is only a three hour drive from our new place, which is nice.

In short, woot!

kungfupolarbear and I have been married four years today! And this is the first of many anniversaries from our new house. 😀 Like last year, it fell on a Lily weekend, but I mum and dad looked after Lily tonight so we could go have a nice anniversary dinner.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but srsly, our marriage has just been effortless… I can’t imagine anyone else being even a tenth as perfect for me as kungfupolarbear is. We’re completely on the same wavelength for basically everything, it’s amazing.

♥

PS SQUEE

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d be regularly drinking tea, I’d have laughed!

I still don’t care about it during the day, but I’m really liking my nighttime cuppa, there’s something wonderfully soothing about it. I’ve been having Celestial Seasonings “Sleepytime” herbal tea. It’ll be even better once we’re in our new place and it’s quiet and crisp and cold outside.

Only twenty-two more sleeps. This is going to be the longest twenty two days ever.