One Good Thing

one good week: seven things

It’s 5.55 pm and still 32° Celsius (about 90°F) and I want to make soup but I don’t want want to turn the stove on.

First world problems. There are so many.

Maybe it’s the heat making me feel so ornery and belligerent right this second, or maybe it’s just my personality (probably a combination of both). However, I’ve got to get something off my chest. It’s 2013, and I am the New Year equivalent of the Grinch crossed with Ebenezer Scrooge: I’m so sick of New Year’s resolutions.

You know I’m all for goals. I’m even crossing one of the un-funnest things off this here list very, very soon. But I feel like, this year, resolving has become another kind of weirdly competitive sport.

Are we making goals for the sake of making goals?

I’ve got three Little Reminders for myself this year and that’s it: 1. ‘Freelance doesn’t mean “for free”.’ Stop working for free, Amber! 2. Be nicer to yourself. 3. Curb your urge to access Facebook so much — it doesn’t make you happy.

If you could pick one thing to focus on this year, what would it be?

Now, as for my week, it was pretty darn good.

The obvious highlight was receiving a box of Canadian goodies from lovesolovely, packed with Nilla Wafers, Graham crackers, Reese’s baking chips, CinnaMints, and vanilla Jell-O mix. I had grand plans for those baking chips, but I have been eating little handfuls since Monday and the supply has… let’s just say, it’s depleted.

The obvious lowlight of my week was getting a worrisome mole cut out of the side of my foot (see here if you’re not squeamish), which has been bleeding and hurting way more than I thought it would and has put a serious cramp on my style. By ‘style’ I mean ‘walking’, mmmkay? Mersyndol has been my steady companion through the last three days. Yellow is my happy colour.

Anyway.

There were plenty of other good bits to offset the scalpel-in-my-foot adventure (especially those baking chips!). So, here are my top seven for the past week.

✷ 7 Things

1. Cute and comfy PJ shorts. If you’re going to spend extended periods of time on your back (in bed, in your undies) during a heatwave and you don’t want to become too well acquainted with the horrors of your bikini line, a sweet little pair of shorts is essential. These Russian-doll-emblazoned pretties were a Christmas present and they have done the job nicely.

2. My Dad looking after me. Even though he took me to Bunnings straight after I’d had my foot sliced and diced and made me carry a packet of nails, he’s been a good nurse since. He cares for me just the way I like it: for the most part, he leaves me alone, but he also does cute things like buy me noodles on the way home in the pouring rain or ask me if I’ll be all right by myself for a few hours even though, really, all that’s the matter with me is that I’ve got a big bandaid on my foot and it hurts a bit.

3. Finding Zoë Foster’s Fruity Beauty back online after her year-long stint with Mamamia. I’m not sure why the arrangement with MM came to an end, but I’m not a huge fan of the site any more, so it doesn’t bother me. Zoë is funny and she makes me feel like I, too, could style my own hair nicely. One day.

4. Reliving the coolness that was Michael Jackson. Look how crisp and precise his movements are in this clip even compared with the other professional dancers. (As you can see, when I’m left alone in bed by myself for a while, my Internet surfage leads some strange places. But MJ was way cool!)

5. Late-night electric storms. I used to super scared of summer storms when I was a kid, but I love them now — as long as my laptop isn’t plugged in at the wall! It stormed on Wednesday night and Oliver (my fat panther cat) came into my bedroom because he was frightened. It was very hot, so I didn’t have any covers on me. He lay at the end of the bed and placed one of his paws over my bare foot, like we were holding hands or something. We lay like that for at least an hour. Oh, I love that cat. He looks like a brute, but he’s a fat feline cherub.

6. Finishing Henry Hitchings’s The Secret Life of Words. This book is a narrative account of some of the English lexicon’s peculiar and varied borrowings. Hitchings is a marvellous writer, the type of writer who makes me feel as if even my best work could have been produced by a monkey at a typewriter. If you love history and/or vocab, get this book.

7. Becoming best friends with the aircon. These temperatures are naaasty (said in the voice of Cleveland Brown from Family Guy). I HATE SWEATING. There is only one air-conditioned room in this house and I have been staying in that room. Now? It’s time for a cold shower. With my sore foot sticking out of the curtain, of course.

I hope that you, my friends, have a cool and relaxing weekend.

Love A x

Tagged with: one good week, seven things

Categorised as: reviews+roundups+recaps