Bubbles and more bubbles means Uni is finished.

So I’m getting not so subtle hints from various people that since Uni is now finished I need to update my little place on the internet more often.

Yep.

Uni is finished.

I’m currently not so patiently waiting for my results. As I’ve mentioned previously, the two subjects I did this past semester were hard.  QUT also ever so kindly scheduled my final exam for 5:30 on a Friday night. It also earns the title of hardest exam I’ve ever done, both in my undergrad and postgrad lives. It was the exam where we all walked out at the very end of the time and looked at each other and just went “mmm, well that was fun”. Still it was the last exam and we celebrated like the good postgrad students we are with cheap bubbly and plastic cups.

 

We then celebrated again with a long lunch and more expensive bubbly  the following week after T had her last exam.  It was a lovely lunch, there was eight of us who started together two years ago and now we were all finished.  We’ve all gone or are going into very different aspects of the accounting/finance world but we’ve all toiled together over the past semesters.

 

Since then I’ve enjoyed doing a lot of sweet nothing. It’s been fantastic to no longer be reading text books on the bus to and from work or falling asleep on the aforementioned books. Coming home from work and just kicking back on the patio with a drink and watching the world go by. In saying all that I’ve also done a whole lot of everything else as well. There’s been road trips, cleaning, early family Christmas, shopping, gardening and hanging out with those dear friends who let me go radio silent during the semester. Now the count down is on to graduation and Christmas.

The Hippeastrums say hello

 

Hippeastrums

Well I must say I hadn’t planned on it to be over two months between posts but such it is.

In that time uni has been well uni. It’s my last semester and and the two subjects I’m doing are ones that require a lot of brain wrangling.

Textbook pages a flutter

 

I had a birthday. I’m now 27. Gosh, it’s hard to think that this time ten years ago  I was busy decorating my formal dress, having fun and looking forward the two and a half months I was having going round the world instead of going to schoolies.

Tim tam pikelet stack

 

The girls at work made my desk into a “winter wonderland” aka filling my drawers and covering my desk with very finely shredded paper and then wrapping it all up in bubble wrap and presenting the above tim-tam wrapped berry and cream pikelet stack to me as my cake.


Bubble wrapped

Mum sent me a bunch of flowers to work which was very nice.

Birthday blooms from Mum

My birthday presents to myself was a tablet (Google Nexus 7) which I love and would be more handy that I imagined in the past few weeks, a pair of new shoes and nose surgery.

Nexus 7

These are my shoes. They’re silver. Oh so pretty. Oh so comfy. They Spin in silver from Ecco.

Shoes, Silver Shoes.

 

For the last couple of years I’ve pumped drugs up nose on and off in a bid to clear it. I’ve not really smelt or tasted things very well. One reason, why I’m always slightly paranoid about people’s response to the food that I make; does it taste ok? That all came to head earlier this year when I got sinus pain whilst flying. A change of nose drugs didn’t really do much so it was time to consider other options. I had a septoplasty and turbinectomy at the start of the uni mid-semester break.

Gosh, I’m still in recovery and if it wasn’t for those who I’ve spoken to who’ve had the the surgery previously I would seriously be questioning why I undertook it. Imagine a tap on your nose that you can’t turn off and splurts out rubbish down your nasal passage and your throat all day long.   I work in the medical field, I’ve seen, read and heard enough gory surgical tales that 99.9% of it is water off my back. Facial surgery though is that .1% that makes me go argh. I do though get a kick out of the fact though that I can now say I’ve legally used cocaine.  Yep, it’s commonly used during nasal surgery as a local anesthetic.

Roses from work in a Figgjo Flint Lotte jug

Work sent me these lovely pink roses (I can sort of smell them) and no, they didn’t see the irony in sending me roses as they came from head office and not my office. We got a laugh out of it though. I also finally picked up the Figgjo Flint Lotte water jug that I’ve had my eye on for some time.

 

Bed time

Now it’s time to have a little nap before I venture off to uni this afternoon. I’m not using four pillows anymore but am down to two pillows. The blanket came from the farm, the pillow and sæng cover are from Ikea, love those dots.

And here is another photo from the garden to sign off with. I’m so happy it’s finally raining! Not only to settle the dust so it doesn’t irritate my nose but to water the garden and to give the tank a good fill. Not sure about you but my water tank has been empty for almost two months. A Pale-headed Rosella (Platycercus adscitus) enjoying the Grevillea.

Lorikeet

Semester 1, finished.

My life from the last post until this past Tuesday has looked like this.

Books, paper, pens etc covering the study desk kitchen table. It’s been a tough semester as I’ve juggled the renovations, upheavals at work, another death in the family and life whilst doing my two subjects. It’s been fun 🙂 and now I have just two subjects to go 😀

However, I had my last exam for the semester on Tuesday 🙂 🙂 🙂 and it also meant that the group of us four girls who all started together last year is now down to two, as S finished mid-year. The four of us grouped together again on Tuesday after the exam for a  lunch celebration at Vapiano.

I had a Caprese pizza, it was 210 times delish. It was at least three times as good as the spinach and ricotta pizza I had at  Giardinetto’s on Friday night with the girls ladies (when I was the youngest by almost 20 years, I don’t think girls is the correct word) from work.

Keeping on the food theme, a random assortment of food photos from my phone.

Mushroom risotto. I ♥ mushroom risotto.

 

Vegetable minestrone soup with a good dash of Pimentón Dulce. So so so so good.

 

Possibly one of my favourite quick dinners. Spaghetti with carrot and zucchini. You cook the spaghetti and just before the spaghetti is cooked, you add in the zucchini and carrot which has been julienned with a  julienne peeler. Once the they are all cooked, drain, drizzle with a some olive oil and top with a good crack of pepper and some ricotta (props if you “make” it yourself). Eat.

How cute is this Siamese mushroom I got in my Food Connect box the other week?

 

To finish it off. Some avocados of the ornamental variety…. I spotted these at WAC yesterday and just had to take a photo.

Reading chair

image

I finally set up my reading area again today. Exams are fast approaching and there is serious study to be done. Oh I so do love the new polished floors 🙂 I’ll have to take some photos of the house when the painting is finished (our painter is currently overseas on a holiday), gosh it looks different.

Kids

Kids

I had my last exam on Thursday night so I’m at the moment I’m loving not having to open my uni books for a few months! I went out yesterday morning and took some photos of one of the ladies I work with and her family. This one was just too cute not to share 😀

Sun-day

I’m about to head off to spend the day at Uni working on a group assignment. I’m hoping though that I’ll be able to meander through the old botanic gardens this afternoon as the spring flowers in there at the moment are divine.

On spring flowers, here are mine. I planted primulas in the front bed and oh it is so lovely to have flowers in the garden again. As a kid we used pick the flowers and spin the stalks round and round between our palms pretending they were Catherine wheels.
Primulas

I didn’t plant the clover but looks almost as pretty.
Clover

When I mowed the lawn, I couldn’t stand the thought of mowing down all those pretty clover flowers so I left a square of flowering clover in the front lawn 🙂
Clover Square

Now for a collection of links and the likes.

Ten People Who Observe Birthdays on 9/11 – Whilst American based, I can certainly attest to quite a number of statements made.

I can’t stop listening to this cover of Back in Black by Will Shine
Will Shine – Back in Black (AC/DC cover) by the3penguins

The Iceland AFL team recently hosted Norway in the first ever international game in the country, my brother was of course there to capture all the action. I particularry liked how they rigged the goal posts up.

Shiney Flaggy Purse also available with more Union Jack and less stars.

Now I’m off to spend the day with my head buried in the AASBs.