It makes me feel so good when recipients of my art love it! At the end of last year I painted mum a picture of her and dad (steve and viv) in my version of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. This was them way back when they were first married – when dad still had hair and mum wore a long braid and seeing it framed like this made my week! (And hers too I think :)
Goodbye Chocolate! Hello: I love my body enough to care for it!
I am a chocoholic. My doctor laughs at me when I talk to him about it as he believes there is no such thing, but I know differently. Chocolate soothes me when I’m down, is my friend when I am lonely and de-stresses me when stressed. Chocolate even hangs with me when I am happy. My mother has called me The Chocolate Sniffer Dog since I was a teenager…
It is an addiction.
And the major reason for my squishy cuddly bits.
So here I go – quitting chocolate! I have quit chocolate before – for six entire months – nine years ago after a nasty little break up with a boy. Needless to say, I shed quite a bit of my cuddly bits and went running every time I got angry instead of calling up my friends Lindt and Cadbury’s and those delicious little Belgian Seashells mmmm. It may not be as easy to just sprint out the door and run until I feel better now that I have two little ones, but quitting chocolate I can do. And I am not allowed to sneakily replace my chocolate addiction with something else like eating foods that I wouldn’t normally eat – like chips (I am not a chip lover) or sugar candy (do not like) or fizzy drinks (blurck!) or fast food (ick!).
So here I go! Wish me luck as I journey forth on 365 days of being chocolate free! Stay tuned as I share stories of headaches and withdrawals (grimace), and of desperate moments where I resort to chocolate-sniffing (grin) (it has happened before….) But no licking! I may sniff, but I will not lick!
We’re back on the road again, sleeping in a 4wd camper and going wherever the wind blows us. As I looked up at the sky after putting Phoenix to sleep the other night at Emu Point (which is down on the bottom on Western Australia), I could not believe the heavens above. THERE-WERE-SO-MANY-STARS. How could I look up at that creamy band of distant stars and galaxies and not start singing “Under the Milky Way toooniiiight……” quietly to myself and the empty caravan park by the bay. It was simply breath-taking. No city lights to dim the stars, no noisy campers, just the universe in all of it sparkling glory.As I took these pictures with a thirty second shutter speed, a car pulled up by me at the beach to have a bit of a quiet session with some mull wrapped in a joint. I chuckled to myself as I heard them coughing away in their own little world inside the car, blasting some classic Jimmy Barns on the stereo. Their break lights (it didn’t really light the tree to my eyes) made the trees look bright red with a thirty second shutter. Very cool!
We’ve also camped out at the Pinnacles. I really enjoyed that. The sand at the beach near the Pinnacles Desert is pure bright white (which you wouldn’t guess looking at how yellow the pinnacles are) and is as fine as icing sugar. But despite it’s fineness, the beaches are very firm to walk on – very easy for Phoenix (and for me). In fact, if we had stayed there longer, I would have tried having Phoenix walk to the shore in her walker – it is that firm.
I LOVE DRIVING THROUGH OUTBACK AUSTRALIA! I know it’s not really the out-out-outback (as in the barren red interior), but it’s pretty out! And I did get lost and have to drive along a red dirt road! It reeeeally felt like the outback then! Going both north and south have shown the most beautifully bleached rolling paddocks splattered with native trees and lots of cows and sheep. I am falling in love with this sunburnt country. It’s like I have new eyes and are seeing for the first time.
Now we are in Albany – ahhhhh. It is so pretty here. AND SO MANY SHELLS! Oh my gosh! I have to take pictures of our shells! And yesterday we stumbled across Festival of Perth events happening all the way down here – like this lovely coral reef all knitted and crocheted by a million different gorgeous ladies; a guitar workshop run by a well-know american country singer chick (can’t remember her name but she has gifted hands on that guitar of hers and was quite the character) and craft activities – fun!
You know when you have one of those days where you are just plain sleep deprived and can barely put two words together? Today is one of those days. So instead of tired drivel with a plethora of spelling errors, I thought I would just share these beautiful pictures I took the other day instead :) xox
Geepers creepers I haven’t posted for a while aye! How slack am I! You know what it is? It’s because I knew that I was making you all barf with jealousy over those hawaii pics, so I had to pull back a little hahahaha. Nah, just kidding ya! But guess, what? I have some SERIOUSLY EXCITING NEWS: Phoenix walked 5 steps ALL BY HERSELF yesterday!!! She walked from mum to me and back again over and over and over and over – woohoo! And then today, she stepped away from her walker and started dancing to Hannah Montana!!! No hands! Arrrrr!!! So exciting!!! I am so proud of my beautiful and very determined little girl. She is blossoming here in Australia and it has been to wonderful to see. This morning I woke up to her cuddling me in bed – she had her leg and arm across my body and was patting me gently. What a sweety. ”I love cuggles” she said quietly, in her whisper voice because I was asleep. Then she sang a song to herself.
Our journey in Australia so far has mainly been: Enjoying Friendships; treasuring, cultivating and renewing friendships. I have missed having friends! I love you all so much! Australia has also marked the first proper singing lessons for me. I love the challenge. I love it when I ‘get it’. I get frustrated with 32 years of bad singing habits that I have to ‘unlearn’. But let me tell you, I now have a whole new respect for opera singers – I BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP YOU ALL!!!! Even the bad ones! I worship you too because I understand how difficult it is to sing like that and have it sound beautiful now…
I have also been capturing a lot of images-of-love for friends and old clients…
hee hee little cutie pies. Phoenix loved playing on their farm SO MUCH!!! Unfortunately, I have become a little too busy, and long for the feeling of ‘holidaying’ to return. I’ve had to turn down several photo shoots – which is always hard to do because I love it so much :)
Mmmmm and we’ve also been spending time at the beach *bliss*
Since being in Australia for such a long period of time, I have also taken the opportunity (interestingly) to take note of my hormones and how my mood is affected at different stages of my cycle – holy cow! I have never, ever done this before and what a nut am I!! I mean, I knew I was kind of cuckoo, but heck, I am all over the place: happy, sad, horny, angry, hateful, loving, paranoid, trustful – ARRRG! What a nightmare!! AB-SO-LUTE NIGHTMARE!! Today I discovered that just before I ovulate and just after, I think the whole world hates me for one or two days. Geesh! Is anyone else like this? Is it just me?
I love it when people inspire me. Most of the time, they have no clue that they’re actually doing it. But I tell you, the feeling that consumes my insides when inspiration strikes is a total rush – I love it; I crave it; I need it in my life. Although so much inspires me, I don’t usually think of myself as the one inspiring others so seeing this writeup by Loise on Aussie Scrap Source this morning was awesome – thanks Loise! I am so glad that something I did prompted a spark of inspiration within you! xox
That’s what it’s all about hey. Inspiring each other. Getting the juices flowing.
To see some more of Loise’s AMAZING creative juices, (and I mean, you will DIE at how amazing she is) visit her personal websitehere. To see more of her Aussie Scrap article featuring moi, gohere.
I was also happy to see Shriners Hospital for Children using some of my Kelly-Rae inspired art for their holiday cards this year. It makes me so happy when others enjoy my creations.
To see the other e-cards made from my art or to donate to Shriners, feel free to visit here. I love Shriners, my children get exceptional care there and, it’s free. Shriners have been like angels to me. While we struggled to figure out ways to pay mounting medical debt in the US, Shriners were like this amazing beacon of hope for us giving the children care without the worry of a bill at the end of each visit. Thank you Shriners! xox
Now, here is what is inspiring me personally today:
1. City and Colour’s facebook photos – I love them! Especially this one. I don’t know who the photographer is, but I find this picture thoroughly inspiring. I love ev-er-y-thing about this photograph. EV-ER-Y-THING.
And get this, my friend Ryan took this picture of Haun’s Hill Massacre recently – it was his first pro still-photo shoot (he is a filmographer and usually works with moving images – he is making the transition into still images look so easy!) His composing skills put mine to shame! I am so inspired by this picture and him!
2. I haven’t been able to stop listening/watching this: Montserrat Caballe “Casta diva” at the Thèatre Antique d’Orange. July 20th, 1974. I find this performance completely mesmerizing in not only her vocal perfection, but the enchanting way the breeze brings the whole stage to life. Beautiful. (Just listen to that crowd roar at the end.)
3. And lastly, I have been inspired a lot lately by David, my friend with the beeeeeautiful tenor voice (he is currently with WA Opera). He has also begun giving me classical singing lessons (brave man!) and has been on the other end of my lens quite a lot this week. Here are some of my favorites:
(As you can see, we’ve been having a bit of fun – haha)
So has anything inspired you this week? If so, please share! Maybe it will inspire me too!
I had a dream last night where I found an old, faceless and picture-less painting that I had apparently created when I was a teenager. I knew that I had made it, and yet had no recollection of ever doing so. At the bottom of the picture was a scrap of twisted sticky-tape, stuck there on one corner. In my dream, I reached out and pulled the tape away and it accidently tore the painting open. Although it didn’t look like it, the painting was not on one piece of paper, but actually two pieces somehow joined together and on the inside, between the two pages, the corner of a crisp white envelope revealed itself.
I thought, “that’s odd, I don’t remember doing that. I don’t really remember any of this.”
I was intrigued.
I tugged the envelope out through the tear and saw that, amoungst other random words my subconscious placed there which I can no longer recall, my name was written on the front. It said:
To Jasmine Bailey
To open in ten years.
My first thought was that I must have written myself this letter in highschool, but the handwriting wasn’t mine. It was my fathers distinct left-handed messy cursive. But I could tell he tried to do it very neatly. He had made special effort to do his best writing. This letter was obviously important to him and my heart thumped loudly at the massive discovery I had just made – especially since dad had died more than six years ago now.
This was like finding a treasure chest.
I turned the envelope over in my hands and just as I was about to open it, I was teleported into my gay friends presence and I was asking him in a half joking way if he would have intimate relations with a female for $50,000 and enjoy it – he was gagging and clearly wanted to change the topic. ”There ain’t no money honey…”
Well, that’s dreams for you. Odd random things they are, jumping here and there and everywhere.
I wonder what that letter from dad would have said? I woke up disappointed this morning that I never found out.
Love Jaz
xox
Comments OffPosted: December 31st, 2009 |
Author:jasmine |
Tags:dreams
(By Jasmine Bailey-Barfuss; starring Jasmine and David; Photos by my 9 yr old niece who we discovered really, really, really LIKE-likes my new b.f.f. – bless)
I have a BFF and his name is David.
Yes that’s right, The David Woodward – you’ve heard of him? The beautiful Tenor with a voice so warm he could melt the polar icecaps?
Yep, that’s him.
The guy with high notes so dreamy he could bring even the coldest of hearts to tears?
Yuh-huh, that’s the guy.
With a smile so inviting it could stir the masses into spontaneously hugging each other and, ultimately, inspiring world peace? (It is one of his many super powers.)
Yes sirree! That’s David and yes, he is that powerful.
And cute.
And wonderful.
And I am so in love.
The Blissful Happy Gooey Kind of Love. You know, the kind where you just can’t get enough of every little thing that comes out of that person’s mouth? (Especially when they’re singing?) The kind where they could have a big huge yellow pimple on their swollen chin and it wouldn’t even matter? (Not that he of course would ever have a pimple on that beautiful face of his – but if he did, I swear I wouldn’t even notice!)
And whether he wants it or not, he is most certainly my new bestest-estest friend.
Forever.
I mean, how could I not want to be surrounded by his creative genius and cute eyelashes. It was like love at first sight when I saw him standing there, waiting for his turn to sing at WACO rehearsals the other day (it was as if my sub conscious screamed, ‘this man will be fabulous for your self esteem Jasmine, you must meet him and claim him for yourself – now!’ But of course my conscious mind didn’t hear that, it just slowly gravitated towards him like an electron zips around the outer edges of an alluring atom) – as it was with my other two men-friends who preferred shopping with me, over making out with me.
It’s quite strange actually, the magnetic pull that presents itself just a few times in a lifetime – the pull that drags you to a person even if you are kicking and screaming trying to run the other way. The pull that dragged me to JB in the lunch-line in the cafeteria at Brigham Young University in 1995 – the second we found out that both South Africa and Australia have both vegemite and milo, we were fabulous friends for life; the pull that dragged me to the eccentric and passionate deep-thinker JC in 2000 – the second I heard his booming laugh, I new that I wanted his laughter in my life for the rest of my life; you know that pull that only happens a handful of times? I can count on about six fingers the amount of times I have made an instant bff – the kind that just clicks perfectly like a missing piece to your puzzle, at very first contact – and I can recall vividly the moment each of them entered my life.
And changed it, for the better.
One thing I have recently rediscovered (and my parents knew from birth) is that my personality is the type that craves, well, umm, how do I say this… attention. Maybe its just vanity, maybe I just like to be called ‘Pumpkin’, but I think that people who think that I am fabulous are, well, absolutely positively unbelievably fabulous too!!!
Sigh.
I like friends. I miss friends. Why am I living in America again? She wonders quietly to herself. I have so much a history here, so many more special friends than I ever truly realized. And now I’m making special new ones and it feels so good! Will I ever make friends in America? Am I too confrontational, too independent and non-conformist?? Maybe it will just take more time… maybe… maybe I just need to get out more in America… maybe…
As my new friend and my niece took turns serenading us with their musical voices, I sighed a happy contented sigh and thought, life is good.
I am grateful for good friends. (Especially the kind with big muscles that carry my heavy shopping bags whilst Christmas shopping in the city yesterday.)
Jet lag is interesting *yawn* Sitting here at 10:30pm at night, I feel like it’s almost dawn *yawn* My eyes are crossing and my mind is fogging over, but I have so much that I want to tell you! *big juicy yawn* So much has happened in the last three days since arriving in my home town of Perth, like, singing in the WA Charity Orchestra again (Donna and Sam did such a wonderful job pulling that together to raise more funds for Princess Margaret Hospital for Children – charity of which my children are direct recipients – thank you), seeing my family and making more friends than I did this whole last year in Utah – in only three days!
I know, crazy right?
But, because I can barely think straight or see straight at the moment, I want to just take a moment to say, “Goodbye beautiful Hawaii, I loved you, you loved me, you will always have a special place in my jet lagged heart…”
(Wow, I actually fell asleep waiting for that picture to upload)
“And uh, what was I saying, oh yeah – HELLO PERTH!!!”
I tell no fibs, cross my heart and swear to die – we swam here yesterday and today and it was divine! (And only two minutes from where we are staying – choice bra!) I had to bring my camera today so I could share this amazing place with you! The pictures don’t quite capture how HUGE and SHEER those lush rock faces are. It feels like they are as high as the sky when you’re swimming in the water. BREATH-TAKING. AH-MAZING!!!
The water is so warm here, so easy to swim in, so nice :D And then we came home to this afterwards – so perdy:
I had fun taking a few pictures today and Phoenix had fun off-roading it in her walker. We met the loveliest guy with no teeth selling coconuts by the side of the beach. His grand-nephew thrice removed (or something) is a lot like Phoenix. The lady at the bar in the restaurant told me the same thing about her nephew too – turns out they were talking about the same kid. They are all related. Happiness!
Over lunch Phoenix enjoyed putting her hamburger baby to ’sleep’ rather than eating it. (Playing with it is soooo much funner! And when it broke in two there were no tears – it became two babies!!)
I love my little girl.
I-LOVE-KAUAI.
(And I’m pretty sure this is going to be the only picture of me here. Did you ever realize with sudden clarity that you have actually put on thirty pounds? That the scales are not actually lying – that you really have eaten that much chocolate? Mmm. Me too.)
Love Jaz
xox
PS As soon as we reach civilization (ie a town with a post office) Phoenix and I will draw the winner of my jewelry giveaway – stay tuned, and good luck!!
Kauai loves my hair. For starters. In Utah my hair did this fuzzy limp frizz thing – very unflattering. If I ever wanted it to look NOT White Trash I would have to spend upwards of half an hour working with it! I simply do not have that kind of time to spend on myself on an average day.
So, (she shrugs), I go White Trash most of the time. And it doesn’t make me feel super good about myself.
Here in Kauai however, it does this curl thing that I love and it takes no time at all to achieve! I just brush it after my shower (when I actually shower) and let it, well, air-dry, pretty much. I might add a tiny bit of product as it’s drying, or if I’ve been for a swim the salt is product enough, and I end up with no fuzz, just volumous lovely curls.
Kauai loves my hair.
*smile*
And I love Kauai for loving my hair! Thank you sweet Kauai!
Kauai also loves my feet! You would think with all this walking on the sand and wearing flip-flops all day that it would mean painful cracked heals for me, but no! There is so much moisture in the air that my skin never gets dry enough to crack! Nice!
My skin needs less than half the Arbonne that Utah demands of it.
Utah is not friendly on my skin or my hair. In fact, I wonder if Utah likes me at all! Me and Utah have not had a great year this year… Utah is a dry, moisture-sucking place and a little whisper inside of me keeps saying, Pssst! Jasmine! Don’t go back there! Stay here! Figure out a way to live here forever somehow – go on, you can do it! Look at your fabulous hair! It will be well worth it, you know it will! Maybe you could even take up surfing like your brother Jeremy! Think of how fit and fab you will be in no time with all that paddling five miles to catch one wave!
And you know, I would bet my right eyelashes (something I regard very highly indeed as they curl much better than the left) that the locals here on Kauai don’t need to reticulate their gardens. INFACT, I would bet MY ENTIRE SET (right AND left) that even the farmers don’t! You should see this place. Warm rain falls from the sky one minute then the next it is sunny-as. And it’s always warm here, even in ‘winter’. Imagine having a veggie patch here – rain then sun, rain then sun, rain sun rain sun rain sun. The vegetables would be in veggie heaven! Their day’s jam-packed with moistness and warmth, with a growing season lasting all year.
And The Citrus love it here too. They look soooo green and healthy and plentiful – unlike the starving citrus in our water-restricted garden in Perth whose leaves always looked a dry faded green, curled at the edges and whose fruit grew sparingly with little juiciness.
When I worked here ten(ish) years ago on the film Testaments, I fell in love with Kauai. It was real love I tell you and it left me with a strong desire to end up here one day, as a resident. Yes, I have always wanted to live here. My heart was captured and taken hostage by the green mountains with waterfalls; the vines creeping up light posts and power lines; coconuts and chickens, everywhere; gardens so lush and colourful my mouth watered (and I modelled my own garden after in Perth); little one-lane winding roads with the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other; tiny towns; the sound of the waves everywhere you go on the island; green things growing right up to the shore line; fish that glow-in-the-dark; giant sea turtles in the randomest of places (well, not that random, not like the chickens)… the List of Love goes on and on.
Years and years later, I still want to move here above any other place I have ever visited in the whole entire galaxy.
Here, let me help you understand why:
Maybe I could move here? Maybe I really could?? I am my own boss after all. Right? Being separated from my husband means that I can make my own decisions, right???
Hmm.
Except that we have two children together who love their father more than life itself and like to see him all of the time and vice versa.
Suck.
Poop.
Pity Party here in Kauai right now. Wah. Woah is me, woah is me…
While I love that they love their daddy and he loves them, sometimes I just wish that I could do whatever I wanted. Wah.
Tatty-Tantrum.
(Note to single [and only] sister Candy: once you are married and begin spawning, you no longer get to do whatever you want, so live it up now while you can! While you have no one you have to ask permission from to have an adventure and no ultra-important responsibilities that you will suck if you neglect! [like kiddies])
There is no such thing as ‘good traveling’ – not if an airplane, airport and connecting flights are involved.
No sirree.
I don’t care who you are; good travelling of the air variety just does not exist! I dare anyone to say otherwise! (Unless you’re superman, then I will believe you.) And it’s not just the squished up seating with no room to move and being packed like sardines in a can full of people hocking loogies and spreading their wonderful germs to the unwilling world – it’s so much more than that.
It’s how much it costs, for starters. THOUSANDS of dollars JUST to get a tiny square to put your bum on – no meals included and in-flight entertainment? That’ll be $16 dollars please! And if you want to have baggage – WELL!! That’ll be $20 per bag thank you. Oh you have three bags, well that third one will be $40. Have a nice flight!
A what? Baa a a aaaaaa. Did she just say “Have a nice flight??”
Pardon-moi? I am pretty sure that even the posh people with the fancy reclining chairs in first class are STILL not having a nice flight. Sure, they are a little less squished, but they still had to remove their laptop from its bag to go through the metal detector scans. They still had to remove half of their clothing and jewellery, not to mention the belt buckle and shoes! (poo-wee!)
“Excuse me sir, is this your bag?”
“Ah, yes, yes it is?”
“You need to remove all individual liquids and creams and put them in a separate box.”
Oh, the darned toiletries kit – forgot about that one. So many rules to have to remember these days… gone are the old days of just skipping onto a place three minutes after check in…
“Sir? I am going to have to confiscate your tweezers and nail clippers – they are a potential lethal weapon.”
“(Snort) A what?”
“You could hijack a plane with these.” She reaches with a gloved hand to place the shiny weapons in her uniform breast pocket.
“No – PLEASE!! They’re Laura Mercier! A totally overpriced gift from my wife – she will kill me!”
“I’m sorry sir.” No she wasn’t. She shrugged with a slight smile – she is totally going to pocket those, he realises with a taste of bitterness rising in his throat, and I will be put in the dog-house for AT LEAST three weeks for not thinking to pack them in my luggage… She’ll see it as a sign that I don’t actually love her. But I just really like to groom while sitting on the toilet doing my business and what better way to pass time on a boring airplane.
Damn it.
And then the posh people have to somehow remember to have their boarding passes and passport ready in their hot little hands as they pass through the arch-of-doom, just like us – you know the arch that lets the uniforms (and the government) know if you’re secretly packing or not. They freak, the first-class-people, just like us economy-class-folk about whether or not they secretly put their handgun (that they may or may not even own in reality, but what does that matter when it comes to irrational fears of being stripped searched and hauled off to Guantanimo Bay for life without trial) in their back pocket that morning without thinking.
And, despite their poshness, they still find themselves walking halfway to the gate without shoes (it’s hard to tell with that soft carpeting in Salt Lake Airport) (at least that was my excuse, but really, I’m just not used to wearing shoes anymore – my cracked heals are my shoes) and have to sprint back, holding far too much hand luggage to allow proper sprinting, put on forgotten shoes (that had since been collected for suspicious reasons and were being scanned for bomb-making fibres), sprint back only to just barely get to the flight on time.
Finding his seat, the hostess rushes him (politely – because he’s first-class) because he’s holding up the whole plane, so he frantically throws his bags into the overhead bin without grabbing his thoroughly interesting book that he was right at the climax of. So then when the plane ends up sitting like a couch-potato for fifty more minutes waiting for a gap in runway traffic, he is bored out of his sweating skull, but can’t move to retrieve his book because the fasten seatbelt sign is on. Gal! As his sweat dries he realises with shock and embarrassment that he is one of those smelly sweaty people on a place – nooooooo! He screams internally. Then he wonders if he is far enough away from his neighbours to have his odour dissipate before it reached them. His armpits instinctively squeezed tighter together, but the more he squeezes, the sweatier and stinkier he becomes. If only they hadn’t stolen his aftershave! He could have totally given himself a perfume bath once the damned plane was finally in the air.
Yes, that’s right, even the first class has smelly sweaty people, just like me and just like you. (Well, just like me for sure and I can’t be the only one because I’ve sat next to them before…)
And to think you thought you were safe, arriving twenty-six-thousand hours early for your flight.
No sirree.
There is no such thing as being safe when it comes to airports – I mean, obviously. The amount of times my luggage has been searched (how embarrassing), my personal items checked for bomb-making-residue and my ample body padded down – it is OBVIOUS the airport is a dangerous place to be.
At least, when I’m there it is. Apparently. The whole place seems to go on full alert.
“BEWARE, BEWARE, SMELLY-OVERWEIGHT-JASMINE IS HERE. SHE IS SOOOO OBVIOUSLY DANGEROUS – what with that black hair and… all. She used to have long red nails people and she had a nose ring, three times – ALERT, ALERT, MAKE SURE SHE DOESN’T SLIP ANYTHING PAST US THIS TIME!! SHE MUST BE BAD!”
Then add one adorable little three year old that gets around in a little green walker to our quaint airport story.
With a runny nose (yes I know, we both manifested buckets of snot the day before our flight and became ‘those sick and careless’ people that I loath – but our tickets cost so much, we HAD to make the flight! And at least we weren’t coughing!! [much])
Then add Horny-late-twenties-guy-with-shaven-head sitting next to us who OBVIOUSLY had no children of his own. How do I know this? Well! For starters:
He kept groping his girlfriend (under her pants) whenever she stopped by for a ‘visit’ – ummm, hello?
They both used the word ‘shit’ like there was no child present and like the whole world casually swore in everyday language all the time;
And then he went and put on the most VIOLENT movie HE COULD FIND on his $16 in-flight entertainment. And OFCOURSE she watched it or tried to – she is a child! All children’s eyeballs are programmed to stare at any tv-like device without blinking for hours on end. It’s genetics. (Which then cued my smooth parental distracting with colouring-in and fluffy toys.)
I SWEAR I sore his actually push Phoenix’s little miniature elbow off the arm rest so he could be more comfy while watching his in-flight-entertainment on his pull-down table (THAT is something only I am allowed to do! Elbowing little children…. Cheeky!)
Which then cued her spilling a drink all over said-horny-neighbours-in-flight-entertainment. He freaked! “Shit, shit, shittity, shit! Arrr grahhh huff puff sooky sook!!” You should have seen how loudly he sighed and did this whole body language thing when a little drop landed on his thigh…
A wee little drop.
GEESH! That’s nothing mate! One time, when Isis was three months old, he PROJECTILE VOMITTED IN-TO-MY-CROTCH ON AN AIRPLANE – at the very beginning leg of a two day journey across the globe from Perth to SLC! And of course I didn’t have a change of clothes like some wonderfully-organised people do – I had to use my space for nappies and bottles and what-not didn’t I! So there I was, with a warm soaking-wet crotch, covered in baby vomit, squished into a seat like a sardine, no room to air out or anything. Now THAT was something to complain about! Talk about GROSS!! (However the baby doing the puke was thoroughly cute!)
(BTW his in-flight entertainment was totally fine, just got a couple of droplets… He was just concerned about the droplet on his thigh – you should have seen the way he watched the water on his tray move slowly towards the edge. He just watched it! Hello! Block it with your hand or something? Again, he has no children.)
Then cue cute three year old vomiting into the closest thing I could find – a cracked plastic cup in the seat pocket. Puke and yellow bile oozed out of the cracks, down my fingers and onto to a snotty tissue (we’d run out of clean ones at that point.) Mr Horny-Neighbour who had just been in the ‘toilet’ for twenty minutes with his Miss Horny-Girlfriend (yes you read that right and they practically fornicated again right there in front of us afterward - A+ for stamina AND grossness), he nearly vomited.
Ha.
See? Definitely no children. But he was practicing for children with Miss Horny-Girlfriend an awful lot and I couldn’t help but quietly laugh to myself at how UN-BE-LIEVABLY SHOCKED he was going to be when he finally knocked that bird up. I could tell almost immediately that he was a carefree outdoorsy guy that went surfing in Hawaii whenever he wanted with absolutely nothing in his life to hold him back. You know, no real responsibilities and all that. (Watch out Miss Horny – as soon as you start acting like a real girl, or a real wife he’s going to DUMP YOOOOU!!) I mean, the way he publically GROPED Miss Horny RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME AND PHOENIX said it all! …Completely oblivious to anything else in life except for his own needs and urges.
And boy did he have urges.
Ick! A slobbering bucket of horn-ballness!! Talk about P.D.A.! And moaned and groaned… and all sorts. (Awwwkward…) I mean, come on you two – Hello! Three-year-old-girl sitting right next to you, watching EV-ER-Y-THING you are doing to Miss Horny right now!
“Hey Phoenix…” I say, “Umm, what’s you’re favorite colour?…. Do… you want to swim with dolphins?”
“I wan to in weel wife!! Pweese mummy! Swim wif da dofins??!”
Premature birds and the bees discussion narrowly averted.
So the moral of this story is: Plane Travel = Hell On Earth (or hovering over earth.) (Let’s not even talk about how far away our gates were at each stop. We literally had to walk through ice and snow to get to our first gate – luckily we hitched a ride with the golf-cart-lady half way there otherwise our journey would have ended before it even begun. The gate was LITERALLY one mile’s journey AND an outside one like the olden days. Then Seattle! Ar! Train after train after train after train after train to get to the connecting flight! The gate was closed when we got there and Phoenix was huffing and puffing somewhere behind me in her walker – she did so well! She walked further than she had in her life!! But because our first flight was an hour late, we nearly missed our next flight. This was the point where I began to be one of those smelly people – from all that rushing and running and stressing – it produces a particular armpit odour that no deodorant can protect from!)
And then, the car rental companies – oh! E-VIL I tell you! I actually wanted to die after trying to get a car for three hours last night. LET ME JUST WARN YOU THAT THEY DO NOT ACCEPT DEBIT CARDS IN REAL LIFE. It doesn’t matter what their ads say, or WHAT they tell you on the phone, or WHAT the manager says on the phone twice just days earlier (grr), you have to own some sort of major impressive REAL credit card with lots of debt to be able to rent a car in the USA. You cannot be sensible and rent a car. You have to be loaded with real, high interest credit cards in your wallets.
The golder the better.
Let’s just say that by the time the taxi came to get us I wanted to slit my wrists… Not only was using a taxi to drive one hour the same cost as renting a car for a week (they were really sweet and the ride was awesome) but I had called several times to make sure the rental with AVIS was all set (yes I DID just name drop). Both Nick and myself had spoken to the manager even (grumble grumble.)
I don’t WANT to get a major credit card JUST so I can rent a car!!!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! WHYYYYYYYYY DO THEY SAYYYYYY THEY ACCEPT DEBIIIIT CARRRRRRDS!!!!!
And don’t believe your bank when they tell you your visa/mastercard debit card “is just the same as using the real thing!”
Bollocks that is.
All lies.
But you know what? No matter how smelly and sore and tired and irritable and sad and irrational and covered in tears and baby-puke you are by the end of a trip, it always ends with something wonderful:
YOUR DESTINATION.
Four hours after we landed last night, myself and a very tired and sickly little three-year-old came home for the next 9 days to this:
A full moon looking over the Pacific Ocean at midnight. (The shutter was open for a few seconds in this shot.) The first thing we did after the sweet-as taxi driver and his girlfriend helped us haul our luggage inside was walk to ten steps to the shoreline through our back doors. Phoenix thought the large black rocks in the sand were giant starfish.
This morning she thought the birds cheeping were actually dolphins talking to her from the ocean. (She can’t wait to have that ride on one…. if I had a car maybe we could hunt the island until we found one…) (I’m not bitter about the car anymore, really! It’s far too beautiful here to be mad about anything for more than two seconds.)
And now, the nightmare of yesterday is only a faint memory, quickly being erased as each minute passes in this paradise. Sure, we have an even longer plane ride yet-to-come to reach Perth from here (and a 10 hour overnight layover I’m trying not to think about), but again, the pain and agony of flying will be worth it when I smell that Perth air once again, hug my family, see Phoenix laugh with her cousins and when I jump into the Indian Ocean. My ocean.
We will quickly forget how horrible it all was – kind of like child birth – and do it again, and again, and again…
Us humans are funny like that aren’t we.
Yes, travelling doth sucketh. But reaching the final destination rocks. Look what we woke up to this morning:
I knew it would be all better when we woke up this morning, and it was.
Now, off to collect some more heart-shaped coral washed up on the sand…
Love Jaz
xox
(PS PLEASE EXCUSE MASS TYPOS!! Very jet lagged when writing this! :)
(PPS DO NOT READ THIS WHILE FLYING – your flight will suck even more as a result :)
Hi girlies! My cool dreaded friend Emily is hosting a giveaway of my glooart designs on her blog! To enter to win your favorite design, all you need to do is visit my etsy shop and leave a comment on Emilies Blog (and mine!) about which one you love the best! The winner will be revealed Friday morning! AND FOR AN EXTRA CHANCE TO WIN, LEAVE A COMMENT HERE TOO!! And check back on Friday!!
My shop is only open until Friday morning (Dec 4th), so get that Christmas shopping done now! ;D After Friday, I am on the road and need to close my shop for the duration of my travels. Happy shopping peoples and good luck!! xox
Hi everyone! I am closing my etsy shop in 5 days – Thursday December 3rd – for three months while I travel. I have just put my latest goodies up for Christmas shoppers – a lot of antique-looking jewelry and some original artwork that I created for Shriners Hospitals for Children. This is the first time I have posted original artwork and remember these items will only be listed for five days, then I’m on the road. Take a look and please share with your friends! :D
Come visit my online etsy shop with around 122 different items for sale atwww.glooart.etsy.com
I have a lot of antique brass and copper jewelry that I am in love with. IN LOVE I TELL YOU!! Lots of high quality crystal and gemstones, particularly amethyst. I am so infatuated with amethyst at the moment (yummo!) SHOP HERE.
And some original artworks I created for Shriners Hospital for Children. This is the first time I have listed original art for sale. Remember these items will only be listed for five days, then I’m on the road. SHOP HERE.
Original handmade jewelry and artwork made by me :D Please share this with your friends!!
SHOP HERE for funky original jewelry made by me and a small selection of original mixed media artwork.
Remember these items will only be listed for five days, then I’m on the road. I love you guys. Thank you so much for supporting me and my children xoxox
As I took these pictures with a thirty second shutter speed, a car pulled up by me at the beach to have a bit of a quiet session with some mull wrapped in a joint. I chuckled to myself as I heard them coughing away in their own little world inside the car, blasting some classic Jimmy Barns on the stereo. Their break lights (it didn’t really light the tree to my eyes) made the trees look bright red with a thirty second shutter. Very cool!
hee hee little cutie pies. Phoenix loved playing on their farm SO MUCH!!! Unfortunately, I have become a little too busy, and long for the feeling of ‘holidaying’ to return. I’ve had to turn down several photo shoots – which is always hard to do because I love it so much :)
Since being in Australia for such a long period of time, I have also taken the opportunity (interestingly) to take note of my hormones and how my mood is affected at different stages of my cycle – holy cow! I have never, ever done this before and what a nut am I!! I mean, I knew I was kind of cuckoo, but heck, I am all over the place: happy, sad, horny, angry, hateful, loving, paranoid, trustful – ARRRG! What a nightmare!! AB-SO-LUTE NIGHTMARE!! Today I discovered that just before I ovulate and just after, I think the whole world hates me for one or two days. Geesh! Is anyone else like this? Is it just me?
