Spontaneous Saturdays

To be fair, I have to start my Saturday story with a Friday story, otherwise it’s not really anything to go by.

My weekend started about 5:30pm (ish), when I finished work and made my way home. I came through the back door and was greeted by a pair of cute little brown eyes and a lovely golden coat….my fur baby. I gave my dog a cuddle and let her outside for some “yard time” (gee that makes me sound like she lives in a prison!).  When I saw the state my house was in at the end of the week, I was actually quite impressed that my fiancé and I had managed to keep the house fairly tidy throughout our busy week. Believe my when I say that I have spent years trying to instill some domesticated wisdom into my future husband so I didn’t have to spend my whole Saturday cleaning the house, along with other routine domestic duties. Don’t get me wrong, I actually do like cleaning (as stupid as it sounds). It’s like part of my weekly routine. It helps me wind down at the end of the week, forget about my worries and ultimately I think it helps me deal with my anxiety.

Anyway, I managed to clean the whole house (minus the washing, but thankfully there was only three loads) before 9pm, which was amazing and considering I also spent like 45 minutes on the phone to an old friend from High School, I hadn’t seen since I was 19 and had hardly spoken to over the years. More so because of the fact that we were both busy and lived a fair distance away from each other, but still we picked up where we left off as easily and had a great chat about her moving back in about 6 weeks! Besides the call and the cleaning, my weekend forcast was clear and sunny with a chance of relaxation.

I ended up reading my beloved FanFiction until about 2:30am, which wasn’t the best way to start a weekend , given the fact I was extremely tired when I finally woke and couldn’t actually get a sleep in like I’d hoped. I managed to drag myself out of bed and showered before 9am. I always said to myself, “if you haven’t started your day by 9am, you have wasted half the day, whether it’s the weekend or not”. After I had breakfast, did some paperwork, banking and paid a few bills online, I decided to make a list and head into town.

My trip into town was relaxing, well as much as it can be on a Saturday morning with all of the weekend drivers out and about. I swear my road rage increases on a weekend. Just because people can be “leisurely” on a weekend doesn’t mean they want to spend their weekend in traffic or being behind a REALLY slow and uncoordinated driver. I sung along to my music and within about 25min I had arrived at my first destination, Bunnings (a hardware warehouse). I looked at my list and challenged myself to be in and out within 10 minutes. I was a girl on a mission  and wanted to make the most of my weekend, without wasting unneccasy time in a hardware store. I’m pretty sure I stuck to my mission and managed to get some things to fix the fly screen on my windows, some ear plugs (for reading until the cool ones I bought from the UK arrive) and an extension cord/cable clips for our new air conditioner in the lounge room. Okay so it’s not “new” but it works and will make do until we actually by a place of our own. Next stop Big W (department store).

This mission was even quicker I think, okay well maybe the same (10 minutes). I went in and bought another pair of cordless hair clippers because my other half got the shits with our corded pair and threw them in the bin, when I’m pretty sure they got caught in his beard. He does have a beard trimmer but he lets it grow wild and the complains when it gets hard to trim and takes longer to maintain, but that is men for you, isn’t it? I did see this like beard trimming bib you suction to your mirror so it catches all of the hair, on the internet the other week and am seriously contemplating buying him one…it will save my white vanity becoming littered with beard trimmings and a clogged drain. A quick stop at the chemist to pick up a prescription and I was back at the car for what I thought was the last part of my journey.

I was on my way to the other major shopping centre in town to get a massage when my phone rang. I answered the call on my car Bluetooth (it’s so handy, no pun intended) and it was my mother. She wanted to catch up for lunch after my massage, but it’s never just lunch with my mum…it nearly always includes…shopping. Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate shopping, I am female after all, but I don’t usually look at shops for no reason. I go in with a purpose of buying something that I really need or just because I feel like it, but it’s usually a planned trip.  The more efficient and cost effective the better, but when it comes to my mother we could be in there for days! Anyway we had planned to meet after my massage. 

I got to this little Chinese Massage parlour in the middle of the shopping centre. It’s brilliant and not too badly priced either. I selected the Whole Body (without feet) package, as my ankle is still swollen, tender and strapped up for support. Although I spent most of the massage experience eliciting as many facial cringes and expressions as I could without producing verbal sounds or pain and discomfort, I actually felt much better afterwards. You see Chinese massage is very…how do I put this…aggressive?? They seriously know what they are doing but although you feel fantistic (sorry inside joke) afterwards there is certainly an amount of pain that you have to endure to get that end result. Did I tell you I have bruises today?  It took me like half an hour to fully wake up after that massage. I had to mentally slap myself numerous times to get a grip on myself otherwise people in the shopping centre would have thought I was mad if I was actually slapping myself.

I met my Mum for lunch at a coffee shop, we had corn and zucchini fritters with rocket and relish and shared a bowl of chips. I had a strawberry thickshake on soy (milk protein intolerance, long story) and I think Mum had a pot of tea. We talked bout the normal mother daughter stuff and as usual I interjected in parts to change the subject. My relationship with my mother is touchy to say the least. I love her to bits but she can be a bit overwhelming at times (okay most of the time) and she pushes my buttons without realising and wonders why I get snappy. I don’t think she realises that we are very similar and that the reason why we clash. 

After lunch she dragged me to a few clothes shops, with me literally trailing behind as I couldn’t keep up with my foot. She kept asking me why I was so slow until I gave her a look that said everything and she apologised and looked at my ankle. I ended up buying three nice tops and we went and had a look at a jeweller (where I bought a new silver ear cuff for only $5) and in one of those costume jewellery shops (where Mum bought me a long gold pineapple necklace). Two things here you need to know about me, one, I love ear cuffs, but cannot get my helix pierced, because of the shape of my ears (I look like an elf out of Lord of the Rings, the nice elf ears, well I hope) and two, I am utterly obsessed with random pineapple-related things (lamps, jewellery, mousepads, lip balm, Tim Tams and generally anything pineapple flavoured). Pineapples make me happy. They are bright and sweet and are the international symbol of hospitality. There is also a quote I love that is pineapple themed, “be a pineapple, stand tall, rough on the outside, sweet on the inside and wears a crown”.

Okay so enough with the pineapples, and the shopping. I thanked Mum for the lovely afternoon and said our goodbyes. I was halfway home when I realised that Mum had distracted me so much (despite the fact I told her I had go go before I left town) I’d almost forgot that I needed to get a few groceries before heading home. Luckily there is a Supermarket down the road from my house and I managed to get there before they closed. I finally got home about 4:30pm, where I packed away the days’ buys and settled down with a book (okay I lied, it was FanFiction, can’t help it’s addictive) while I waited for hubby (to be) to be to get home from work (he has been so busy running his landscaping/gardening business that he has had to work most weekends of late). When he had arrived we decided to order Thai for dinner. Vegetable spring rolls with plum sauce (even though the sauce was clear) for entree, Chicken Pad Thai (with no tofu/shrimp) for me and Beef Hokkein Noodles for him. After dinner we hung out (by this I mean he slept on the couch and I read) in the air conditioned lounge room for a bit, then realised I was pretty tired and I went to bed.

After a shocking night’s sleep, I woke up at 9am, read, had breakfast before writing this post. It’s now nearly 2pm and I’m still in my pyjamas so, I’d better stop procrastinating and go have a shower and get dressed. As much as I’d love to continue writing, my iPad is extremely slow and lagging as I type so it’s taken me almost two and a half hours to write this post. Talk about being annoyed with technology. Anyway enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Stay awesome 😉

The Girl in the Green Shoes