Author: awmalloyadmin

A while ago we had The Lemon Of Hope.

I’m now thrilled to announce the lemons have been joined by The Limes Of Hope and The Cherry Tomato of Hope. The limes have taken over three years to fruit so It’s fantastic see them finally come through. Time to look up baking with limes.

Over a year ago when I started C25K my aim was a) to make it out alive and b) to jog around Albert Park Lake, it’s pretty much spot on 5k around  the whole lake.

This morning I finally did it! Rae is away with the kids so what better time. I headed out early to beat the early morning traffic and, bonus for being an early bird, scored free parking. Off I went and amazingly enough, despite the head wind, I did my fastest ever 5K. It’s not a great speed but it’s my best, and on the day I achieved my aim.

After I sent Rae an sms she suggested I go for coffee at St Ali, like a local, so I did. Man it brought back the memories of when I lived there 20+ years ago. South Melbourne is a great place, especially early morning. I grabbed my superb coffee and went for a walk.

Nostalgia took me back to the terrace house I lived in, looking amazing after being renovated. I was there just in time to hear the old town hall bells toll 8 – I wonder how many other bells still ring in the hour in Melbourne? I walked around to the market but it was only partly open and then strolled back to the car to head back to the ‘burbs.

Can’t think of a better way to start to the day.

 

Two years ago we had our first Malloy family Christmas lunch. Today we had our third.

Tony and Rae from 2011, I’d like to introduce you to Tony and Rae from 2013.

I went to the doctor yesterday and the benefits of a better outlook on fitness and diet are beginning to show. I’m now off one of my daily tablets, the expensive non PBS one which makes it even better. I’m also 5kg heavier than I was this time last year but with exactly the same waist measurement. I’m no muscle bound wonder yet but 5kg of muscle is pretty impressive for me.

These two bits of good news give me even more motivation to continue down this path. I only wish I had have started 10 years earlier.

I’m terrible with faces, absolutely shocking. This hit me, again, yesterday when the coffee lady at the baseball greeted me like a long lost friend. I have no idea if I’ve met her before, she does look sort of familiar, or if she’s just naturally bubbly and friendly. (If you do know me and you’re reading this coffee lady, I’m sorry!). This is the total opposite to my wife who has a Google like ability to place any face she has ever seen, no matter how briefly.

I can be introduced to a person and five minutes later I can struggle to remember them, especially in a social situation where I am meeting multiple people for the first time. Faces all tend to look the same to me, I can’t describe people verbally, and it can take a couple of one-on-one conversations for a person to ‘stick’. Hand in hand with this goes names. No technique has yet improved my ability to remember names, whose retention can last less than a face.

It worries me that I can come across as rude, or vague, but I can assure you, whomever you may be, I;m bot being rude. It really is just me.

Yesterday I didn’t take a photo. This is odd for me, checking my PC I se I have taken (or kept) over 21,000 since I first had a digital camera. The number really began to climb though when they started putting decent enough cameras in phones and now I probably take a few each day.

Yesterday morning though I chose not to take one. I was in the kitchen getting the twins ready for their drama dress rehearsal when I looked up to see Kennedy doing up Henry’s top button and straighten his bow tie.

It was beautiful.

I reached for my phone but stopped. Not this time. I drank it in, a moment just for me.

Last weekend the horn stopped working in my car so I dropped it in to the local mechanic on Monday morning to be checked over. They found the problem – a faulty clock sprint – that was going to cost $509 to replace as they had to pretty much replace the whole air bag set up.

You can’t drive without a horn so it had to go ahead. I paid the deposit, they ordered the part and off I went.

Today the miracle occurred. They were wrong. It didn’t need an airbag replacement, they found the part they were looking for second hand AND it was significantly less.

So, for the first time in recorded history a trip to the mechanic not only turned out to be cheaper than expected – I actually received money back.

It’s a not-quite christmas miracle if ever there was one.

This morning I asked the twins “What do you think dad does for a job?”. Initially there were just blank stares before Moo shrugged her shoulders and said, well, nothing. Henry thought for a bit and said I drink coffee.

I then explained that I make web pages, like they see on the internet.

Henry asked “Did you make Google?”

My phone photos are automatically backed up to Google+ (as well as my PC and Crashplan) and this morning I was reminded Google+ has a great feature called ‘Auto Awesome’. It found a few snaps from last night that it could put together in a little animated sequence.

Introducing the ‘awesome-ised’ Mr Henry.

This is what you would see if you were me sitting on my office chair and decided to spin around.