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I wonder if Patrick and I will ever settle into some sort of routine and keep it up for more than a year or so.

I have been slowly going back through my old blog posts I imported from Vox to fix up all the missing photos and reading the posts as I go.

Just a few months ago, Patrick and I lived in Tokyo and life was organised around spending time in the park napping and eating. We lived in a 20sq.m apartment, walked everywhere, and went for coffee at least one a day.

Now, suddenly, and kind of unexpectedly, we are in Hefei. Patrick spends almost all his time at work, and we have been to the park just for the sake of it only once. We only travel by car, have coffee once a week on a Sunday, have a very large dog and are about to move into an apartment more than 10 times the size of our last one.

I wonder what we will be doing next….

So, we are moving tomorrow.

Finally, after all the messing about, our apartment is ready. I was a little hesitant to write anything because when I do, it always seems to delay things somehow (still no car!!), but this should be it I think.

It took two days for us to pay for our furniture because the store wasn’t sure how to process foreign credit cards. They eventually figured it out this morning and were so embarrassed for the inconvenience they caught a taxi to our place with their portable eftpos machine and I met them in my pyjamas to sign. What service!

I have been looking for rugs on the internet today as I haven’t ever bought one before and have no idea what to buy. I found one for the upstairs area that I didn’t realise needed a rug… but now definitely does!

Its Alpaca/Wool blend and from Rosemary Hallgarten.

When Patrick didn’t arrive home in a timely fashion on Friday, as I mentioned, I kept myself amused by sorting through my Clinique samples and giving myself a “Turnaround 15-minute-facial“.

I think I am among the most sceptical when it comes to magical face creams and the like, but this one is so good it changed my whole perception of cosmetics a little.  Actually, my nose looked so pretty after using it that Patrick even let me give him a facial the next day! Ha!

I am entirely convinced that a very large percentage of the expensive potions and lotions on the market have little other than a placebo effect with their pretty packaging and high price. (I do admit though, that I love all the pretty bottles and boxes and that the careful procedures of applying all these creams does put me in a good mood.)

I strongly dislike cosmetic advertising which so often crosses the line into bulls**t territory and is always, at the least, misleading.  It is nice then, to find that some of these things do actually do something.

I have been exceptionally unproductive recently.

I am not sure why it is, maybe I am still adjusting to our move, maybe I am not coping with the heat… maybe just lazy.

It has something to do with where my brain files tasks. If my brain files something somewhere in the “necessary to do” or “must get done soon” section, I automatically avoid that task until it becomes so embarrassing that I haven’t completed it, that I block it from my mind altogether. (Until the point the task 100%, without a doubt, must be done NOW, then I finish it in 10 minutes and all is well again… I spent so little time on Uni assignments and exam prep, I hardly remember a thing from my entire degree.)

I really must work out how to get around this little bug in my system, as it causes constant niggling guilt that I am quite sure is taking minutes off my life expectancy each day.

It is not like I am doing nothing all day, I am actually very busy thinking up new tasks to fill in the time I should have taken completing the important ones. This evening, for example, I have carefully rearranged my bookmarks folder with new sub-folders and headings and a whole new method of categorisation.

The stupid thing is, these important tasks are nearly all things that I chose for myself to do, and even look forward to doing. When the minute comes to get them done though, I procrastinate and fluff about until another day is gone.

The theory I am developing on this problem is that if I at any point notice that I don’t have a real job, and don’t even have any plans to get one, I will suddenly fall apart at the realisation that I am making little difference to society and am generally just taking up space.

Therefore, I have filled up the “have important tasks to do” bit of my brain that would be active if I had a job, with just enough “fun tasks I chose to do” tasks to fool my subconscious into believing I am gainfully employed.

Ha! I’m pretty sure I have cracked the cause, now just need to find the solution.

One thing on my necessary to do list of things is catch up with the fact that sweet Nessa with her mumblings has tagged me three times now despite the fact that I have been rudely ignoring her tags. I am sorry Nessa!

Nessa has presented me with the Rockin’ Girl Blogger Award and the Inspirational Blogger Award and has tagged me with the ‘nameless meme‘. I haven’t yet got around to actually continuing these tags myself, but have linked back to Nessa’s posts for the moment as she seems to have such great taste ;).

Patrick and I are very different in many, many ways.

I often have to try and remind myself that the gods probably brought us together for exactly this reason and that the purpose is for our stubborn selves to each understand there are other ways of doing things.

I do tend to wonder at times though if it wasn’t just so they can all sit in their godly houses and have a big laugh at the mischief they made.

..Could be both I guess.

I always thought I was bad at managing money. I have never been good at saving and am very, very good at justifying any purchase, no matter how unnecessary.

Now I have grown to understand that my definition of bad with money was really underestimated.

Patrick taught me that.

In our relationship, I am positively stingy.

Now that I have paid off our Australian credit cards (almost..), I was looking forward to sitting back and letting Patrick take care of all our finances while I relax and take a break from worrying about it all.

That was, until I saw my horoscope this morning….

Oh No! Now I don’t know what to do.