The toe

I have just finished reading a novel called ‘The boy who loved Anne Frank’ by Ellen Feldman.  The book is a combination of fact and fiction and main charcter is Peter van Pels who died in a concentration camp in Mauthausen, Northern Austria, on May 5 1945, although this date was determined by a lack of documentation (actual date and cause unknown), only 3 days before the camp was liberated.

Ellen Feldman visited the office building in Amsterdam in 1994 where the Frank family, the van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer lived in the secret annex for over 2 years.   During that visit she’d found out that all the other ‘house mates’ had records documenting their lives, except for Peter.

The book makes you think about what happens to the people who suffered during the holocaust, people who watched their families and friends chosen and sent away - knowing they wouldn’t see them again, people who’d lost everything and have all the scars and markings, people who were made to feel ashamed of their religion…what happens to them?  How do they live after experiencing that?

We know what happened to the people who didn’t make it…we have all read or heard about WWII  - read Anne Frank’s diaries, seen the play or watched the film or we’ve seen the film Schindler’s List…

The book is based on the story of Peter van Pel and how he deals with life in America after the war ends.  It’s definitely interesting to see how he struggles with being Jewish (and lies about it), how he tackles having a family.

Next I’ll read the diary of Anne Frank (and watch the film).

Whilst enjoying some time off from working, I thought I’d better start my taxidermy work (to me, it’s not the mounting of dead animals for display, taxidermy is me doing our TAX!

I’m completely anal about doing our tax right, preparing all the invoices, sorting them into folders, creating spreadsheets of all our expenses and income. I love it.

I’m thinking I missed my calling in life to be an acountant - but to be honest, I think after a while it would get boring…doing something for yourself is very different from doing this for a living…

Anyway, back to the Taxidermy :)

But I do love the rain at the moment - it’s really helping people in some areas who have prayed for rain for years now.

We need to be thankful for the rain and stay safe during this time.

Now, there are the people who the heavy rain has killed, taken away their homes, electricity…I guess there are always two sides to each coin.

I read ‘The sad truth about happiness’ by Anne Giardini last week and whilst I can’t highly recommend it, I mean the book was a nice story about a family - but it only really got to the point in the last chapter (which I thought was really good).

The last chapter spoke about what happiness is and how to find it. It speaks of happiness like a child playing hide and seek, sometimes you find happiness and sometimes you don’t. The trick is to constantly seek out happiness, not dwell on how happy you were or want to be, but actually take action to find your happiness.

Now the challenge we all face is that our lives are constantly chnaging and evolving (sometimes a little and sometimes alot), so we need to embrace change and never expect things to remain the same (for too long anyway).

There’s also a small book I skimmed through in the newsagent at Cairns airport called ‘Happiness in a nutshell’ by Andrew Matthews. This also gives some good insights about HAPPINESS.

This week I read a John Grisham novel called Skipping Christmas. It’s about an American couple whose only child left home and they decided that this Christmas, they’d skip all the formalities such as sending Christmas cards, putting up the Christmas tree and decorations, Christmas parties, Christmas dinners, presents etc.

They found that the Christmas before, they had spent $6,100 over Christmas and rather than spending the money again this year, they decided to instead indulge in a 10 night luxury cruise in the caribbean (but still saving over $3,000).

Whilst in the book it all backfired, I do like the idea of this. Although, I wouldn’t stop all the formalities…I’d still do the Christmas card thing and the tree and decorations, as well as going to parties and dinners (but not hosting them). I would however do away with the presents and have a nice indulgent holiday.

Maybe next year.

The past 5 nights were spent at Palm Cove in Tropical North Queensland (TNQ). The best use of our money since our last holiday in Tropical North Queensland (Green Island - our honeymoon 19 months ago, 10 glorious nights).

The resorts up here are beautiful, the area itself is calm and relaxing…the perfect place for me to de-stress. Plus, it’s not over developed or too ‘Gold Coasty’.

Next year, they’re opening Australia’s first 7 Star resort here, The Royal Palm Cove, with 57 rooms, each with 7 metre high ceilings, large rooms, your own pool and a private cabana for your meals each day (with your own waiter)….mmm, sounds good, but not sure we can afford that one.

This holiday has been great not only for its calm (I did have a 90 minute full body aromatherapy message and many lazy days by the pool) but also because it put things into perspective for me again. When you’re stressed, you forget what’s important and you focus your energies on all the wrong things…I’ll go back to Sydney a re-energised woman today :)

Why, ohh why did we need Shrek 2 & Shrek the Third, when the first one was absolutely fine on its own?

Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl seriously didn’t need Dead Mans Chest or At Worlds End. In fact, they just tainted the whole Pirates experience (I loved the first one).

I wish producers, actors, directors, investors ect woke up and stop trying to cash in on great movies.  Only few have ever been successful (Raiders, Star Wars - original, Aliens)…I guess what I am saying is - if you are going to do it, do it right and don’t cope out for the sake of making a couple of million dollars profit.

You gotta remember, it’s art.  It’s serious entertainment.  Yeah, ok, you get your cheap flicks that are after a quick buck, but they’re called B grade for a reason. 

I’m leaving my job and I am damn happy about it (as you can see, I’m counting down).

Just wanted you to know.

This week, Pat is in Austin, Texas. The first thing I did is clean the flat from top to bottom - my way. It’s partly because I can’t stand the way Pat ignores the dust and dirt (his cleaning techniques aren’t up to my standards) and partly because I need to keep myself extremely busy so I don’t think about missing him so much.

I do miss him terribly. Pat’s a large part of my life and I feel like I’m on pause while he’s gone. I just don’t work without him.

I know, I know - that sounds corny…but it’s true.

Needless to say, when he calls and tells me how much he’s missing me and how much he’d love me to be there - I can’t help but smile :)

I’m tired - I need a holiday! Seriously tired. You know it’s bad when you start falling asleep at your desk at work and on the bus morning and evening.

So I’ve booked a relaxing, 5 star holiday…Pat wasn’t too happy, especially since I spent a bit on this holiday, but saying that, he is in desperate need of a holiday himself (he just doesn’t know it yet).

We’re off to Palm Cove, QLD. Staying at Peppers Beach Club and Spa. We’re staying in a suite with a whirl pool/spa on the balcony, overlooking the ocean - how fantastic!

I think we’ll go for a ski weekend soon after - I’m on ‘Wotif’ now looking for a bargain. Somewhere walking distance to the ski lifts would be fab :)

I’m not sure where I get my expensive taste from - I certainly wasn’t brought up going to stay in 5 star resorts…perhaps I’m making up for it now.

All I know is, when you need a good, relaxing holiday, you need a good, relaxing holiday.