Grateful.

The news of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's divorce hit me hard this morning.  I could almost feel a tiny sliver of what they must be going through and it's awful - I don't wish it upon anyone.  However it did give me a good opportunity to put things into perspective.  Unlike them, I don't have huge assets that I need to divide up, don't have a marriage I need to dismantle, don't have kids I need to look after or fight over.  I'm not in the public eye so don't have thousands of people chasing me for a story or meet random people and have them not know what to say to me.

It got me thinking about my situation and made me realise how grateful I am that my situation really isn't that bad (even if some late nights when I'm alone in my room it seems like my life has ended).

I've also had so many amazing people around me who I have to take a moment to thank.

• My 3 beautiful sisters who dropped everything to help me move back home at 12 hours notice and provide unconditional support along the way
• My parents who welcomed me home with open arms and made the transition so easy for me
• My friend who sat with me every lunch break for a week, just sitting in silence and watching me cry on Martin Place steps
• My friend who came over with pizza and de-briefed with me, answered all of my emotional text messages at odd hours of the day/night
• My friend who was on standby to have lunch with me, have a drink with me, have a cry with me, whatever I needed whenever I needed it
• My friend who I hadn't seen in over a year clear her schedule to help me move home
• My friend at work who was happy to step out of the office whenever I just needed a sounding board
• My other work friend who pulled me into the ladies bathroom when I burst out crying at my desk one day
• The people who I had previously considered acquaintances but have shown more support than I ever imagined I would receive from them
• All the texts from my cousins, friends, acquaintances - even though they were hard to receive at the beginning it was still lovely to know so many people cared about me and wanted to make sure I was ok
• My twitter/instagram/blog families who don't really know me from a lump of wood but have been so supportive when they had no obligation to be
• My Manager/Team Lead who I am leaving high and dry by moving to London 3 months before our huge project is going to be implemented - I'm sorry!!!

People aside, I'm grateful that:

• I'm young enough to go to the UK on the 2 year visa
• My situation isn't as bad as it could be (refer to Ben & Jennifer above)
• I've been able to sell most of my crap which has been therapeutic as well as practical because I can't take it all to London
• My sister also decided to move to London so I have a buddy with me every step of the way on this terrifying journey
• My health has been improving after seeing an acupuncturist and chinese traditional medicine practitioner who has taught me to listen to my body and made me realise just what kind of impact stress has on my physical health
• I've really been getting into Reformer Pilates which has been such a great outlet for me.  I've even started back on the hot yoga but being very careful not to over-extend myself
• I've had the opportunity to learn SO much about myself in the past few months.  I've always been a reasonably strong, confident person but nothing can prepare you for having the rug pulled out from under you when you're not expecting it.  I do think it's made me stronger and it's also made me look at myself and make some changes for my own benefit (have more patience, be more compassionate, push myself out of my comfort zone and force myself to do things I usually wouldn't do, learn to let go of things)

It's been an absolutely crazy few months.  Hopefully once I get to London and am settled I can actually breathe for the first time without stress/anxiety/fear.

Bucket List

I have added a new page under the banner of shoes called 'Bucket List'.  The first is a Europe travel bucket list and it should be easier to tick items off when I move to London.

The second bucket list is stuff I want to do once I've move to London.  I feel as though my life has been put on hold for a year because of the wedding planning and now I'm getting back to 'life' and doing the things I want to do.

If you have any recommendations that I need to add to either bucket list please comment and let me know :)

You know what is super daunting?

Knowing that you are packing all your worldly possessions into TWO suitcases, especially for a materialistic person like me.

Thankfully I've been going through a huge purging exercise recently and have managed to get rid of more than half of my shoe collection, and made many trips to drop off clothes at Vinnies. I have literally bought TWO things in the last 3 months - a pair of work pants because my sister said my current work pants are so worn they look like jeans, and a Bulgari ring because.... well why the hell not.

Does anyone have any packing tips?  What to take, what not to take, how to pack so that I maximise my suitcase space?

My battle against Births Deaths and Marriages

29 years ago my mother gave birth to her first child. My dad was tasked with registering the child's name. Being the great Chinese man he is, he misspelled his daughter's Chinese middle name (and people wonder why I'm not more Chinese...)

3 months ago I decided it was time to rectify this mistake. I submitted the Change of Name form along with all the required documents. One week later my entire life plan changed and I decided to move to London. This meant I needed a visa, which meant I needed a passport. My passport was due to expire but because of my impending change of name I wasn't able to renew the passport but had to apply for a new one. I couldn't apply for a new passport until my change of name came through.

The very helpful people at Births Deaths and Marriages told me I had to wait the 8 week average turnaround time before being able to enquire about it. But I could pay a fee for it to be expedited. The expedited average turnaround time was also 8 weeks (seriously BDM someone needs to look at that). So I sat and waited patiently. The day after 8 weeks I called again. No one has even looked at it. But someone must have looked at it because my credit card was charged $174 I told her. Yes she admitted, my form had been opened but only to get the credit card number and then my form was closed again.

I escalated the case. One week later still no one had looked at it. Have I mentioned I love BDM?

I decided to pay them a visit. If I'm standing in front of them they HAVE to do something right? Wrong. "please come back on Monday at 8.30am PROMPTLY. do not be late" she said.

So I was NOT late. In fact I was 10 mins early. I was rewarded for being early by sitting and waiting for 40 minutes. Finally my turn. After the male officer said "never trust a woman" and proceeded to check all the information given to me on Friday by said 'woman' he kindly informed me that my application was processed on Saturday and sorry for wasting your time coming down here. I love BDM.

So I have 6 weeks on the clock to get my new passport and a 2-year UK visa. Wish me luck.

Four months

So.  It has been some time.  Four months to be exact.  I don't even really know where to start but the past four months saw me:

• celebrate my 29th birthday (that sure crept up on me... last time I checked I was 26)
• bury my childhood dog after 20 glorious years on this earth (yes this is the same naughty dog that ate rat poison a few years ago)
• spend my 5th and final Valentines Day with the person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.  Turns out that wasn't to be......  But on the plus side this means I....
• made the decision to MOVE TO LONDON!!  I am boarding a plane on 5th August and have no return ticket booked
• conduct a major purging exercise to get rid of my worldly possessions in preparation for moving my entire life halfway across the world
• plan a Europe trip to kickstart my move to London and make the most of the northern hemisphere summer

It's been a roller coaster ride and most of the time I've just wanted to get the fuck off.  But life throws at you what it will and you just have to hold on for dear life til things settle down.  And only now have I started to feel like things are settling down.

I need to give credit to all the amazing people in my life who dropped everything to help me out when I needed it and who held me up when all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there for days.  I'm not going to name them all individually as we would be here for days, but from the bottom of my heart

thankyou

Wedding shoes

I think the most common wedding question I've been asked is what shoes I'm going to wear and let me tell you it's tough.  It's like a mother choosing her favourite (Louboutin) child.

I definitely did not want to wear white shoes.  I'm just not that traditional.

SO.  I've decided on these babies for the ceremony and photos:

And then more reasonable/less neck-breaking heels for the reception.  I can't decide between a pair of custom strass peeptoes or a classic nude peeptoe:

Opinions?

Maxing out my credit card

Honestly this is a right of passage for most working women, right?

Well it had never happened to me until this week.  How has she managed this, I hear you ask.  Well my monthly limit is $10,000.  YES TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.  In thirty days I spent ten thousand dollars.

At that point I decided I should cut back on unnecessary spending.  Then I had to get my car serviced and a pink slip ($1300).  Then I had to get a new phone.  Priceline has a 40% off sale?  ARGH.

In my defence (I do say that a lot, don't I?) most of the $10K went towards booking our Honeymoon flights and accommodation.  Thankfully most of that is now booked and I don't have to worry much about it and can focus on the wedding.

Speaking of wedding, are people interested in wedding plans and wedding decisions?