Everyone loves a wedding

Rocking on a boat in the middle of Prague, after admiring the incredible Charles Bridge and accompanied by wine and cheese The Boy and I got engaged.

Big yay! But the aftermath rapidly descended down into a mess of confusion and pressure.
Now months out we have decided to reclaim our day. And in the theme of reclaiming back our day I also decided to write about it (and when I say write, I really mean word-vomit all over my computer keyboard).

Nonetheless you can read the entire post here

Lost in a good book

I often find myself totally lost in a good book, only to come to hours later and slightly disoriented. But it's rare these days for these page turners to be not only by Australian authors, but also by women.

But I ramble through the aisles of my local library changed this, and I stumbled across Kerry Greenwood's fantastic Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries series.
I'd caught the television adaptation a few times and enjoyed it but the books were like a breath of fresh air and I devoured both Queen of the Flowers and Dead Man's Chest in a week.

The combination of an irrepressible herione; stylish, sassy and 'fast' Phryne Fisher, her companion Dot - a demurely comic lady's maid and a good old-fashioned 'whodunnit' makes for engaging reading. And each tale is written in an easy-to-read yet intelligent way. 50 Shades of Grey rubbish this is not!

 Melbourne in the 1920s never has a dull moment, and with the circus in town, and the Festival of Flowers just around the corner Phryne has her work cut out for her. But combine a missing girl who has washed up on the beach, and a missing daughter to boot and Phryne has another mystery to solve. Queen of the Flowers delves in Melbourne's dark underbelly and is a pageturner from the very start

In Dead Man's Chest Phryne and her daughters Jane and Ruth swap Melbourne for the beach town of Queenscliff. But from the moment they arrive things aren't quite right. A mysterious braid snipper haunts the town, there are missing housekeepers and a secret pirate treasure to be found.

I'd long been complaining to The Boy that I needed to up the ante on the intellgence factor in my books in an attempt to re-engage my brain which is still on holidays six months after I returned to the real world and as a result Tolstoy, Austen and Dickens were all on my reading list.

I've since added the rest of Greenwood's series to it. Besides, who can resist an author who lists that she lives with a registered wizard on her biography?

Counting my blessings

One major perk of writing for a living is getting to meet amazing people with incredible stories.
I was lucky enough to meet interview one woman recently who made me take a sharp look at my own life and how incredibly lucky I am - not that Lori Dwyer wouldn't consider herself lucky.
This amazing woman and mother has gone through the unthinkable of losing her best friend and lover after he tragically committed suicide, but she emerged the other side stronger, triumphant and not even a little bit afraid to speak about mental illness which is so often stigmatised in our society.

You can check out my review of her blog here or visit Lori's own blog here.

The great reveal

So I mentioned in my last blog post that I have somehow decided that one writing job hasn't kept me busy enough, and I am doing more on the side.
Now I can finally reveal that I'll be blogging for The Modern Woman's Survival Guide! A few times each month I'll be interviewing the people behind some up and coming Australian blogs, and also do some rambling of my own.
You can check out my first post here.

Check out the rest of the online magazine too, it's pretty nifty!

Return to normalcy

I've been pondering recently how easy it is to slip back into old habits, bad and good.
After my return to Oz I was convinced I had been changed so irrevocably that it would be impossible to ever settle down to a normal life.
How could I possibly be satisfied with weeks filled up with chores, work, housework and the ever-necessary run and yoga session without becoming a little bit crazier each week? Even with the saving grace of regular catch ups with my lovelies, and especially constant contact with the bestie without needing to calculate time difference,s I was more than a little concerned that I'd be running for the hills after only a few mere weeks of familiarity.

But then I realised there is a comfort in regularity that I should be glorying in; there are still new places to discover in a city I know well, not one but two new journalism jobs to tackle, new things to eat, people to see, tracks to run and skip and jump along, new music to bop along to.

This might be the 3 cups of coffee I've managed to down today, but being home is pretty damn good.

Besides, when you have a view like this to see, who needs to travel?

Challenge accepted!

I love a good challenge.
Run a 10km fun run? Sure!
Go a month without buying anything new? Why not!
Don't eat sugar for a week? Well let me get back to you on that one.

But today I stumbled across a new challenge which really twigged with me.
The Australian Women's Writers 2013 challenge is aimed at overcoming the gender bias which can appear in the literary scene by encouraging people to sign up and read either 4, 6 or 10 novels throughout the year written by an Australian female author; and review them as well if you so desire.

When you think about it, that's really not that much effort for a very worthy cause. So sign me up!
Methinks some Kim Wilkins, Miles Franklin, Kate Moreton and Kate Forsyth will soon be hitting my desk.

You can read more about the challenge (and sign up) here.

Happy reading!