Let's get...

As I stood on stage during a semi-blacked out party scene and reached for the M&Ms on a table, only a smidgen of my intelligence led me to think…"hmmm…someone  in the crowd might notice what i'm doing when the rest of the 'extras' or members of the chorus are frozen."  Did it stop me? No. Being the glutton I am (are) I took greater pleasure in enjoying the crispy M &M s that had just come to the market. Plus, I ensured I had my back to the audience and slid my hand full of M&Ms in line with my body's silhouette to my mouth, and only crunched when dialogue was taking place in the lit up part of stage right.  This actual incident that inspired the above anecdote, which feels like it could lead to a blog post about nothing, took place when I was in grade 9.  Not only did it allow me to have a taste of the new M&M range, it also gave me my first taste of what being an 'extra' or in the 'chorus' of a play, ad or movie would inv...

'Tis the season to be jolly, and not the season to be single. If it was, the song would be: "Single bells, single bells…" But it isn't. Being single around Christmas time is one of two things I don't enjoy about the festive season. The second thing is advent calendars. I think I have a fear of them. Not for the creepy little windows that are supposed to make you feel like a giant each time you open them from December 1, but for the fear that if I buy an advent calendar I'll just eat each piece of chocolate in one sitting and need 23 additional calendars. I've never bought myself an advent calendar for that very reason and it's been added to the list of things I won't get involved in which includes conga lines, playing ten pin bowling and drinking decaf. Now, being single. It doesn't really bother me, unless I'm attending a wedding or Christmas function. Often I get invited to a wedding and the invite will say, "Dear Maree...

On Friday night I was really excited. I thought I'd restart my Park Run career and front up to New Farm on the Saturday morning. I was so committed that not only did I set my alarm for 5.45am and then 6am for good measure (allowing for two 7.5 minute snooze sessions) I also laid out all my clothes. There was no getting out of this one. 5.45am came around. I woke up, sat up, and realised I had a pretty good excuse not to go frolicking through the park. My neck issue had reared its ugly head….well neck. This happens on average every three months. Usually it takes some heavy duty moshing, a dance class, or even rapidly pulling off a hoody to put my neck out. On Saturday it just took sleeping awkwardly and when I say awkwardly, I think I just woke up tilted about a cm to my left. The earliest I could see a physio was 8.45am. This meant I was awake for three hours with nothing to do but wallow in my pity. Later that day when I caught up with mates for brekky, they took g...

THE personal bubble isn't as sacred as it use to be. Now, I'm not one to bag out humans in my blogs because….ahhh…..well they're people too…? (my jokes don't get better with time…). The reason I don't pay out on people is because it is too much of a small world. I'm not (that) arrogant to think a great deal of people read my blogs and on this occasion this person might read it. Actually, I can be quite realistic about my reader numbers. The backend blogging stats speak for themselves. So yes, I will bag out someone, but shall do it anonymously. This incident occurred Saturday night. When I go out on the town my goal is to have some fun with mates, enjoy a few beverages, and try and prove unsuccessfully that I'm a really good dancer…if I meet a suave gentlemen…well, that's just a bonus. Truth be told, the latter doesn't happen very often and it certainly didn't happen on Saturday night. I was sitting minding my own business with my...

AT 27-years-old, I was a party pooper. All it took was a piñata, a stick, and a case of middle child syndrome. My housemate, Jess and I had a party on the weekend to celebrate our birthdays.  It was Disney themed and glorious.  Speaking of Disney, I think I should risk being considered a bit daft and let you know that when I was a kid I used to think Disney was spelt D.I.S.N.E.P because I couldn't understand the cursive on the Y. An easy mistake to make…but quite awkward when you go through most of your childhood thinking a man's name is Walt Disnep.  So anyway, Jess and I went out shopping to get all the bells and whistles to ensure the Disney or Disnep theme was adhered to appropriately.  Jess insisted we get a piñata and I wasn't one to stand in her way.  As the party evening rolled on, it was finally time to hit the piñata.  Somehow in my rather merry state (I blame the punch concoction Jess prepared) I insisted I go ...

I think I found the mountain that could contradict the 'Ain't no mountain high enough' song…and it was Mount Warning on Sunday. Yeah…all right. Perhaps that's a little bit dramatic, I guess there's Everest, Kilimanjaro etcetera. But for all intents and purposes, let's just say Mount Warning was a slight challenge. For me. It was enough. Every six to 12 months or so my older brother Nicholas decides that us kids should take mum on a hike, usually it's for an event like her birthday or Christmas or something. I know. What.a.wonderful.present. So, we set off on our trek…in Butterworth time which is always a good hour behind schedule. We got to the base of the mountain and started the trail. My younger brother, Benny ambitiously started running up the mountain, despite a massive day of drinking at Brisbane's Oktoberfest the day prior. Nick stuck with mum and I seemed to have set an okay pace so I was somewhere in the middle of the pack. I w...

Well this is unorthodox….posting twice in one week. I thought, if I'm inspired, best strike while the iron's hot.  Driving to work today I was suddenly inspired to look up to the sky,  "Wow, that's a lovely cumulonimbus !"  I shocked myself.  It seems to have taken me a good 20 years for that word to sink into my brain.  Too bad I was describing a plane.  No I wasn't. Rest assured, it was a cloud.  I'm turning 27 next Thursday (how kind of me - letting you know one week in advance so you can get me a gift and won't feel awkward because you didn't know). If you ask my work mates, they'll say I've been saying "…it's my birthday soon" for the last three months when really it was the last two months.  Anyway, with this pending birthday it's made me a bit reflective.  It took me 20 years for it to sink in what different clouds are called, I wonder if the penny is about to drop on other things.  Ding - Oh...

I'm getting fit this week. Yep, 'cause it only takes one week. It's not going so well. I get kitted up in my running gear. Grab my iPhone, headphones, and skipping rope, (I'm auditioning for a musical on the weekend and skipping is required) drop my house key in a secret spot (don't be silly…it's not under the door mat or pot plant…nice try) put on my favourite musical track (most people listen to death metal or something upbeat…I usually listen to musical tracks) and then I run for a short to medium length of time. I remember a teacher at school one day telling our class she'd only just learnt how to run. The difficulty was realising that you need to use opposite arm to leg. I try and do same arm to leg sometimes when I'm really living dangerously. It's exhilarating. Anyway, that's beside the point. I can run, just not very fast. The other day I was feeling a bit anxious and realised it was because I hadn't done any exercise for ...

Further to my post the other day. Here's part two. …A number of takes later. (If you need context, read the previous post ). If you have issues accessing the below - another version is available here, however, the syncing is a bit out! :-)  (Such quality here at Let's Get headquarters). Until next week….

In my quest for perfection on the public holiday Monday - I perfectly wasted a full day. It all began when I decided I would kill two birds with one stone (damn…why are all my blogs animal related?!) and knock off two resolutions - improving my guitar playing skills while posting another blog. I thought if a picture painted a thousand words, a video would surely paint a million! JOB DONE. So in preparation I attempted to learn one of my current favourite songs. "Not the only one" by Sam Smith  (check out Sam's version here ). I agree. It is reasonably whiny, relatively heart breaking, and all in all a hardly uplifting song that one should play to improve their confidence in guitar playing or otherwise. The result? If my iPhone or iPad gets hacked, there will be no nudie photos - just a gazillion versions of the one song with a guitar played sounding as if I'm wearing boxing gloves (on second thoughts, maybe nudie photos would be less offensive?). The num...

I thought spending two weeks with my little nephew, Ethan, would make me clucky (nope, that's not a 'throw-in' pun to reflect last week's theme…i'm not that consistent …). While the little fellow is cute (and at 11 weeks old - he should be) I don't really feel the need to get cracking and procreate. There might have been a few moments in the past few weeks that led me to this conclusion. Incident number 1: My sister, Katie and her partner took me to their friend's BBQ. Katie ducked off to another room to breastfeed and as the conversation of the other attendees was all about babies, planning for babies, babies, babies, babies - I snuck off to pretend to help Katie. Being a busy new mum, Katie currently isn't one to deny any offered help, pretend or otherwise. She passed Ethan to me to burp him. I always get the best jobs.  Never able to concentrate on one thing at a time, I held a cup of iced tea in my hand while I used the other hand to burp...

Can you interpret dreams? Good. Interpret this. The other night in my dream Dad asked me to go out and buy a lamb. I came back with a goat. Fortunately Dad didn't ask me to go out and get a toga, otherwise I'd be questioning if I was dyslexic (I stole that insensitive joke from someone -  I think it was my brother Nick. He's so uncouth. Yep, totally making Nick my 'scapegoat' for that one…ahhh. If you haven't realised this already, my brain doesn't switch off, and probably never will. It's something that I have accepted. What goes through my mind late at night when the world is sleeping? Not a lot of useful things if I'm honest. Often for a good hour I'll be sniggering to myself about something hilarious I said 10 hours earlier, or a year ago. Before you know it it's midnight. When I went to bed last Sunday,  I was kept awake by my earlier wit. I had watched 60 Minutes with my little brother, Benny and sis-in-law, Olivia. Any...

THERE'S a few sayings that stick in my 26-year-old brain. My step-granddad's: "Failure means success is possible." Confucius's: "It doesn't matter how slow you go, so long as you don't stop." Dad's: "What you miss out on the round-a-about you pick up on the hurdy gurdie." Sorry Dad, you did instil a great deal of wisdom in me over the years, it's just that I can't move on from the word "hurdy gurdie". Instead of going straight to bed after an exhausting day of shows on Saturday night, I made the mistake of looking through previous blogs I'd written. Not to revel in my own self importance, or reflect on my try-hard hilarity, but rather to see if there were any themes that I could perpetuate in future blogs. I stumbled upon my first blog for the year which ambitiously stated my 14 resolutions. So, by way of an update, I thought I'd let you know I've achieved one, two, three...NO RESOLUTIONS. ...

I don't get to attend castings very often, so when I do I like to make an impression. Usually this "impression" means me trying to insinuate that I'm an actor that is easy to work with, punctual, and talented. Last week when I got a text from my agent, "....casting at 5.30pm, wear beach attire" I thought, this is my chance! I was stumped at the beach attire instruction. For one, it was a pretty damn cold afternoon, and secondly, I only had two pairs of togs - a hideous cheap pair purchased hastily a while back on the way to a pool party, and the second purchased when I was hungover on a Byron trip. I chose the cheap first pair knowing aesthetics wouldn't matter as I was wearing a bright pink singlet over the top which would only hint I was wearing a bikini. Parking my car I had a thought that I really should have tanned myself to fool the casting director into thinking I was actually outdoorsy. No filming budget could allow the amount of sunscr...

Yes I know, I know - I definitely have fallen off the writing wagon... again. I realise this while watching  60 Minutes (of course   hoping a religious cult story is about to come on) and my housemate is mocking me for some reason, (potentially out of jealously because her mum has told her she has enjoyed my blog on the occasion) I decide I really should post something. Opening up this blogging site, I start looking for an easy option in the form of a blog I may have begun a while ago. I often start blogs and then get distracted by something shiny or a stupid video on Facebook, or pick up my guitar, put down my guitar realising I can't really play it, or clean my room, mess it up again, sit back down to write my blog and then decide it's time to eat something. So tonight I thought i'd try and get back to blogging through finding a half finished one, give it a good spruce up before posting it, and wait patiently for the "oh you're so clever missy!" text...

There's a few things in life I'm not very good at. Tennis Following recipes Not laughing at my own jokes Telling side-splitting jokes Not repeating the non-side-splitting jokes And then there's conga lines. I've been a witness, or part of a conga line about four times in about four years. So, yes, I pretty much average one conga line a year. And if you ask me, that's four conga lines too many. About three years back when my boss and I were at a lunch function on Melbourne Cup day, we joined a conga line. I think we were leading it actually. Anyway, it was an example of a conga line done well. Because of the festiveness of the day, the 20 ladies who were in the line had enjoyed a few cheeky vinos. Let's face it, they were up for any conga-line activity. Anyway, we somehow led all these people outside the ballroom where we'd had lunch, into the hall, and then back through a different door, down the aisles of the ballroom to the dance floor wh...

YEAH all right, all right....I'm terrible at keeping to my promise when I say: "I'm back blogging...and this time I mean it!" I'm never promising again! What I can promise is that I'll do my best to supply at least one semi-decent blog 52 times this year. Holy moly I'm behind. But don't you worry your pretty little heads (actually, I can't speak for everyone, chances are, you don't all have a pretty head) I'll come through in epic style by the end of the year...as epic as when Stephen Bradbury came through for Australia at the 2002 winter olympics. That analogy will never get old. My excuse is, and it's a terrible excuse, I've been a little bit busy - dashing between work, home, dance classes, and musical practice. I whinge and moan about being a bit sleepy as I trudge into work right before / on start time. I've been awake since 7am and my colleagues with children have been awake since 5am and only went to bed at 3am. I h...

DESPITE various recommendations...I've never held a dislike for carbs. Well that was until Saturday night. Here's how the night panned. It began with a fun evening at a Reds game and then, as a friend of mine describes, we went "wacko at the cacko" meaning my housemate, Jess and I enjoyed few beverages at the Caxton Hotel. Incase you haven't realised from being exposed to my blog once or twice (or never)...I enjoy dancing. Even more so when I'm out and by about 1am in the morning I think I'm the world's best contemporary or interpretive dancer. Fortunately, at that time of the morning, no one is likely to judge... the good dancers went home at 10pm. Anyway....while I was busting out thinking I had moves like Jagger. ..I started dancing with this group of guys, one of which was named James....at least that's what he told me his name was. For all I know it could have been Judas...as least that would have giving me some inkling of his ca...

Here's a little story for you.... To fulfil my gazillion new year's resolutions, I thought I'd treat my body a bit better and to do so, have booked in regular massages. I was feeling a little worse for wear last week, so on Wednesday I was delighted when I remembered I had a massage booked. This was at 5.15pm, after work. Also realising I was overdue for a haircut, I craftily booked an appointment for 7pm, which would allow me a 15 minute buffer of getting between my locations...in heavy rain. Truth be told, it wasn't so much the massage I was excited about, it was more so the scalp massage that would follow at the hairdresser's. When I got to the hairdressing salon, after the massage, I was marinating in oil and smelt like an incense stick. The hairdresser asked: "so..what are we doing today?" While I was saying: "Oh just a trim would be great"...I was really thinking..."WASH MY HAIR DAMMIT...PLEASE WASH MY HAIR!" When ...

I really need to start eating healthier....because apparently it's not "a waffle a day keeps the doctor away" at all. I usually do eat reasonably well. Don't ask me to define "reasonably" but over the past week I've had more treats than a day in the festive season. And yes, it did include waffles. And not many apples. We have a number of kitchen appliances in our house, and there is just one that is used even more than the kettle. It's an appliance that makes penguin shaped waffles, and is appropriately called "Waddles". It creates these delightfully golden little penguins and it would be rude not to utilise the little round space in the belly for ice-cream. So, last Saturday night when the housemates and I decided we would have a movie night, I took it upon myself to break a nonexistent record of making the greatest number of gluten free penguin shaped waffles I could. A day later, our fridge was full of waffles, and the am...

All right....so I crashed and burned. Two weeks without blogging...I bet you (yes you mum) wondered (oh and Sally) what had become of me. Now that I'm back, yes I'm back, I'm wondering why I stopped. My fingers are gliding across the keys like...like...hmmmm.....I'm trying to think of some amazing simile of how my fingers are gliding so easily. So, the reason I haven't blogged? (Which means I have catching up to do to ensure I meet my 52 blogs as one of my 2014 resolutions) Like I said before, I crashed and my brain was too full of everything else that I couldn't for the life of me find that small little shelf with a gem of an idea that could lead to a slightly interesting post. But I'm feeling better now. I had a sleep and ate some reasonably good food. I guess the whole theory of what you put in is what you get out (or something like that) is actually true. Anyway, as a starter to gently get me back on the horse I thought I'd share a random lit...