Elsja Down Under

It’s Official November 16, 2010

Yesterday I received some exciting things in the mail. I suppose they technically came last week… but Andrew had to get to the post office to pick them up for me since I can no longer do those types of things now that I’m a working girl. So what did I get in the mail you ask? I got two very official documents.

1. My permanent residency notification. I am now a full-fledged permanent resident of Australia!! This means I can get a full driver’s license (as opposed to the temporary one I had that has now expired… don’t worry, I can still legally drive on my US license) and in two years I can apply for citizenship.

2. My new social security card that reads “Elsja Hancock.” Nearly three months after our wedding, I have officially become Mrs. Hancock. Now I just need to get a new passport, change all my other official documents and practice my signature!

These were two great silver linings to a rainy Monday. Oh, and I also became an official member of the gym near my work. As much as I don’t want to pay to exercise, I really have no time in my day to work out unless I do it right before/after work or on my lunch break. Getting home at 7-8pm every night is not conducive to keeping up the motivation to exercise.

What a very official way to start the week!

Working Girl November 5, 2010

You may all think I’ve seriously slacked off in the blogging department lately but it’s quite the contrary. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever blogged as much in my life as I have in the last 2 weeks, I just haven’t been blogging for THIS site.

It turns out that a big part of my awesome new job is to write lots and lots of blog posts articles; so, Ive been typing away day in and day out so we have some fun contet for our client websites. The main bulk of the posts have been fashion, celebrity and beauty blogs geared towards teenagers and young women. I’ve also done a few for a medical site as well. Not only am I blogging, but I’m getting paid to manage facebook contests where I personally have been given the task to choose winners from a bunch of girls leaving comments about what their favourite outfit is. I’ve already been able to liase with some great clients and PR companies and I’m loving it. I’m pretty sure this job is perfect for me. Blogging, Facebook, website building… not to metion I work with some seriously cool people and one ferocious little dog! Tonight we pushed a new blog live for a client and it’s great to start to see some of my work from the last 2 weeks published for the world to see. 

Of course not all of my work will always be as fun (and the commute home is a nightmare) but that’s the nature of business I suppose. It’s definitely been a great start to my new adventure down under.

A New Adventure October 23, 2010

Well I’ve already shared my iPhone joy with you all but I did mention that there were a few other exciting things going on as well. The biggest news in the last few weeks is that I got a new job!! I do have to admit that getting this new job is a tad bittersweet. I have worked for my current company for nearly six years now and for the last three I’ve been able to work from home, part time. I’ve been able to fly back to the US any time I wanted which usually meant that I was able to see my friends and family at least 3 times per year. Plus, since I worked from home, I was able to spend a lot of time with Andrew.

With this new, exciting adventure also comes a massive change in my lifestyle. It’s hard to imagine only seeing my friends and family once a year. It’s hard to know that I won’t have even half the time with Andrew that I usually have- especially since he seems to always work on weekends lately. Even with those realizations, I know the job is going to be great and it will give me something to call my own here in Sydney.

I’m really looking forward to my new adventure and to learning new things. I feel like I’ve found a job that matches my interests perfectly and so I truly feel that I will enjoy going to the office every day. I’ll have a long commute but 20 minutes of relaxation on the ferry every morning isn’t a bad way to start that commute.

So what will I be doing? I’ll be working for a boutique marketing agency in Darlinghurst and I believe my title will be marketing and social media coordinator. I’ve been reading as many articles and newsletters on social media lately as I possibly can and they are all so interesting. I’m really looking forward to learning as much as I can about this rapidly growing industry. I start in two days so I’ll fill you all in with what it’s like once I start!

Wish me luck!

I’m Back… and I’m Married! September 6, 2010

YAY! I am SO happy to inform you all that I am a married woman. I know my month long hiatus from blogging probably means no one will still be around to read this but now that I’m back to reality I plan to be blogging more. In the coming days/weeks I’ll be posting all about the bachelorette party, wedding pre-party and wedding as well as the post-wedding sadness. But for today – just to get my self acclimated back into the blogging world- I will post a quick little 101 in 1001 update of all the things that were fulfilled while I have been away. There’s lots to share!

#3 Have a spa day with the works. I got a massage, manicure and pedicure the day before the wedding at a proper day spa. While I didn’t get EVERY treatment imaginable, I got all the ones I wanted and it was damn expensive so that’s all that matters right? I also did it with my bridesmaids, sisters and flower girl. It was wonderful.

#36- Go on a girls weekend away. Well my amazing bachelorette weekend cruise definitely counts for this one. I will post all (well, not ALL) of the exciting details in a future blog.

#53 – Go on a cruise. See above.

#59- Go home to CA at least 6 times. The trip out for our wedding was trip #6.  I might even top this one and go back 7 times by the end of the year. Time shall tell.

#64- Take photo booth pictures with Andrew. Here’s another one that was conveniently crossed out due to fun wedding festivities.

#78 – Be able to eat something cooked with beef. While in CA there was a delicious looking pizza placed in front of me. It was sausage and pepperoni and it looked delectable. I don’t know what got into me but I decided to willingly eat meat (albeit a combo of beef and pork, not just “beef” as the task calls for) for the first time since I was 15. Granted I did take one piece of pepperoni and one piece of sausage and break them into small pieces to sprinkle over the slice but the point is I ate it!! I willingly ate and enjoyed a piece of pepperoni and sausage pizza.

#89- Start a recipe book and write down all of my mom’s recipes that I like. I made sure to do this right when I arrived in CA since I have forgotten the last two times. My recipe book is is filling up quickly.

Over 50 tasks down, and many, many more to go. Better keep it up, I only have a few months before my time is up!

Silver Linings- May 6th 2010 May 5, 2010

With all the incompetent, inept people we’ve had to deal with lately, I feel like I need to write one of these posts. Seriously, every day this week I feel like I’ve had to talk to another moron or chase up ANOTHER email response or follow-up with people *cough accountants cough* who just cannot seem to get back to me when I’ve been trying to get answers from them since April! UGH… ok I went off on a tangent there. I will now get back to the GOOD stuff.

• This week we leased out our apartment to our first tenant!
• Two of our good friends (who shall remain nameless at this point in time) got engaged. I’m SO happy for them!!
• We got to see Julz and Leighton’s baby last week for the first time. Little Zara is precious!
• I’ve been working a few hours a week at a side job just up the street and I actually like it.
• I bought a recipe keeper/binder thing to help me reach my 101 goal #89 (Start a recipe book and copy all of mom’s recipes that I like). Now I just need to sit down when I’m in the US and copy all the good stuff from mom.
• I’m also working on # 79 (Create a cookbook with at least 20 personally created recipes). I don’t quite think I’ll reach 20 by the end of the year, but maybe I’ll reach 10! I just need to remember to write stuff down when I’m cooking stuff.
• I made not one but two types of delicious homemade pizza this week. I need to write down my recipe for the tandorri chicken one because it is GOOD (and it will help me with goal # 79 as well).
• I finally booked my hairstylist, makeup artist and the transportation for the wedding. Invites are almost complete and we’ll hopefully be able to get one of our personal couriers (aka Qantas pilots) to bring back the Aussie ones for us to save us from having to ship them all across the pacific.
• I finally found a use for the green wine bottles I’ve been saving for 2 years. Yes, 2 years. Andrew has wanted to throw them out numerous times and I always told him that I’d eventually find a purpose for them. Now three of them are sitting in a nice little row on our table acting as vases for 3 single red Gerber daisies. Lovely.

Silver Linings March 9, 2010

I’ve been in a funk lately. I think if you’ve read my posts (or noticed the lack thereof), that fact is pretty clear. I have many reasons for the funk, but most of those reasons will not be going away any time soon so maybe it’s time for me to suck it up and just accept all the annoyances and frustrations in life. Andrew says I need to be more positive. My mom says I need to be more positive. I’m noticing a trend.

Tonight I read a thread in a forum and it was all about silver linings. Basically the whole point of the thread was for people to post one positive thing for the day. Something good that happened, something nice they enjoyed, etc. So since I don’t have much to post about lately and since everyone is on the “be positive” bandwagon, I’ll at least make a point to try and mention one “silver lining” of my day for each day that I have nothing else to blog about. Maybe if I feel really crazy, I’ll post more than one.

So lets see… here are my silver linings for today:

1. My friend Katie stopped by and we had some nice girl talk

2. Jen and I started looking into details for my bachelorette party

3. Gossip girl is finally back on! (please don’t judge me)

See, I stared off with three whole things! That’s a good first step, right?

Happy Things January 20, 2010

Because I have nothing else to write about, I’m writing about things that make me happy this week.

Picnics by the beach with Andrew on Sunny Sundays.

Wedding planning- how can you NOT like picking colors and music and flowers and all that wonderful stuff?

Farmville on Facebook… yes, I know, I’m pathetic.

Walking down to the park by the ferry and reading a book in the afternoon sun. Summer is wonderful.

Planning to see my family and friends in CA in less than 2 weeks.

Planning to see Kimbo, Stu and lots of wild animals in Africa this March.

Lots of people having babies- as long as they aren’t mine, they make me happy.

Reading endless wedding blogs and hoping that maybe our wedding will be fabulous enough to be displayed on some random blog out there.

Andrew huggles.

Going to bed. Right now. That makes me happy.

There Goes My Chance October 11, 2009

I’ve been quite bummed this weekend about something. About 2, maybe even 3 years ago, I came up with an idea for an invention. I thought this was a pretty damn good idea.

Fold-able/roll-up flip-flops. Why is this a good idea you ask? Because after wearing high heels for hours all night, all you want to do is put on some flats for the walk to the car, to the house, or to the next bar. I am one of those girls that carries my dirty flip-flop/thongs in my purse. Luckily I have a big purse which allows me to do this because my thongs aren’t tiny enough to fit in a small bag. But if they folded up into a small portable thong version, then they could fit in any bag… or even a coat pocket.

This was such a good idea. A good idea that I had first.

Maybe you don’t believe that I had this idea first. Well here is proof…

The guys (yes GUYS) that created these thongs thought of the idea a year ago.

“Former lawyer Ben Lipschitz, 25 stumbled on the idea for a pair of fold-up thongs on a night out a year ago when his girlfriend at the time was left sore and tired after a night in stilettos.”  The Daily Telegraph

A year ago.

Well, A YEAR AND A HALF ago I blogged about my invention idea here (and let me point out, I had been thinking about this much earlier than this post):

 

I guess I can’t bee too annoyed though. It’s my fault and my fault alone that I didn’t act on my brilliant idea when I had the chance. Andrew used to tell me I should look into it, Jen wanted to help and even came up with a cute name, but it was just so overwhelming! Where do you even start to try to figure out how to get a prototype made, how to pay for the prototype… surely I would have needed investor backing… and then how do you get that??  The list goes on and on. I just had NO idea where to start.I went as far as researching patents as you can see in my post above but that was where my research ended.

Now someone else will get rich. Someone else will say they invented something cool and they will always be known as the guys who created the awesome portable flip-flops. That could have been me. That might have been my one and only chance to invent something really cool and I blew it.

And no… I will not post a link to the site that sells the shoes. I just don’t think I’m ready to provide free advertising to someone who is going to capitalize on my brilliant idea.

Happy Birthday to Me! September 10, 2009

I really wasn’t looking forward to turning 29! I think this is the first birthday I did not care about AT ALL. It just kinda creeped up on me and then bam! there it was, I was 29. I knew Andrew had to work on my birthday as well, so that was even more the reason to not care. BUT… little did I know that Andrew had changed his flight so he could take me to a REALLY nice lunch. He planned it all on his own and it was wonderful. We went down to Wolfie’s in the Rocks. We had a great view of the bridge and the Opera House!  We enjoyed some delicious bread and I had spinach ravioli while Andrew had crab gnocchi. A birthday lunch just wouldn’t be a birthday lunch without a couple of glasses of champagne. It was perfect

 

Since Andrew had to work that night, our friends Kris, Tess and Alex took me out to dinner at Soprano’s in Mosman. I had yummy pizza, good wine, great company and even had chocolate cake with a sparkler. It was a really nice dinner!

 

AND THEN… if that wasn’t enough, Andrew’s brother Paul and his girlfriend Veronica stopped by with more wine, a cupcake and some chocolates.

 

 

My blah birthday that I wasn’t looking forward to ended up being GREAT! I’m glad to have such good friends here who didn’t want me to spend my birthday night alone.

Another Quiet Night at Home August 28, 2009

Andrew went out with his friends tonight- I chose to stay home. Last week he went out with friends twice and I chose to stay home. I’m not sure what it is- but I just have no desire to go out and spend lots of money on alcohol these days. Staying up until 1 or 2 just sounds exhausting! Plus, ever since we went snowboarding I’ve had minor health annoyances that keep flaring up. I have this recurring bullshit problem called gastritis and  alcohol increases the problem so I’m on a drinking hiatus. Usually I get bummed if I can’t have wine with dinner every now and then, but this week I really couldn’t care less. I just want to feel better! I’ve also minimized all soda, tea (any caffeine really) and spicy food since they are also culprits in my annoying issue. Soooo… back to my point… I’m staying home.

Here are a few reasons that I’m glad to be having a quiet night at home:

1. I am not going to feel like crap all day tomorrow

2. Andrew just texted  and said 3 long Island Iced Teas are $48 bucks! That would only be about $24 in California!  Staying home prevents me from having to even be annoyed about that. I’ll make my own tropical refreshing iced tea for about 50 cents if I want to. Except I don’t, because I can’t drink tea for awhile.

3. I can sit around in my comfy pjs and Uggs rather than wearing some tight jeans and high heels

4. When I get too tired… I can just walk in the other room and go to bed rather than standing in some bar yawning and wishing we could leave

5. I can enjoy my new favorite hobby… browsing The Knot

6. I don’t have to talk to anyone. For some people this would be horrible, but I had my fix of social chatting earlier when some friends were over- now I can just sit and enjoy the silence

7. I can read more of my book that is taking me FOREVER to finish

8. I can get caught up on some work that I have to do this weekend. Ok… that’s not really a benefit of staying home- but I guess I’m going to have to do it at some point so I might as well start tonight

9. I can write this blog. See, now aren’t YOU all happy I stayed home as well?

1 Year of 101 April 4, 2009

So this is the 1 year mark of the start of my 101 in 1001 days goal list. If you don’t know what I’m talking about… Read MY LIST. So seeing as how one year has passed, I thought I’d give a little update on where I am with my list and where I’m going. Some of my goals have been a big success, some little successes and some just flat out need to be changed. I don’t feel right just changing my goals midway; however, it’s already evident that I just will not be accomplishing some that required consistent monthly work. So I’ve decided that rather than letting those spots go to waste for things I cannot achieve, I’ll cross them off, donate $5 to charity for each one I’ve failed at and add some new ones. Note to self: monthly goals are NOT easy to keep up with!

So what HAVE I accomplished?

• 4. Get a massage with Andrew
• 5. Create a “101 things that  make me happy” list
• 6. Read 10 books. Technically I’ve got a few hundred pages of my 9th book- but that will be finished this month so I’m marking that off as done! Haven’t blogged about this yet, so this will count as my blog post for this goal. Here’s a list of the books I read: Eat Pray Love, The Last Lecture, Not Without my Sister, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, Body Surfing, Why We Suck, The Host.
• 13. Complete a list of 20 tasks I’ve already accomplished that I am proud of
• 23. Get in touch with someone I haven’t talked to in years
• 25. Plant a chili pepper plant (I’ve done this twice now)
• 31. Research presidential candidates
• 32. Vote in the 2008 election
• 33. Do the Harbour Bridge climb
• 40. Go kayaking
• 45. Add 3 new board games to our collection
• 46. Watch the fireworks over Sydney Harbour on New Year’s Eve
• 48. Save at least $5000- here’s another one I haven’t blogged about, because I didn’t realized I reached this goal until compiling this list! woohoo!
• 51. Create a master “packing list”
• 56. Fly business class
• 62. Take a Spanish class
• 69. Clean out all the old stuff I don’t want from my itunes (although I should probably do this again)
• 72. Buy a Wii
• 73. Buy new pillows for the bed
• 74. Buy a dehumidifier to help alleviate mold/allergy problems
• 80. Write down my recipe for chili
• 84. Make Sangria
• 87. Buy a “how-to” cooking book and read it cover to cover
• 90. Become a resident in Australia
• 94. Go through old clothes and donate things I don’t wear (another thing I never blogged about… so consider it blogged)!
• 99. Buy a filing system and organize all paperwork
• 100. Create a special calendar to track all my tasks

Here are the ones I’ll be changing and donating to charity for.

• 16. Write at least 1 email to friends/family each month. Ok, so I WAS doing this and I was doing it well! But I hardly ever got responses back. It’s pretty hard to stay motivated to write to people EVERY month when I don’t get much response. So this one is going away.
• 17. Talk to my niece and nephew on the webcam once per month. It’s sad because I do want to do this- but I realize my goals cant really be dependent on other people’s schedules. It’s hard to find a good time to talk to the kids let alone to schedule a call with them on the computer.
• 36. Go on at least one planned date each month with Andrew. This one is just too hard to track. We go out to dinner and stuff, but I wouldn’t always call it a date. We don’t really plan “dates” that often, so sadly, this one is going.
• 68. Read the Aussie citizenship book a few times. This I just have no interest in. At least not now. I’m not even eligible for citizenship for at least 4 years- so I’ll think about this later.
• 91. Get an Aussie driver’s license. This one is just not possible. I either have to be a permanent resident or I have to be in the country 6 months (without leaving). Seeing as how I go home often, it looks like I won’t be able to get a license for a long time!
• 97. Buy fresh flowers once a month. Like number 16, this one started out well but just fizzled from there. I still want to do this, but I won’t freak if I don’t- so this one is getting replaced!

So that’s 30 bucks that I need to donate to charity and 6 more goals that I need to come up with fairly quickly. Oh, and I’m still looking for people to help me reach #11- get 5 people to create a list. I think I only know of 2 or 3 that did initially… so let me know if you do!

The Anti-Bucket List March 18, 2009

So I’m stealing this idea from Jill, who evidently stole it from someone else who stole it from someone else… but I thought it was pretty funny considering I have created a 101 goal list. So now I’ll create a list of things I could care less if I ever do! Not saying I NEVER would do this stuff… just that I don’t really care if I ever do or don’t. 

• Ride a motorcycle
• Learn how to do taxes
• Run/bike/swim in any sort of race
• Skydive
• Learn to play the guitar
• Eat sushi
• Learn more French
• Drive on the Autobahn
• Join a book club
• Get a tattoo
• Learn to ballroom dance
• See all 50 states
• Play paintball
• Go on long camping trips
• Buy a purse that costs more than $100
• Eat a hamburger
• Enjoy the rain
• Get a boob job
• Get an Iphone
• Give up gluten and dairy
• Learn about cricket/ watch cricket/ go to a cricket match
• Follow politics
• Learn to change oil in a car 
• Read “the classics”
• Watch all the Star Wars movies
• Write a letter to congress
• Become a vegan
• Have a house with a white picket fence
• Ride another horse
• Play on a sports team
• Own a convertible
• Swim with sharks
• Serve on a Jury
• Own Jimmy Choo shoes

Honestly, this is pretty hard… REALLY hard actually. It’s much easier to think of things I want to do than things I don’t care to do. I reserve the right to change my mind on these in the future

101 Things that Make me Happy February 6, 2009

 

Yoga and lastly, Finishing this list almost a year after starting it. yeah I lag!

I Got Tagged November 19, 2008

Wow… I never get tagged. Sure I get the massive amounts of forwarded emails asking me to fill out surveys left and right, but never (that I know of) has someone actually posted my name on their website saying “I tag Elsja.” So when Daisy – this lovely lady mentioned my name in her blog, of course I had to politely oblige and fulfill my tagging duties (plus I needed something to blog about).  So here it goes…here are 7 of the most random things about me that pop into my head at this very moment in time. 

 

1. I was born at 11:11am and I still make wishes when I see 11:11 on the clock (and when I see shooting stars). And I think I’m cursed when I see 11:34 on the clock (that’s hell upside down for those of you who may be confused). Last year, I had this problem where every night in bed, I’d glance at the clock when I’d lay down and it would be 11:34… literally- like every night! It really started to freak me out.Â

2. I don’t like any seafood. And by “any” I mean “ANY.” I get really confused when I tell people “I don’t like any seafood” and they start going through a list of items, as if they are testing me to see if I REALLLLLY mean it when I say I HATE seafood! “Oh really…. so you don’t like sushi?”… “No, no seafood” …”Oh so not even prawns/shrimp?”… “Listen…if it ever swam, floated or just sat on the floor of an ocean, lake or any other body of water, I don’t eat it.” (So this would even include duck… ducks swim in lakes…and they are gross). It’s like people think they will go through a list and discover the one seafood I’ve NEVER thought of and I’ll have this “A-HA” moment… “oh yes, I forgot fish is from the sea… how could I be so silly? You caught me… I do love seafood after all!”Â

3. Speaking of things I don’t eat…I haven’t eaten red meat intentionally since I was 15. I say intentionally because even though I don’t eat beef by choice… I ACCIDENTALLY ate an entire beef burger awhile back THINKING it was a turkey burger. Once I looked at the bill and realized it wasn’t a turkey burger, I wasn’t too happy. Yes, I did throw up.Â

4. My mom and sisters have size 7.5, 7.5 and 5.5-6 shoe sizes respectively. I wear an 8.5 -9. Maybe this explains why I am also way bigger than any of them ever were at my age. Yeah, I’ll blame it on my feet.Â

5. I say “that stresses me out” or “I was so stressed” (and other variations) A LOT. Most of the time, I’m not actually STRESSED, I’m just thinking a bit more about something than I would like, or I have a dilemma I’m trying to work out in my head. It’s like a natural reaction, a phrase that just spills out of my mouth when anything even remotely unpleasant/confusing/frustrating is discussed. This has lead my boyfriend to think I’m the biggest stresshead he’s ever met. While that may still be true, it shouldn’t be due to my overuse of the phrase.Â

6. I’m horrible at making decisions. Really bad. I’ve been known to stand 15 minutes in the shampoo aisle at CVS trying to decide which shampoo would be best for my hair. I’ve spent HOURS upon hours reading reviews on amazon trying to pick the best phone/camera/etc. 2 weeks ago I spent about 20 minutes trying to pick out the best containers to use to organize my spice cabinet. One of the most embarrassing cases of my indecisiveness came at my 5 year old niece’s birthday party at Color-Me-Mine. Put it this way… the party was nearly over by the time I decided what I wanted to paint. I was at the shop for more than an hour after everyone finished. And let’s not get started on the choices I had to make for colors! Thank God I brought my own car!Â

7. The ONLY time I ever like rain is when there is a thunder/lightning storm to go with it. I know plenty of people say “we need the rain… drought this…farms that…” but that still doesn’t make me like it when it rains. Rain is miserable and it makes me sad and grumpy. But I will tolerate it if there is thunder to listen to and some lightning to go with.Â

Wow… that took too long. I should have been WAY less thoughtful and just said things like “I love In-n-Out” and “I wear a retainer to bed.

So I’m not actually going to tag anyone… because a) as mentioned above, I’m horrible at making decisions and I don’t know who to choose… and b) I might get offended if the people I tagged didn’t actually fulfill their duty. But I still welcome you all to join me in my obvious boredom and complete one of these for yourself. It’s pretty interesting to see the weird things that come into your head when you just sit and think about yourself.

Hair June 13, 2008

Does anyone shed as much hair as I do? I’m pretty sure that between all the hair that my vacuum picks up, the hair in the shower, in my brush and the hair that magically appears on my clothes, on andrew’s socks & jackets, in the couch, car and bed… I could make a full length wig. Does anyone else have this problem? Can I just say how happy I am to be blonde lately because at least it camouflages into everything it touches. I just can’t help it… it’s too long and it just falls out. I can’t belive I’m not bald by now. I really can’t!

Oh and can someone please tell me how you go about finding a decent priced stylist you can trust in a new city! (Oh, and one that is within walking/bus distance). I actually know a few people who do hair here- but they are all too far! I thought I’d hold off and just try to get my hair done every time I went home to CA. But the last time I did that was in March and I won’t be back until August and my hair can’t go much longer. It permanently looks greasy (even when I’ve just washed it) due to the darker roots.

Speaking of hair… I’m off to go blowdry and straighten it. I’m about to brush another million hairs out of my head for Andrew to vacuum up