Tina's wanderings around the world

As I sit here munching on some delicious pumpkin bread (thanks Tara and Peter), I am met with a recurring feeling of disappointment. It stems from having brought in pumpkin bread to the office yesterday, my first foray into the pumpkin bread-making business. Pieces of the freshly baked good were passed out to the gals in my department, and received positive reviews all around. The positive reviews are great and, admittedly, it was quite exciting to introduce five people to the goodness of sugary, spicy pumpkin (pumpkin is reserved for savory dishes around these parts and I've been eager to share the brilliance for some time now). A few people have asked for more today, which could easily be taken as a compliment since the bread was so good! (Well let's be honest, it was.) But over the last two years, my experience in sharing the baked goods has been a bit disheartening. Let's take a bit of a backtrack and look at the history of sharing all things homemade and sweet. The fir...

As I have a habit of doing, I'm just loading up while I'm in the groove. So here are a few pictures from this past weekend up in Nelson Bay. Marcus savoring the sand and hair blowing into his mouth. Our little crabby friend who wandered very far from the water.

For those of you who were wondering, Marcus did finish his 100km bushwalk. A few days after we returned to Australia, he went out for a 27im run to get himself prepared for it and pulled his hip flexor in the process. He was devastated and didn't think he'd be able to finish the bushwalk, but boy that kid is stubborn as a mule! One of his fellow trailwalkers somewhat appropriately stated that he may have a weak self-preservation instinct. :) As well as having major guts! He finished in about 24 hours, injury and all. This may have been the only smile that mug saw during the entire walk. (This is around hour 19 and kilometer 70.)

At this point, I won't begin to undertake the task it would be to write about my trip back home. I saw anybody who actually reads this, anyway, so for those of you that might be reading this--I love you! It was great to see you. Australia and I await your visit. ;) In the meantime, I'm getting back into the groove of things at work. I've gone to four shows already since I've been home--two proper plays, one dress rehearsal and an opera. (Although I think Pirates of Penzance should technically be classed as an operetta.) One of those shows was August: Osage County , a pulitzer prize-winning play which has also won five Tony awards. It's basically the shit, and somehow we snagged the American tour and veered them south. Most of the original American cast performed at our theatre and they were a-mazing. It was easily my favorite show of the year and had quite a few recognizable people in it including the mom from Rookie of the Year --awesome. More dysfunctional family ...