Hello, hello! It’s my dad’s birthday today. 🎉 Sadly I haven’t seen him today since he works night shift and arrived home after I left for work, and when I got home he was gone again. I also had a handful of things on my mind this week. Not to mention I have been busy and busy, but it has been a fun ride. I am looking forward to having a good nap after this week’s antics!

6 months at Campaign Monitor

I’ve been working at Campaign Monitor for six months. It has flown by super quickly. It feels like I have been there for years. Time is really just a number, and of course it would be nice to say I have worked somewhere for a decade, but the important thing is that I love the company and the people there make it a beautiful place to work every day. :)

We had ShipIt today, which is our sort of ‘hackathon’ where we get to work on projects outside of our usual work. Our team will win, because we have thought of a solution that will really benefit our customers when they use our product – no matter their age, abilities, likes or dislikes. ;)

Brogues

I have never owned a pair of brogues and didn’t think they were really my style, but I want to own a pair. I want some flat shoes since I already have a lot of heels, and ballet flats really hurt my feet. A flat pair of shoes to wear for our trip to Europe would be nice, too… I like the look of brogues because they are practical and can be dressed up or down. They also aren’t high tops, nor do they cover my ankle – I want to avoid anything that is both flat and covers my ankle.

I have looked around but Australia doesn’t seem to sell brogues. I found one store, which I will have a closer look at tomorrow. Brogues don’t appear to be as common in Australia as they are in other countries. I have heard that they are popular in Europe. I asked around on Twitter and was given a few pricey suggestions, but Pauline told me about a shop named Schuh in London, which sells them for a much more affordable price. And they look like they are good quality too. I am excited to go looking for them!

Wavy hair

Since getting a haircut and having the hairdresser put waves/curls on the ends of my hair, I have taken to putting waves in my hair myself. I am really reluctant to use heat on my hair, even washing it with hot water. But I remembered I have moroccan oil spray that protects hair from heat, so I put that on after I wash my hair and before I use a hair curler to curl my hair a bit. I actually use a water spray to wash my hair with cold water.

Still, my red hair seems to be fading quicker than it did in years past when I had done it the same colour. :/

Gym stuff

I started seeing some defined abdominal lines the other day! I had a really intense workout… by that I mean I pushed myself and tried to lift or push more weight. I have been leeching free passes from work or friends recently, but soon I might have to go and purchase my own membership. I’m just so cheap, haha. I did find myself in stitches over an article about stupid things we don’t need but think we do:

Everything in the gym

Get some bricks and bits of elastic, and just figure something out like MacGyver would.

I know you don’t really need a gym, but it’s not easy to just find a bunch of machines or equipment that you can use to build muscles on. The gym has it all, and if you want to work fast and work hard, it’s a good option.

And to think in the past that I hated gyms!

Green and oolong tea

I drink so much black tea, and I like it really strong, but I wanted to move on to green tea and just… not black! I used to dislike green because I would often make it too bitter, and use shitty teabags. I have taken a liking to this oolong tea that my aunt gave me. It tastes great, actually. One of my friends at work said it is like ‘real’ tea, probably because it’s from China. Mmmm pure good stuff.

Bleeding noses

Most of you may not know this, but a few years ago I used to be extremely prone to having a bleeding nose in the winter. Brandon always got his in the summertime. When he was a lot younger, he would often have to sit aside in school and hold tissues to his nose because he would get frequent nosebleeds in the early or late school year (January and December, when it happens here). The heat was too much for his poor little nose to handle. He doesn’t get nosebleeds anymore.

I used to get them in the winter because very sudden temperature changes to my body would shock it. I would often wake up cold, pile on a lot of clothes to get warm, or sit or stand near a heater. This would often cause my nose to run a little bit, or it would have already been runny from the cold, but it would later result in blood pouring out of my nose instead. :P

One time I was on my way to an interview and it was a bit chilly outside, but when I sat in the car as it was warming up, I felt my nose get a bit runny but it turned out that blood was just dripping effortlessly from my nose.

This morning, the same thing happened! It was cold but not too cold, but I went into the bathroom and had the heater on, and when I walked back into my cold room my nose started bleeding. Ahahah.

My next presentation is at A11y Bytes!

I have a presentation lined up for one of our work lunches, but I might hold off for that because my proposal for a talk at the A11y Bytes event in Sydney was accepted!

I’ve got two weeks to prepare. I know what I’m talking about but I was not prepared to be accepted, so I literally only have two weeks. :P I’m passionate about accessibility (that is what ‘a11y’ means) and making sure everyone can use websites on the internet, so I’m excited to send a message with my talk. It can only be eight minutes and I am not sure how much I can cram in but hopefully I can get the message across.

The Best Friend Dinner #1

Though technically our third dinner catch-up in the past few months, Lilian and I had dinner tonight and caught up on various things. I’ll probably have a post recounting that later on. It was fun catching up!

Until next time. 🙃