home alone

^^ an unrelated shot from the road yesterday, driving between tumut and adelong. it was so beautiful and green.

growing up, I always thought I'd have my own cute apartment for a stage in my life. in my dreams it looked like this one. the idea of living by myself probably came from my homebody tendencies, as well as my slight germophobia which makes me kind of incompatible with share house living and the fact that I'd always been single.

in the next few weeks, I'll get a small taste of living on my own while tony is at a conference in sydney and then on a residency of sorts at the national portrait gallery in canberra. it's a great opportunity for him, and one he's been looking forward to for most of this year. that said, I'm kind of nervous about living on my own for a month or so.

I am scared of scary things - like spiders of all varieties and strange noises that happen when you're home alone. but I'm also worried about being lonely. I really like living with tony, going on weekend walks with him, cooking meals together, seeing him every morning and night and having him sit next to me on the couch when my favourite show is on.

and so I've devised a small list of things to do while he's away. which may include:

• making this yummy looking avocado pasta. I cook for 4-6 people at the best of times, so I don't know how I'm going to go cooking for one. 

• power through anna funder's 'all that I am'. because it's on loan from a friend and I have a stack of books I've amassed from recent city trips. also, anna funder is awesome.

• exercise most mornings. which might mean I need to overcome my fear of swooping magpies or be a dag and buy a hat I can fasten cable ties to. I am considering it, or a baseball cap at the very least.

• sew something from my japanese pattern book. I was so into the mori girl designs of these little books that I bought one in japanese, thinking I could wing it and make something wearable. thankfully they've since been published in english and I've bought an english one and found one at the library. I'm planning to sew some simple cotton tops for friends as christmas presents this year, cos some of my most favourite birthday presents from this year were homemade.

• and speaking of japanese things, I'm seriously contemplating watching this 4 part series, endearingly and intriguingly called bread and soup and cat weather. there are no english subtitles but I do really like japanese interiors, especially homes and cafes.

• have the work girls over for dinner. preferably on a night where no one needs to drive a long distance the next day, sit in court or wake up before 5am.

• make a koala pom pom! these animal pom poms could be super cute for christmas wrap/gift tags.

• try out and master a new recipe - possibly something japanese. a katsu curry would be nice. or I could just make cat shaped pizzas.

• make this salted caramel and chocolate microwave pudding. maybe on a rainy night, whilst watching this ballet doco.

• and listen to lots of radio documentaries, so that I'm doing something other than cooking and eating. or maybe I can listen to radio docos whilst cooking and eating and sewing. at the moment, I'm addicted to this 'for better or worse' short series, that profiles six couples in long term relationships over 6 episodes.

I'm off to work today and looking forward to spending most of the day editing the story I'm so excited about. also - we're booking our celebrant today!