I'm allergic to cold weather

I completely empathise with people with seasonal affective disorder. I don't have it but boy do I feel like shite when it gets cold.

It's been so cold lately and it feels like it wasn't that long ago that it was really hot.

Anyway as a result of the weather and probably some other stuff too I recently had the worst cold in the world, I went through one large box of tissues per day for a week, had a shiny sore nose and a massive headache. It made me miss a fun party and almost made me miss going out another night too.

Anyway, that's now gone but I still feel like crap not because of my health but because of the cold weather I can't get motivated to do anything. Including riding my bike. By the time I get home from work it's too cold and dark to want to hop on it which is the first time for me in a while.

I just want to lay on the couch covered by a blanket and watch arrested development and other dvds and read all the time.

I'll be back soon blogging once I get over the pre winter blues.

In the meantime here's a pic from slightly warmer days at one of the wineries I recently visited in yarra valley.

Australian celebrities

Picture taken from wall at docklands

Can you guess you any of the Australian celebrities are in this mosiac pic? I think the ones in the bottom section are a little easier to guess.

Female friendly films*

Here it is as promised, my only question is where do I put it? I was thinking about putting in on my sidebar but it's much longer than I anticipated. It's made up mostly of your suggestions. S0 feel free to advise me of any that I have missed.

• A League of Their Own (1992)
• A Month in the Country
• A Walk on the Moon (1999)
• Adam's Rib (1949)
• All About Eve (1950)
• All About My Mother (1999)
• Amelie
  
• Amy's O (2002)
• Antonia's Line (1995)
• Beaches (1988)
• Being Julia (2004)
• Belle de jour
• Belleville Rendez-Vous (U.S. Title: the Triplets of Belleville)
• Better Than Chocolate (1999)
• Born in Flames
• Boys on the Side
• Bridget Jones's Diary
• Bubble (2005)
• But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)
• Calendar Girls (2003)
• Carol's Journey (2002)
  
• Citizen Ruth (1996)
• Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989)
• Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
• Foxes (1980)
• Frida (2002)
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Ghost World (2001)
• Ginger Snaps (2000)
• Girl, Interrupted (1999)
• Gloomy Sunday (1999)
• Gone With the Wind
• Handmaid's Tale
• Heathers (1989)
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
• High Art
• Iris (2001)
• Iron Jawed Angels (2004)
• Jawbreaker (1999)
• Julia (1977)
  
• Kissing Jessica Stein (2002)
• Last Night (1998)
• Like Water for Chocolate (1992)
• Little Women (1994)
• Live Nude Girls Unite! (2000)
• Lolita (1962)
• Ma Vie En Rose (1997)
• Maria Full of Grace (2004)
• Mermaids (1990)
• Metropolis (1927)
• Miss Congeniality
• Monsoon Wedding (2001)
• Moonstruck
• Muriel's Wedding (1994)
• My summer of Love (2004)
  
• Nana (2005)
  
• Next Stop Wonderland (1998)
• Nights of Cabiria (1957)
• Nine to Five (1980)
• Norma Rae (1979)
• North Country (2005)
• One True Thing
• Osama (2003)
• Persona (1967)
• Polish Wedding (1998)
• Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
• Queen Christina
• Queen Margot (1994)
• Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
• Real Women Have Curves (2002)
• Room with a View
• Ruby in Paradise
• Saved! (2004)
• Saving face (2004)
• Scenes from a Marriage (1974)
• Secret and Lies
• Secretary (2002)
• Sex and Lucia (2002)
• Sexual Dependency (2003)
• Silkwood
• Something's Gotta Give
• Sophie's Choice (1982)
• Starstruck (1982)
• Steel Magnolias (1989)
• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• The Accused
• The Hours (2002)
• The Joy Luck Club (1993)
• The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
• The Philadelphia Story
• The Piano
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
• The Stepford Wives (1975)
• The Stepmother
• The Terminator
• The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
• The Women (1939)
• Thelma & Louise (1991)
• They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
• Rebecca
• Times Square (1980)
• Tipping the Velvet (2002)
• Transamerica (2005)
• Vagina Monologues: Eve Ensler (2002)
• Vera Drake (2004)
• Victor / Victoria (1982)
• Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996)
• Whale Rider (2003)
• While You Were Sleeping
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
• Woman of the Year (1942)
• 10 things I hate about you
• 301/302 (1995)

*disclaimer: I can't guarantee that you will enjoy any of the films.

Vegan diet didn't cause baby's death ignorance did

I just watched the news clip stating that the 'vegan couple that killed their child were jailed'. Just the type of publicity that veganism doesn't need.

It's also not quite the full story. The parents who were apparently vegan fed their baby only soymilk and apple juice. Feeding a baby just normal cowsmilk (as opposed to baby formula or breast milk) can have the same effects. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that

newborns be breastfed exclusively for the first six months. Soymilk and cow’s milk are not recommended for babies until the age of one year. Juice is not recommended until the age of six months.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be able to read the sides of almost every soymilk container which has warnings such as ' not suitable as a complete milk food for children under 2 years'.

This news story is just the type of thing needed for morons to equate "vegan" with "baby death".

From the prosecutors mouth:

The vegan diet is fine... These parents lied about what they fed him. He just was not fed enough.

It also failed to state:

that the parents never sought medical care for their baby after his birth at home. I question whether the mother ever sought prenatal care? Weighing only 3 ½ pounds at his death, the baby was far under typical growth guidelines, which cite a ‘normal’ six-week-old boy to weigh 9lbs14oz – 11lbs14oz.

Quotes taken from nutritionist story at Chicago Tribune and Guardian.

Two very similar restaurants

We visited 5 different wineries in Yarra valley with Mr T's sister. We had lunch at giant steps/ innonencent bystander at the recommendation of someone from one of the wineries. There we enjoyed having views of the kitchen, Aesop handwash and hand cream in the bathroom and yummy food including free amazing sourdough bread with sea salt and olive oil to dip it in. Will certainly dine there again and next time I won't be driving so I can sample more wines.

When we later arrived at fifteen I noticed a lot of similarities: Aesop products in the bathroom, bread with olive oil and sea salt, and views of the kitchen. Even the food tasted similar. I was pleasantly surprised with how well fifteen accommodated us two vegans. When we booked we advised them well in advance which might have helped. They veganised some of the vegetarian meals and even the meat based antipasto. We had mushroom based bruschetta, mushroom risotto and vegan antipasto which included zucchini flowers that Mr T was impressed with and fennel and rocket salad. The fennel and rocket salad had me rethinking my hate of green salads which is huge breakthrough for me but it could just be that it's been a while since I've tried a good rocket salad. The mushroom based bruschetta was my fav and I'm not even a fan of mushrooms. Perhaps because I entered the place with such low expectations but I really enjoyed the meal and was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't as pricey as I thought. Cocktails were the average price of $15, entrees were around $17 which is a bit much but not too bad for the sort of restaurant that it was and the service was very good.

Sadly I don't have any pictures of the meals, but I do have a pic from one of the wineries (Coldstream hills):

I survived!

It was much better than I expected. I think the problem with meeting parents of a loved one after so long is you tend to hear all of the not so great stuff about them that you wouldn't typically hear so early in the relationship which doesn't help with the nervousness or with establishing positive thoughts. The other problem is that my first meeting lasted almost a whole week which is quite a long time for a first meeting. It was however great to be able to see where Mr T gets some of his traits and looks. He talks a lot like his father but looks more like his mother. I liked his family much more than I expected, especially his sister who I got on quite well with. I feel exhausted now and feel this strange sort of relief that it is combined with a sadness that I don't really comprehend. I am so sick of driving as I offered to be chauffeur for the whole trip. So much was explored over the last week, I have so many pictures and experiences to share but it will have to wait until I am a little more energetic. In the meantime I will leave you with one pic from today's exploration: Werribee open range zoo.

Photo taken by Mr T


Btw, I noticed that my post on movies has been included in the latest Carnival of Feminists thanks to an annoymous someone. It's just the inspiration I needed to make sure I do follow through on my word to make the list. In the meantime go and check out some of the great links in the latest carnival.

Being an adult is just great sometimes

If I could go back in time to when I was younger I would love to have a chat with a younger me and try to tell myself to enjoy being a kid and stop wishing and waiting til I was older. I remember wanting to be about 12 and then 14 and so on. I'm not sure what was so appealing about being an adult since my childhood was in no way bad, but I just wanted to be able to do things like drive and have money, and stay up late and all sorts of other petty things that seemed so important then. Sure people told me to enjoy being a kid, but that doesn't really work, but maybe coming from my future self would.

Anyway back to the topic, with the week I have been having I realised it's not that great to be an adult. Yes it's taken me about a decade of being an adult to work that out. With work driving me crazy, Mr T's parents coming, getting sick and having to deal with some tricky situations, and trying to make big decisions I just want a holiday or to not have all this yucky responsibility right now.

I had acupuncture tonight and boy was I grateful it was just what the doctor ordered. Those 20 minutes with the lights dimmed, the traditional Chinese music, the water feature was amazing. If I only I could relax like that in yoga classes. My doc joked that I will just need to learn acupuncture and do it to myself at home.

This week I woke up to a cold, cold sores (yes plural) and pimples (again plural and big and nasty looking) and one messy apartment. Did I mention that I am freaked out by Mr T's parents coming here? His mother is a neat freak, and doesn't speak English, and his sister thinks that spending $200 on one meal not including drinks is ok, and there are all sorts of crazy requests like a day trip to see the 12 apostles (some famous rocks over 4 hours drive away) and since I am the only one who drives I will be playing chauffeur the whole time in my tiny old car. I'm sure there will be requests for pictures with me with pimples and cold sores and I've never met them. How have we been together for so long and I'm never met them? I think we have both been putting it off, but now it is worse because instead of just being some woman who their son is seeing, I'm the one who took their only son half way around the world to live. Arhhhhhhhh I'm trying to think positive thoughts but I just have the worse feeling about this hopefully I am wrong.

Today I requested to go part time at work because I can't do next semester at uni and work full time and it didn't go that great as I expected, in fact I might be denied that right in which case I will have to defer adding another year of studying or find another job.

Thanks for letting me vent, this is probably my last chance before the big meeting!