Selina Fenech

I'm dying my hair pink.
I've got some really rough streaks pulled through it at the moment dying away in paintbox's Pink Moon. I realised the other day that apart from wanting to be a natural redhead, I've also had dreams at different parts in my lifetime of having pink, or blue hair. So after budgetting down how many weeks of hair I have left, I decided to grab a couple of Paint Box tubes and have at it. The plan is for pink streaks first, and in a week or two when I'm bored of them, I will dye over with blue... If I'm game enough! Otherwise I'll be going back to a med-dark red to cover up my startlingly dark regrowth! The doctors have said my hair will probably all fall out pretty much instantly (big clumfupls in your hand style) exactly 3 weeks after my first chemo dosage, that's about 6 weeks away. I want to get it cut again before then, into an even shorter pixie cut, maybe I should do that before going blue? That might be a plan... 
David and I have also decided to put back our planned wedding date. We wanted late spring/early summer originally, but I want to have hair on my wedding day more. I considered just wearing a wig, but that'd feel so weird, looking back at your wedding photos and knowing it's not your own hair, you know??
I was going to wear my hair up anyway, so I figure as long as I have 5-10 cm of my own hair that'd be enough to style nicely somehow, maybe a few clip in tendtrilly extensions... But with standard hair growth, and some extra time to grow out of the afro phase the hair first comes back like, it could be well into next year that I'll have enough hair.
I finally got David to take some photos of my pre-pink hair style yesterday, so I'll post them soon... probably the same time I get some photos with the pink in online as well, I'm falling behind! Sorry! Anyway, I'd better go and wash this out and see how shoddy a job I did ^_^

Hrm, trying to work out what to do today from a number of different projects I'm working on... I've only really got half the day cos of a hospital visit this afternoon- just one of many meetings with doctors to have my head stuffed with information, there have been a lot of those... Plus tests... blood tests (how much blood do they NEEED!?), heart tests, tests to make sure I'm perfectly healthy before they start pumping me with chemo. Should be just one blood test today (maybe two, but kill the two birds with one needle darnit), plus the meeting about chemo, plus getting one of the BCI nurses to check out my surgery spot since it's been bothering me a little. They sure do keep you busy with appointments and things though. The next few weeks are actually going to be filled with stuff about making an effort to protect my chance of having babies in the future (chemo can cause problems there). The risk of infertility is really small, but hey, so was my risk of getting breast cancer at this age! 
I've been feeling a bit down last few days, almost like the shock of the whole issue is wearing off and its feeling a bit more real now. It is still all a bit bizare though... I certainly don't feel like someone who has/had "cancer".
Anyway I decided the best remedy for feeling down is KITTENS!! Lots and lots of snuggly little kittens! There's one at the local pet shop I have my eye on at the moment, such a cutie... But I also don't want to lose my relationship with my current beautiful retard cat (retard is my term for affection for her!!) by getting another cat, plus I know I shouldn't just go out and buy kitties on a whim... So I was thinking about becoming a kitten foster carer for CatRescue! Is that a bad thing? I'd be helping out! Even if it is for purely selfish wanna-play-with-snuggly-kittens reasons!! Plus my cat was a feral little thing when I got her, so I'm used to the whole rehabilitation thing... Anyone do cat fostering that can shed some light on whether it'd be a good idea or not? I figure I can always try it out and quit if it's not working... it's all purely voluntary...

Anyway, sitting around and writing randomly about stuff isn't what I should be doing. I should either be doing my accounts (ICK), filling wholesale orders (probably not enough time), doing some product set up work for a new project (not a time priority), or updating my website (not much to update it with at the moment, plus need to wait for my new business database to be ready so I can use it instead).
What to do... what to do...

NOoooooOOOOooOO!
*sigh* I just found four pairs of shoes I just HAVE to HAVE and amazon doesn't ship them to Australia!! Waa!
I'm not normally a shoe loving woman. I only have about 3 pairs of shoes... and rarely find shoes I like at all, let alone get excited about.
Anyway, while exploring options for shoes to go with my wedding dress, I discovered Amazons shoe section, and Seychelles brand shoes. They are SO nice! I like pretty much everything they have, but found four pairs I really really wanted... For $250 for all four I was going to go ahead and buy them too, since I rarely spend money on shoes anyway.
But they don't ship shoes to Australiaaaaaaaa... So unfair! And I can't find them in Australia anywhere! Now I have to try and find somewhere that has them that will send to Aus... :(

Yesterday was a great day. David was involved in directing a short stage play for the Short and Sweet theatre festival on at the moment at the Seymour centre in Sydney. Yesterday was the performance, the play was "The Nudity Finale" (Yes, yes it did). It is an awesomely funny play, and went off perfectly. So afterwards, we went out to a pub with all the actors, writer and friends to celebrate, plus hey, it was Australia day!
So emotions were high and everyone was a little boysterous from all the earlier adrenalin. We sat around playing a friendly and informal game of texas holdem. We were a little noisy, but not so much for the corner of a pub on Australia day, ya know?
Anyway, in the most disgusting display of passive-aggressive behavious I've ever seen, a bar man came over and asked us if we wanted them to turn the music down so that we could hear each other better. Most of us didn't even get the "hint" until they went away and turned the music up ridiculously loud, disturbed EVERYONE in the bar more than we ever could have, had their little laugh, and turned it down again.
Riiiiiiiiight...
So we just continued on having fun. Whatever. Anytime someone won, or lost, and got a little loud, the bar man would skitter to our end of the bar and stare at us. Two loud noises in a row, and they'd run over and clean up our glasses.
Wow. You know, if they'd just asked us politely, we might have actually tried to keep it down a little.
And really... if they had of had some sport on the big screen, people make MORE noise than we were making watching a big game at a pub and no one says a word. If anything we were adding to the otherwise boring atmosphere of the pub. But noooo, we can't have a friendly game of poker on Australia day and have fun at a pub? What a way to suck the fun out of a great night.
By the way, this was at the Sydney Youth Hotel (?) down from Broadway. Boycott, boycott, boycott.
That is all.

Well, yesterday I did my first round of wedding dress shopping...
We are planning on having the wedding towards the end of this year... but really haven't done much planning yet. I mostly decided to go dress shopping now because I had a friend visiting from a way aways that I knew would be keen to do some.
It WAS FUN though. We only went to three shops... one we walked in, has a quick look, got no help at all, weren't impressed, and left.
The second shop was far, far better. The woman that helped us there was amazing. She gave me so many tips and was SO on the ball. She really knew her stuff!
I told her (ver vaguely, cos I'm clueless with this stuff), what I like in a dress. Basically, I like corsets to hold my belly in, and I've been in love with HUUUGE skirts since watching The King and I "hey I can't walk into the ballroom cos my skirt is so big it has twenty kids under it!!!".
She very quickly picked out 5 dresses and chucked them into their huge fancy change room. She grabbed me a little petticote to wear, and started dressing me up (which was a little weird at first, but she was the kind of person you easily feel comfotable with so it was ok).
And WOW... the first dress was amazing. I was impressed just as is, but then she attaches the train, puts some clip on dangly earings on me, puts my hair up, adds a veil and gives me a bouqet to hold!!!!!!!!!!! Each addition I was just "omigod squee I really am a girl and I just forgot all these years!!!!". I felt BEAUTIFUL and GLAMOROUS, and like I'm really getting married! I can see now how people get so easily excited and spend WAY too much money on these things....
ALL five dresses she picked for me looked great on, and suited my figure so well. By the end of it I was thinking, "Hey, this is easier than I thought, I can DO THIS!"
Then, we go to another dress shop...
Well...
The next woman wasn't helpful at all. She was really rough and not very friendly at all. Had no suggestions for me, just let me pick what I liked. And I picked what I thought would be beautiful dresses... and they just didn't do it for me when I put them on...
The shop assistant didn't help much, one interaction playing like this-
Her-  "what do you think?"
Me- Hrm, I like the skirt, but the top part not so much, I just don't like it but I'm not sure why...
Her- *pause....* Why don't you like the top?!
It was such a big different to the lady who could tell me without prompting how every fold and cut and angle of a dress was either lengthening my waist or shortenning my torso or accenting my curve here or there...
It really made me feel like I NEED that woman now to buy a dress. And that my plan of trying some stuff on then getting something cheap on ebay isn't going to work!!!
Damn she was the best sales person ever... I'm in hook, line and sinker...
I just need to keep reminding myself that $5000 is better spent feeding all my guests on the actual day, than on the dress.

But damn... I'm not taking that dress off for a week after the wedding. It feels so good wearing such a beautiful dress and feeling like a GIRL!
I felt disgusting putting on a tank top and jeans again after those beautiful beautiful dresses...

I dreamed of dragons last night. Baby dragons. It was so vivid and the babies were so beautiful, their scales so shiny, so beautifully patterned. One had rich copper brown colouring with highlights of startling kingfisher blue, and was playful and daring, the other was pale beige with black scales at it's points, and was hiding in a bank of snow.
It was one of those dreams that you wish to be real when you wake up!

I think I'm becoming addicted to sashimi...
And I also think I just overdosed, lol.
A few years ago the thought of raw meat made me feel vaguely queasy, but I'm not one to ever turn down trying new foods. So I weened myself onto it with sushi rolls and such, until I'm now eating whole plates of raw sliced fish, and even carpaccio (sliced raw beef or other meats).
And really enjoying it too! At least it's a food addiction that's good for me I guess!
David went to the fish markets yesterday and bought a tray of sashimi meats, whitefish, tuna, salmon... enough for three meals for two people, for $16. So aaah, I've just eaten raw fish for the last three meals (not counting breakfast, even I can't go that far!).
Last night we made sushi rolls together which was lots of fun. I stuffed up the rice a bit (I want a rice cooker!), but they still turned out pretty good.  Me and the cat shared all the last bits of fish for lunch just now, with Sayos (lol, very Aussie huh?).
Anyone else experienced sushi/sashimi addiction? Or is it still on the nonononoNOO list for most people?

I've just gotten dinner ready and it's currently baking away in the oven, and so I thought I would share the recipe with everyone, since it's such a great recipe!
You can tell it's a Maltese recipe because it ticks all those good boxes-
1. You can make it with next to nothing
2. It's very quick, easy, and easy on the washing up
3. It's very filling and makes great left overs!

It's a chicken and rice dish, and while it's the kind of recipe that you can throw just about anything into and it works great, here is the basic recipe. It's sort of a non measuring recipe, so bear with me...

Ingredients-
Chicken (breast or thigh fillets, depending on your diet and taste! If you can get skin on thigh fillets, the skin comes out divine!)
Rice (any kind will do, arborio/risotto rice is nice).
Chicken stock- roughly 1/2 litre. You probably won't use it all, but it's handy to have.
Tomato Paste
Eggs
Cheese

Method-
Grease a deep baking tray and lay the chicken in it (skin face up if it has skin on).
Pour a thin layer or raw rice over the chicken and tray.
Mix a tablespoon or two of tomato paste into the chicken stock, and also 1-2 eggs (depending on size of dish).
Pour mixture over rice and chicken until just covered (roughly 2 parts liquid to one part rice). Keep any extra liquid mix.
Grate cheese over the top and put the dish in the oven at 180 degrees for about 45 minutes, and you're done!!
If it is starting to look too dry as it's cooking, you can always add a bit more stock mix, otherwise let it bake until the rice and chicken is cooked and it's all nice and golden all over.
It really is SOOO tasty!!
I've done this dish also with fresh tomato, tinned tomatos, sliced potato, zuchinni, ham, all sorts of things thrown in. I just love how there's next to no preperation, you just throw it together and bake it!

If anyone gives it a go, let me know what you think!