Laziness, Hemsworth Brothers, Expats, and Holgate

1. Dreamed. Julian McMahon has a beautiful nanny with long wavy red hair.  Meanwhile, I'm married and my husband and I have never had children. I suggest to my husband that we adopt the nanny even though she's an adult. He doesn't seem too enthusiastic about the idea.

I'm guessing Julian McMahon had a child, and he didn't hire a nanny to take care of himself. I don't think it was anything kinky like that.  I'm not sure how we knew about the nanny. I vaguely remember seeing her outside...maybe from our window?  We could have been neighbors, I suppose. I don't know if I was friendly with this nanny.  Or did I just see her from afar and want to adopt her?

2. Dreamed, I'm with people who talk about wanting a houseboat (maybe my parents). I learn of someone who wanted a houseboat in Cairns but then they realized it was too expensive.

3. Decided I'd be lazy enough to live on Hope Island from Reef Doctors. I mean I think I could be one of those people who leaves the island only for emergencies.

Because when we're at the lake house, I'm not interested in leaving. I like to just chill— inside the house and outside. I don't like going off to movies or shopping. I don't like going out to dinner. 

There are people in my family who are eager to go out and do stuff when we're at the lake house. I think they'd be the people who'd complain about being on an island. They'd get bored fast and want to go back to the mainland.

Also, in Halls Gap I was the same way. Well, I was totally fine leaving our vacation house. But I only wanted to take walks. I didn't want to get in a car and venture out. 

4. Wondered how I felt about traveling.

I like it, but I think I prefer to be lazy.

I think I'd be willing to give up traveling if I could live on an Australian island.  I'd travel for emergencies or to visit people. Although I would hope most people would come and visit us.  

5. Asked by Jack what city we're going to go to on our next trip to Australia. I told him I don't know yet, and I told him about my thing of listing and giving points to Australian towns and cities that call out to me.  

6. Confused because I imagined, on our next Australia trip, spending the whole time on a GBR island, and it didn't appeal to me. 

I also feel the same way about Halls Gap. I love it. I'd love to live there. But if we visited Australia, I wouldn't want to spend my whole vacation there.

So...If I live in Australia, I'm okay hardly ever leaving the one place where we live. But if I visit Australia, I wouldn't want to spend the whole time in one place.

How can that make sense?

7.  Decided it's just a war within between the two sides of myself—a) the adventurous woman who wants to see as much of the world as possible b) the lazy woman who just wants to sit on a porch in her nightclothes feeding birds.


What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there 
was life after death, and 
we could easily talk to our 
dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts 


8. Started to watch an episode of The Saddle Club.

9. Liked the episode of The Saddle Club more than other episodes.  It's about Lisa  (Lara Jean Marshall) getting the chance to choose an abused horse to be fostered. She ends up picking the most severe/hopeless case. I kind of admire that about her.

It's a three parter. I'm probably going to watch only one episode today, though. I want to get started with season thirty of Neighbours, and I want to finish watching my episode of Coronation Street.  I started watching a third one last night despite being tired. Then I realized it was one of those special forty-five minute episodes. But I need to watch it, because, from what I read in the description, Karl is going to make a confession about the fire!

10. Saw that Luke Hemsworth is a guest star in this episode of The Saddle Club. Yesterday I saw his brother on an episode.

Have I seen Luke Hemsworth yet?  There was a guy at the beginning? Was that him?  

11. Figured it was Hemsworth I saw in the beginning. I don't see any other male guest stars on the credit list.   

12. Went back to the beginning of the show and saw Luke Hemsworth. He looks very different!  He was a bit heavier back then.  

He looks shorter as well.

I see a resemblance to Luke Hemsworth, but I would imagine it's a brother and not him.

13. Got my brain back in order. I was thinking of LIAM Hemsworth. Duh.

So Luke IS a brother of who I was thinking about.

Now it all makes sense. Because I was confused. The guy on The Saddle Club doesn't look like a fatter version of the guy on The Hunger Games.  He still looks fit but differently shaped. Stocky, perhaps. 

14. Looked at the IMDb filmographies of Chris, Liam, and Luke Hemsworth.  Chris was the first one to get a credit on his filmography. He played King Arthur on two episodes of a show called Guinevere Jones.  One of the stars of the show was Damien Brodie who also guest-starred on season two of The Saddle Club.

15. Learned from IMdb that Luke is the oldest brother in the family. Or at least he's the eldest of the acting Hemsworth brothers. Liam is the youngest.  He's eight years younger than Chris. Wow. I wouldn't have expected that.  

16. Saw that Luke Hemsworth has four children under the age of six.  I imagine that might be exhausting sometimes. My sister has three under the age of six—a six-year-old, an almost-five-year-old, and an almost two-year-old.  It can get a bit intense at times.  Personally, I thought it was quite hard having ONE child that young.

17. Saw that, according to IMDb, Luke is the shortest of the Hemsworth actors. But he's five foot 9. That's still fairly tall. It's just Liam and Chris are over six feet.  

I'm actually impressed that I noticed that Luke was shorter. I'm not often good at judging height.  

18. Started watching season thirty of Neighbours! There's a new opening credits. No more picnic with someone throwing a ball into the Pavlova.

Actually, I'm not sure it was a Pavlova. I just assumed it was, since they're in Australia. I'm stereotyping.

And was it a ball? Maybe it was a frisbee? Do Australians play frisbee?

19. Decided to watch the old opening-credits.  

It's a ball—looks like a tennis one.  The dessert could be a cake or Pavlova?  It looks more like a cake to me, but it has strawberries and kiwi which calls out Pavlova to me.  

20. Went back to watching the new credits. 

21. Felt strange seeing Damien Richardson as Gary on Neighbours, because now I'm used to him being a detective on City Homicide.

22. Saw that Richardson is on season three of Wentworth!

23. Suspected that IMDb is causing the annoying squeaky noises on my computer. I was hearing it before when I was doing Hemsworth research. Then it stopped. Now it's started again.

24. Thought of Maisie Mouse when I read that Richardson has a daughter named Maisie.

25. Started watching another episode of Neighbours. It looks like Paul Robinson is in trouble. 

26. Saw a photo of a Frangipani flower on the Outback Rover Adventures Blog.  Frangipani reminds me of the song "Feel Like Going Back Home" from Bran Nue Dae.  It's not a random thing. There's a line in the song about the flower.  

27. Listened to the song. I haven't heard it in a long time. I love it.  It kind of makes me want to go to Broome. 

28. Started watching another episode of Neighbours.

29. Had lots of thoughts while reading Nikki's post about choosing between two schools, in South Africa, for her son. She chose a school that had a strong sports emphasis even though her son is not athletic. She said no to the school that was more academically focused even though her son is more the academic type.

I think I would have done things differently. I guess I believe more in working with people's strengths rather than trying to fix their weaknesses. Although I think the latter in small doses isn't a bad idea.

On the other hand, you never know if a person might end up having a strength or interest you never expected.

I disliked sports throughout most of my life, and it wasn't until I was an adult that I learned I'm not so awful at basketball.

Jack recently announced his favorite subject is history, and I've never gotten the idea that he had any ounce of interest in that.

30. Hoped Nikki's son was happy at his school. The post was written six years ago, so now that's all in the past.  I'm kind of actually in suspense now, but I'm not going to give into temptation to read ahead.  Though judging from the labels on her blog, I don't think they're still in South Africa.  It looks like they end up in Atlanta, Georgia. Tim lives there part-time now. Maybe he'll run into them. I'll tell him to look out for some Australians. Although with all that time being an expat, they might have lost some of their accent.

31. Wondered what it would be like to be an expat. My cousin is one. I don't know what's going to happen there. Will she and her family stay in Australia and become Australian eventually? Will they be like Nikki's family and live in various places around the world? Or will they come back to the US?

The kids have spent most of their childhood in Australia. The oldest got there around age four and and would now be about twelve. Maybe?  But then they spent a few years back in the US—One or two.  I'm not sure.

32. Remembered that my mother-in-law was an expat too. She lived in England as a child.  Or maybe it was during her teen years.

33. Wondered about a poster on the wall of Daniel's bar on Neighbours. It says something about America and Australia. The name of it is Holgate. And there's something about a road trip?

34. Found out that Holgate is an American-style beer brewed in Victoria, Australia. Interesting.

Or actually, I think the beer is called Road Trip and it's brewed at Holgate Brewhouse.

35. Went to the website of Holgate Brewhouse. It's located in Picnic at Hanging Rock Land.—Woodend, Victoria.

You can find their beer in many places around Australia, especially Victoria.

36. Liked Michelle's anti-positive thinking post.  She says,  Believing that life is 90% how you react to it is positive thinking gone mad. It also strikes me that it is a useful lie; useful that is for those who sit at the top of the pile and beyond cruel to those at the bottom, whose lives are weighed down by brutal realities that are completely out of their control.

I personally feel my attitude is shaped by reality more often than my reality is shaped by my attitude. That's not to say an upbeat attitude won't ever lighten a dark situation. But it won't make the darkness go completely away.

37. Thought about something else. People who have a positive attitude about their own dark situation? That's usually tolerable and sometimes admirable.  When they push the positive attitude on someone else's despair? Then that's shit.  Cheer up! It's not so bad. Think positively! Don't worry; be Happy. Think of how lucky you are. Everything will be fine. Don't be so negative. You worry too much. Chin up. 

That being said. I can probably plead guilty to sometimes raining on someone's pity parade.  I TRY not to do it, though, and I think I usually succeed at avoiding it.

Sometimes I might be two-faced about the whole thing—act sympathetic but be thinking in my mind Does she ever stop moaning and complaining?  

That's the thing, though. Positive thinking is annoying but so is extreme and/or constant negativity. And if you're too loud and energetic at your own pity party, you're not leaving room for anyone else to join in.

It's like Haley on Coronation Street. She's so upbeat despite being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. So everyone in town is showering her with excessive sympathy.  If she walked around depressed, moaning about how unfair it all is, her neighbours would probably try hard to avoid her.

38.  Started to watch another episode of Neighbours.

39. Wondered if Daniel and Imogen will end up getting together.  I like him better with her than Amber. But I don't really like Amber with Josh.

Maybe Amber would work well as a lesbian.

How about Amber and Naomi? That would be hot.

40. Worked on learning how to do screenshots on my computer. Because then maybe I can take pictures of the TV shows I watch, and include it in the post. For example, what if I want to mention a character's shirt or dress I like? Then I can screenshot it.

41. Managed to do a screenshot of Bailey(Calen Mackenzie). I'm just practicing here. I have nothing to say about Bailey or his clothes.


42. Found something to say about Bailey...or actually, Calen Mackenzie. When I was looking for the actor's name, I ended up learning he's left the show. That's sad. I like him. I'll miss him. Hopefully, he'll pop up on another one of my Aussie shows. Well...unless he's sick of acting.

43. Felt sad for Chris on Neighbours.  He wanted to be a mechanic and was on that road of life. Then he got a head injury, and now his hands no longer work as well.  I imagine it's really hard to be good at something, have career plans involving that skill, and then the skill is lost. Actually, the same thing happened to Georgia on the show. She was good at singing, but then had an operation for a throat tumor. The operation went wrong, and she lost her singing abilities.

44. Remembered that Georgia's career is in the medical field, not singing. But I think it was an important hobby to her? Or maybe she did make some money singing? I'm not sure.

Another example of someone losing their talent is in the book I'm reading now. A Fraction of the Whole.  Terry is a young sports star but then he gets a leg injury and has to find a new life path. Unfortunately, he chooses the criminal road.

45. Learned from Lord Wiki that Seth Rogan sang part of the Neighbours theme song for the Neighbors movie trailer.  I think it was for Australia only.