He said he's seeing someone new

[Ophelia]

Thanks for the encouragement, Walkingback.

When H and I first met, we were 18. So those 10 years we spent together were during the time when you're really defining who you are. As such, it's hard for me to see myself as being separate from H. We did a lot of growing up together, so I see who I am as being intrinsically linked to him. I've never lived on my own. Never been truely independent emotionally or financially or anything like that.

I have actually been having a fair amount of good days lately, it's just that on a regular basis he still pops into my head. Weekends are the worst, because I figure that he's probably spending every moment from Friday night til Sunday night with OW. I was having a pretty good night on Friday, kicking back and watching some Better Homes and Gardens, and doing some painting, then outta nowhere I all of a sudden wondered what H was doing, figured he was probably with OW, and it got me down.

I've started clearing this weed patch out the back of our place. It's actually separated from our backyard by a low, chainlink fence, but as far as I know it's still our property because the council never comes to tend to it or anything. If we owned this place, I would have wanted to invest some money into landscaping it properly, but instead it's just gotten overgrown with grass and weeds and bamboo and it looks horrible. I've always wanted to at least go and rip it all out by hand and mulch the whole area to try and stop all the weeds growing back. H always thought it would be a pointless exercise. So I've decided to make it my mission to get the whole thing done, no matter how long it takes, (and it's gonna take a while). The past week I've gone out there a few times to start ripping it all out. Let me tell you, bamboo has a seriously vicious root system. They're thick and tough and long and a bitch to pull out. Very satisfying when you do actually manage to completely rip one out though.

I tried this technique for printing photos onto fabric last week. I'm hoping that if I can figure it out that I'll be able to print out some of my abstract photos (here's an example) and turn them into bags which I could then try selling on ebay, or maybe get a stall at the markets, (a friend and I had a market stall years back and it ended up being a momumental waste of time and money, so I'm a bit wary of that option but it would get me out of the house and keep me busy on weekends). I've got a little sketch of how I might do the beaded strap on the bags, and I've looked into getting prices for materials. It's just a matter of mastering the art of printing my photos onto the fabric. First try didn't work so well so I'll have to figure out where I went wrong and give it another go.

I'm gonna call up my friends who hosted the Australia Day BBQ and see if the W wants to come over for lunch one day. They've still got the bowl I made the potato salad in for the BBQ, and we just left it that I'd go over there or she'd come over here for lunch one day and we'd do the bowl exchange then. She's always at home with their new baby these days, so I thought I'd invite her over for lunch so she can get out of the house.

Next Friday should be good. That's the night I'm going to see CATS with my best friend.

I plan on making a mango cheesecake this week sometime. My best friend and I will be able to hoe into it and wash it down with several glasses of wine when she comes over on Friday. Never made one before, but there's a mango tree in our yard and I picked close to a hundred of them over the last few months, so I've got all this frozen mango pulp to use up, and I found the cheesecake recipe and decided it sounded quite yum!

I've started cooking proper dinners for myself recently. For a while before H left, I'd gotten into cooking new things every week for dinner. Started collecting cooking mags so I could always try something different. Haven't done any of that since H left though. There just doesn't seem like much point when it's just me, and there's no point in buying all the different ingredients when most of it will go to waste. Wouldn't mind making a nice curry or something for example, but even the smallest tub of yoghurt I could buy is still 4 times too much for what I'd need and I wouldn't get around to using the rest before it goes off. I actually thought how great it'd be if someone sold stuff like that in single serves. Like, you could go and buy a few tablespoons full of this, and so many grams of that and half a red onion and 1 spring onion, (everywhere just sells them in massive bunches), 1/8 of a bunch of spinach....just enough for making enough for one person without there having to be a whole lot of waste. Anyway, I have started doing some more involved things for dinner lately. Made myself a little beef casserole from scratch the other night, stuff like that. Nothing hugely fancy, but still going to a little bit of effort to make myself something nice for dinner now and then. Of course, there are also still nights when I couldn't be bothered and just throw a frozen pizza in the oven.

Oh, and one last thing, I am seeing my family on a regular basis. Go to my parents' place for dinner once a week and my brother and/or sister are usually there as well. Am considering asking the in laws if they want to come over for lunch sometime because I haven't seen MIL in nearly a month and it's been even longer since I saw FIL. Also considering asking one of my SIL if she and one of my little nephews would like to come over. She and her H are the only B/SIL I've actually seen and spoken to since H left, (at a book launch MIL had organised, I ended up crying in the loos for 10 minutes and when I came out with my bloodshot eyes, SIL made me feel better). She said to let her know if I wanted her and my nephew to come over sometime to visit, and I'd like to take her up on that if she's still up for it, (it was a couple months back that I saw them).