Project 365: Week 4

Is it really Week 4 of 2013 already? Week 4 is the end of the long summer holidays for most of us Australians. It's Australia Day on January 26th, a chance to celebrate our Australian-ess and have a long weekend. In our family, Australia Day is also Melissa (Mel) Birthday day! So it has been a week of gearing up to go back to school and work seriously and some quiet family celebration, sport on TV and awesome food. (The Chef was inspired this year).

In honour of our country's birthday: (Adapted courtesy of Adrift: I'd post a link to the original source if I could find it. I've had several versions of this in my facebook feed this week too). (If you are just looking for this week's photos, if you scroll down I promise there are photos too).
You know you’re Australian when…

1. You’re familiar with Neighbours, Home and Away, Playschool, A Country Practice, Norman Gunston, Barry Humphries, Blue Heelers, Ray Martin, Bert Newton, Lisa McCune, Jon Burgess, Number 96, Molly Meldrum, Kerry O’Brien, and of course, Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch.
2. You know that Burger King doesn’t exist. It’s Hungry Jacks.
3. You know that snow is a memorable and freakish occurrence. Sometimes it’s even fake.
4. You know the difference between thongs and a G-string.
5. You know that “stubbies” are either short shorts or small beer bottles, a “gimp”, “bogan” or “geezer” is a random idiot, someone in trouble is in “strife” and you’re liable to burst out laughing whenever you hear of Americans “rooting” for something.
6. You know how to abbreviate every word, all of which usually end in -o: arvo, combo, garbo, kero, lezzo, metho, milko, muso, rego, servo, smoko, speedo, righto etc.
7. You know that some people pronounce Australia like “Strayla” and that’s ok.
8. You know that there is a universal place called “woop woop” located in the middle of nowhere… no matter where you actually are.
9. You know that while we call our friends ‘mates’, we don’t use terms like ‘sheila’ and ‘shrimp on the barbie’, contrary to popular belief.
10. One word: Skippy.
11. You know our country has never been conquered by a foreign nation (you don’t count 1788).
12. You know that New Zealanders are basically our naive country cousins, who have a weird fush-and-chups accent and, for some bizare reason, think that they invented pavlova. They are to be pitied. They have no hope of gaining the upper hand in the endless sporting rivalry between our two nations.
13. You know that Americans think we’re all Steve Irwin clones. And crickey, they couldn’t be more wrong.
14. You have some time in your life slept with Aeroguard on in the summer. Maybe even as perfume.
15. You feel obliged to spread salty black stuff that looks like congealed motor oil on bread… and actually grow to like it. You’ve also squeeze Vegemite through Vita Wheats to make little Vegemite worms.
16. You believe that democracy means the freedom to draw caricatures of our prime-minster.
17. You have the ability to compress several words into one – ie ‘g’day’ and ‘d’reckn?’. This allows more space for profanities.
18. You’ve ever used the words – tops, ripper, sick, mad, rad, sweet – to mean good. And then you place ‘bloody’ in front of it when you REALLY mean it.
19. You know that the barbeque is a political arena; the person holding the tongs is always the boss and usually a man. And the women make the salad.
20. You say ‘no worries’ quite often, whether you realise it or not.
21. You know what fairy bread tastes like, and you can’t imagine your childhood without it.
22. You know the first verse to the national anthem, but still don’t know what “girt” means. And you’re ok with that.
23. You’ve drank your tea/coffee/milo through a Tim Tam.
24. You know that backyard cricket is a nice way to bond with family and the rubbish bin. And the ‘one bounce, one hand’ rule always applies.
25. You see people walking bare-foot on the footpath and don’t scorn…. because you’re doing it too.
26. You know that in summer a seat belt buckle becomes a pretty good branding iron.
27. You firmly believe that in the end, everything will be ok and have offered advice that included the words, “she’ll be right, mate”.
28. You’ve ordered a steak the size as your head and only paid $10 at your local RSL.
29. You know how to slip, slop, slap like it’s nobody’s business.
30. You know that the value of a public holiday is measured in terms of alchohol. God bless the Queen and her 4-day birthday.
31. You know Drop Bears exist. Positively.
32. You know Australia IS the best bloody place on earth. Bar none.

Day 22: Chewed dolly fingers. I did this when I was little and I wish to apologize for it now. Read more about what this hand is attached to here.

Day 23: Early morning sunshine in the corridor outside my office. Why am I at work at 7.40 am. Oh, that's right. It's a complicated tale of moving cars so they don't get parking fines 'cos someones off fighting fires again.

Day 24: My desk again. This is a demonstration of a little known mathematical law. The state of tidiness of my desk is inversely proportional to my productiveness. That's right. Nothing much is getting done here.

Day 25: This is a tennis photo. True. I finished the neckband of my jumper whilst watching Rodger Federer get beaten by Andy Murray in the semi finals of the Australian Open tennis. I have made an entire jumper since the beginning of January!

Day 26: Happy Birthday Australia and Happy Birthday Mel! This is a Lemon meringue cheesecake, a brand new Masterchef worthy invention by the head chef himself. It's all because of a text message mix up from the fire front.

Day 27: This is "snot block". This is a lovely affectionate name for Vanilla slice. Homemade by our resident chef. Passion-fruit icing

Day 28: Shopping! Escorting the birthday girl and her friend Louise to Fountain Gate to buy a camera as a birthday present.