a vegemite sandwich

I'm at my friend Jenny's house in Brisbane and it's been the perfect day. We have just been sitting around in the most gorgeous weather you can imagine - like 75-80 with no humidity, perfectly warm and a slight breeze, sunshiney and just amazing. And we've been catching up and laughing and sitting outside just enjoying one another's company. She has 4 girls, and two of them are home. Last time I was here with my kids in August 2006, one was in her tummy. So a friend's son was over here playing with the 3-year old and for lunch Jenny asked Alex what he wanted for lunch.

"A vegemite sandwich," he said. "With lettuce. And toe-mah-toe."

Sooo cute! And of course I'm thinking of the "vegemite sandwich" line in the old Men at Work song. Vegemite is purely disgusting, in my book!

I arrived here at 7am after an uneventful flight which was about half empty - so that meant I had 3 seats to stretch out and sleep in. I took a shuttle over to Jenny's and we've been hanging out. Her older girls are just getting home from school, and we're going to go get ice cream on the waterfront in a minute. They live in the suburb of Redcliffe and when Savannah first saw this place, she immediately said "I want to live here." Even though afterwards we went all over Australia, she still loved this place best. And Jenny thinks it's a wonderful place too. It is!

I had a great time in L.A. too. My friend Paige and Jenny both are such inspiring moms. Paige has 3 kids and 2 stepkids and both of them speak to their kids so calmly and it just blows me away. I need to plant that image in my mind. I'm sort of like a third of the time calm and a third of the time umm... not. ;) A third of the time a goofball. So that's me... and I have a new mantra which I got from my friend Kate at my Thursday coffee group: My Life is Perfect in Every Way.

Try it - it works amazingly well! Whenever a thought comes into my mind that I'm stressed or worried about something, or if I want something or wish for something I just say "My Life is Perfect in Every Way." It takes the mind off of worry or pining or anything but focusing on the present moment, and manifesting peace and joy!

In LA, Paige and I had a peaceful Saturday hanging out at her house, then on Sunday we attended the West Angeles Cathedral where a friend of mine had sung in the choir. It was really cool - I love the soul in the music. Then we went to Malibu to meet Dana, another friend, and went up to Topanga Canyon to watch the sun go down over the hills with the Pacific Ocean in view down the cliff. Wow! Then I went to the airport. One of the amazing things I love about my life is how often I get to visit my friends, who live all over the world, and who I never would be able to see if I didn't have this traveling bohemian adventurous life. My life is perfect in every way! I do love it.

One thing I'm totally stoked about is that after the shark diving trip is over, I'm going to visit the place that literally transformed my life: Warrawee aka the School for Field Studies Center for Rainforest Studies on Queensland's Atherton Tableland, which is about 1 hour inland from the city of Cairns. I did a 3-month study abroad program there when I was a junior in college and fell in love with wildlife ecology, with science, with research. It changed my life in other ways as well, of a personal nature - it was a very life-changing time. I loved Australia so much then that I didn't want to return home - so I didn't. I stayed in Australia traveling and working for another 2 months and that is where I met Jenny as well as my friend Karine who is coming to visit and hang out with us here tomorrow.

So after my shark diving trip, I am going to return to Warrawee and give a talk to the current students about my career as a writer and how the experience influenced me. It will be so cool to see how it's changed, and to experience it all again. I do love my life and all the amazing people I am blessed to know, and get to visit and all the warmth and love and generosity and kindness I experience. It makes the few harsh things I hear so irrelevant and petty as to be like mosquito bites. Usually anyway!