Day 108 – Choosing Colours (updated)

Welcome to day 108!

The bathroom renovation hunt for fixtures, and fittings continued.  Yesterday, we (husband and I) had selected a couple of tile combinations – feature tile, floor tile and standard tile.  The aim was to leave it overnight to mull around in our minds.  Independently, while we both loved the natural slate charcoal for a feature wall, we both decided the colour wouldn’t work in the space we were planning to use it for.  The bathroom’s not big enough.

Eventually, something we thought was going to be quick turned out to take longer than expected.  Only to come back to the original tile selection! 

Next were the vanity and the shaving cabinet’s turn for selection.  The plan is to reuse the existing sink, but the benchtop and cabinets will need to get replaced because of the space it’s going in to.  At first, the plan was to use Ikea to provide us with the products.  Like Goldilocks and her three bears the Ikea products were either too big or too small for the space.  We settled on a brochure and decided the decision didn’t need to be made at that moment.

The other thing on my mind today was my AFL football team.  They lost and for a few moments following the game yesterday, I felt bummed.  The whole choosing tile colours got me thinking about choosing a team to fan for. 

In 2005 on the ski fields of Perisher (New South Wales, Australia), if it hadn’t been for a white out, I would never have met my husband.  A white out is when small snow falls without all the hype of a blizzard, storm or wind.  It’s like a dark heavy drizzly day but with snow instead of drizzle.  These conditions make it hard to see, increases the chance of injury and makes it difficult for rescue teams to find anyone if they happen to get lost on the mountain. 

Other things happen in these conditions is the amount of runs skiers can ski is reduced to the ones with the best visibility, usually on the lee side.   With the weather being considered icky by most people, the runs are sparsely populated which means perfect skiing conditions for die hard skiers or those with limited time to get any skiing in.  This is when I met the man I’m married to today. 🥰

There was one thing going against the relationship he was from Melbourne, Victoria and by the time I’d moved to Brisbane, Queensland. This meant a long-distance relationship and, being a former New South Welshman, the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne did not go unmentioned .  You see, in Victoria and the southern parts or southern states Australian Rules Football (AFL) is the sport du-lifetime.  In New South Wales, you could walk around and not have a Rugby League team and you would have been fine. 

Why is this a problem?  It’s a problem because the two sports are played at the same time of year at roughly the same times, therefore competing for the same advertising space on television broadcasts.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, it’s a false dichotomy.  Of course, you can barrack for a rugby league team and an AFL team.  In fact, many Victorians are sports enthusiasts.  With cold weather at that time of year, there’s not much else to do – yes it was a friendly jibe!

In the second year of our relationship, it was becoming clear we wanted to spend more time with each other.  This meant tackling the hard question of who would move where.  I’d always wanted to spend some time in Melbourne and was regularly voted as the most “liveable” city.  It was decided, I would move to Melbourne for a trial period.  Once the location was decided but prior to my move, my husband (husband-to-be hereinafter referred to as “husband”) solemnly mentioned there was a difficult choice ahead of me. 

Obviously, it was a serious decision he was so sombre, I braced myself for the really tough question.  He said, I would need to pick an AFL football team.  Really?  That’s not a tough decision! Is it?  Do I have to make a decision at all?  The answer was, of course I didn’t have to make a decision, but my life would be easier if when asked about my team, there was a response.  The response would mean people left you alone from people trying to persuade you to have a team.

Choosing a side in a sport I hadn’t paid any attention to understand wasn’t really as easy as I thought.  Turns out the AFL team is kind of like the Myers-Briggs or DISC personality tests and if you declare your team, people associate you with a particular type of personality.  Didn’t learn this until a few years into committing.  Discussing the selection process, I went through is a post for another day.

In the end, I selected a team and the universe wanted me to at least watch a game as I’d been given a couple of tickets to watch my husband’s AFL team.  The rules are simple, and it seemed very like basketball – which I love!  Now 15 years later, AFL is on more because of me than my husband.  Might discuss this investment tomorrow.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!