#FAIL

Sure, there might still be 4 days left of the Top 30 Countdown challenge, but I’m calling this one early.

I will NOT be completing challenge number 16, ‘Court-side tickets at Madison Square Garden‘.

A win, a sin, and a guilt trip from Gandhi

This morning when I woke up I was greeted by an email informing me that I’d won the lottery.

imma take your grandpa’s style

Commenting on my recent review of ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre‘, my Dad mentioned that his own father bore some resemblance to the ever-dapper Humphrey Bogart.

I thought I’d put it to all of you and see what you think…

Riding the coattails of happiness

I’ve got several movies lined up waiting to be reviewed and today is the first chance I’ve had to blog in a while… but before I get stuck into another whinge about gangsters, I thought I’d write about something a little closer to my heart… Something that has become glaringly apparent to me since starting this Top 30 Challenge blog and journey.

Oh yes, I used the word “journey”. You can blame it on all that reality TV I’ve been inhaling since completing my ‘No TV Challenge‘.

My Top 30 Inspirational Friends and Family (21-30)

After spending yesterday and the day before explaining why I find the first twenty contributors to the Top 30 Challenge list so inspiring, it would be remiss of me not to go on and do the same for the final ten people!

Here are the 21st-30th friends and family who responded to my call to action (ranked in order of the fastest to respond):

My Top 30 Inspirational Friends and Family (11-20)

After yesterday’s post about my inspirational friends and family, it’s time to talk about a few more. As you know well by now, when I started this ‘Top 30 Challenge’, I explained that I did not set these challenges for myself. Instead I went to “30 of my most inspirational friends and family” and asked them to do the challenging instead!

Here are the 11th-20th friends and family who responded to my call to action (ranked in order of the fastest to respond):

Caught on tape!

Ok, so nobody uses tapes anymore… but I’m pretty sure I’ll be caught on a few digital recording devices when I appear on ‘The Price is Right’ at 5pm on Channel 7 tomorrow afternoon!

You will also catch my sister, looking suitably ridiculous in her matching tiara – fair punishment for sending me up there to my certain embarrassment!

From glass-half-empty to cup runneth over: How to get your fill of life

As many of you already know, I was made an orphan 3 months ago.

No, no my parents didn’t die or anything like that. Despite my Dad having a red-hot go at it for a while there, he tore himself away from the brink to jet off to Europe for a 3 month holiday with my mother, leaving my siblings and I to fend for ourselves for the longest consecutive period ever, and leaving me to run the family business.

Consequently, I’ve become rather busy… to the point where I’ve started to question whether this Top 30 List was really such a great idea…

Hey Jude

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of Sundays sewing. It’s a great way to feel creative, although I must confess that I don’t always come up with the ideas myself.

Today, for example, witnessed a collaboration between my friend Corey and I, resulting in this darling little “nautical-but-nice” number for brand-spanking new baby Jude.

Because even newborns should feel like they live in the Hamptons

Those who know Corey and I will also know that we never collaborate on anything (except for Simpsons quotes and a capella versions of nineties pop anthems), so this is proof positive that babies bring people closer together. In this case, they bring people with style (like Corey) together with people with time on their hands and a mild obsession with babies (like me).

If you want to be me, be me.

All my life I have been teased for being an overachiever.

It’s not that I’m some kind of genius… or even particularly good at anything really. I did well at school and I’ve done well at work since, but I was never THE smartest, THE fastest, THE prettiest, THE funniest or THE best at anything at all. Yesterday I mentioned some of the many prizes I’ve won in competitions. What you’ll quickly notice is that none of those prizes were for awarded for talent (unless you consider being the fastest to dial through to a radio station a “talent”). Sure, I’ve got a ream of 90 GSM mottled pink paper with “Principal’s Award” plastered on each sheet, but in sports I’ve never won anything more than a trophy for participation, and in academia I’ve never won more than those delightful paper certificates (which were handed out with reckless abandon at our school).

Actually, there was that one time at uni that I won a CASH PRIZE for an essay I wrote on disability discrimination… but I suspect that had more to do with the fact that I was the only person in the class who dared to go outside the set reading and write about something other than sex or sexuality-based discrimination. I bought a gold watch with the prize money, which just goes to show how horribly deprived I have been of recognition for my limited achievements.

My point is that I find it funny that over the years people have looked at me and said “She has something I wish I had”. There’s absolutely no basis for that claim and I’ll tell you why…