Where has the time gone?  New Years Eve flew by us, so did January and February and we’ve already hit March!  Although the very beginning of the year always feels good.  The feeling of starting something new.  Start fresh, free of mistakes….thus far.  Everyone makes new years resolutions, I make the same one every year and never really stick to it.  It’s a nice idea at the time.  But let’s have a reality check.  What are you actually going to do this year?

Being a January baby, another year has passed me by and I’m a little older, a little wiser, and I realise that my resolutions need to be a plan in action this time around.  I’m too old to be a kid and old enough to say to myself, “stop mucking around kid, this is grown up stuff now”  (pun intended.)  I’m not going to bore you with the details or perhaps I should tell you what they are so I can be accountable.  I will give you one tip though….Be yourself!  Just be!  Live in the moment, be grateful for what you have around you and the people you have in your life, and don’t forget to breathe.  And be sure to add a dash of fun.

You can be awesome, be serious, be dedicated but I promise you if you just ‘be’, the rest will come naturally, and if you don’t succeed at first, try, try, try again because you have infinite chances.  Trust me, there’s nothing better to do than be the true you.  With the new month of March today and the turning of the season from summer to autumn, will you too turn a new leaf or have you been good this year up until now?

Have you still kept your new years resolution ’til now? (*note to self, blog more!!!!!!)

All rights reserved © This is Roshambo
Words & Photography by: Diane Kitanoski for This is Roshambo
Title: “Let it be” by The Beatles

You will listen precisely to each word

Here’s a tip I worked out today to make washing the dishes not feel like such a chore. Why am I washing the dishes you ask, instead of putting them in the dishwasher? Don’t have one. Renovating. Oh, and that means no hot water at he moment either. Old school, boiling water in a pot on the stove. Correct, no electric kettle either. Much of a muchness. Back to the point…..come back to the year 2016 and plug your headphones into your iphone/ipod, escape, and listen to a brand new album (or an old one you’ve never listened to before.) Your wet soapy hands don’t allow you to skip tracks too easily, and besides that, you’re too busy critiquing the album in your head to realise that you’re doing a menial task. You could end up choosing of a cracker of an album that inspires you to do something creative…….like write up a new blog story, that’s the flipside.

Thank you Moloko!

 

Words / Illustration: Diane Kitanoski for This is Roshambo
Title: “You will listen precisely to each word” from “The Flipside – Moloko”

When I was six my neighbour, and best friend, Suzy showed me how to make coffee, and it went a little something like this…. 1 teaspoon of coffee, 1 teaspoon of sugar, run the tap until the water becomes as hot as possible, fill the cup and stir.  Genius!  Good idea, not great coffee.  Plus, I was only 6.  My grandmother told me that if I drank coffee, I’d end up growing a tail.

The next progression in the coffee chain was mocha.  My god-sister, also named Suzy, introduced me to this one.  Half a teaspoon of milo, half a teaspoon of coffee, a touch of water and stir like crazy.  Boil the water, (yes we were allowed to use the kettle by now), pour into the cup and add a touch of milk.  I don’t know if we actually liked the taste of it or whether we were more intrigued by the process of making it.   Just remember folks, this was the 80’s, no foxtel, no ipads, just channel 7, 9, 10, ABC & SBS.  Yep! (Oops, did I just give my age away?)

It must have been the novelty of coffee that made me drink it as a kid, because as I got older I didn’t drink it at all.  I just didn’t like it.  In my early 20’s everyone was “catching up for a coffee.”  I felt like I was missing out.  So I went out on a coffee date.  What do I order, a cappuccino, latte, short black, long mach… a half double decaffeinated half-caf, with a twist of lemon?   Aargh!! I still didn’t like coffee and I didn’t like the guy anymore after that.  Let’s just say I liked coffee better than him.

I thought I’d give the coffee game another crack in my early 30’s, so I went back to the good old mocha….but with real, melted chocolate, oh divine…..and fattening!  One of the guys in my office said, “I’m going to grab a coffee, want one?”
I said, “Yeah, , I’ll have a mocha please.”
He said, “How old are you, 16?”
I said, “Sort of…….double that.”

But the answer to your question, yes, I started drinking coffee.  Slowly I moved on to ‘just coffee’, but then the milk I had would change.  I went from full cream to skinny to soy to coconut to spelt to almond.  Why?  “Cut out all dairy out of your diet,” my Naturopath said….”Kill me,” I said.  The trick now was finding a barista that could make an almond milk latte that didn’t taste like dirt water.  I finally found coffee heaven, down the street at one of my local cafe’s.  The hell of it is that I can’t drink coffee anywhere else because, well basically, it’s crap everywhere else!  My coffee addiction has become a cafe addiction.

Not a bad one to have if you ask me.

Meet me at the coffee shop, we can dance like Iggy Pop!

*Please note: Every now and then I make an exception and drink a small cup of Turkish coffee so an aunt or a family friend can “read”  my cup and lie to me about my future.

 

Photography & words: Diane Kitanoski for www.thisisroshambo.com 50 Anderson St, Yarraville.
Title: “Coffee shop” – Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Best coffee in town coming to you live from  “Wee Jeanie” cafe   50 Anderson St, Yarraville.
All rights reserved © This is Roshambo