An open letter to Burwood Westfield

Dear Burwood Westfield management, their web team and the nice girl who orders your stationery,

This morning when I woke up, I thought I would pop along to your establishment and spend some money at Target.

I thought I’d go there early, before getting on with the rest of my Sunday. Of which, there was a lot of Sunday to get through, thankyouverymuch.

And because, as a general rule, shopping centres in November/December should be avoided after 11.00am on weekends.

And because of this information on your website:

I drove in at 8.57am, got a good parking spot and headed towards Target.

Only to find Target wasn’t anywhere near opening. Not even the internal lights at Target were on.

So I did some laps of the shopping centre, got a start on my grocery shopping (though I prefer my Woollies at Marrickville Metro, thanks). Walked past Target numerous times (9.12am, 9.34am and 9.51am—to be precise) AND THE STORE STILL WASN’T OPEN.

I even tried shopping at K-Mart, but we all know it doesn’t quite cut it compared to Target. BUT AT LEAST K-MART WAS OPEN AT THE CORRECT TIME.

Ahem.

Also, your stupid 2-hour free parking (who are you? Bondi Westfield? Jeebus) meant I was moments from having to actually pay for my parking because I TRUST THE INFORMATION YOU HAVE ON YOUR WEB SITE.

So please fix the info on your damn web site, or hang some shit on Target. That’s what happens at Eastgardens Westfield when stores open more than 5 minutes late.

I was so distressed by this interruption to my planned schedule, that spent almost $200 at Target. And bought a coke from the vending machine near the parking ticket machine. Can I send you the receipts for reimbursement?

Kthnxbai.

I found my wedding dress

No, I’m not turning this into a permanent bridezilla blog.

But you’d be forgiven for thinking such.

But my brain is fried with dealing with life atm.

I miss you.

But really, I did find my wedding dress:

A no-brainer

I probably haven’t mentioned this before, but I love Momversation. Apart from seeing some of my favourite bloggers in video form, the topics and resulting conversations are interesting. I even find the “mommy” topics interesting, when I haven’t even got offspring yet.

This Momversation was posted a couple of weeks ago:

And given my current pre-wedding state, this really struck a chord with me.

This is a topic that has come up over the years with me and Dan. My surname will end if I get married and change it; there are no more boys on my dad’s side of the family to carry on the Kane family name. Same thing happened with my mum when she married Dad.

I feel a connection to my surname given I lost my Dad when I was 8. And Pop, Dad’s dad, was a Senator involved in the creation of the Democratic Labor Party. I’m proud of my Kane heritage and proud of what Dad and Pop did in their lifetimes.

Dan had even said years ago that he would consider changing his surname to Kane if we got married.

That said, now that we’re engaged, I’m planning to take Dan’s surname when we get married.

For me, the last eight years with Dan has been my transition from being a sheltered, wide-eyed, innocent and gutless victim of my own life. The person I was before is unrecognisable to the person I am now. Not to say that I’m done with my transformation – because there is still SO much of me that needs repairing.

But there have been steps in recent years that I see as real progress in reclaiming “me”. Starting and completing a TAFE course. My 2007 UK Christmas holiday. Starting to take better care of my health. Stepping away from friendships that caused more harm than good. Starting my own business. And getting engaged.

“Me” is evolving. And I see that changing my surname is a continuation of that evolution. Accepting my past for what it was, how it got me to where I am and how it got me to this point where I’m ready to make a life-long commitment to my future husband.