Weekend woes and wins

It's been hot and humid all weekend. I've got a lurgi that comes with a sore throat, headache, shakiness and mild nausea - every time I try and do anything other than sit on the lounge I end up a gasping, sweaty, can't stand unsupported mess. We've gone nowhere and done nothing except housework and I had to argue with David to convince him to watch Blade Runner with me. It's doing my head in I tell you! And my sore throat is putting paid to any serious singing practice.

On the other hand, my dog is cuddly and cute, the air-con works, my kids and husband bring me hot and cold drinks when I ask them to. I had lots of dvds to watch and all the clean clothes got folded as I sat on the lounge watching the end of season 6 of Lost. Don't ask, it was a can't look away from the train wreck thing, Adam kept having to leave the room in order to protect the TV.

The reason I was forcing David to watch Blade Runner is that he has to pick a sci-fi movie to prepare a presentation on for English. Of course all he's thinking of is "PRESENTATION  - ARRGH! Run for the hills!" I, meanwhile, am thinking "Cool! English assignments are so much better than when I was at school. Let's watch ALL THE MOVIES!" So, 10 Mum points for enthusiasm, not so many for practicalities. I think we'll watch Serenity next. What? Isn't that what kids are for, to project one's own obsessions on and live vicariously through?

I had planned to cook shepherd's pie tonight. I was lacking enthusiasm for the idea until I pulled up my recipe post from a couple of years ago, now I reckon I might be sufficiently motivated by the prospect of evoking another burst of praise from Tom:

"Smashed potato! Ooo, I LOVE smashed potato! Mum, that's just the way I remember you making shepherds pie. I LOVE your shepherds pie, it's the BEST!"

"You do know it tastes different every time I make it 'cause I don't use a recipe, don't you?"

"Yes, that's what I like best about it, you never know what you're going to get!"

I'll report back if there's a good response tonight!

The penultimate post - NaBloPoMo as therapy

This posting every day business is hard. I hesitated to sign up for NaBloPoMo this year because I haven't been terribly well in the mental health department lately. I'm on anti-depressants and they are helping but I still feel quite fragile and don't have as many spoons as I'd like to spread around. When I'm down I tend not to post as much, my commenting on other people's blogs dries up and eventually my tweet rate slows as well (that's the last to go, 140 characters I can usually manage). I also stop reading books.

Back in August I set myself a goal of posting a decluttering story every day in the hope that it would a) get the house cleaned up and b) bootstrap me out of the depression by forcing me to engage online. A fake it till you make it ploy. The house did get a bit more organised and I did post most days in August, but in September and October with 3 and 6 posts respectively I was right back to hibernating again. The things I had hoped we'd achieve by the end of September are almost all done, a mere 2 months late, but the house doesn't look even a little bit tidy. Moving rooms full of stuff around creates chaos, I'm going to have to start the decluttering and tidying process all over again once we have everything settled in place.

I rather suspect that without the impetus of NaBloPoMo I'd not have been engaging with people online very much at all this last month, it's been a difficult time even without the depression. I'm glad that I was motivated to post about my visiting my Grandma and saying goodbye to her and that I was able to share the story of her life. I've enjoyed looking through old photos and I've even written a few posts that I'm quite proud of: my thoughts on turning 40, the one about swimming and my sentimental tea post.

I love being part of the little corner of the blogging and tweeting community that I've settled in, that there are so many people out there who are full of love and acceptance and caring for others, with whom I can share stupid geeky jokes and from whom I can learn so much and who are so supportive and understanding. It takes a certain amount of effort to reach out and engage and sometimes I don't feel able to do that, but the benefit I get from making that effort is huge. So I'm glad I drove myself to do it this month, even though I didn't feel like it, thank you NaBoPoMo for not letting me give up and an even bigger thank you to everyone who has read my posts, left a comment or chatted with me on Twitter - you're all awesome.

Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to keep myself going through December...

50 Things post No. 45

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

It's been a while since I did a Friday Fragments post and I've missed them! So here I am back again with the bits and pieces that have been rattling around in my head just waiting to be thrown together in a tossed thought salad and shared with all you lovely bloggy people out there.

I was pulled up at lights behind a cement mixer one morning and found myself reading a sign on the back of the truck that began like this:

"Attention Please!

Our drivers are instructed to leave the site immediately if they are subjected to verbal abuse or physically threatened in any way."

It makes me really sad that people have to work in environments that make a company feel it necessary to adopt something like that as an official policy.

On Wednesday I went out for dinner with friends I met when I joined a local mothers group after Tom was born. It was quite a large group to begin with but over time it settled down into a group of four of us who still occasionally get together. Very occasionally now as one of us went and moved to Italy! Anyway, Cathy was here in Sydney for a holiday and we seized the moment. I went to pick Cathy and Malyn up from Malyn's house. I was wearing a red t-shirt, Cathy came to the door wearing a red top too (identical shade even), I laughed and said "We match!" Then Malyn came to the door wearing, go on, guess...a red t-shirt. When we met up with Romaine at the restaurant she protested "Why didn't anyone tell me we were wearing red?"

We had a scrumptious Thai meal and talked till we got chucked out of the restaurant. I do not see these people nearly often enough and I completely failed to get a photo :-(

I blame the photo forgetfulness on the ear infection. I blame the ear infection on the weather but I'm counting my lucky stars because for once I did not get the ear infection whilst on a dark ages camping trip. No, this time it waited till we came home from the trip.

The trip in question being Beorgwic, which was wet and awesome as usual. Deb and I taught a glass bead making workshop, Adam helped out with the blacksmithing workshops, the kids played with fire all weekend and we ate and drank and talked and had a fabulous time.

Clara came too this year and had an absolute ball bolting all over the camp with her new bestest friend ever, a cattle dog named Ohana. When she wasn't bolting all over the camp and stealing people's breakfasts she was hiding in the tent from all that horrible wet stuff that kept falling from the sky.

"I'm not moving till you make the rain go away."

There's currently a very large huntsman spider living in my bedroom, probably behind the bookshelves. I know this because when my ear woke me in excruciating agony at 3am a few nights ago I saw it crawling across the ceiling towards me. I poked Adam and pointed at the spider. He rolled over and mumbled "kill it?" Now, I do not condone the killing of innocent arachnids and this one had not yet trespassed beyond the point of no return (ie, it wasn't actually in bed with us) so I considered the disruption to sleep that would be involved in trying to catch it and put it outside and decided that if I hadn't been woken by my ear I'd never have known it was there and that therefore the logical thing to do was turn off the light, close my eyes and pretend it wasn't happening. So I did. Well, I turned off the light and watched in the glow of the clock radio as it continued across the ceiling. I held my breath for a while then breathed again as it veered off to the left and went behind the bookshelf. THEN I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. I presume it's still in there somewhere.

In the morning I described the spider on Facebook as being a little smaller than my hand, Adam commented to assure me that it had in fact been somewhat larger than that. He's so helpful.

Caitlin's bedroom is all done aside from getting the new built-in wardrobe installed.

I actually got a bit dressed up to go out for Caitlin's 12th birthday party, we took 5 of her friends to teppanyaki for dinner. Then brought them back for pinata bashing, ice-cream cake eating and general running around like a bunch of 12 year olds hyped up on sugar before they settled down to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. Which they seemed to rather like. My work here is done, mwhahahahahahahahahaaaaa *ahem*

Outfit of the DayWeekMonth?

Dress and cardi - Sara

Tights - We Love Colors

Shoes - Colorado

Necklace - Made by Mim :-) 

And last but not least, the Fuckh8 campaign video (NSFW!)


FCKH8.com Straight Talk About Gay Marriage from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.

Now, off you go to visit Mrs 4444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time to check out all the other Friday Fragments posts!

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Friday fragment flit and flutter around in one's fogged up fancy, frustrating one's faculties and forcing a foundering of fullfilling fought thought! Sorry. All that alliteration almost absconded with my ability to articulate accurately. Ahem. I'll stop there and offload some of these pesky flittering fragments shall I?

Don't forget to visit other Friday Fragmenters via the blog hop links below!

*****

Cystitis sucks. 
It's also the reason there was no decluttering pics yesterday. I got home from canteen duty at the high school, went to the loo, thought "uh oh, that doesn't feel good" and within the hour was in agony. I dragged myself up to the shops for cranberry juice and Ural, and fortunately I had a stash of antibiotics in the medicine box from the last round of misery. So, although I spent Thursday afternoon and evening curled on the lounge feeling sorry for myself, by this morning I was well enough to head off for work. What a waste of half a day.

*****

So does bullying.
I'd just come home from picking Caitlin and Tom up from school on the way home from work today when I got an SMS from Dave saying simply "Can you pick me up?" It was still a good 15 minutes till his bus was due so I was a little surprised and concerned. I SMSed back "Yeah ok. Why?" and then rang him. He clearly didn't want to tell me over the phone why he wanted to be picked up but I guessed it might have been a problem with some other kids so I didn't press him and agreed to come get him. When he got in the car I asked "Want to tell me why I'm here?" Apparently he'd had some unpleasant interactions with a few kids in his class earlier in the week and had overheard them talking about catching the same bus as him this afternoon (they don't usually, but wanted to go somewhere that's on its route). He won't tell me what they said or did and doesn't want me to do anything about it but clearly it's been bad enough that he didn't feel able to cope with being on the same bus as them. Life is just really not fair sometimes.

*****

Tom wants to buy a Thermomix
I took the kids with me to a Thermomix demo tonight at Di and Bren's place. It's a pretty cool piece of equipment, but at almost $2000.00 I think I'll give it a miss. Tom got to help with cooking the last course of the 6 course demo - a custard. He was very taken with it and assured me that it would make cooking a lot easier, he even offered to donate the contents of his bank account towards the purchase price. I'll confess to being tempted by the vision of Tom doing all the cooking for the family in the Thermomix but I suspect the novelty would wear off all too soon.

*****

I've missed 2 days of decluttering
See, I was having such a nice time sitting around talking to friends tonight, and my kids were being so perfectly behaved, that I ended up leaving to come home at least an hour later than I had intended. So when I got home I had to choose between doing a quick declutter and writing a Friday Fragments post. I think I got my priorities right, don't you?

Asking for help

This morning I went with my Mum to see the counsellor that she'd seen a few times when things had got a bit too much after she and my Dad parted company. We made the appointment a couple of months ago at a point when I was feeling very concerned about David, worried about my dad and Adam's mum and had begun to feel very much like I had when Tom was very young and Adam had been traveling every second week and I had ended up on anti-depressants for a while.

I'm a little less immediately worried about David at the moment, but everything else is pretty much unchanged and my mood has truly sucked of late. I've felt stuck. Unreasonably teary. Easily angered. Disconnected. Unable to cope with stresses that I would normally take in my stride. I look at my life and think "My life? It's pretty damn good really. So why do I feel so fucking awful?!" I don't think I've been much fun to live with recently, either for Adam or the kids. I do a lot of apologising for my state of mind. Definitely time to ask for some help.

So I came away from the appointment this morning with a recommendation for someone to take David to see for help with his anxiety, a whole bunch of useful ideas for managing Adam's mum's alcoholism and dementia issues, a request for a nice long list of blood tests for myself to take along to the pathologist, a script for the same anti-depressants that I'd had before (and had done the trick before) and a further appointment for myself with another psychiatrist in the same practice. (Sadly I can't keep seeing Mum's doctor, who was OMG just wonderful, because she's winding down her private practice.)

Mum and I then went to Open Day at the school. We were too late to see Tom playing his flute in the band because we went over-time at the doctor's but we saw Caitlin in the Senior Dance group and in the Choir. Classrooms were visited, lunch was eaten, library books were donated. Then, because we also hadn't had time on the way back from the doctor's to drop by my house for me to pick up my car, and Mum had left early to meet up with friends, the kids and I walked home in the sunshine. Which was nice.

Tonight I cooked a rather awesome even-if-I-do-say-so-myself Thai red chicken curry for dinner and Adam asked if I wanted to open a bottle of wine. One of the reasons I don't usually drink during the week is that when I'm tired all it takes is a glass or two to leave me feeling very woozy indeed and once that happens you can kiss goodbye any hope of me doing anything useful. So I felt I needed some outside input into the decision making process:

My tweeps are enablers:

I forgot to take a before picture, and I'd like to point out that Adam helped with the cellar decluttering, here's the almost after pic:

While I was finishing off that particular decluttering task Adam was downstairs helping Caitlin clean up her room. There are no before pics of that either so it may not be obvious from these shots that anything was achieved at all. But perhaps if I tell you I haven't actually seen that carpet in many weeks you'll have some idea.

Tomorrow, vacuuming!

Good things

It was a little scary how much of this I ate before thinking "Hmmm, that might be enough."

I blame @The_Ausmerican

On Monday afternoon Caitlin arrived home with these

They're from the lovely Juliette who I know through the kids' school and who occasionally comments here, she decided to spoil me with real flowers instead of virtual ones after reading my recent posts. Thank you so very much Juliette, they made my day and I've been enjoying sitting here on the lounge with that gorgeous display visible over the top of my laptop screen all week :-) Almost all the blooms are open now and they're lasting beautifully.

Today's lunch with my Dad - rockmelon, proscuitto, haloumi, tomato, token baby spinach and turkish bread

I went along with Dad to see his psychiatrist today and had a quite reassuring chat about what the family can contribute to looking after Dad and helping him to get well and so on. Apparently we hadn't done too badly on figuring out the right things to do - everything we'd come up with got the nod from the doctor. We then went and grabbed a few groceries and headed back to my place for lunch. I discovered Dad had never had haloumi cheese, an omission that could not be permitted to stand. "It's a bit more-ish," he said. "Isn't it just!" said I.

Friday fragments and Linkfest No. 15

Hosted by Mrs4444.

When you get to the bottom of this post don't forget to come back up here and click on this link to Half-Past Kissin' Time so you can go check out all the other fabulous Friday Fragments posts!

I missed fragmenting last week and I've barely blogged at all recently, I ought to have a whole bunch of stuff to offload. Let's see what's lurking in the corners of my brain...

****

I spent Saturday night in a small, inadequately air-conditioned room, with a fabulous group of women from the Hoyden About Town blog community, singing loudly and hilariously for 3 hours. Karaoke is so much fun even if it does result in a sore throat the next day. We did everything from Meatloaf and Cold Chisel to Abba and Simon & Garfunkle - there was even a rickrolling courtesy of FP. I'm already looking forward to next time!

****

David's first 2 days of high school at the end of last week were a great success, he came home happy and excited, telling us all about his classes. Then on Monday and Tuesday he went to the Year 7 Orientation camp at Vision Valley and came home exhausted and miserable having been separated from his friends both for the activities and for sleeping arrangements, fed pretty crappy food, and generally having a rotten time. What a massive waste of time, effort and money. I had to bully him out of bed and off to school on Wednesday morning, he was in tears and I was so close to giving in and letting him stay home. I had a good cry myself after he'd gone and spent the day in a state of anxiety over whether he was going to have an ok day. Fortunately he came home much happier again, it seems actual classes at high school are a Good Thing. Except for PE - he's not at all pleased that they're doing bush dancing.

****

We've been harvesting quite a good crop of tomatoes from Tom's vegetable garden, perfect for slicing nice and thick and having with cheese on Sao biscuits.

Tom's tomatoes

****

Things with my Dad have been slowly improving and we're on our way to having the money side of his life sorted out. I'm now managing his finances so if things start to go off the rail again I should know straight away. I feel somewhat weird and conflicted to be in this role especially as when Dad is well he really should be perfectly competent to look after all this stuff himself. I'm going along with him to his next psychiatrist appointment so I can have a chat to his doctor about it too. Dad's still pretty vulnerable but he's a lot better than he was 2 weeks ago and I'm fairly confident that he's not going to end up in a major depression. So that's good.

****

I finally got myself a Diva cup after more than a year of intending to do so. It is awesome. That is all. (Actually, I can say plenty more so if anyone has questions - ask away!)

****

I finished reading the first Sookie Stackhouse book, I enjoyed it enough that I instantly picked up the second one and started on that. Good thing I bought the box set of 7. The fact that it took me a week to get through the first book says something about my state of mind though, I'm finding I can't concentrate on a book for more than 30 minutes at a time. Stress sucks.

****
And now for some links:

At Hoyden About Town Lauredhel posts on the ILCA press release "For Haiti Orphans Wet Nursing Can Save Lives"

At Upside-Down Adoption Atlasien posts about "The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies"

Chally of Zero at the Bone hosts the Thirteenth Carnival of Feminists

I need one of these.

Jill at Feminitse posts about "Tim Tebow and the anti-choice Superbowl ad" and also links to a YouTube ad responding to the Tim Tebow ad featuring Sean James and Al Joyner (none of whom I know anything about but apparently some people are interested in the stuff these people do and say).

Deborah's new car and new hair made me laugh :-)

Picking up the pieces on a Fragmented Friday

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I've been a bit scarce around the blogosphere this week on account of it not having been the greatest week ever, I tend to read but not post or comment when I'm stressed. I don't really have much by way of amusement or fascination to offer today, rather I seem to be dumping a whole lot of whinging out for you instead. For fragments that might be a little more fun to read, head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time and find out what everyone else has on offer this week.

****

On Sunday night last weekend I started working on stuff for my paid job at 10:30pm. I finished at 8:30am. Now, I knew I had a lot of work to do but due to not realising that the number of emails showing against my work folder represented about half of what was actually in the folder (I didn't realise how many I'd "read" when moving them from the inbox) I had expected to hit the sack by about 4am. Monday, as you may imagine, was a bit of a write-off.

****

One of the reasons I didn't start working till 10:30pm was that we'd spent Sunday afternoon and evening at Coogee beach with some blog-friends from the Hoyden About Town community. It was a lovely day, not too hot, the kids swam and played on the beach and I got to sit around chatting for several hours. Then we had fish and chips for dinner and headed off home as the light began to fade. That part of my week was pretty good really.

****

My wonderful Mum looked after the kids for me on Tuesday morning so I could go in to the office for a few hours. I don't like asking her to have the kids so I can work and I don't do it often, maybe a few times a year, but she assures me they're really quite pleasant to have around. I do think it's a less onerous job now that they're older and more independent.

****

When I came back from work we all headed down to my Grandma's place for a visit. During the course of conversation I told Grandma that I was expecting things to be much less stressful this year as I would have less stuff on my plate and that I was looking forward to having more time to come and see her. But I didn't say "touch wood" and that may have been a mistake.

****

On Wednesday I took my Dad for some medical tests (which all turned out fine) and then brought him back to my place for a bit. He was looking rather distressed so I asked if he was ok.

Umm. No. Apparently not.

Turns out he's been in the throes of a manic episode for the last 2 months. I knew he was a bit high, I'd even rung his doctor at one point to express my concern and I'd been reassured by the fact that Dad was seeing his doctor regularly and that his medication was being adjusted and that it was all under control. Well, I'm not sure that I call spending every last cent of your retirement savings and doing a bunch of other stuff which I won't be writing about here counts as being under control. I'm just really thankful that his superannuation pensions are safe and that he decided to tell me and ask for help before he wound up crashing into a major depression as has happened in the past. Bipolar sucks.

****

I took the kids to Pymble pool today, it was a bit of an effort to leave the lovely air-conditioned comfort of the house and brave the 38°C (100.4F) heat but the prospect of plunging into the cool water made it seem worthwhile. Which it would have been if the pool hadn't been practically lukewarm. Warm chlorinated water is anathema to me, it's why I hate indoor pools and it makes me feel ill. But there was no way I was getting out and sitting in the heat while the kids swam so I stuck it out. The kids tried to drown each other and me for a while until in desperation I invented a new game. We all ducked underwater at the same time and tried to work out what one person was yelling while submerged. Kept them amused for a remarkably long time, especially when I choked while trying to yell "CANDY CANE." We then switched to sea-creature charades, my sea-horse was apparently completely baffling, Caitlin did a very convincing jelly fish, David's starfish was instantly recognisable and Tom was revealed as a moray eel in disguise.

****

Tonight we've had Dad here at our place, fed him a roast pork dinner, and gone through the figures for his finances. I've been able to convince him that he is not going to end up destitute within the week and that he can actually afford to continue living where he is. He will have to sell his car and cut up his credit cards but it should all work out in the end. He's much, much calmer than he was on Wednesday and I'm hopeful that with the right care he won't end up completely falling apart this time.

I'm taking him grocery shopping in the morning because he's not up to doing that on his own and we'll have him over for a meal at least twice a week for the foreseeable future. My Mum will be helping out too and will drive him to his appointment with his psychiatrist on Monday. I haven't been game to ask how things stand with his girlfriend, they weren't living together so I'm not sure what she knows or how she's reacted to the situation. I am wondering if I ought to be inviting him to come and stay with us for a while, but to be perfectly honest I'm not sure I'd be able to cope with that.

****

It's supposed to be even hotter tomorrow, we'll probably hit the 40°C mark here. I plan on hiding inside with large quantities of cold drinks. But Sunday is promising to be much more civilized, perhaps we'll head off to the beach again!

Making plans

No resolutions, no grand plans for the year, no lists of things to accomplish. Just the intention to plan ahead a little bit at a time and try not to let things get too overwhelming.

By the end of last year I was really not doing too well, I had made too many commitments and left myself stretched way too thin. I kept thinking it should be ok, I wasn't really short of time and other people were managing to do as much and more without crumbling into a heap. But I'm not other people, I'm me and I have limits and when I push myself past those limits it hurts me and my family and things don't get done properly and I end up sobbing violently on the lounge on Christmas Eve and freaking out my 8 year old who gets up to see if I'm ok and has to be bundled back into his bedroom because Santa is all over the lounge room.

I'll be using that little 2 letter word a bit more often this year. I've already said no to Canteen duty at the primary school (though I have signed up for the High School canteen roster). I'll be handing over the job of P&C President when my 2 year term is up in March, and with that my position on School Council. I will be sitting firmly on my hands during the P&C AGM and will not be taking on any role that involves responsibility. I will not say yes to anything without thinking it through properly and double-checking for calendar clashes, I got caught out double booking myself a few times recently, not clever. I will look after myself so that I can be ready and able to look after my family when I need to.

There are a few things I know I need to do by way of the looking after myself thing. The first is to focus on my health. I'm unfit and sleep deprived and have been eating in ways that do not make me feel good and aren't doing much good to our budget either - far too much takeaway and far too many meals at restaurants that aren't even that great. I'd much prefer a once a month visit to somewhere new and fabulous than weekly visits to a place we've been to umpteen times (much as I love our local Chinese restaurant I'm so sick of eating the same dishes all the time because that's what the kids want).

I started writing this post last week just after having written up a meal plan for the week, we pretty much stuck to the plan and ate quite well. Come this week and no plan, the grocery shopping hasn't been done, I haven't had useful food in the house, and we've already had fish and chips at the beach on Saturday because we had nothing suitable to pack for a picnic and takeaway Chinese tonight because my Dad invited himself to dinner and I couldn't very well feed him leftovers scrounged from the fridge and freezer. I absolutely must write a new meal plan every week, the 2 week perpetual plan worked ok for a while but it fell apart whenever there was something unusual happening, and there just don't seem to be that many "usual" weeks in this house! Besides, I got bored.

Meal plan every week, that's the first thing. I also have vague thoughts about making the effort to cook something a bit special, or something new anyway, at least once a fortnight. I might even give myself some blogging material if I get creative, the recipe posts are easily the most visited ones on my blog.

Next up is this sleep thing. I've been struggling with this for years. It doesn't seem to matter that I know exactly what I need to do to fix it - which is get up early each morning come hell or high water so I can't help but want to go to bed earlier. It's not that I can't go to sleep earlier, or that I wake during the night and lie in bed cursing insomnia. I sleep well once I'm there and I don't generally wake till the sun is up (mind you, that can be a little early this time of year). I'm not even sure why I'm sitting here typing this up now instead of going to bed, though I suspect it's something to do with enjoying the solitude of being the only one in the house who's awake.

What I do know is that if I don't sort this out then it won't matter how well I plan, or how good my intentions are, I will simply be unable to follow through on any of it. I'll continue to barely scrape by, always in crisis mode, always feeling like I'm scrambling to catch up and never making any real progress. So despite being in holiday mode I've got my alarm set for rather-earlier-than-I'd-like and I'll keep working on coming up with some way to coerce myself into better sleep patterns. I've got till the end of the month to get the whole family into a good routine before we get hit with the shock of back to school and David having to leave earlier for high school and Tom having band practice at stupid o'clock in the morning before school once a week.

And then last, but by no means least, there's that fitness thing. Damn I hate feeling like there's things I can't do because they're going to make me feel utterly miserable. If I went to Jenolan Caves right now and had to climb all those stairs I'd be a wreck, but it's been 3.5 years since we went and I'd really like to go back now that the kids are older. At Easter we're planning on going back to Cruickshanks for another farmstay holiday and there's a horseriding place nearby which we checked out last time we were there. I was assured that they have horses that would be up to my weight so I've been looking forward to riding for the first time in about 11 years and I'd love to be fit enough to enjoy it properly. Plenty of walking and some weights work would do the trick and I have a treadmill and weights right here at home - not to mention the dog!

So, if I'm no longer snowed under with a multitude of little and not so little commitments, and I sort out the sleep and cooking and eating issues so I actually have a little energy to spare, then getting on the treadmill or taking the dog for a walk at least once a day should become something I look forward to instead of dreading (and yes, I do like the treadmill, especially with a good dvd playing on the TV in front of it). I'll give myself a few days grace to get started on fixing the sleep deprivation and then I'm promising myself 30 minutes walking every day no matter what. That'll do for starters anyway.

There's really no down side here, I'll be healthier, the budget will balance a bit better, the family won't have to deal with me being grumpy mum quite so often, Clara will be happy and the treadmill won't be permanently festooned with laundry. Sounds like a plan to me!

(Wish me luck...)

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Things about which I am glad:

Despite my fears I did not have an excruciating back spasm and find myself swearing loudly in the middle of delivering my Parents & Citizens Association President's report to the hall packed with the entire families of nearly every student at my kids' school.

When Caitlin tried to pick the front door lock with a stick this afternoon she broke a piece of stick off inside it thus preventing the key from fitting in the lock. The sliding security door uses the same key as the front door (which was the only key I had with me) and the bolt that slots into the floor on the inside of the glass sliding door was undone. So I could still get into the house. The broken off stick was successfully removed with the aid of a large needle. So I didn't have to pay for a locksmith.

There are just three days of school left.

I remembered to get the kids to make cards for Adam's birthday tomorrow, even if I did have to get them back out of bed to do it.

There are fairy lights all through the trees and shrubs in my front garden - it's like living in a fairy grotto. We don't so much put our Christmas lights up as chuck them semi-randomly into the garden, I like it that way.

Wednesday next week is David's last day in Primary School. I do not anticipate getting teary over this.

My Mum came over this afternoon and helped clean up the house for our Christmas party tomorrow, she supervised the de-chaos-ing of the kids' rooms. I think if I'd had to do that on my own today there'd have been murder done. My Mum is made of awesome, I may have said this before.

Did I mention that school finishes next week? And that it's a short week? Only three days!

Oh, and my back seems to be all better now, I was a bit worried that I would still be in pain when it was time to head off on our camping trip but it looks like I'll be fine.

Things about which I am less thrilled:

My dad, who's bipolar, gave us all a bit of a scare on the weekend when it became apparent that he was a little bit, or possibly even a lot, manic. Thankfully his doctor had already begun adjusting Dad's medication and he'd started to come down again by mid-week. Dad's only had one full on manic episode, it was pretty devastating.

I have not yet managed to find the time or motivation to bake any fruit mince pies. Brendan is going to kill me unless I get my arse into gear tomorrow morning.

The kids all drank huge glasses of milk with their dinner tonight and now there's no milk for the morning.

Tidbits from Tom:

On being given toad in a hole* for breakfast: "No toads were harmed in the making of this hole."

On how he feels about his drama award: "I'm like a cat contemplating its second name** and feeling proud."

*Yeah, I know, the egg version isn't really toad in a hole.

**Referencing T.S. Elliot's The Naming of Cats -

"But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?"

Teaching moments

The drive to school is about 5 minutes give or take depending on traffic lights. Most mornings that time is spent telling people to stop squabbling or lecturing them about the unwisdom of making me ask 20 times for them to do something that has to be done every single morning. But every so often I find myself having one of those conversations that come out of nowhere and make me sorry the trip is so short.

Today is Grandparents Day at school and for some reason David was speculating on what it would be like if your grandparents were very young. I asked how young he thought it was possible for a grandparent to be, he guessed 20-something, and before I knew it I was discussing teen pregnancy and pointing out that it was perfectly possible for someone to become a grandparent by the time they were 30. At which point I said I'd prefer to be heading for 50 before I became a grandparent and that if they wanted to have sex they didn't have to tell me anything but please use contraception. They all laughed, apparently I'm amusing when I talk about sex.

As they were getting out of the car I was saying "Always use a condom and Caitlin - go on the pill! Seriously guys, if you need to go to the doctors or the chemists, just tell me, I won't ask questions! Have a good day and be good for Grandma!"

David's farewell was "You're funny Mum, love you!"

Not blogging, not sleeping, not coping

It's 1:45 in the morning. I'm supposed to be taking the animals to be boarded for the weekend first thing tomorrow, have to leave the house at 7:30am. I've not made the clothes for myself that I wanted to get done for the reenactors' conference this weekend. I'm not being very nice to my kids. And I'm up to my eyeballs in stuff to do both at work and at home.

Stress = not going to bed. So fucking stupid.

*kicks self*

At least I'll sleep while we're camping, it's much harder to stay up too late when living in a tent.

Whinge for the week

Whenever the weather gets particularly humid I get ear infections. It sucks. It hurts. And the hurting makes me grumpy and I can't do anything that requires moving my head too much and my brain stops working and I go to all your lovely blogs and read your funny and fascinating and thought provoking posts and I click to post a comment and the words just. won't. come.

It's frustrating.

I'll be back when the icky stuff I'm putting in my ear has done its work and I no longer feel like half my head is in a vice.

Snippets revisited

Caitlin's a total drama queen so, yeah, she did have a bit of a difficult day but she gets over these things pretty quickly too. Thanks everyone for the kind words :)

The hat reappeared the next day, as I knew it would, I'm well trained in the clear labeling of kids clothes. Working in the Uniform shop at the school taught me that much, at the end of each year we'd get the unclaimed stuff from Lost Property to resell through the shop - so many things with no names in them! Lost Property is a peculiar repository in which clothing that has been missing for many weeks will occasionally mysteriously reappear but which almost never holds the item you lost in the last day or so.

The fruit bread sangers were not a hit, both Cait and Tom had left half uneaten.

The reason the kids' classes usually aren't organised before the beginning of the year is that when student numbers at a school are borderline for getting another teacher allocated (as we always seem to be) they end up having to wait till they're sure everyone who is going to enroll for the year has done so and that there are no kids who did enroll but aren't going to turn up. Otherwise they might find they've formed classes with the expectation of having, say, 16 teachers only to have the Dept of Education say oops, sorry, you can only have 15 teachers and end up having to reshuffle all the kids into new classes a couple of weeks down the track.

As far as I know David is getting on just fine in Mr M's class, I'm not asking too many questions at this stage ;-) I will make an appointment some time soon to have a chat with Mr M just to give him a bit of a heads up on some of Dave's little quirks, though I'm quite sure he's had a very thorough briefing from Dave's previous teachers.

The composite class thing doesn't really worry me as far as the academic side of things goes, because of the size of the school there are a lot of composite classes and the teachers have plenty of experience in making it work. Most of the steep learning curve with letters and writing seems to happen in kindy now and they'll have put the more competent kids from last year's kindy class into the year 1 half of Tom's class.

The rest of this week has been dominated by an ear infection which had me feeling pretty rotten for a couple of days (almost better now though) and the dreaded covering of books with bloody contact. I swear I used to be able to do it perfectly every time. Well, not any more! Bubbles of air, creases, crooked edges, covers cut too small so there's not enough to fold over the edge and, my favourite, the cover ending up too tight and the corners bending up in a lovely half bowl shape. Bugger.

Merry Beach

We're back! We came home a couple of days earlier than planned because I managed to do something nasty to my back and was in agony. Plus the forecast for Saturday said we'd be copping at least 35 degrees C (95F) and I stop functioning in anything more than 28 degrees. So there didn't seem to be much point in hanging around only to spend a large part of our one remaining full day going for a drive in the air-conditioned car just to keep me sane (we'd done that once already).

I didn't take very many photos, I'm terrible at remembering to take my camera with me which is one of the reasons Adam bought me a Nokia N95 - because I always remember my phone - but there's no mobile phone reception at Merry Beach so I wasn't carrying it around and besides, cameras and sand in close proximity make me nervous.

Every morning we had a major drama with David over getting ready to go to the beach. He didn't want to go, he wanted to stay at the tent while we all went without him, he refused to put sunscreen on, we were all so mean and unreasonable (ah, the joys of an anxious child)....and every morning he came into the water and was in raptures. "THIS ROCKS!" he whooped with glee on the second day as we dove into crystal clear perfectly gentle surf, just right for hesitant kids and overheated mothers. He also memorably announced to us "The beach is wet! And very wavy!" I'm keeping that one filed for future reference.

David on our first day discovering that the surf is actually pretty fun

The water was fairly chilly and Caitlin doesn't have much insulation so she ended up spending a bit of time amusing herself on the beach while the rest of us swam and by the time I was prowling with the camera she'd had enough of being cold.

Caitlin making sand angels

Tom had the best time, he didn't want to come home. He headed off into the surf without the slightest hint of fear. As he drifted down the beach away from me and towards one of the rips (otherwise known as an express ride out to sea) I called to him to come back and stay with me. "It's OK" he said "it's just the current in the water." Um, yes, that would be what I'm worried about.

Happiness

Tiredness

One lunchtime Adam was making the sandwiches and let Tom have free rein with the fillings, he chose lettuce, tomato, devon, ham, salami AND chorizo. And thus the 4 meat sandwich was born. He was pretty disappointed when we ran out of chorizo.

Our campsite

We were a fair bit back from the beach behind the office and caretaker's residence but we were a mere stone's throw from the pool (which I completely failed to take a photo of) and we had a little bit of a view of the beach.

The view from our tent

On Thursday it was stinking hot and my back was killing me. I don't really know what I did to it but I think it must have had something to do with having Tom and Caitlin in the surf with me on Monday out at the point where the bigger waves were breaking. They were hanging onto an arm each as we ducked under breaking waves and I guess I managed to pull a muscle. After a couple of days of swimming laps in the pool before breakfast and then surfing for a couple of hours before lunch I'd managed to get it really nice and sore. I ended up with my whole back and half my abs cramping up. We went for a surf on Thursday morning which was blissful...for a while. The water was very cold, crystal clear and gorgeous, but COLD. Wasn't doing those sore muscles any good at all. By lunchtime I was in serious pain and the heat was making me even more miserable. We went for a drive down the coast to do some exploring and avail ourselves of the air-conditioning in the car. There are some absolutely gorgeous little and not so little beaches down past Bateman's Bay.

Guerrilla Bay



Broulee

On our way home today we found ourselves driving though the edge of a very intense storm, hail too. We could barely see the car in front of us.

Through the front windscreen it looked like this



But out the side window there was this

Weird.

Now all that remains is the washing, the tidying up, the putting away of the camping gear and I have a buggered back and can't do anything useful! Thank gawd Adam is so utterly awesome and will look after the worst of it without me.

I've hit the wall

For way too long I have been going to bed after 1:00 in the morning, dragging myself out of bed the next morning, being too tired to accomplish very much during the day and then sitting around in the evenings feeling pissed off with myself because I've wasted so much of the day yet again and being too wound up to be able to go to bed even though I'm barely keeping my eyes open at 9:30pm. At around 11:00pm I get my second wind and the next thing I know it's 1:00am again and I'm stuck on this treadmill of stupidity for another day.

I feel like crap, the kids cop a grumpy mum, the house is barely under control and the days pass by in a blur of exhaustion. And it's all self-inflicted.

Tonight I have a sore throat and the beginnings of a nasty behind the eyes type headache, I should do a couple of hours work for one of my jobs but if I start doing that now then tomorrow is going to be horrible.

I'm going to bed.

This will be a photo free post*

Adam finally went to the doctor to have his ingrown toenail dealt with this afternoon.

The beginning of this story is probably about 10 months ago when his occasionally troublesome toe began to be a frequently troublesome toe that never quite got back to normal. I suggested he go to the doctor. The toe remained swollen and sore. I nagged him to go to the doctor. The toe got a little bit better...but then went right back to ickyness. I INSISTED he go to the doctor. He took to soaking his foot in antiseptic every night. And then, eventually, a couple of months ago off to the doctor he went.

The doctor said "I don't think I've ever seen one this bad", put him on antibiotics for several weeks and said when the swelling had gone down a bit to come back and get the nail cut out.

The weeks passed.

The deed was done today in the doctor's surgery with local anesthetic and Adam came home feeling slightly wobbly, he thinks the local may have spread a little further than intended. My mum was here for the afternoon and asked him "Are you in pain?"

"Probably, but I can't feel it."


*You really don't want to see what it looked like at its worst.

Interesting

I have not weighed myself for nearly 2 months. I've been eating what I wanted, when I wanted. I've been walking the dog but not doing much else by way of exercise. I haven't been thinking about food all the time.

Last night I was out with friends having an awesome meal at Chinta Ria, followed by a thoroughly decadent chocolate overload at Lindt Cafe and then a quick visit to the Pumphouse pub all accompanied by liberal quantities of wine.

This morning I decided to have a look at the numbers. I was a little apprehensive, surely all this not worrying about food and exercise would have to translate into consequences on the scales?

I weigh exactly what I did last time I stood on the scales.

(Bet my cholesterol levels haven't changed much though :P)

Done with dieting

I'm not doing the Weight Watchers thing any more, haven't been for quite some time now. I was getting nowhere, making myself miserable and ending up binge eating on a fairly regular basis. Since I stopped dieting (and make no mistake about it, Weight Watchers is a diet) my weight has stayed stable, my binging has drastically reduced (I still have the occasional episode if I'm feeling really down) and I'm feeling pretty much OK about myself.

I had blood tests done a few weeks ago and all the numbers came back good except my cholesterol. Which isn't particularly surprising given that my fairly slim mother and average sized sister also have high cholesterol. What really pleased me was that my iron levels were good. I've been pretty anaemic for a long time because of my B12 deficiency problems (pernicious anaemia to be precise) so apparently eating what my body asks for rather than "what I should be eating" is a good thing in that department. The cholesterol issue though, well, when it was measured about a year ago it was significantly lower. And I know why. That was back when I'd been diligently avoiding saturated fats for a fairly long stretch of time. So clearly there is something I can and should do about that.

Here's what I figure I need to do:

1. No takeaway food! - Meal planning is the answer to this one, when I have a plan the groceries get bought and the cooking gets done even when I'm not at my best. There's something about not having to make a decision that makes all the difference. I've been posting my dinner plans here occasionally and I'll do that each week plus I'll make sure I keep the pantry and fridge stocked with a good selection of breakfast and lunch options so I'm not tempted to drop in at Maccas instead of coming home and making something.


2. Make sure I'm getting my 2 fruit and 5 veg a day - This happens best when I track my eating, I won't be counting points, agonising over whether something is core plan or not, or worrying about portion sizes, I'll just be writing it all down at the end of each day as a reminder to myself to fuel my body properly.


3. Avoid saturated fats like the plague - this is mostly addressed by the no takeaway point, apart from that, the main thing is I need to give up butter again (stop pretending I'm buying it for baking and then using it on my toast :P), pretty much everything else I buy is ok already.
   


4. And finally, lots of walking - Clara should be pleased about this :)

For now I don't really care whether or not I end up losing weight, I just want to see that cholesterol reading heading down again. I like the way I feel when I've been eating well and exercising regularly but I don't like the stress and pressure I feel when I'm constantly calculating points and having to assess every bite I put in my mouth, I just can't keep that up for too long and when I cave I binge. And that really sucks. Not going there any more. Just not. Luckily, eating well and exercising don't depend on doing the other!

Ask and ye shall receive - more or less

I woke up this morning at about 3:00am with an absolutely torturous sinus headache, took some sudafed and proceeded to toss and turn for nearly an hour listening to Adam snore. So when the alarm went off a few hours later I was still somewhat worse for wear.

Adam got the kids up, dressed, fed and off to school and I rang the doctor, made an appointment for 3:45pm and went back to dozing.

Sometime mid-morning I realised I could breathe...and my sinuses were beginning to clear...and I was hungry.

Hmm, what should I ask the universe for today?

I got up, showered and dressed, and then had to sit down and recover from the shakes - a couple of days in bed and the aftermath of fever and I can't even make it up and down the stairs in the house without turning into a quivering mess.

Anyway, I decided not to waste the day, made myself some lunch, hopped in the car and went to Infinitas, I've only been trying to get there for about a month. Came away with Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect, Greg Egan's Incandescence, Elizabeth Moon's Victory Conditions, Lois McMaster Bujold's The Sharing Knife: Passage, Terry Pratchett's The Discworld Graphic Novels - The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic, Lawrence Watt-Evans' The Turtle Moves and Secrets of the Wee Free Men and Discworld by Carrie Pyykkonen and Linda Washington and last but not least a tentative job offer.

I'll be going in next week to see if it'll work out or not for them and for me, the guy who owns the shop is a high-school friend of my brother-in-law so it's all pretty informal and "let's just see how it goes". Also, if someone else comes along who can be as flexible as I can with regards to doing more or less hours as needed and doesn't have to bugger off to pick up kids from school then the deal will probably be off. But in the meanwhile, working in a Sci-fi/Fantasy bookshop, well, it's only my dream retail job isn't it?

Adam seems not so very excited about this though, I suspect that rather than anticipating an extra income, he foresees being required to build new bookshelves.

(The doctor gave me antibiotics for the sinus thing so with any luck I'll be back to normal by the weekend.)