Me and my coffee!

I'm sitting in one of my favorite places where I love to catch up with friends or just sit and think. There is something very calming and exciting at the same time about coming into Gloria Jeans. The sounds of people connecting, the blenders and coffee machines grinding the coffee and the smell! It seems to come alive!

Coffee has an appeal which I keep coming back for more. It's not just a drink it's part of my lifestyle. I connect with friends over a coffee. We share each others hopes, misfortunes, joys and outrage! On weekends I like to share a cuppa with kids and 2Bar and share my excitement of having a coffee. It doesn't always turn out so good as the kids don't really get it that a coffee needs to be lingered over and enjoyed. It's not a competition who can finish their drink first! Hahaha!

My coffee of choice is a caramelatte. I try not to think of the extra calories that I am consuming as I don't want to ruin the experience. So I turn a blind eye to the naughtiness of me! Mmmmm the caramel!

I am as deep as a puddle!

Yep I'm a bit bored. My one day a week job has now finished. Deep down I'm very disappointed it has. I enjoyed getting dressed in nice clothes and having somewhere to be. One day was enough in amongst my other duties as a Mum. The job started at 9am and finished at 2pm which was just in time for school drop off and pick up. If the kids were sick I had the option of bringing them with me to the shop or call in sick. Best of both worlds! When the time comes to look for another job I hope I can find one with the same hours. Doubt it! And yes everyone asks when am I going to find another job, what am I going to do and I have no idea. People think I am making excuses that we go on holidays in six weeks time so no point looking for a job because no one will employ me then say "Hey here's six weeks holidays!!" Since when am I the bad guy!!

So now I have 7 days in the week being a Mum full full time again. Routine is the key and the road to boredom. I've been here before. The constant struggle of balancing motherhood with working a job. Keeping the house organised and being there for the kids to run them around to after school activities, if they're sick, school holidays etc.. Our priority is I'm the primary caregiver and Mum role of the family which I love being but I still after all these years feel the pressure of not financially contributing and feel guilty when I'm home. If I am home I feel I have to be cleaning or maintaining the house. Stuff has to be done!! If I don't do it WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY TIME!!!! I'm going to go crazy being here all the time and it scares the hell out of me!!

Being content and not listening to others is going to be the key in working out what I'm going to do and how we are as a family are going to be happy. Content with what we have and looking after what we have. Not always looking out but cherishing what we've got and making it work. I must not lose sight of the main goal I've set and that is to be a good wife and mother. Having a job has to work within the perimeters that I have set and I can't let it overtake my main goal. I'm not saying that if we get into trouble with money I won't go and get a job because it interferes with my goal. My goals will just have to be rearranged. It will work eventually I know and it will be great fun discovering what I can do.

In the meantime I'm stressing out and I hate it. I know why I am having bad dreams of losing the kids in natural disasters and not being able to find them and why i don't want to help my best friend anymore. I resent when good things happen to her and that is another whole post I will leave to another time! My control issues are surfacing again and I struggle to be content and let the Lord work his amazing stuff in my life. My prayer journal is looking empty and forlorn, it needs a bit of loving!

I hate being bored because it makes me look a little deeper into my puddle and I don't want to find it so shallow.

My Big Mouth

I wonder sometimes why I even bother. My parents travelled around Europe about 8 years ago and stayed in YHA accommodation. They had a ball and said the places they stayed in were very clean and very nice. Friends of mine are in Europe as I type and they were astounded at the prices of B & B's as they were taking their three children. So big mouth me suggested the YHA's as an alternative. They booked.

Apparently the ones they've stayed at are CRAP and now I've got the blame for the suffering they are going through and ruining their holiday. But the email ends with 'Still love ya even if I am suffering because of you!'

Great. That tops off a crappy few months!

Yee-Ouch!

I woke up last night with all sorts of pain in my left little finger.

Seems I went a little too hard a basketball last night and either whacked someone or something. I never noticed it at the time, as I was hell-bent on my mission to get out of a 3 week scoring rut. Which succeeded, yo!

Hopefully my amateur patch-up job will see it right before finals.

The Week so far ...

Jobs applied for: 12
Calls Back: 1
Parenting Help at school: 1
Kilometers Run: 23.5
Kilograms Lost: 2.5
Hours Practicing Guitar: 6
Hours on Guitar Hero: 1
Hours Playing on WII: 6
Books Read: 2

I could get used to unemployment.

Whoah!

In his best Bill & Ted voice

So I thought to myself that it's time to check on the blog and maybe tend to a few weeds. After all, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything.

A couple of weeks?????OMGWTFBBQ!!??

I think 4 months of non-blogging is some kind of anti-internet crime. I admit, however, to being internet-slack. Lotsa work, work, work, appendicitis scare for the Princess, other assorted bric-a-brac (redundancy alert!!!) of stuff. And the only internet-y stuff has been passive at best.

Except for fighting Madame2Bar off the computer owing to her Facebook related Tetris & Bejeweled addictions. Sigh.

Anyway, I think I'll be posting some more in future. Well, after the week in Bali starting tomorrow!!! (Totally NOT funded by any fiscal stimulus payments thank you very not Mr Rudd).

Then I'll be finding out what the world of the unemployed looks like, as Mr 2BarRiff and the tyrants at GFoC have reached agreement that our lives would be better without each other. They get to keep the car, laptop, mobile, fuel card, unfinished work (ho ho ho) and I get to keep the remnants of the sanity that I pulled out of my depression in a totally Arthur/Excalibur way, but with better imagery than I can summon right now.

Life is good.

So what's the worst sound to hear at the dentists?

Is it:

a. 'That will be $213 for today and we'll make the next booking for two week's time';
b. The dentist's favourite drill - 'the rattler'; or
c. 'I'm just puncturing the abscess now and then let the pus drain out'.

Freinds don't let friends drink alone

Unless the friends are myself and a bottle of this.

While Madame2Bar is out with her mates, I'm looking after the kids and myself. Tonight's drink is my own invention called the 'Shy Martini'.

Basically, you take a martini glass from the cupboard and a bottle of your favourite gin from the freezer. Contemplate a list of ingredients (vermouth, ice, olives) but decide that your gin doesn't like mixing with others. Pour the gin in the martini glass. Drink. Repeat.

(The irony of talking about fitness and alcohol in adjoining posts is not lost on me. I choose to ignore it).

Big Bucks!

Today I went to the Craft and Quilt Fair. I enjoy doing a bit of scrapbooking and occasionally make some jewellery when the mood takes me. (My passion is painting especially oils but my teacher has left and gone back to England. Anyway thats another post.) The size of this fair is huge. Over 4 days they will pack over a thousand and more women (and some token men) a day through the doors at the Convention Centre. And today I was one of them.

They had over 100 exhibitors and we had only 5hours to get through them all. We gave it our best shot and came out pretty unscathed and our purses fairly well intact. Some others did not fair so well. I witnessed women with baskets piling them up with stamps, stickers, papers, brads and all sorts of accessories. Now that would be OK if they were on special say for a couple of bucks. But when I looked most of these items were over $12 to $15 and over. They were filling their baskets! I couldn't get over the amount of money being spent on something that to me is a small hobby!

2Bar would have a fit if I came home and said I spent $500 at the fair on stamps and stickers!

Doughnuts, doughnuts lovely doughnuts!

This weekend I'm tagging along with 2Bar to a work conference in Sydney. Children are at Grandparents for four whole days. Ahh the freedom! But since starting this diet and being quite successful so far I'm a bit worried about how I will go in the eating capital of Parramatta. I know I'm going to fall off the wagon, which doesn't worry me too much. It's just how far I'm going to fall and what I' going to have to do to get back on. Maybe the suggestion from TroyG to go jogging with 2Bar will be the way to go? Bahahahaha! I couldn't run to save my life!

Actually I've spent quite a bit of the day trying to work out how pieces of fruit I have to give up to have a Krispy Kreme doughnut. MMMMMMM KK doughnuts! As we don't get them here in the West they are a real treat when someone goes over east and brings them back. The girls and I have quite an obsession with these round doughy delicious delights! Last person over there brought back 4 dozen and carried them on the plane whilst eight months pregnant. She was slightly embarrassed but nothing was stopping her from those KK's or the wrath of us when she got back!

Last thought for the night

until the next one, anyway

Of the bazillions of blogs now in existence, how many are solely dedicated to apologising for not posting in a while?

Speaking of ...

nothing much, really.

Inspired by Troy's post here, I wish to add my own complaints about crappy language, focusing on pronunciation:

• O becomes U eg Uh-lympics or a Biggest Loser influenced Uh-limination and all policemen are not Constables
  

• S becomes Sh eg Telshtra. I blame Liz Shmiley, the Exshtra shpruiking exsh-tennish player with "the great tashte that really lashtsh".

• S disappears altogether eg and especially Specifically becomes pacifically.

Bits and Pieces

When all else fails, LINK!!

* How boring am I? I had a rare 1/2 hour to myself at work so I worked out my tax return for this coming June.

* A new season of AFL has begun, so make sure you head on over to Football Invective for all your fixins.

* And Eaglesflyinghigh.com for all the pain an Eagles fan can bear.

* And Aftergrog.blog for all the pain a Melbourne fan can bear.

* W00T$$ - sold our first thing on flea-bay. Now to clear out the rest of the house. And no, dear, you may not sell any of my guitars.

* Youtube goodness, cause I need a laugh:

David Blaine 1
David Blaine 2
David Blaine 3

Cheezits! Cheezits! Cheezits! Cheezits!

* 2BarRiff is running in the ASICS Gel Bridges fun run this weekend. First person to spot me and introduce themselves wins breakfast at McDonalds with the 2BarHousehold straight afterwards.

As you may be able to tell, it's been busy and tough the last couple of weeks so I haven't put much as much energy into blogging. Work is going freakin' nuts (I have two 'Acting' job titles, in addition to my normal one at the moment) but still in a good way. And another relative died this last week, not extremely close but enough to suck out whatever wind was in the sails.

No wonder I drink alcohol.

Death by T-ball

"If we lose another game I'll kill myself" said the Princess.

"Don't do that" I said.

"Why not?"

"Because you're too small to think of a cool way to kill yourself. Let me do it. I'll think of something cool."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know. I might tie you to the back of my car by your wrists and drive around the block a few times. Or I could just tickle you until you explode".

Such are the morbid conversations we have. Since the kids got Tamagochis (not my doing, talk to Madame2Bar) the whole cycle of life thing has become topic du jour in the 2Bar household.

My brother died yesterday.

The cancer got him in the end, after a long struggle and apparent remission.

We weren't that close due to RIWGI (Reasons I won't go into) but it's still been an emotional time, especially this last week. My immediate family are taking it hard and, while I aren't crying or carrying on, I am feeling physically ill - which is my standard response, apparently.

The Bomb wants to know if his uncle will come back as an egg, just like the Tamagochi.

Back!

Again!

The lack of posting was brought to you by a week's holiday in one of the wildest, most dangerous parts of Western Australia.

That's right! Busselton.

I weep for the future of mankind #833

So, I'm standing at the counter at Miss Maud's when the lady next to me orders a Chicken and Salad Baguette.

Only she pronounced it Bag-you-et-tea.

Grrr

I can't believe it! I'm in the mood to go through my drafts and actually post something but I can't find my memory stick.

Now I have to come up with something new. Crap!

Eeeeeew

Or is it Ewwwwwwwww?

Either way, that's the result of the surgery (approx 10cms long). I can't say whether it's been successful or not as I'm still on an enforced rest period - no lifting, gardening or playing guitar allowed. It does feel looser though. Beforehand, pressing your thumb just above the cut was like pressing wood, now it's as loosey-goosey as a normal arm. So I'm hopeful that I won't have any more issues.

The medication is going well, sort of. I can't say that I've felt depressed in the time that I've been taking it, but I have noticed some anxiety issues where I've been waking up at all hours thinking about things (that would ordinarily be easily solved) and I've had a bad stomach which is normal when I get anxiety.

The waking up issues I've put down to my procrastination (depression related) coming up against my anxiety over work. To that end, I've started using the methods from Getting Things Done which has allowed me the ability to focus on small tasks and maintain a sense of control (and get things done!). Highly recommended.

The lack of blogging has been from general tiredness and reacquainting myself with Francis Crawford of Lymond. I must say that I love these books, although Dorothy Dunnett does expose my rudimentary French in all it's crappiness. Again, highly recommended if you buy a French (and Latin, and Spanish) dictionary.

So that's the small update. I haven't really been thinking too much about depression as I wanted a bit of a rest so there's no pearls of wisdom around at the moment. Instead, have a pool shot of the Bomb and me in the pool.



(Since that shot, the water feature is done and the headers are sitting on our front lawn awaiting installation - progress!)

Ouch

The surgery was done yesterday and, aside from a weird squelching sound every so often, all seems to be ok.

I have to wear the sling for two weeks but should then be 100%.



Of course, one handed typing is not all that easy, so posting may be sporadic - unless I can get Madame2bar to type for me :-)

Tagged

Téa tagged us a little while ago and, because this is the first meme in our blog's short life, I chose not to ignore it :)

Here are 8 things you shouldn't know about me. If you do then you are a creepy stalker and need to back off (does not apply to Madame2Bar, of course).

1. I have no middle name.

2. I achieved all my life's grand ambitions before I turned 30. They were:

1. Get a degree
2. Get married
3. Have children
4. Earn over $50,000 a year
5. Own an electric guitar
   

3. I now have no grand ambitions outside of keeping the 2BarClan in the lifestyle to which they are now accustomed. But am working on it.

4. Though I am a Christian, I don't own any brown cardigans.

5. I get migraines from chocolate. The only other person that I know of with this affliction is Madame2Bar.

6. I am training myself to run a marathon (Hard work to start after arm surgery). This is not a grand ambition, more of a "Wouldn't it be cool if I could ..." kind of thing.

7. The best job I ever had was as a swimming teacher.

8. I like my in-laws better than my parents.