#2 Things That Make Me Uncomfortable- Blog every day in May

If you know about the Blog Every Day In May list, you’ll know that I am doing day 3 ( because I do not have enough time to talk about something I know a lot about. Besides I have had 3 Bacardi's and coke and I am tired!)

So I’ll get straight in to it. Not a lot makes me uncomfortable, though there is one thing I seem to find difficult to ‘handle’ and that is people that make their vulnerabilities blindly obvious to the world, while they are feeling vulnerable. It is kinda like saying here, this is how you can get to me. Don’t get me wrong it is not such a bad thing I guess as most people are not on the hunt to find people’s ‘cracks’ and in fact are very helpful and supportive. I just get uncomfortable for people when I see them doing it.

I also get uncomfortable on a soft mattress.  I wake up with a sore back and it takes days to recover from.
That is it for me

 If you expected more, then sadly you just do not realise how damn tired I am. We have been tiling the kitchen all day and that has made me uncomfortable too. Why? Because I now have to rearrange the kitchen cupboards… you know because a change is as good as a holiday. And I had the energy at the time… but not so much now and I still have three base cupboards to organise tomorrow… * sigh*

Story Of My Life (blog every day in may)

So, I have been slack with the blog recently. I was checking out a blog I love, Common Chaos Chronicle and I saw the Blog Every Day in May challenge. “Ah seems as good a reason as any to blog’ I thought. I also thought as we have so many things happening this month, not the least of them my birthday (happy birthday meeeeeeeeeeeeee) I’d do it. So I clicked on the linky thingy (down the bottom of this post you see it) and I read the subject for each day… I suggest you tune in for Day 10 Most Embarrassing Moment/s… Trust me if you want to feel better about your most embarrassing moments then you’ll WANT to read that one.)


I was Born. In Sydney in 78. Six months after my parents ( Aussie dad and English mum) got married, at the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. I am assured it was because they were an interfaith couple or something ridiculous like that. So when my parents decided, after my sister was born, that they would not be raising their kids in Sydney we moved to a very country town in the Queensland hinterland, not too far from Fraser Island in fact.


I spent my whole childhood blissfully unaware of the worries in life, my parents were vegetarian for a while there ( oh not vegetarians!!!) then they came to their senses. We had a big vege patch and my mother made the majority of everything we ate. Sometimes she’d even grown it all as well. I went to a local school, a really great community minded school and had the best teachers a kid could ask for. I spent most of my primary school years either reading stories or writing them. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!


My father worked where ever the work was ( he is a bricklayer by trade but is also a Rugby League coach and a fitness instructor, or what ever they are called) and in my early years he was away all week. I grew up with our house being built when my parents could afford to add on to the place and what was once a two car block garage is quite literally HUGE!!!!! My mother ran a hairdressing salon and my father started a gym when I was in year 7. He also started up a football team ( well, not entirely by himself) and football ( Rugby League) became a huge part of my early teens.


By the time I was in year 9 I decided that I was going to leave school at the end of that year and start my hair dressing apprenticeship in my mums salon.  I did that for three years in total but did not complete fourth year as I was pregnant with The Man Child. Something I have never regretted for a number of reasons but the main one is I don’t like hairdressing. I have done a few tafe courses but never actually used them for a paying job.


You know all about the kids and My beloved so I wont go on any more except that this was only meant to be 250 words…. it is now 500…. ooops. This is why I am no good at twitter!!


Oh I forgot to add I was in a local TV commercial, dressed in a grass skirt, promoting a ‘win a trip to Hawaii' with every car purchased’ thing. I have done other stuff but I’ll get to that one day, if  I could be bothered.

I Never Said I Was Perfect...

I found this from a FB page Mommy Needs Vodka and I though it was a very fitting cup for me. I AM NOT The Worlds Best Mum, nor would I ever try to be. Not because I am too selfish or too tired or too 'anything' but because the way I see it, all those women out there trying to be The Worlds Best Mum are making life harder on themselves. How can you be The Worlds Best Mum if your too busy stressing about everything? You can not. Not really! 

To my way of thinking there are many things you should NOT be if you're hoping for the title Worlds Best Mum. You should NOT be a raging alcoholic, a drug addict, a mass murder etc etc ( you're getting my point I am sure). But you also should NOT be spending every second trying to make things perfect. Worrying and second guessing yourself takes away from enjoying your children.

 Yes, of course there are times when 'enjoying' your children could be something as simple as being glad they had the good sense not to throw that third roll of toilet paper into the toilet. Or that they managed to ( by divine intervention?) leave your favourite lipstick colour alone when they took it upon themselves to draw all over themselves, their younger siblings and everything else they came in contact with whilst using all your other lipstick shades..

It could also be those truly beautiful times when the whole family is together not doing anything particularly special but they  fill you with such happiness and pride and love. When you stand back and watch them and say to yourself 'How lucky am I?' Of course those moments are not always regular and are most certainly spaced with 'typical' days and the very odd ( and rarely spoken about ) days where if you could you would run screaming from the place and never come back. If you have never felt that way, don't worry, you'll get there. It doesn't last long but it will happen. Don't bother with the 'Oh I'll never feel like that.' either because that tells me you're not 'doing it right'.

There are going to be plenty of times when everything is a nightmare, there will be a time when one of your children does or says something that makes you seriously question your parenting decisions. If it happens a lot however then you might want to look in to it. ;) There will be times when you sit in a ball, even if it is just mentally and say to yourself  How the hell did I/we get into this mess ( sometimes it will even be a literal mess) and you have to suck that I cant take this no more feeling up and get on with it. Because like it or not, you are the mum and that is your job.

It isn't all bad though. In fact it is mostly a mundane kinda  wonderful that you wouldn't change for all the medals in the world. Besides as far as your kids are concerned you ARE the worlds best mum.

Chinese Whispers

You often hear people joke about how most of the stuff you learn in school is not always actually useful in real  life. Quite often people are referring to Algebra or other things. Obviously Math and English are very useful, but do you know what else is? What I think is the most underrated thing you ‘learn’ in school? The game of Chinese Whispers. You know the one when you sit in a circle and someone whispers in to the ear of the kid next to them and they to the next person and so on til the last child gets to say out loud what they have been told?  Yeah that one.  And here is why.

Last week my mother tripped and fell. She broke her Femur. I was lucky enough not to be there when it happened, though I did drive past my parents place when the ambulance was there. Doors open and not a soul to be seen. It took me another 20m to realise that there was an ambulance at my parents house. An AMBULANCE! I slammed on the breaks and reversed back towards my parents. We live out of town and I didn’t have to worry about traffic. Though I did say to The Man Child who was sitting next to me. ‘I do hope no one comes up behind us because I ain’t stopping!’

I braced myself for some kind of dramatic sight involving my father (who is currently involved in extending the house) having fallen off the scaffolding. I was however shocked to find him standing. There was also two paramedics and my sister in the room and my mother lying on the floor! I was confused.

 Why are they doing a first aid training course? I thought to myself.

I soon realised that they were not and that my mothers thigh looked really, really horrible. I then just stood there rather awkwardly wanting to help but wanting to stay the hell out of every ones way. Mum was by this stage, thankfully, drugged up with pain killers and every now and then would ask what was happening and telling us she was ok. She was trying to comfort us and reassure us.

Since then there has been miscommunication after miscommunication involving her break. At first it was her hip then her femur , then she was in traction for weeks, then only for one week. All these updates I posted and messaged to friends and family. I was finding that something was getting lost in translation, somewhere. The chink in the chain was because mum was telling dad, who was telling one or the other of my siblings through conversation or message and it was getting passed or messaged on me.


Today mum had her operation. I was told she had received a donor bone and she could not walk for four months. I was a little confused because three days earlier I had been told they had to make a rod or plate (artificial bone) for her . But I was (not being a doctor) quite happy with the news none the less, mum had had her op, she was doing great. That was all I needed to hear. Later I was thinking about who the donor was and what a wonderful gift it was.

I am a donor and I thought I’d tweet ( I have only just started to dabble in the twitter sphere) about it, thank donors and their families and add a link to the national organ donor register here in Australia. Which I did. Later my brother informed me there was no donor bone ( thank you sibling!!) and it was indeed an artificial bone made to suit her leg ( totally makes sense doesn't it!) It had cost $40,000 dollars to make ( WOW ) and that was when I said to myself.

Bloody hell. This whole thing is like a game of Chinese whispers! Now I understand why we played it in the earlier grades ( year 1 maybe?) of school.

It was not just a fun game that enabled us to to get the chance to sit next to ( if we were lucky enough) the boy or girl we liked and whisper into their ear or have a laugh at how the ending statement was different or (if we were unlucky enough to be one of the last few kids) find it to be exactly the same as what you had said and therefore not really all that funny. No, it was a life lesson that you never fully appreciate, until you try to keep family and friends updated on your mothers state of health that is. And do you know what? If the story changes again, well, I won’t be updating it!!!


I ended up deleting my tweet as I felt like a twit. But you know what? If you have not already considered being an Organ Donor I do suggest you do. You can find out more here.

As for the game Chinese whispers find out how to play it here.
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The Holidays Are Over Baby

Yesterday was the first day back at school. I must admit I was quite pleased to see the bigger kids off. I was even happier to have a reasonably clean house too. The day before we had all spent an hour whipping the place into shape. It was My Beloved’s idea. Mine was to spend the day lying on my bed reading.

I can’t even say that I needed the rest because that morning My Beloved and I had managed to sleep in, have a coffee in bed and then sit down to a ‘concert’ organised and emceed by Little Miss. She even wrote out a program! If my camera would stop being so stubborn and connect via the USB cable, I’d have photos to go with this, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I also took video footage, though I was banned from sharing that.

Miss Thinker, Miss Independent, Mr Cheeky ( who I may soon start referring to as Mr Naughty if he keeps his current attitude up), Little Miss and even Littlest Miss had songs and a dance to preform, along with ‘speeches’ about how great My Beloved and I are as parents. Yes, they possible wanted brownie points but hey, I’ll take what I can get and so will My Beloved.
After the mornings entertainment My Beloved suggested to Big Miss and The Man Child that bacon and eggs would really top his morning ( fast becoming afternoon by that stage) off. I told them I’d love some chocolate. Neither request was granted and neither of us really minded. It must have been the ‘sleep in glow’ as we didn’t find anything to be a hassle and all was well with the world as far as My Beloved and I were concerned.

The next morning My Beloved left for three days to show backpackers from across the globe Fraser Island and I got ready to ‘meet’ him at the local store on his way past. The kids were all out of bed and dressed well before I managed to become fully awake and Little Miss managed to sleep in giving me a full hour from the bigger kids leaving til I had to leave and catch My Beloved on his way past. Naturally I spent that hour with a cup of coffee, well, two actually, and lounging on the lounge reading. Mr Cheeky always watches ABC4KIDS in the morning and since he’d eaten he was quite content to sit quietly killing off the odd brain cell and watch the ‘moving pictures’.

The day was relaxed and peaceful. The same can not be said for today. I had to force myself out of bed this morning. I’ve had to force myself to stay awake ever since. I have forty minuets until the bus brings the bigger kids home and aside from tidy the lounge room and tidy my room I have done nothing. The breakfast dishes are still next to the sink ( I know! Not even IN the sink yet! How terrible!!) and I don’t even want to think about the state of the girls rooms. I am chalking this day off to being a lazy so and so, but tomorrow, OOOOH tomorrow will be all systems go. The Holidays are over baby! I had better get started on those dishes.

How did your holidays go? Or have you only just started them? Let me know in the comments or visit Us on Facebook.

My Top Ten Most Memorable Reads

I am assuming that someone cares (even if that someone is my nan, though she too may not care all that much) enough to read through the post. These books are the ones that really stood out to me. Some for good reasons others for not so good reasons.
They order from childhood to now and by now I mean the last time I read a book ( about a month ago). They are in no particular order aside from that because to do that seems like more effort than I am prepared to give this post. I should consider keeping some of my inner thoughts to myself shouldn’t I?

• Most Memorable Read Number One

The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe      C.S Lewis

I really LOVED all of the books in this series and I must say that I even spent many lunchtimes at school in year 5, or was it 6? sitting and reading these books as well as bus trips home (most of the bus trip was actually spent fighting off the motion sickness you suffer from when trying to read in a moving vehicle I must admit.) The whole idea of a fantasy world in the back of your wardrobe made me rather annoyed that my bedroom had built ins.

• Most Memorable Read Number Two

The Famous Five         Enid Blyton

Again, I loved anything Enid Blyton but The Famous Five were by far my most favourite series I had/have ever read. I would spend hours reading these. I loved the name Quentin and did for a very short period of time think that I’d name any future sons Quentin, well ONE future son. I also LOVED George. She was awesome as far as I was concerned. Not only did she do awesome things like have short hair and never wear dresses ( well not without a fight) but she was just as good if not better than the boys, any boys. I thought she rocked! I also wished my Uncle was some kind of scientist who had his own Island. Every book was well and truly devoured by me.

• Most Memorable Read Number Three

The Valley of the Dolls      Jacqueline Susann


My Best Friends mum in primary school had a bookcase with lots of Mills and Boon. I read a lot of them by year 8.  She also had other books. I grabbed a copy of The Valley of the Dolls because of the colourful pills on the cover… this will probably be good I figured. It was an education that is for sure. I didn’t REALLY understand some of it but I got the drift. I think back to me, a 13 year old reading that and I think OK then! I did learn that I would never take any pills because it really was not a good thing. Really.

• Most Memorable Read Number Four

The Iliad     Homer

I used to go to our local Book exchange every week when I was in high school and I usually bought new books occasionally when I had no money I’d exchange some of my own but they were the ‘crap ones’ I’d exchange. I loved my books. The Iliad I borrowed from the Library and I was quite proud of myself. I have always loved mythology of any kind and the ancient Greeks, well ancient ‘Anyones’ were always of interest. I loved the story of Troy and when I realised the Iliad had this story and more I was off to borrow it that week from the library. I took it home and started reading the first page then the next then the next. Then I had to  go back and read the first  three pages again. Then I had to figure out how to pronounce the names, then I had to re read a sentence or paragraph again just to be sure that I was on the uptake of what was actually going on. It was a hard read for me at 14 but I read it and I loved it. I will one day read it again to see if it is actually a ‘hard’ read .

• Most Memorable Read Number Five

Wuthering Heights      Bronte

I loved this book. It was another so called ‘Hard’ read for me as it was written the way Emily Bronte had written it years earlier and well, no one talked like that anymore so it took me a while to figure out what some of the characters were actually saying! But the whole story was just ‘sooooooooooooo romantic’ to my 14 yr old self. I also read and  loved Jayne Eyre around the same time.

• Most Memorable Read Number Six

Seth  Speaks      Jane Roberts 

What a spin out this book was. It was apparently written by some personality/being through some form of 'channeling' of the girl who actually wrote it, if that makes any sense what so ever. I found myself reading this book and stopping every few pages to see if what I thought I had just read was actually what was written. As loopy as it probably sounds on those occasions I did check what I had read was not what was written. It seemed like the book was ‘talking’ to me ( Oh I know how that sounds but I have been assured by others they have experienced similar whilst reading a book so I don’t feel quite as crazy as I may sound right now)  I didn’t like it and so I actually threw it out. I never finished it. (It was the first time I started a book and could not finish it. That only ever happened one other time.) It  freaked me out. This one made it to this list because I had never and will probably never come across a book like that again… thank goodness!!

• Most Memorable Read Number Seven

Tokyo     Mo Hayder
    
This book was a really well written book. It had everything. It was basically about the Japanese invading china ( well it actually was not but part of it was, I could not read the whole book). I was heavily pregnant with Little Miss when I read this book. A few times I had been crying because of a scene ( are they called scenes when written in a book?) but the ‘scene’ that made me unable to read any more or stop blubbering uncontrollably was a description (far too descriptive for my sensibilities it turned out) of a Japanese soldier brutally stabbing at a man and cutting the kidney of a baby out and other horrifying things. I closed the book with tears streaming down my face and gave it to a friend of ours who had by that time become my main source of books other than those I had bought. He along with his mother had many, many books for me to read.

• Most Memorable Read Number Eight

A Child Called It      Dave Pelzer

This book broke my heart over and over again. Though I did finish it I spent most of the time I was reading it ( a full day) crying and saying ‘Oh my god how could a mother be so cruel!?’. Again, I was pregnant with Miss Independent and when pregnant I do suddenly develop the ability to cry at/over/ because of just about anything but I defy anyone to read that book and not feel unbelievably devastated at the treatment this man suffered as a boy at his mothers crazy hand. Were it not because I knew he had grown up ‘OK’ I am not sure I could have read this one all the way through to be honest.

• Most Memorable Read Number Nine

T
he Davinci Code          Dan Brown


I had heard of it well before I read it. I was given a copy by a friend and I started reading it at 8pm that night. The kids were all in bed and My Beloved was working away so I sat in my arm chair reading until 7.30 the next morning!! I could not put it down. By the first chapter I was well and truly hooked and some time around 2am that morning I realised the time and considered going to bed and the consequences of not having had any sleep that night and dealing with three kids the next day… I chose to read on and I was not disappointed. This made it to the list for two reasons I can normally not justify not having any sleep at all before spending the day looking after children ( which around here is every day!!) and also because I can normally put a book down when my eye balls are falling from their sockets but not this time. I don’t think it was because of all the hype surrounding the book at the time, but who knows!

• Most Memorable Read Number Ten

Nineteen Minuets       Jodie Picoult

This book I found in the bargin bin ( I have no idea why it was in the bargin bin) at the local store in Geraldton about 6 years ago. I loved every second of reading this book and I loved Jodie Picoult because of it. She seems to have an understanding of people and can even have you feeling great empathy for a murder. I found a new ‘fave’ author through reading this book.


These are not necessarily  my top ten reads but definitely  my most memorable for some reason or the other. Books are great like that. They can mean so many things to so many people.

What is your Most Memorable Read and why? I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments or on my Facebook Page

It's Been A While

I had big plans originally for this whole blogging experience. I was going to blog each and every day and in years to come our children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren ( if we have not blown ourselves up by then) would be able to look back at their parents/grandparents lives and say ‘Wow! That explains a LOT!’
Of course life got in the way of blogging after a short period where blogging kinda got in the way of life. I mean sleep is important and staying up late to do a post stuffs everything up for the next morning. So too does trying to squeeze out a post in between real life with two littlies at home or evenings with everyone home.
I decided that the  Xmas school holidays at the end of last year would be a no blogging holiday as well. Of course I forgot one very important fact when it comes to me and pretty much everything but the necessary if I do not keep doing it I will not keep doing it. *Sighs for dramatic effect* A lot of things have happened since my last post too much to go into really but a few of the important things are as follows.

• I have managed to get 4 kids into one and a half rooms. I have managed to give My Beloved his much desired bedroom, not surrounded by kids, with plenty of space AND keep The Man Child & Big Miss in their own rooms.

• I have managed to embarrass myself trying to leave a parking spot at the local high school after I picked up the bigger two  from school. Who knows the emotional scaring they have received from that episode!

• BiG Miss has found work placement for her Hairdressing Tafe Course she is doing. I am hoping that she is considered such a marvel they offer her an apprenticeship so by the time she is 18/19 i can ship her off to england to work with her aunt/uncle or nan in their salons over there.

• The man child and his best mate spent a whole weekend knocking down some small regrowth that littered our front paddock and the view has opened up significantly. The fact that most of the regrowth is still waiting to be piled up into bonfire like piles is something I can ,on most days ignore.

• My Beloved has been working constantly and the only day and night we have together is a Thursday, which has by default kind become our ‘date day’ though it usually involves me sleeping in that morning and him saying next week it is his turn to sleep in. That and us catching up on the walking dead and football shows on a thursday night *eyeroll*

• I have managed a lot of D.i.y as well.

 

Today, how ever I am battling the dreaded nits! I decided after discovering that Miss Thinker had a rather large patch of eggs in her thick long hair right on her crown that she was not going anywhere until that was fixed quick smart. The fact her sisters also showed some signs of those bloody things meant no one was going anywhere! It took me an hour and a half to do Miss Thinkers hair I used a lot of conditioner and her poor scalp is red all over from the steel comb. She possibly hates me now as I combed like a woman possessed.
Miss Independent was not impressed with her hair combing either but she was even more disgusted at having to strip her bed and the couches to wash everything (lazy child )
Little Miss was rather uncaring about the whole thing as she was too busy playing with her ‘new phone’ which she was given yesterday, it has no sim yet but that does not seem to bother her… it might take me years to ‘find’ a sim for her… who knows . One thing is certain though… tomorrow while at school if so much as one person gives any of them nits again they will be getting hair cut!!