There are moments in life where you get to look at something you have done and think "well done".
I had one of those this morning.
After a rough night with Paris (sore tummy) and a bit of broken sleep, my daylight alarm failed to go off yet again (can't rely on it these days) and so I was woken with an "expletive deleted, its 7.20" and as I tend to leave for work at 7.25, it was a very quick exit from the bed.
While still contemplating the shortcuts to my morning routine that such a start warranted, I entered the kitchen.
'Salina was already there. She was dressed in her uniform and had a big smile on her face.
"Hi Mum" she greeted me. "I have made your lunch for you - do you want tea or coffee in this cup" and that feeling of absolute pride overcame me.
Makes it all worth while.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
...the week that was... the week that is...
Just read the last post, omit the "won lotto" bit and add car bill - or three.
It seems when you fix the bit that made it stop at busy intersections, it allows the problem that makes it stop while you are driving along come to the fore.
And when you fix the bit that makes it stop while you are driving along, you find another bit that could be the cause, and another bit that could be a byproduct, and another bit that's just plain scary - apparently.
Me and cars - my ears glaze and my eyes roll dollar bill signs.
I have made the mechanic PROMISE that the bits being fixed would not end up costing more than the value of the vehicle. I have been down that particular road more than once, and it is incredibly painful.
I will find out the value of that word tomorrow.
Let us just say that castles in the air are currently being reviewed and rehoused in storage.
Or...
From a different perspective, had we not had the windfall, those castles would have been demolished because I would have had to mine my security blanket - so its all good.
We have health, we have sunshine (yay - third day of a heatwave in fact), we have enough food, we have shelter, we have fantastic family on both sides and we are blessed with many friends.
We even have enough work and therefore income for my little personal economic empire here to weather relatively rough weather and keep us afloat for a few months ahead.
While I don't have Pollyanna sitting on my shoulder, I do still count my blessings and come out well and truly more than breaking even.
And hey - maybe a sunny weekend ahead will tip the balance into Pollyanna being in my court again soon.
It seems when you fix the bit that made it stop at busy intersections, it allows the problem that makes it stop while you are driving along come to the fore.
And when you fix the bit that makes it stop while you are driving along, you find another bit that could be the cause, and another bit that could be a byproduct, and another bit that's just plain scary - apparently.
Me and cars - my ears glaze and my eyes roll dollar bill signs.
I have made the mechanic PROMISE that the bits being fixed would not end up costing more than the value of the vehicle. I have been down that particular road more than once, and it is incredibly painful.
I will find out the value of that word tomorrow.
Let us just say that castles in the air are currently being reviewed and rehoused in storage.
Or...
From a different perspective, had we not had the windfall, those castles would have been demolished because I would have had to mine my security blanket - so its all good.
We have health, we have sunshine (yay - third day of a heatwave in fact), we have enough food, we have shelter, we have fantastic family on both sides and we are blessed with many friends.
We even have enough work and therefore income for my little personal economic empire here to weather relatively rough weather and keep us afloat for a few months ahead.
While I don't have Pollyanna sitting on my shoulder, I do still count my blessings and come out well and truly more than breaking even.
And hey - maybe a sunny weekend ahead will tip the balance into Pollyanna being in my court again soon.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
That was the week that was...
This week started with rain - it is hardly surprising, really, as we have had 4 days of sunshine this year (okay, maybe I exaggerate - but no more than 5 since school went back in January).
It is a fitting background for the week.
This week was one of those weeks where you learn lessons.
I am still unsure as to the lesson I am meant to take away.
Help me...
This week started with rain - rain, and a windfall on Lotto. Not quite a "$20 million dollars" with appropriate echo noises and ridiculous people screaming, but enough of a windfall for us all to form dreams.
Well, actually, very much not even a windfall for full blown dreams that begin with "when we win lotto", and not even as much of a windfall as my boss one-upped me with when I mentioned the figure we were excited about, but hey - it beats the "woo hoo, we won $10" I yell when I forget to put lotto in.
Anyhoo, our bathroom requires some serious immediate attention. I don't know whether it is weather or not, but the tiles are leaving the walls at an alarmingly increasing rate; some water-based activity partaken within leaves puddle clues below - although not regular enough to go "way-hey, there is the problem" with any laserlike intensity; and a slow-drip (which has been rewashered on more than one occasion to the tunes of what sound like sea-shanties - at least in language levels) in the vanity has at last shown its true potential, and we have a cavity beneath our vanity that you could lose a small child in (if we were to ever let a small child wander in - we don't).
Our minds lit up with our windfall potential marrying with the bathroom concepts, and while the windfall = a very small percentage of what a proper bathroom renovation might entail, we began to actually forsee an improper bathroom renovation - or at least, the bones of one.
We have a list, we have a plan in our mind's eye, we have a purpose - and we have a seedling to grow into crossing "bathroom renovation" right off the list.
In the same breath (if the mind were to breathe - what time device should be used for the brain?), our minds also began to see other things that our windfall could achieve.
My sewing machine died last year. The bed is on its last legs. 'Salina is growing too fast. Paris is growing too fast. My workplace deserves to see me in a more varied wardrobe. With better shoes. V's vehicle's driver's door needs repairing. We need a holiday. Haircuts. Heck, we could even think about take-away...
It almost got too much to contemplate. Suddenly we were spending money in our minds far quicker than we could ever win it!!
Luckily at this point, fate stepped in with one spectacularly crappy Friday.
Paris was in a "I need to cling to the nearest parent and whimper" mood that can only accompany teething. Luckily for her (and me), I don't work on Friday mornings so we got to bond.
With such a sad situation, we didn't get to go and do our fortnightly Friday socialising with the local ABA - and nor did we get to do the alter-fortnightly Friday grocery shop en famille.
Instead, V was sent out into the pouring rain to gather the vittles.
Paris eventually succumbed to slumber (and good drugs) and I hooked into the mountain of paperwork that I imagine I can do on a Friday morning, and had 25 minutes of such entertainment when V arrived home with the goods, and the school called.
It seemed 'Salina had apparently fainted in the playground at morning tea, and now had a headache and they were sending her home if we could please come and collect. The phone call woke Paris.
So - clingy baby, sick older sister, soaking and half a kitchen of groceries, I kissed V goodbye so I could get to work.
Truthfully, I was not altogether unhappy to go to work. See above. That, and I had a few major tasks to accomplish while at work, so if I got in a half hour early, I would have plenty to fill the time. All I needed to do was grab lunch on the way there...
Now, last time I got (well, admitted to) junk food for lunch, I ended up an hour in the drive-through due to a stalled engine. Therefore, this time around I went to a competitor.
Since that last fateful time, the engine has stalled on one other occasion (amidst a lot of traffic at a busy intersection) but it has also been serviced.
Apparently not well enough, because this time the car stalled again in the drive-through. I have learned since the last two times, however, and managed to hold my mouth right to restart and get out of there (before requiring an RACQ man to come and have the engine start with no problem).
That is okay, I thought to myself, I can drop the car to the mechanic and still get to work in time. Therefore, I decided to eat the junkfood on the way there rather than do so in the lunchroom.
Mistake number 2.
Just before I got to the mechanics, I noticed the junkfood had left a long slick of red and yellow sauces on my white blouse.
Plan C was to duck into a shopping centre, get a new shirt, take the car to the mechanic and get to work. I could still do it in the timeframe.
That is without factoring in the next stall. Or the next one...
Eventually I did follow through with Plan C - although the timeframe was blown out of the water.
So, when we tell our grandchildren about the time we won lotto, we shall look fondly at one another and reminisce about all of the things we COULD have done - instead of what a good portion of it ended up covering, and my goodness, I have hidden the rest away in a very dark corner to hopefully procreate and seed the dream of the renovation.
Sometime.
On a positive note, Friday was the sixth (or was it seventh) dry day this year.
yay.
Today is Saturday. It rained again.
It is a fitting background for the week.
This week was one of those weeks where you learn lessons.
I am still unsure as to the lesson I am meant to take away.
Help me...
This week started with rain - rain, and a windfall on Lotto. Not quite a "$20 million dollars" with appropriate echo noises and ridiculous people screaming, but enough of a windfall for us all to form dreams.
Well, actually, very much not even a windfall for full blown dreams that begin with "when we win lotto", and not even as much of a windfall as my boss one-upped me with when I mentioned the figure we were excited about, but hey - it beats the "woo hoo, we won $10" I yell when I forget to put lotto in.
Anyhoo, our bathroom requires some serious immediate attention. I don't know whether it is weather or not, but the tiles are leaving the walls at an alarmingly increasing rate; some water-based activity partaken within leaves puddle clues below - although not regular enough to go "way-hey, there is the problem" with any laserlike intensity; and a slow-drip (which has been rewashered on more than one occasion to the tunes of what sound like sea-shanties - at least in language levels) in the vanity has at last shown its true potential, and we have a cavity beneath our vanity that you could lose a small child in (if we were to ever let a small child wander in - we don't).
Our minds lit up with our windfall potential marrying with the bathroom concepts, and while the windfall = a very small percentage of what a proper bathroom renovation might entail, we began to actually forsee an improper bathroom renovation - or at least, the bones of one.
We have a list, we have a plan in our mind's eye, we have a purpose - and we have a seedling to grow into crossing "bathroom renovation" right off the list.
In the same breath (if the mind were to breathe - what time device should be used for the brain?), our minds also began to see other things that our windfall could achieve.
My sewing machine died last year. The bed is on its last legs. 'Salina is growing too fast. Paris is growing too fast. My workplace deserves to see me in a more varied wardrobe. With better shoes. V's vehicle's driver's door needs repairing. We need a holiday. Haircuts. Heck, we could even think about take-away...
It almost got too much to contemplate. Suddenly we were spending money in our minds far quicker than we could ever win it!!
Luckily at this point, fate stepped in with one spectacularly crappy Friday.
Paris was in a "I need to cling to the nearest parent and whimper" mood that can only accompany teething. Luckily for her (and me), I don't work on Friday mornings so we got to bond.
With such a sad situation, we didn't get to go and do our fortnightly Friday socialising with the local ABA - and nor did we get to do the alter-fortnightly Friday grocery shop en famille.
Instead, V was sent out into the pouring rain to gather the vittles.
Paris eventually succumbed to slumber (and good drugs) and I hooked into the mountain of paperwork that I imagine I can do on a Friday morning, and had 25 minutes of such entertainment when V arrived home with the goods, and the school called.
It seemed 'Salina had apparently fainted in the playground at morning tea, and now had a headache and they were sending her home if we could please come and collect. The phone call woke Paris.
So - clingy baby, sick older sister, soaking and half a kitchen of groceries, I kissed V goodbye so I could get to work.
Truthfully, I was not altogether unhappy to go to work. See above. That, and I had a few major tasks to accomplish while at work, so if I got in a half hour early, I would have plenty to fill the time. All I needed to do was grab lunch on the way there...
Now, last time I got (well, admitted to) junk food for lunch, I ended up an hour in the drive-through due to a stalled engine. Therefore, this time around I went to a competitor.
Since that last fateful time, the engine has stalled on one other occasion (amidst a lot of traffic at a busy intersection) but it has also been serviced.
Apparently not well enough, because this time the car stalled again in the drive-through. I have learned since the last two times, however, and managed to hold my mouth right to restart and get out of there (before requiring an RACQ man to come and have the engine start with no problem).
That is okay, I thought to myself, I can drop the car to the mechanic and still get to work in time. Therefore, I decided to eat the junkfood on the way there rather than do so in the lunchroom.
Mistake number 2.
Just before I got to the mechanics, I noticed the junkfood had left a long slick of red and yellow sauces on my white blouse.
Plan C was to duck into a shopping centre, get a new shirt, take the car to the mechanic and get to work. I could still do it in the timeframe.
That is without factoring in the next stall. Or the next one...
Eventually I did follow through with Plan C - although the timeframe was blown out of the water.
So, when we tell our grandchildren about the time we won lotto, we shall look fondly at one another and reminisce about all of the things we COULD have done - instead of what a good portion of it ended up covering, and my goodness, I have hidden the rest away in a very dark corner to hopefully procreate and seed the dream of the renovation.
Sometime.
On a positive note, Friday was the sixth (or was it seventh) dry day this year.
yay.
Today is Saturday. It rained again.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Not so nearly any more
The toddler bit anyway - doing our best to hold back the teenage tide until last possible moment.
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