The Stress Free Non Traditional Approach Less Travelled

Bit of background - I have never, ever dreamed of white weddings, marzipan cakes, tuxedos or flowers.

I have been involved in weddings - weddings that were all that, and I an auxillary watching the carnage spectacular from the sidelines.

I have been a doomsayer at the folly of some chasing the elusive dream of a rock, a frock and a c- umm - cute man to share the limousine.

(I have also been to some beautiful events that really meant everything to the people involved and those surrounding them - enough to make me not totally anti the whole kit and caboodle).

So anyway, yesterday we bought some jewellery.

Its not a piece of real estate - not even a small car or kitchen revamp - but it is the most expensive and beautiful piece of jewellery I have ever owned and we chose it during one of those grocery shops and took 'Salina with us to buy it yesterday.

I am not dreading the fact that V and I plan to be together for the long haul - we have been discussing that for ages.

I am, however, a little anxious about the gushes and intense questioning from others about "the chain of events" that this will precipitate.

The news has been broken to my immediate family.

My mother was, as usual, so wonderfully calm and supportive and quite happy about it all. (Considering my mother should take up poker as a possible hobby - unless you run your fingers down her blackboard she will never flinch - this I see as a very positive response).

My father called to congratulate when he got home later - our conversations are never smooth unless they involve mustering strategies, so for us it went very well.

My brother wished to know the details of the proposal. (BTW The details are he asked early, he asked often and he generally got the answer he was looking for) He also wanted to know if we were having a party. I don't know the answer to that - we only just got our proverbial together on jewellery.

My sister, having been primed by an afternoon visit to the parental home and having dined at her husband's extended family (therefore possibly very much primed) beat me to the punch and called me first. She was extremely gushy about it (more excited than me, it seemed) and wanted to know what we had planned thus far.

My sister had a fantastic day in a gazebo followed by drinks, a ferry ride and deluxe dining. Oh, and several hours of photographs (she is a photographer) and 3 beautiful cherubs as well as a very skinny me and a best man - but I do remember a few moments of stress (she is also a bit of a perfectionist).

My brother had a fantastic day on the side of a river on the property followed by a feast in a tent. I think I was fairly stressed then about having a toddler and an untame soon to be ex, so I don't remember much else.

My parents had the traditional church and reception circa 1965.

Our plan thus far is that we want no fuss and a stress-free event some so-far undetermined time in the future. It will possibly be fairly non-traditional to meet our personalities, the inclusion of 'Salina is mandatory, very likely somewhere in Paradise and our budget will enable those who love us enough to come to Paradise to attend should get fed - maybe a bowl or two of chips and some dips, you know...

My sister assures me that "the only stresses will be those you impose on yourself" but I don't know - I am fairly gun-shy and think that a quick whip down to the registry might be in order if it starts to look dicey...

By the way - if you are a "real life" friend and I haven't phoned you and "told you the big news" - well, I am getting to it - still freaking out about the questions I will have to answer.

Measuring Moisture

Firstly, thanks Jaycee for answering Jamie's question. A rain gauge does indeed measure rain - something we are wont to do in this part of the land where it happens rarely and is welcomed openly. Being from another dry part of the continent and with a similar background, Jaycee understands. (As does Strauss - who looks forward to returning to this wide brown land. Here is her childhood snapshot - stark and beautiful.)

I grew up where, at the first hint of a drop we were aching to go measure the moisture - our taciturn parents limited us to once - twice if downpours occurred - a day, and there was always that moment when your dreams were either fulfilled or shattered.

On the phone to a friend yesterday afternoon, I mentioned that we got about an inch yesterday - for some strange reason V snickered at this!

My greeting this morning as I emerged from the bedroom (late - sun isn't doing its job in waking me these grey, wet mornings*) was he, with a grin on his face, greeting me with "45 mill baby!" - knowing we had some unchecked lotto tickets, immediately my thoughts went on spending all that dosh - until I realised it was the rain.

Only a little dampened as my rich life dreams disappeared, I suddenly realised - in old money that is nearly 2 inches - which is nearly 3 1/2 inches for the last few days - which is about 1/4 of all the rain that my family received in the last 12 months on the property.

Puts it into perspective.

Should clear tomorrow - which means V will be working at least 2 days out of our 3 day weekend.

Oh well - the final of my outstanding cheques has just hit the red zone - I am definitely not scary enough - but if the money does go into my account I am looking forward to buying a brand new stove!!! Cold wet weather = need for all cooking appliances to be on deck. Hotplate + crockpot + microwave + griller oven just isn't cutting the mustard!

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* Unlike Melody at BigLittle Sister - check out her wake up call!

Its raining - which means

• No bike riding, running around or outdoors tomfoolery for children.
• This also means that a night at Guides can lead to irritability, irrational displays of childishness and extreme fatigue - the girls had fun though.

• Rapid growth in the garden without human hand-watering or intervention.
  
• Looks like the new lawnmower will get a burl when this all lets up.
  

• Jobsites quagmired in mud.
• No hard labour for my sweet V.
• (hmm, and I haven't been as consistent in front of this box for the last few days resultantly - get to take the man grocery shopping and such).

Ah well, most of my cheques have come home to roost so at least the larder is full of food, the house is full of happiness and laughter - and the rain gauge is filling up.

Send it down, Hughie

Exhausted

What with an extra child for 3/4 of the weekend, 5 hours driving 5 hours socialising in my little home town at a sports day yesterday, a rainy day today where I am not sure if I really woke up - I crashed at 2.30pm for a nap.

During my nap I had a very confusing dream - concerning trying to cook dinner for an ever changing number and nature of guests, moveable neighbourhood landmarks, strange people, cars falling into gardens due to wheel alignment, corridors, my mother but acting like my grandmother, my father discussing bowls and electricians.

Do you know, I wasn't refreshed at all when I awoke.

Ho-oowl

Full moon and it really has pressed in today, hasn't it?

Things that should have been relatively stress-free seemed laden...

Friday is generally a good morning - no lunch to cut as I am Tuckshop Jeanie every second Friday... except today had a kink in its smooth flow...

Today is the start of the month which means one LARGE amount of money generally disappears from my account near the start of the month and the problem was that today that money was not going to be in there to disappear until I put it in there, as YESTERDAY was the Local Show Holiday - which means that every business in town was shut.

So today I would have to fit in a visit to the bank - and with the Tuckshop Jeanie Sash comes the pricetag of a large chunk of child-free time in which to do Tuckshop duty and a very small sliver to devote to Jeanie oriented duties.

I explained my dilemna to Tuckshop Tish (the Lady High Chieftress of Kingdom Tuckshop) and she was benign in her offer of a pardon once orders were sorted - ahh, relief.

Unfortunately Tuckshop Tish's extensive family compound had a medical emergency, and as she is Lady High Chieftress there too, I was benign in my offer to take on the mantle in Kingdom Tuckshop - and my window of opportunity to do the mercy dash to the bank was tightened.

After feeding all the little blighters refuelling the bottomless gullets of the sweet children of 'Salina's school, I cleaned and ran my fingers through the gold and silver, threw the money at the office and drove the 15km to "town" - it took 15 minutes. The queue at the bank wandered to the entrance and every transaction was taking each of the 3 attendants a long, l-o-n-g time indeed.

I can't say I panicked, but I watched the 50 minutes allocated for the whole job s-l-o-w-l-y diminish as I did high level physics and mathematical equations in my head over the probability of me arriving home before my daughter was dropped off by the school bus (very low) VS the chance of a message actually reaching her at the school to not take the school bus. It was very convoluted and would possibly need diagrams to explain adequately.

That didn't really move the line along, so I let the coin lie on the latter and rang the school.

The guy in front of me in the line had two broken fingers - his little and ring - and they were intricately bound. His phone rang (interesting porn music crossed with rock beat) and his conversation ran thus. "Hello... That's right... Yep, I can... Mm-hmm... Okay... Uh-huh... Yeah, bye." I think he was a drug dealer.

There was two women getting hundreds of dollars - paid in 20s, 10s and 5s. I couldn't work it out. Do people still get paid in cash, or did they have huge broods of children somewhere getting show or pocket money?

I know you are not meant to eavesdrop in banks, but what else can you do? The rotating ads about how wonderful the bank and the banks products are can be repetitious - and the walls are covered with posters about wonderful the bank and the banks products are. Anyone know any good bank games?

An old man was taking his time transferring thousands of dollars from one account to another and querying the fee structures on the various bank products his portfolio was involved in.

A mother with 2 kids was unable to do something because some card or signature that was meant to be there wasn't there and the junior teller had nothing to offer her in the way of solutions - that needed a conference of one of the other working tellers and someone slightly higher up the food chain. Luckily the older kid was really switched on in entertaining the toddler, because otherwise there may have been some real theatrics.

I looked back and was somewhat enthused that, although my place in the line had not advanced very far, my position in regards to the end of the queue had improved markedly.

A Lady in the uniform of a major hardware chain started fidgeting and complaining to the guy in front of her how she had just ducked out to do the bank crawl and she could only imagine how the queue was where she was meant to be at her place of work.

Another phone rang, and two guys in line started the phone search - check the bag, the pockets - the guy closer to me got to his phone first, but I think it was the farther back guy's call. Closer guy started to pretend to text someone.

Finally it was my turn to front the tellers, and I thrust the wads of cash at the teller who processed it in record time - I think we were both relieved at the brevity of our relationship - and I hit the bitumen back.

Thankfully my gamble paid off, as 15 minutes after the bus would have deposited my child at the empty house I collected 'Salina from school.

I only had to stop at the shops, collect the mail, send a fax to some people I worked for this week so they can put some more money into my account in the near future, make a call to my old friends. Remember, the ones who forgot to pay me for an April invoice by the start of May? Well, I guess the subject keeps on slipping their minds, because it is now officially June and part of the reason for the need to deposit money into my account is because no other beggars (such as this company) is doing it for me. I am starting to think they don't want to talk to me given the voicemails I have had to access and lack of returned calls... I am thinking that I shall have to, I don't know, beg or threaten - and I am NOT THAT SORT OF GIRL.

Anyhow - why am I still wound up - and over what? Enough money is in the bank, the day is over and I have had a wonderful dinner with my darling V and beautiful 'Salina and, although the Broncos just lost I live in Paradise.

I feel I just have to blame the moon.

Tomorrow is an early start as we are going to the Abercorn Goodwill Games and the Abercorn State School 80th Birthday celebrations. 'Salina, myself and a friend's son will be travelling 175km to watch lots of kids running around and having a ball, and then travel back 175km in the afternoon - I might tell you about it some time soon.

I was going to give you a link to the info on the above, but I just checked it, and had to laugh:

To celevreate the school's 80th Anniversary, special commemorative bottles and postcarrds will be available on the day.

Hmm - spellcheck. I think I might get some "postcarrds"

Well, I might go and slide in next to V and say goodnight to the moon - I hope that tomorrow is less affected by its orb.