I am in my Happy place

Now that I am soon to be an umemployed bum, I have had to reshuffle my priorities. My gym membership was already on hold as a result of total inactivity :(
Ok I can do this exercise thing again. I drove in my car to measure the distance to my second closest pub...why I live so close to a range of public drinking places is another story. Anyway it was 1.5 km there so obviously it was 1.5km back.

I have been told that running outside is easier. I find it harder. The thin winter air constricts my airways, it is cold and I always feel like the paths are on a slant? Stop making excuses I say to myself, so I hit the bike path that runs parallel for ever along the railway line. I alternated running with brisk walking on the way down, still conscious of my niggly leg. Got into a rhythm with Killers music, then had to abruptly stop to walk and fiddle with my MP3 player as Bindi Irwin music started...forgotten I had put that on for Kelstar.On the way back I was doing the whole Julia Roberts singing in the bath thing with Foo Fighters...that Dave Grohl is just sooo cool. Frightened a little old lady on her electric scooter with my loud singing of Long Road to Ruin.
More walking on the way back than running as the day was beautiful (though cold) and I just enjoyed the passing scenery.
Strange how I got to the pub a lot quicker than I got back. Nothing much has changed in 20 years!!

Post-it note stuck to my forehead...must get back into training for some fun runs...I have a serious case of winter podge!

PS - I have gone the total chop at the hairdressers tonight...gone for the sporty, cutesy style in a great dark shade...I love the freedom of wearing my hair how I like it, being able to dag around in my trakky pants and eating leftovers any night of the damned week that I please

No job but bloody happy :D

Connie is pushed

She was gonna jump, but she was pushed.
August 22nd, final day. Big night planned at the local. All and sundry invited (but no dickheads!!). Go hard or go home.

Saying of the day - Dickhead are dickheads because they just don’t get it…they cannot be taught. - thanks Buzz for your words of wisdom and thanks to Uncle Grant for getting all puffy chested...I appreciate it

Happy Birthday x 3

Happy 18th birthday's to Jordan and Ben, the 22nd and 31st July respectively.
Happy 7th birthday to Hannah for the 24th.

Luckily for this blended family all birthdays fall within a 2 week period. They have one big family gathering but 3 cakes...I like that!! Together but separate.
As Kelly and I are foster relatives we went along for an extended afternoon of snags in bread, cake, dip and chips, coffee, more cake, wine, cheesecake, and tea to wash it all down and to settle my tummy!!
I can't believe that 'the boys' are now legally adults...they are still in High School albeit their last year. We have known them since they just turned 11...when they were still in Primary School. They have grown like weeds, sprouted a little facial hair and voices deepened. Soon they will both be driving and attending university.
What a pleasure and a honour to witness your transition into adulthood.
Lynne and Daryl (Brett, Stephanie and partners), you should all be proud of the parts you have played in raising two wonderful boys.

The Twisties Mystery

I have been accused of a "scheming, vindictive spiteful and sadistic" act. Could it be me??
Was it me??
I do know who it is...but I'm not telling ;-)

PS Google Image Search 'Twisties' - Life's pretty straight without Twisties!!

Self delusion, Shiraz, and Starfish

I would like to share an email that finally got to me today. Originally it was intended as a comment on this blog but maybe gmail rejected as it was slightly too long!!

But Buzz, I will forgive you as I realise you are (a teeny insy winsy bit) technologically disadvantaged/challenged. "like just give me a phone to make and receive calls, I don't want GPS, surround sound, mini plasma screen and daily horoscopes updates, I just want a phone".

Oh, in my very first paragraph I have successfully proven your points 1 and 2 listed below!! It is not my fault that your favourite saying is 'To infinity and beyond" :D

And as for point 3, well I can honestly say that I have never experienced a 'Starfish' - at least not with someone who had a pulse, oh though there was that time...
Your 'Starfish' experience has given us all many lunchtime laughs but we are laughing with you not at you, honestly!

Maybe the 'Starfish' experience started off with a little Self delusion, followed by a copious amount of Shiraz and ended with the Starfish saying either "You did ok??!!" or "Are you insane?!!!"

PS I loved how you went from
perhaps, maybe, one day I will get a plasma/lcd tv
to ok so what is the best for me, how big, what price, what brand
to me receiving a sms from Grant saying 'Guess what, Leftie went out and bought a tv tonight'
- something I would do, compulsive!!

And as for what was in my coffee, I'm not telling ;-)


EMAIL RECEIVED -

There seems to be some reoccurring themes on this blog. At first, I thought that this was simply the product of someone with way too much time on their hands. But now I can see the real picture.

It was revealed to me today over lunch when someone said to Connie….”what ever is in your coffee, I want some”.

This made me realise the true story, although I am not so sure it has a lot to do with coffee. It well maybe be due to a mixture of coffee in some way…or perhaps more due to a mixture of coffee, alcohol and possibly even pharmaceutical drugs, (prescription or otherwise) but whatever the true cause….the symptoms are posted on the internet for all to see. And I have been told,… that there is quite some readership!

What is not apparent on this blog…and rarely commented on at all…is just how much time occupies Connie’s day in the following activities:

1. Trying to take the piss out of me.
2. Trying to think up new, unusual and potentially embarrassing nick names for me.
3. Making jokes about star fish.

I….on the other hand….try to avoid star fishes at all cost. I have been fairly successful at this of late …. Now I really need to concentrate on also avoiding other aquatic species…especially jelly fish and oysters at low tide.

I on the other hand…have no such spare time. I am currently multitasking…almost unheard of in males…but I am watching Big Brother while typing this letter…and at the same time administering medicinal doses of a varietal Shiraz….. as has been recommended by my therapist and close friends alike.

I am not sure if it is the alcohol or simply self delusion which has made me think tonight that learning French and Spanish right now might be a good thing and that it may actually help with my Italian lessons.

And while we are on the subject of personal development…I think I should let everyone know that I decided to cease immediately my attempts at counseling close friends, neighbors and relatives. The results to date have been less than encouraging. In fact.. it is true to say that matters have been made worse for all concerned and as a result..I think I will focus my attention on the “Responsible Use of Alcohol” classes that the Magistrate said I had to attend.

Who knows????...I might even start a blog!

I Hate School

I gotta admit I am a little worried about Kelly. Sunday night, she said I don't want to go back to school tomorrow. Maybe a normal reaction after a leisurely 2 weeks off?? But my warning bells rang.
She had a Transport assignment sheet in her schoolbag for the holidays. We dutifully filled out different types of transport we had used. Legs, bikes, rollerblades, car, train, scooter. I asked her Monday morning if she needed to take it back to which she replied 'No'. Well it should have been a 'Yes'...as they worked on it in class and had to write down '6 facts' from the holidays.

All the kids had to give a talk and they had to sit in the teachers chair and the kids had to point out the 'facts'. Bloody hell, I can't remember school being so stressful, especially grade 1.
So I went through it with her Tuesday night, role playing and describing different activities we had done on the holidays and incorporating the transports into it. She was clearly nervous and stressed about it. It was surprising to me actually. She stomped off in a huff, started crying and wrote I Hate School on her paper.

I tried to reason with her and ask her if there was anything else troubling her. She had a small complaint about some playground politics and also that one of her teachers yells?? So I decided to write a letter to the teacher just to ask if there might be something else troubling her. Well I think the teacher handled the situation very poorly. She pulled Kelly aside, basically read out what I had written and put her on the spot, and asked whether anything was wrong. Like if she won't tell me or her father, there is no way a teacher is gonna get the information out of her.
I approached the teacher after school, on the quiet (incorrectly thinking that it was all done discreetly) to which the teacher replied, that there was nothing wrong and that Kelly said that she had been 'just tricking'.
I think not. But she was happier when I picked her up so maybe it was the stress of talking in front of her class and being unsure of stating 6 facts.

You never stop worrying about your kids I suppose. That wasn't in the Motherhood manual they passed out at the hospital. Actually come to think of it, the manual was full of blank pages, you just gotta make it up as you go along and just try your best. :D

Another Aussie claim to fame!

We DID have the world's oldest blogger but unfortunately she died.

Imagine being 108 - now then I will be able to complain that I am tired!!

I always have a lot of admiration for the seniors who try to keep up with technology.

Hope the stars are in alignment for me at 2.30pm tomorrow...

Think positive, think positive
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The 'armless Dolly

The stars must be out of alignment :D
I was in a horrible mood today at work. After I had a night of dreaming, tossing and turning and little sleep, I then went to work for the 'waiting' game. Waiting for the call to 'come to my office and here is your golden handshake'. The wait is worse than the actual event but the actual event never came to fruition. It is such a terrible atmosphere and as I am sensitive to atmospheres/surroundings, 6 hours working here is just an overload on me.
I just don't cope well with stress or change or uncertainty at all.

I am totally useless in a crisis.

Anyway I came home and cooked a lovely dinner, real comfort food. Left over lasagne with roasted pumpkin, potato and kumara, sour cream on the side. Mmmm and had a red wine as well.

Poor Kelly was so tired from her first day back at school, pulled all my strings and I went well to keep my cool. The last straw for her was when she was playing with her favourite doll and her arm ripped apart. Man, what a tragedy. She stormed up the stairs, screaming and yelling at me (well she did catch me taking a picture of the amputation!). I tried to placate her to no avail. She stormed down again only to hit her head on the clothes horse and stub her big toe.

I just tried to cuddle her to calm her but even that didn't work. A quick phone call to Nana who advised her to wrap up the doll and the severed arm in a blanket and that she would fix her tomorrow. Thank goodness for Nan's needle and thread skills.

This motherhood caper is hard sometimes. I am tired.

There's no place like Home

Kelly has got roller blades...aaarrrgghhh...I thought the trampoline was bad enough. Great how her father buys all these wonderful, accident-waiting-to happen things and I am the one who has to deal with them.
Anyway I decided to embrace rather than fight the blades. So off we went to the local skating rink, it hasn't changed since I first went there about 25-30 years ago. Smells like 30 years of sweaty feet and I think the carpeted walls were the original...eww

When I was a teenager it was our thing to meet at the local rink for a couple of hours, skating, socialising and a few goes on the pinnies (I was a Pinball Wizard). Wasn't life simple back then?

So we hit the 'parents skate free' Saturday session for 2.5 hours (yes you read it correctly) I skated around on roller skates, I know it is a bit old fashioned and daggy but stick with what you know, I reckon.
Why am I one of the only parents skating...oh well don't feel self conscious they are the ones missing out, aren't they? Ooo I am not so bad, let go of the rail after the first turn. I used to be good at this, I reassured myself. I started doing the crossover around the turn. No falls though I did run over Kelly's fingers when she fell over and was dragging me down with her!

I started the ball rolling and a few more parents (mostly fathers) got out there. The 'get-real' prize for the day has to go to the Mother walking around the rink in her high heel boots!

We had heaps of fun and we were quite tired when we got home. The folks dropped in for a late lunch and then Kelly retired to the couch for a couple of Barbie movies. To top off a 'just lurvely' day we watched The Wizard of Oz - can you believe this movie is 69 years old.
There's no place like Home, there's no place like Home

My my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender

Went to see Mamma Mia last night. Mostly it was a feel good 'chick flick'.
I really related to the single mum bringing up beautiful daughter by herself theme. So when the above song came on in a particularly moving scene, I gotta admit that I got a little choked up. I turned to my friend, flapping my hand at my weepy eyes and trying to stop my sobs, to which I got the (not so) comforting 'Oh Connie I knew you would cry at this part!!'
I was an original ABBA fan and still have my 1st vinyl album ever - ABBA Arrival - with the helicopter on the front :-)
Dancing Queen got my feet twitching and I was ready to hit the Karaoke bars :)

Ebaying again

I have convinced Kelly to get rid of some of her stuff!! But now I have to do deals with her...I will buy you that new doll/pram/girly stuff etc if you let me sell some of your old stuff. She has me wrapped around her little finger. I am selling her table and chairs as we got an old school desk off the hard rubbish!! Gotta love FREE
She decided she wanted to get in the picture and asked me 'what do you think people would pay for me'. Of course, I replied that she was 'priceless'!!
Pic also shows how small (but efficient?) my kitchen really is.

Can I interest anyone in a lemon??

My new secateurs got a work out today.

Started the transformation of my lemon tree into a manageable standard shape. It is not high which made it a lot easier. Trimmed all the under branches off and as you can see from the container in front, it had heaps of lemons on it.

When I first moved in, it looked quite sick and all the fruit was so so. It is amazing what a good feed and a drink can do - mmm must be a male lemon tree!!

So Kelly and I retired to the trampoline and counted all the lemons. We got 123. Would have been 124 but as I was the heaviest one on the tramp, they kept rolling towards me and I sat on one. Ended up with a very juicy butt cheek!! Kelly thought it was hilarious.

So what to do with 123 lemons??? Well my old reliable drink that I keep coming back to is Southern Comfort and coke with a slice of lemon to take away that ohhhh so sweet taste...mmmm - and I always enjoy one or two with my old mate Rob in QLD!! Maybe a Southern Comfort/Jim Beam with lemon housewarming party could be the go!! With the mandatory BBQ of course. Anyone interested?

Round pegs v Square holes

Interesting article
When the first blogs (short for web logs, or online diaries) were posted in late 1998, they were a novelty. Today, blogging is so ubiquitous that health professionals have begun investigating the health effects of blogging as an activity - concluding that blogging can foster critical thinking and feelings of connection.
While some commentators have characterised bloggers as lonely, desperate souls in search of validation for their meaningless lives, recent medical research has indicated that the opposite might actually be true: bloggers appear to be less lonely and feel more connected and supported than those who don't blog.

Well occasionally I do feel lonely and a touch desperate (especially when Kelly is tucked up in bed and I have had that second glass of wine!) but yes mostly I feel a connection with my world and supported by my friends and family.

It is funny how we the human race feel the need to classify people. But sometimes we just don't quite fit the mould. I never pictured myself as a sole parent and if I am honest I suppose that in my ideal world, I would be part of a nuclear family. I have accepted that this is not to be for me and mostly I am ok with that. Unfortunately Single Mum still has a stigma attached to it. Mostly criticism is from small minded people fitting perfectly (supposedly) in their square holes and thinking that all round pegs are bludging on the welfare system.

My worst experience was where I was thrust together with a square hole woman who started spouting off about all the childcare benefits that round pegs get and how they should be cut back etc. Ironically she worked for Centrelink!! I was very controlled in the situation and walked away but it did get to me. Needless to say I avoided talking to her in any future social encounters.

B itter - no
I ritated - a little
T ry - walking in my shoes
C rying - helps, don't keep it in
H elp - from my friends will get me through

Slow start

Woke up late about 8.30 with freezing cold feet. So wandered down to kitchen, zapped a heat bag, wandered back to bed, bag on feet, attempted an 'evil' sudoku, fell back asleep ...Buuzzzzzzzzzzz...who could be buzzing my door bell at this hour...ooops it was 10.30!! Wandered sheepishly to door in pajamas with crrrazy hair, let friend and 2 kids in, barked 'put the kettle on' instructions and quickly had a shower to look half decent (like who am I kidding?)

Two cuppas and a great chat later, off she went to a kids party (hehe have fun) and off I went to meet another friend at Bunnings. Bought some new gardening tools to replace ones that I have lost in all my moves of last year. Off to Banksia Nursery - bought a small bare rooted nectarine. Off to another local nursery, bought Yellow Iceberg standard rose and miniature purple daisies for front garden.

Back home I mowed the lawn for the first time since I have moved here. It took longer to get the mower out of the shed, fuel it up and start it than actually mowing the grass!!. Chat with neighbour who also mowing his lawn then I planted out my front garden. Looks great. I have also planted miniature red roses that I got cheaply at school.
Trimmed lemon tree at back and will have another go tomorrow. Would like to standardise the lemon to stop it spreading and overtaking my small backyard. Will put nectarine somewhere out the back, need to survey the area!! Also, Kelly and I love blood plums so that could be another purchase coming up.

Now I need to decide on the border for the front garden. I have had the formal short hedge look which I still like but I am tending towards a softer edge with an Acacia dwarf. Sooo expensive though. Lots of the grasses are very popular especially now that we have permanent water restrictions. But any plant that survives in my garden has to be tough and drought tolerant :)

I have got at least 3 working days off this week - Yipppppeeee time to clean up around the house and garden and chill out with my lovely daughter.

My heatbag is M.I.A.

This is the 3rd night that Kelly has been away from home. Funny how when she is around I just want 5 minutes of peace but when she is not here, I miss her :) It is just soooo quiet without her. I am talking away to myself - 1st sign of madness the voices say!!
It is another very cold and frosty night so the flannels are coming out. Gee I miss her sneaking into my bed to warm herself up. A confession though...sssshhhh dont tell anyone...sometimes on the cold nights I let her believe that she is getting a special treat by sleeping yet again in my bed but really I like it...keeps me snuggly and warm.
So in between going to work I have fitted in a spot of grocery and clothes shopping, went and saw a movie with a friend, Will Smith's Hancock - light entertainment, actually enjoyed going to watch the big screen with a box of popcorn getting passed down the line. And we have promised ourselves another night out, one of the shorts looked ok. Finished watching Series 1 of Life and another series that will go unnamed.
Tomorrow will go to the gym - I am managing 3 km's in 20 mins on the dreaded tready followed by 10mins on the wave machine and a 10min light cycle. My knee complaining most of the way on the tready but no problem on the wave machine (which is amazing for me) and the cycle is good once the clicking sounds stop!! I have been doing lots of stretches and think I might be ready to start training for some 5km fun runs that are coming up soon in Melbourne city. Anyone want to come and keep me company??? Think I will give the 10km a miss until I am fully recovered...will that happen now that I have left the big 4 0 behind??
Got next week off for school holidays so will get to spend plenty of time with Kelly, we usually drive each other nuts by about the 5th day!! Will go and buy some of my roses tomorrow so she can help me plant the garden, one day next week. Also thinking we might catch up on some rest and have a pajama day and stay in our pj's all day watching movies and cartoons.
I am thinking of enrolling in an Access course - that is what my casual employer uses and I dont know anything about it. I have been asked to go back there next Tuesday, man I need a bigger bladder with how many cuppas they have in a day, very laid back, chocolate biscuits on tap, sometimes they watch the midday movie in lunchroom, have bbq's for lunch and pub counter lunches on Friday (oh yeah we just divert the phone to our mobiles!!) Does it get any better than that??!! Well the fridge has about 4 different kinds of beer in it, so I did mention to the boss that I wasn't a beer drinker in general (especially after that unfortunate incident back in the 1980's - kidding!) and maybe the token half drunk bottle of recorked wine didn't quite cut it. :D
I think I may like working there!!
Keep warm and safe everyone
xx

The Window

One of my long term work buddies always used to say
'How can you soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys'
Last week I bought a good friend a card with the words
'Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly'

Some people say when one door closes, another door opens. But I am thinking that maybe it is not a door but a window. In my mind I can see a little high window with a bright flash of sunshine beckoning me.

Tomorrow I am starting casual work at another place (whilst keeping my current job). The family owned business has down to earth people and importantly no Norgren bullshit.
It is a step in the right direction for me. That was one of my phone calls (Buzz, I know you were curious!!). Not sure how much I am getting paid yet or even the amount of hours I will be required but just take it as it comes. I am sure I will enjoy working here.

I feel that this is only the start of things that have been set in motion. Patience is a virtue they say and maybe that is my lesson out of all of this, cos patience is definitely not one of my strong points.

My world is finally coming together again. Please, friends, help me fly to The Window