#189 We are so bad…

… and I love it.

So, a couple of days ago we’re working out our repayments for our new Sea change house. (Tee hee hee, excuse me while I repeat the words ‘our Sea change house’ for forever).

We’re like “ok, I think this will work.”

It will work. But we just have to be a bit more careful with our money. No random purchases and go out here and just eat there and buy those shoes because what the hell.

We need to be a little careful. Mindful. We’ve gotten used to a very relaxed way of living, and now we need to be considerate of where our money goes, because not only will we be paying off our Sea change house (tee hee hee) but we also want to save on the side so we can slowly, do the place up, and renovate areas while we’re living there.

This conversation, literally happened on Monday night.

Today, Wednesday. We’re driving home from the shops after running around all day, and Hubbie suddenly turns to me:

“I feel like dinner out tonight.”

I withhold a big smile creeping onto my face. I purse my lips and he’s grinning, waiting.

“Well we might as well take advantage of our local while we’re still in the area.”

He laughs. “You’re shocking.”

Hours later, and we’re at a reliable local, TGIs. It’s loud, it’s bustling, we can sit in a booth and hole up baby girl at one end (until she climbs under the table) the food is moorish, and of course the crayons and free balloon are always entertaining.

For baby girl of course.

And then this:

We shared something calling itself a ‘chocolate malted turtle,’ or something like that. There was warm, moist chocolate fudge cake, chocolate malt icing, ice cream, and caramel sauce.

Oh My Gosh. This thing should never be shared, ever, ever, ever.

It was so insanely good. It was a dessert orgasm, that’s what it was.

And sitting there eating all this food, eating out, days after saying we need to watch our money more, we were thinking the same thing.

‘We are so bad.’

But, I love being bad.

 

#188 Contacts

It’s really convenient to have a sister who has moved house, at least, once.

(Severe understatement).

Nevertheless, whether it has been 3 or 13 times, this amazing woman has contacts. I called her earlier tonight and even though my house-buying query was about the legal jargon in the contract, she ended up giving me the number of her kitchen guy, and told me about her conveyancer.

When you have a ‘kitchen guy,’ it becomes obvious you are skilled in the art of moving/renovating.

She has on previous occasions told me about their fireplace guy; their plumber; their locksmith; and their electrician.

It’s hard doing this house-buying thing and all the things that come with it, on your own, for the first time, winging your way and learning about stuff as you go. So to have someone with reliable ‘contacts,’ handy people, is like jumping to the front of the queue.

We need all the help we can get. All the help, I don’t deny any of the help.

#187 Going back to work

Crazy, yeah? So true though.

I’ve been away from work for about 2 weeks, but what with all the buying of our Seachange house (!) and baby girl’s and my birthday, it hasn’t really felt like ‘2 weeks off.’ Nonetheless when all the big events were over with last week, I took the time to just chill and go “ahhh.” It’s going to be crazy again before we know it, and I just needed that time to not care so much, and let things be as they will be.

However the problem with letting things be as they are, and not being in my regular work-home-life routine, is that tasks and things I push myself to usually do, start to slip. Especially my writing. I take it easy in my spare time, feeling as if I have nothing pressing to do (trust me I have a zillion pressing creative tasks though), and feel as if I have all the time in the world, for this, for that, for ALL the things…

And then one week of sleep-ins later, and ‘oh shit.’

That went quick.

Back at work today, and already my creative juices are swimming. I need to be busy, and have a busy schedule, in order to squeeze writing into my life. I’ve always been that way. In uni, have 1 month to write assignment worth 40%?… nah, do it in the last 4 days and pass out from fear when all the text books required have already been reserved in the library.

Have several weeks to plan and get ready for baby girl’s birthday? Nah, just do it all in the last 3 days and don’t sleep and yell at everyone in the house like a dictator until everyone is crying, including me.

Have all weekend to do washing? Nah, just do 3 loads all on a Sunday night.

You get the picture?

I stress when I’m busy, but I simultaneously thrive under the pressure. It’s insane I know. And though I may not be under the pump right now, just knowing that my days aren’t as free since I am back at work, just makes me wanna write, and plan, and research, and make phone calls, and be creative and fill my days with everything NON-work related, that much more.

So in effect, work helps me write. Funny, huh?

#186 Brekkie with friends

I haven’t had brekkie out in a while. Minus when we’ve been away, we kind of have been avoiding it since the kind-of-manoeuvrable days when I’d take a baby girl, then actually a baby, and feed her pureed apple and banana or mango or whatever fruit of choice while we waited for our poached eggs/big brekkie meals to arrive.

It’s hard to travel in the car with a hungry child. I won’t do that to her, just for my sake. I put brekkie out, on hold. We put brekkie out, on hold.

But then, last night happened. At a family function Hubbie found his best mate, and within 5 minutes they had hatched a plan that our two fams would breakfast out the next morning. This morning.

We were all tired this morning, all wondering if the other party would still be willing to go through with the proposed plan. Baby girl was with snotty nose, having come down with something in the last few days. Little sleep was had. Cold. But still, with thoughts of cooked breakfasts beside a fireplace, we all soldiered on.

It was an interesting brekkie! A review will come in due course. And next time, we will be better prepared and actually book in advance. But it was so nice to not only be ‘breakfast-ing’ again, but doing it with dear friends… who also have kids, so that our scallywag bunch can amuse each other somewhat.

Life is about enjoying each moment as much as you can. Life is even better when you can share those moments with people you love. That, I am grateful for.

 

#185 Laughter amidst the madness

Driving home late, on yet another Saturday night. Another family function. Of course, August. Again, driving my parents. And Hubbie. And baby girl.

Hubbie has drank, as well as had multiple coffees. I love the guy immensely, but he is a DRAINER. He just won’t stop talking. I’m like “shhh!”

“She won’t wake up!” He proclaims about baby girl, an octave louder.

“You have to respect women,” he’s saying to my parents in the back seat. I internally eye roll. “I’ve always believed that, but now even more after baby girl… imagine now, I’m in the back, with SmikG, and baby girl is at the front with her husband. I want to make sure she’s looked after, respected.”

My parents just nod. I can hear their amused thoughts.

“Shhh!” I go again.

“It’s ok, she’s fine!” Again he practically shouts this. I grimace. I put down the volume in the car, accessible from my steering wheel. He catches this within time and laughs at how I put it down after he’s turned up the dial.

“How can she hear it, if I can’t?”

I scowl, turning it down again when he’s not watching.

“Maybe I’m talking too much.” He turns to my parents. “It’s the alcohol. And the coffee. I’m talking tonight for the whole week! During the week SmikG talks… I won’t talk.”

Eye roll.

My Mum pipes up. “That’s how my husband used to be.” My Dad laughs from beside her. “He would drink and then not stop talking all night. I would go to bed and he’d still be talking! Oh, and if I upset him the slightest… I wouldn’t hear the end of it.”

They both laugh, and I smile, remembering this story I’ve already heard. It’s the first time my face has turned upwards the whole trip home.

“Respect,” Hubbie is saying again. “You have to respect women. It may not be your  daughter, but it’ll be someone else’s daughter. It’s no good how there are men that don’t respect women, I don’t like that.”

Everyone nods, hoping to shut him up.

“I wish baby girl finds someone that respects her. I wish baby girl finds someone like me!”

In that moment I withhold from bursting out into laughter.

‘I don’t want her to find someone like you – someone to shit her incessantly! I don’t want her to be pissed!’

This thought makes me laugh so hard from the inside, that suddenly, despite my shitty-ness at Hubbie refusing to be quiet, refusing to keep the music down, and just repeating repeating repeating like a parrot, things are a little more lighter.

After we’ve dropped off my parents, I tell him what I thought earlier.

He smiles. “If that’s the worst baby girl has, a husband that shits her on the drive home… if that’s her only problem, I’m happy.”

Yes, his inability to listen to me, to anyone, at all, after multiple drinks of coffee and alcohol, totally fucking shits me up the wall. I freaking want to go insane.

But he’s right. It’s a pretty funny problem to have.

It’s nice to be able to find the funny-ness, amidst the frenzy.

I love my annoying Hubbie.

;P

 

#184 Nappings and nothings

I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life, just like Phil Collins. Only really I’ve just been waiting all day, but waiting all day with a child that has a runny nose, and you are feeling particularly crap, well it may as well feel like ‘all my life.’

She is napping, which makes it easier for me to continue doing what I was doing all day today – nothing. I should be grateful really, and I am, hence the title of this post… but baby girl has allowed me to be pretty slack today. I am indebted. I’m just feeling sickly, low, and it’s pretty much a write-off kinda day.

Only thing is, it isn’t. These days of little done, should be celebrated as much as the days where we feel highly successful with what we’ve accomplished. Alright, we won’t celebrate the sickly parts, but the not-doing parts… if it weren’t for these down days, I would actually, NEVER stop. Like never. Feeling a bit down is necessary for my mental and physical and emotional wellbeing, because quite frankly, I am always on the go. Always thinking doing planning something.

I have this laptop on my lap, mobile besides me, and even mags that I’ve been wanting to browse through just peeking at me from my right field of vision… but even these relaxing to-dos, just ain’t gonna cut it. They’re here ‘in case’ I get a burst of motivation, and I suddenly feel like doing.

But today is a nothing day. Doing opposes nothing. I can’t oppose, especially when I feel down. It’s against the rules of nothing.

Today is only a napping and nothing day. And I won’t be stirring baby girl from her nap anytime soon.

#183 The look of adoration

You stay on their heels. They keep you on your toes.

You repeat repeat repeat repeat. Then repeat again.

You check what they do. Every thing they do. You can’t relax. You sway between begging, bribing, and threatening them. When you’re just asking, it’s at the dangerous point of not caring anymore.

But. They know how to get under your skin. More than Frank Sinatra. They know what to do, say, or how to look, to make your heart melt and any prior annoyances disappear forever more.

Tonight I was gently begging baby girl to finish her milk. She went from one side of me on the couch, to suddenly sit on the other. She then wanted a cushion behind her back. I complied, getting her one. Despite the support she chose to lean off it and onto me. I tried to straighten her up, and still she leant onto me, while I tried to keep her straight so that she could hold her cup and finish her milk.

At the point where I started to get slightly irritated, she leant her head back and looked up at me. Inquisitively, wide-eyed. Searching my face. All my cares and worries and stupid annoyances vanished instantly, just like that. I stared back at her, a smile turning the corners of my lips ever so slightly, and she mirrored me. We stared at each other like that for a good while, and my eyes welled with tears at the adoration I saw. I saw it, in her; I saw it, reflected off of her. I whispered “I love you so much.”

I looked at her in the eyes and willed myself to burn that image in my head until the end of time.

Sadly, photos and images and even memories can fade, but that is exactly the reason why I write. It’s the reason why I document my life so much. Even if I forget, somewhere out there in the world this encounter exists, and that puts me in a state of calm. It’s recorded. Therefore it happened.

But oh, that look. The look of love. No matter the image, that feeling remains in my heart forever.

I am grateful for that moment late this evening, because until then, I had no idea what I would ‘be grateful’ about today.. and still I ended up writing about the most beautiful of things there is…

#182 OCD record-keeping

So I receive an email today from our solicitors.

“If you wish to discuss please call our office.”

Before I even look at the attached documents I just know I won’t be happy.

Apparently, there was something we hadn’t paid for prior to the settlement of something we sold last year. Looking over the documents today, I’m like ‘we paid this, I know we did.’

I can recognise the paperwork, and even though life as a Mum can be awfully hazy at times, there’s one thing I’m a total ninja at: record-keeping.

I had to do something with Hubbie this afternoon, but the pesky email just wouldn’t leave my mind. It was harassing at me, gnawing at my mind, asking me in what beautiful way I could put the unfair bastards who were claiming this nonsense to shame. Finally when our job was done, I went trawling through my old bank transfers online, and lo-and-behold…

Evidence.

A while later, I went looking through more folders from our study, hoping I’d kept enough paperwork to further support our case –

I literally, randomly opened up the folder, and BANG!

The paperwork in question was staring me in the face.

Like, seriously. I’m an OCD-ninja-record-keeping-detective, but even I didn’t know I was that good.

I scanned everything and sent it off to our solicitors just moments ago. With the message “I’m more than happy to help, but maybe the owners of X and X should check their monies received more carefully.”

BOOM!

So, at the beginning of this, I started out quite shitty. However someone’s apparent loose grasp of checking paperwork and money, leading to them unfairly pointing the finger at someone else, has only reconfirmed to me what I must always do.

Hoard hoard hoard. Hoard all the paperwork. I used to think I hoarded too much.

But no. I must hoard so much more.

 

 

#181 Bestie, birthday, movie and Me

Which scenario is better:

• heading out for your birthday
• spending some ‘me’ time with a cherished friend, or
• participating in a luxurious past-time that has been absent from your life for a long time?

Why, I have the answer – ALL OF THE ABOVE!

I was really excited, when a couple of weeks back my bestie messaged telling me she wanted to take me out for my birthday to see a movie. My initial instinct was to worry ever-so-slightly about how baby girl and Hubbie would manage things without me for a few hours… and then I was like ‘no!’

They will manage. Anytime I have been out, they always have.

Tonight, post-birthday, but never, EVER too late for a good time, we headed out to the local cinemas to watch Absolutely Fabulous The Movie. This was the movie of choice, because in our high school years we were one of very few (maybe only) in our year who actually watched the series, mocking Eddie the following day with repeated “sweetie sweetie sweetie sweetie darling”s. It was hilarious, as all things are in high school.

Well, the above line didn’t come out in the movie – a few ‘sweetie’s yes, but no combo like the above. I had popcorn just so I could feel like I was actually at the cinemas. The salt dried my lips out, but I had no damn care whatsoever.

I honestly wouldn’t care if I was watching the movie that had won the yearly Rotten Tomatoes award. I will gladly pay anyone to sit down and do nothing, much like I do at the hairdressers too.

However, I did enjoy the movie. As a disclaimer for other movie-goers, I do think it’s probably only enjoyed for those who actually watched and liked the series. It was light and fluffy fun, nothing too overwhelming or even too hilarious. Just silly, much like Edina and Patsy.

Following the movie was a bite to eat, alongside a drop of red from the seaside destination we are heading off too… and then the talking. D&M. Talking. More D&M. It made me realise how much I miss ‘me’ time, and bestie time, and just going out time, that I need to make an effort to do it more, and not just when prompted, not just for an occasion. It has to be a common ritual.

I came back home so much happier, and full of vibrancy. I was refreshed, I felt brand new, and I was ready to be a Mum and a Wife again.

Mums, if you’re reading this: do it. Take the night off too. You deserve it. You won’t regret it. Looking after ‘you’ is important, more so because you look after everyone else.

I’m so grateful for the night I had. I didn’t think I needed a night off, but boy was I wrong. I am so glad I was wrong. I need to be wrong like this more often.

‘Sweetie darling.’

 

 

#180 Prince and the sun and driving

So, as mentioned minutes ago, my gratitude today came from a moment, a realisation.

It was unexpectedly sunny, though rain was expected to pummel down sometime today. I was driving, feeling like I should have dressed lighter… but I didn’t mind too much. Winter was fading, and I was glad to be warm.

Baby girl was yelling out at random intervals in the back seat… postman – yell!… dog being walked – yell!… plane – yell! I repeated the things she saw and took joy in the simple objects around us with her.

Prince was singing. 1999. Extended version. My stereo volume, on 16.

And just like that: baby girl in one ear, Prince surrounding the car, the heat emanating through the car and the sun beckoning from outside, in the aftermath of a huge party-filled weekend, with thoughts of our beach house looming to us in my mind, only months away…

I was really happy, and content. It was a moment, but a very cool, a very special one. I know to take pleasure in things like this. We are now in ‘anticipatory delight.’*

(*Definition comes at the end of my Jam and Cream food review)