Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Challenge Accepted!


Ok, so I'm really enjoying linking up each week for the Edenland memes. Now I've gotten all cocky and decided I can manage this mammoth challenge that has been taking place each month. It's as simple as it looks- post a photo every day from the prompts. I'm going to TRY and take part on twitter and probably only but a few of the good ones on this blog. I don't know.. will it be boring? Will I rise to the challenge or totally forget by day three? Stay tuned! 

Theeey're heerre

Well, not yet. But they will be this time tomorrow. The parentals are visiting! That sentence is equal parts exciting and terrifying for the whole family. They are only here for three days but mum has broken her knee and unable to move around, so it should be interesting.

My parents live far, far away (six hours west 'in the sticks') and always come bearing gifts of goods mum has found at various op shops and random bits of shit my dad has found and sanded back. Oh, and booze. This time around of course I'm up the duff so unable to enjoy a tipple, but watching them will be entertaining enough. And then of course we'll have some form of argument and dad and I will stomp off angrily in opposite directions, then ignore each other til Sunday when they drive home.

Love parents visiting!

Monday, February 27, 2012

I don't like Mondays (but Sundays are alright)

Our present routine means that my hubster and I don't get a day off together. Most Sundays when he can swing it though, Rick comes home after lunch so we can do something cool together. It both sucks and rocks at the same time; while the time together is sparse it means we feel inspired to spend it actually doing something.

Yesterday we did stuff! Stuff included: 

-- Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA)

'We Miss You Wonderland' children's exhibition- and a child who
didn't want to be photographed with mum


Yayoi Kusama 'Look Now, See Forever' exhibition  
-- A stroll along the murky brown waters of the Brisbane River - honestly I don't know why we don't appreciate our city more. 

-- An expensive lunch at South Bank that was so putrid I'm surprised we're still here. Notable mention the the Ibis who attacked Axel and made off with his lunch (probably saving his life). Seriously though, never eat at Cosmos at South Bank, we are considering calling the health department. 

-- Followed by THE BEST DINNER EVER at our new favourite Thai restaurant in Sunnybank. We have been frequenting this restaurant since discovering it late last year and it just keeps getting better. The service is bad enough that you have to laugh, but the food is good enough that you don't care. 

The weekend is of course over, but we couldn't resist carrying our lazy holiday mood over to tonight when we took Axel out to Montezuma's. Good chow and great sangria at our local (which conveniently, I waitressed at during uni so I know the good hook ups!) which made for a great night. Axel and Rick are both comatose on my bed watching a bad movie now and I plan on having a lie down on Axel's bed while my food baby and my actual baby battle for space in my belly. 



Really, it's only Monday?

Friday, February 24, 2012

Confessions of a Newlywed

I really hate my husband's hair. I fully expected him to give up his 'grow it like Eddie Vedder' quest before the wedding day and thought he was joking when he showed me a hat he bought to wear. 

I spend a few nights a week in the spare bed because I cannot stand snoring. I don't know what my fate will be when the bed goes to make room for the baby's nursery. 

I secretly think I make better stirfrys than my executive chef husband.

I personally don't think marriage is a necessary institution, and I look at girls my age and younger who get excited over weddings as morons. I'm not a hypocrite; I just like to make my husband happy. I'm confident that we will go the distance, so in a way getting hitched was like making a wager on it.

I don't like some of my in laws. SHOCK! My husband doesn't like some of mine but he is much more vocal about it. 

Sometimes I sneakily throw dumb shit of my husband's in the wheelie bin on rubbish day. He hasn't noticed anything yet. I do the same with his 'favourite' undies when they get holey. What is with men and attachment to jocks? 

We have game nights where we play chess, monopoly, uno etc. and I cheat mercilessly. I don't usually win though, which is why I think it's okay.

Do you have any confessions? 


Apologies

I've spent years being sorry.

Sorry and self deprecating and pessimistic and inward and shy. I've spent 24 years with the heavy guilty of a catholic upbringing on my shoulders. I used to get dragged to mass on Sundays to sit in front of a priest and apologize for shit, often making up things to be sorry about when I couldn't think of anything good enough. I spent my high school years being sorry that I didn't fit in, feeling sorry for myself. And sorry that my parents wouldn't buy me brand name runners and I wasn't allowed to shave my legs. I lost count of how many times I gave teary apologies to my ballet teacher when my dad wouldn't pay for 'waste of time' lessons.

When I left home for uni I was suddenly sorry for not being all that was expected of me from my boyfriend. Sorry that I didn't feel the love of Jesus in my heart and didn't enjoy cramming for exams to become a star student the way he did. I was always apologizing for being myself. The day I had to tell him I'd gotten knocked up by some mean older guy from my work lives uncomfortable in my memory. Oh, how sorry I was the day I had to tell my dad. I was so sorry to the kid as well; sorry you landed this mangled wreck of a couple for parents. As I struggled with PND and Rick with having a girlfriend who he got knocked up who had developed PND I found myself sorry enough to consider taking the cowards' way out.

Then something really amazing happened. I don't know how, and I can't pin point a time when, but something has changed. My soul has grown. My depression has shrunk. Suddenly I have a new found inspiration that grew from my own self. I realized I don't need to file my beliefs into an organised religion and all of a sudden the world feels so big and wonderful. I realized that I am doing a good job as a mum and actually make quite the kick-ass wife.

I no longer hate myself!

And I'm not sorry at all.



Edenland's Fresh Horses Brigade


Linked up with Edenland for this sucker, sorry that's all I seem to do lately :)

Feeling Good

Birds flying high - you know how I feel
Sun in the sky - you know how I feel
Fat lady pulling your shirt down over your saddle bags - you especially know how I feel.

(It's fat. I feel fat. But also happy and tired.)

Monday, February 20, 2012

My peeps

Edenland's Fresh Horses Brigade


I'm a bit slow to board the meme train this week. Last weekend's Edenland Fresh Horses Brigade is about sharing your 'people' on the interwebs. I don't really have any people, but I do have my bookmarks toolbar up there on my browser of the blogs I regularly visit. So thems the tricks:

In no particular order.

Edenland - I can't remember for the life of me how I came across this blog, but I adore it. An Australian mum keeping a journal of her one wild life. It's pretty incredible. She has a way with words, and to be honest a pretty interesting story to tell. Eden is also a total bad-ass. Of course, if you came here via the Wild Horses link then you already know this. 

Enjoying The Small Things - a painfully beautiful Californian family fronted by Kelle Hampton. She tells stories with amazing photography and an unmatched zest for life. Sometimes I read her blog and feel like the most plain, uninteresting woman in the world. But I also find myself inspired to grab life by the balls and just live it. I really love this blog.

Slightly More Depth Than a Teaspoon - a woman I went to school with who keeps a blog about her family life. It's quite surreal to reconnect all these years later (ok, we're not that old) when we've grown up and had babies. Our lives are different but the same, and sometimes when I read it takes me back to the best bits of my childhood. 

The Superficial - a total shift of pace. This celebrity gossip blog is completely politically incorrect and very offensive. It makes me snort my coffee out my nose and keeps me coming back for more. I keep sharing bits on facebook and no one seems to get it. It's hilarious ok, get a sense of humour!

My Baby Is Average - a potential megalomaniac who stills wears nappies. I can totally relate.

That's it. Well, that's not it, but that's it for today.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Dirty little secret

So, I really dig hip hop. Australian hip hop to be precise, although I am a sucker for some Eminem (Rick banned me from playing him in the car due to a certain three year old declaring "Fuck you Debbie!" at the top of his lungs in Coles). I used to have a really good friend who was always pushing her favourite Australian hip hop bands onto me. We had a falling out and I was really confused at the dissolution of the friendship; I thought we were really close and had even asked her to be my bridesmaid but she dropped me like a sack of potatoes after I caught her out on a white lie. I was hurt at the realisation that I didn't place high on her friendship scale, but put it down to her age. And as I am a firm believer in all things having a purpose, I realise now that she was just put there to introduce me to the music. Cheers buttface!

Anyway, what I'm getting to, is this is my Sunday feel good song. And it's hip hop, so hence the coming out. I'm going to make this a thing.

I am feeling very good today. My husband has been having a very hard time at work so he took a few days off to spend chilling out at home. He's currently doing a dump run with my father in law, because that man doesn't know the meaning of chilling out. He lets things build up inside until he loses his mind and drinks himself into oblivion, but lately that has been so regular that I can see him flailing and trying to find another outlet.

So yesterday we jumped in the car and drove to the water. We spent the day at Redcliffe reminiscing about the last time we were there (our wedding!) and bathed ourselves in the sun and dipped our feet in the ocean. Axel enjoyed the awesome playground and we talked.


It was a beautiful day. Our circumstance at the moment has Rick working 12 hour days six days a week, and on the seventh he stays at home with our kid while I work. It is tiring but it is necessary at the moment, but it means when we get a weekend together we really make it a weekend. Soon we are heading over to his brother's house to enjoy a BBQ and swim in the pool with the cousins.

It's a good day. And this is a good song, yo!


Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Woooah - Freak Out

Yesterday morning at the soul crumbling time of 5am my cherub son woke me up demanding Mr Maker on tv. Mr Maker comes on at 7am I do believe, but you can't reason with three year olds. Anyway, I fumbled through putting on a dvd and peanut buttering some toast to buy myself another half hour in bed and took a pit stop in the loo. Then I totally freaked out. Bright red blood on the paper sent me into a dizzy spin and by 6am I was in the emergency room.

By 9:30 I was having an ultrasound to see my little blob who was wriggling away happily with the same high heart rate as last week. It turns out I had a uterine bleed that could've been caused by any number of things, but generally speaking not taking it easy. I do believe I might have picked up a giant tv last week when rearranging my bedroom, or it might have been all those times Axel pretends to go limp when I lift him out of the bath. Either way, it was a nasty reminder that pregnant women aren't invincible.

I am so grateful that it's all ok, and that the staff at the emergency ward took my concerns seriously. I don't even mind that the doctor botched a drip and got blood all over my favourite skirt.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

I did something drastic over the weekend. 

Before - not a great photo but the hair
is past my baps

Tense Hairdresser who made me wait
15 minutes before snipping
After
I'm not sure what possessed me to cut 15 inches of hair off on a whim, but I feel so damn good. I got some pretty crappy reviews at work today, but what do 16 year old boys know? This is as close as I will ever come to giving myself a no.1, which lets face it would be pretty awesome. I don't have the balls. Maybe when I'm 40 (which is apparently how old I look with my new haircut). 

I also changed the furniture in my room. LOOK OUT CRAZY WOMAN OVER HERE.



Friday, February 10, 2012

You can't spell Funeral without 'FUN'

Today's link up for Edenland's Fresh Neigh Neighs Brigade is a discussion on funeral songs.








Edenland's Fresh Horses Brigade

I haven't attended many funerals in my life (furiously knocking on wood), other than grandmothers and uncles and what not. I have been fortunate, and I am more than aware and grateful. My mother works in a nursing home so she goes to a funeral every other week. I really don't know how she does it, and more so how it doesn't eat away at her compassion. She amazes me constantly. 

Death has a weird affect on me. I am fascinated, terrified and obsessed. Recently an old uni friend lost her husband to suicide and it had me in a tail spin of research and reading stories and sobbing over remembrance facebook pages. My husband gets his undies in a bunch if I try and share a sad story with him; he prefers to bury his head in the sand when it comes to tragedy and it worries me that one day someone close to him will die and he'll just explode. I think that if I face all this horror that exists in the world maybe I'll be spared, or at the very least prepared. Probs not, I seriously doubt my ability to handle a crisis considering my life has been such a garden of roses. 

I have thought about my funeral a lot. I have had heavy periods of depression where I've planned it and written my own eulogy (yagoogley) in my head. Songs change up a fair bit depending on the circumstance, but I have always envisioned it to be really sad. I know it's selfish, but I want a grey day with everyone in black. Followed by a rip-snorting party where everyone gets shitfaced and has fights followed by hugs and laughs about how amazing I was. For now I'll have to work on being amazing so I leave a legacy worth remembering behind. 

Possible Funeral Song 1.



Possible Funeral Song 2.



To be honest, all of what I just said is untrue. I really hope that when I die the people I leave behind remember that I spent my life trying to be a good person, and that I really loved everyone. I hope they realise that my body is just going to become part of the earth and that it is completely unnecessary to spend time and money on what happens to it: bury me in a box or cremate me and throw my ashes out to sea, whatever - I don't care and nor should they! All I really want in my life is to raise my kids to be good people who treat each other how they want to be treated.


The end!

Saturday Morning Quickie

I am about to rush off to work, but thought I'd have a quickie blog before I go. If I don't you might start to feel neglected and become passive-aggressive around the house and start spending all your time out with friends while I'm at home alone, and then I'll start to become frustrated and insecure and the whole thing will blow up in a flurry of angry words one day over toast at breakfast and we'll both leave for work really stressed out and angry.

Wait, you don't work, do you bloggy? Never mind!

My little man is spending the weekend down the coast with his Nanna. I'm 98% certain his aunt actually high jacked him last night for a sleepover at her house which weirds me out to no end. Families are complicated, and in laws double time complicated. I don't hold my sister in law in the highest regard, so when I got a text from mum-in-law last night of Axel snuggled up in his cousin's bed about to go to sleep I got kinda antsy. It was always assumed he would be at his Nanna's. But as long as he has a nice weekend and they don't have a horrific car crash on the way home on Sunday I am happy. Until then, the anxiety will drive my weekend.

And now, it's time to go to work, on a Saturday. Boo.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Edenland's first meme!

Edenland's Fresh Horses Brigade


The totally amazing and probably the greatest blogger ever Eden from Edenland has begun creating memes for me to enjoy. Pretty stoked. It's funny that the first one gives me a chance to have a play with the subject of an argument Rick and I had this morning. Eden asked us to share our handwriting. And Rick really lets it blow up his skirt when I accidentally come to have his pens at my desk or in my handbag. 

Rick is an executive chef, or what's known in the hospitality world as a pen pusher chef. He had a whinge to me this morning that I keep pinching his good pens that he has to go to the stealthy lengths to steal  acquire from the receptionists and his club. He reckons he is only allowed one at a time, so he swaps a near empty pen for one full of ink. Like this guy I had in my bag today: 


I'm not even that into them. I like ball point pens I can put a lot of force into; I think they make my squiggly swirly handwriting a little neater. But all's fair in love and war. Or what's yours is mine. Whatever, I have a lot of these pens hiding around.

I actually get to write notes all day in my new job and I really dig it. Previously I was working in a restaurant where everything had to be entered on a touch screen, and I was surprised at how badly I missed writing things down. There is a silver lining to working crappy casual jobs in hospitality some times - see also this lovely scone I brought home from work last night. Deliciously free, just like that pen!

The Sky Is Falling

My home town is copping it from a moody Mother Nature tonight, for the third time in as many years. My big brother's house is under water but he doesn't mind; he has more money than sense and the old fibro house is taking up space on some beautiful land. If he were one of those mythical males who spoke their feelings though, I'm sure he'd have something pretty heartfelt to say about all his quaint home and all his possessions. A very dear friend to my family has lost her home. Twice over she lost her belongings in the previous floods, and a car in the most recent one. This time her house was on stilts being prepared for raising, and that has rendered her insurance null and void. The tragedy is she wasn't home when the creek burst its banks- she was nursing her ill sister who is undertaking chemo in Brisbane.

Why so mad, weather gods?

Roma floods, 3/02/2012
In other news I am upstairs blogging tonight to avoid the Mogger effect again. Rick is stuck in the den listening to the most recent woes of Mogger's love life. I would be more interested in a rusty nail to the toe than the latest twisted turn in the love triangle that my friends are involved in.

Not much is happening here, except that I am the wicked witch of the house. Nausea, food aversion and serious cranky pants are the main symptoms of this pregnancy so far, and Axel is really hating on me for it. I am going to pull up my socks and try and make tomorrow really like-the-movies fun for him, hopefully. So that means no fights, no hysterical yelling, no plonking him in front of a dvd while I facebook, and something more substantial than spaghetti on toast for lunch. We will see!

And I'm out.