Mark Zuckerberg

So tonight I have the urge to blog, but no inspiration. I have sat here staring at my blank page for about five minutes without anything popping to mind as interesting enough to write about. I even got desperate enough to try a random topic generator to try and inspire me, but it wasn't much help. It told me to write a blog about the magazine that is easiest to digest, and while I find that I can eat a whole issue of Women's Weekly faster than an issue of Time Magazine, I don't think that's interesting enough to turn into an entire blog.

I'd tell you about my day, but that would be so boring, I'd fall asleep while writing it. The most exciting part of today was I saw a huge rainbow out my lounge room window, and rushed to grab the camera so I could take a photo of it. Don't ask me why I needed to take a photo of it, I guess it was either take a photo or go back to staring at the wall blankly. And right now instead of thinking up witty topics to write about, I'm having a Facebook war with my little sister. Here's a great way to annoy all of your friends and family, if you type @[4:0] anywhere that you can comment on Facebook, it will change it to Mark Zuckerburg. In a rare moment of genius, I have flooded my sister's statuses and photos with this, and she of course had to reciprocate. I have succeeded in waking everyone up in the house with my laughter, but have achieved very little in finding inspiration. And so I have decided to try and find inspiration in my photo files and I think I've found a winner. Check out this little gem 

Attractive right?

For anyone who hasn't run from the room screaming in absolute terror after viewing this atrosity, this is a photo of myself eating breakfast, it was taken about 3 years ago, and edited by my lovely little sister, the same one I just won my Facebook war against. If you can't read the caption at the top, it says I eat Fat Chicks For Breakfast! and is titled thus because shortly before my sister edited this photo, we were in Melbourne together to go see a Gwen Stefani concert with our littlest sister. On our way from the train station to the stadium we stopped off at Hungry Jacks for some dinner, and as we all walked out of Hungry Jacks loaded up with our carbs and sugars, a young guy ran past us screaming I EAT FAT CHICKS FOR BREAKFAST!!!!!! Of course both of my sisters assumed he was screaming it at me, given that at the time I was the heaviest one in our group, but I'm unconvinced that he wasn't referring to either of them or in fact all three of us, but we still had a good laugh about it as we carried on. Of course little did I realise that it was something that I would be reliving every time I looked through my photo album, but I can't help but laugh every time I see this photo. Not just because I look so miserable to be eating my Rice Bubbles with cream and sugar which can't be true because it's my favourite breakfast. It used to be my favourite dinner before I had Miss K, but now I have to eat like an adult and not a 6 year old so I had to give it up.

And there you have it, that's how to get past writers block. Humiliate yourself in front of total strangers by showing unflattering photos of yourself in your dressing gown. And I still have that dressing gown, and it is still my favourite piece of leisure wear for around the house. I hope I have entertained you all with my quest to write tonight, until we meet again, stay awesome.

HIStory*

So today in a desperate attempt to entertain a very energetic and easily bored 1 year old I turned on my computer and cranked out some tunes. I am very lucky to have a daughter who loves music almost as much as I do, and she takes great pleasure in getting down and funky any time she hears music, whether it be in the supermarket or the kitchen. There is never a bad time to start dancing for Miss K. We were having a lovely time listening to my large catalogue of music, when suddenly one of my favourite songs as a child came on, and as Miss K and I danced away to it, a horrible realisation dawned upon me.

The song was They Don't Really Care About Us by Michael Jackson, and when I was a kid, I loved this song so much that me and two of my best friends choreographed a song to it in grade 6 to perform in front of  our classmates. It was the first really angry song I had ever heard and it really struck a chord with me. At the time I wasn't allowed to listen to a lot of top 40 music as my dad hated it, and we listened to a lot of music from the 60's and 70's in our house. On the plus side I was well familiar with some classic musicians like The Beach Boys, Alice Cooper and Skyhooks. On the negative side, I knew almost nothing about bands like Guns 'n' Roses and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

I was actually quite sad when Michael Jackson died back in 2009. I didn't run out and make a shrine to him or cry in the streets like some of his die hard fans did, in fact I wasn't even really surprised he had died, given I'd watched his slow decline into crazy town over the past decade. But it was the end of an era the day he passed away, a fact of which I hadn't really given much thought to until I was dancing in my lounge room this afternoon with Miss K. That's when I realised that she would never understand the hysteria that he was able to cause in a room full of women. Given that she'll be looking at his life retrospectively there will be no surprise for her when she reads that he was charged with molesting a child, nor will she get as excited as I used to when she hears one of his songs on the radio. I'm sure she'll find musicians and bands of her own to idolise, but I will probably be so over popular music and old fashioned by then I'll just shake my head and smile at her.

And that's when I realised exactly how much wonderful music moments Miss K has missed out on purely because she was born in the wrong decade. All of the things I thought of as revolutionary will be dated and daggy by the time she's able to really appreciate music, and I have a horrible feeling that all musicians will have finally been replaced by computers (it's happening already) and real music will be a thing of the past. Of course anyone born in the fifties and sixties has been saying that for years and years, but this time I think it's really going to happen. And that makes me sadder than you can know.

But I can and will do something about this. For right now I have a very impressionable young mind at my disposal who is willing to take anything mum says as gospel, so her music education starts now. I will have a child who will be able to sing any Beatles song she hears, and will be able to tell the difference between the poppy, upbeat songs by Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the angry, angst filled music of the Eels. And if she wants to stay in my will, she'll also hate Nickelback.

*For anyone who has been living in a cave for the past twenty years or was born after 1996, HIStory was an album released by Michael Jackson in 1995 and the first album that I ever coveted. Of course I couldn't afford the album being 11 years old at the time, but I had a good friend whose parents loved her more than mine did obviously and they bought it for her, so I spent all my spare time over at her house listening to it.

Mother knows best

For any of my readers who have children, or spend a lot of time around children, you will know how much time and energy a child takes out of you on a daily basis. You know exactly how much attention you need to give to a child to make sure they stay safe and don't eat everything they can get their hands on. You would also know that sometimes that is more attention than one human being can give. Unless the only thing that person had to do all day is sit and stare at the child. If you're anything like me, you will rely on the kindness of friends and family to help be your eyes and ears whenever you need to take your eyes and ears away for a second. Unfortunately, I still have people around who despite the fact that they don't spend as much time around Miss K as I do, nor do they know her as well as I do, who think they know better about how to raise her than I do. (And just in case mum reads this, no I'm not talking about you mum.)

I get so tired of having to explain myself to people who do not deserve an explanation. If anyone wants to offer an opinion or advice to me about my daughter, then they are most welcome to do so. I always accept all advice given to me, but whether or not I choose to take your advice, or listen to your opinion is my right, and at the end of the day, it really is my decision how to raise my child, so if you don't like how I'm doing it, you're more than welcome to walk away. I can't promise that I'm doing the right thing absolutely every single time. As a parent, I'm going to make mistakes, a lot of mistakes, but we all do that. Just this evening I almost walked Miss K straight into a door while trying to take her to bed. If that was the first time I'd almost lost my balance while carrying my child I would have been scared, but it wasn't, so I was able to correct our course and shake it off before we'd even reached her cot.

Now when a mistake is mine, I'm more than happy to admit to it and deal with it. But when I get the blame for something that wasn't my fault, that's when I get mad. Today I got told off because I had taken my eyes of Miss K for two whole minutes, and while my back was turned, she managed to get into a box of chocolate chip cookies and polish one off. Firstly, I couldn't see what the big deal was. Somebody very stupidly left the box of cookies right where she could see them, so what did they expect her to do when she got her hands on them? Put them out of her own reach so she couldn't be tempted by their chocolatey goodness? What one year old has that amount of self control?? I'm 28 and I don't even have that much self control. I think I then made things worse because I refused to yell at my daughter for going after what she wanted. I was so impressed that she had managed to get through two layers of packaging just to get to the biscuits, I figured she'd earned one.

Now it sounds like I'm raising an absolute spoiled brat by this point in the story, and if I am, I don't have to explain myself to anyone. But I'd like to point out that if I had known that the biscuits were on the table they would have been removed before she'd even gotten a chance to get her chubby little fingers on them, but that was done also while my back was turned so my logic is there is no point crying over spilled milk. Let the baby have her cookie, and next time put them away before you enter her lounge room. I can't stop my daughter being tempted by food, which is why if I have any naughty foods I don't want her to have, they are hidden away before she gets a chance to see them, and then there are no problems.

Well that's my rant over for another night, I'm off to the land of nod. I'll be back next time something or someone grinds my gears.

Christmas shopping time!!!

Yes I know it's only June, but this is my favourite time of the year because all the big chain stores around here start having their mid-year toy sales, usually with lay-by available until Christmas Eve. Today was a day I have been waiting for for about 2 weeks, as the catalogues finally arrived in my letterbox this morning, and I spent a good hour or so scouring them for present ideas. I know I have plenty of time to get ready for Christmas, but given I have 2 nieces and a nephew having a birthday between now and December 25th, and then Miss K's birthday in March, there is no time like the present to start getting ready. (I was going to say presents, but then I kicked myself for being so lame. You're welcome)

I have already marked out what presents myself and the jolly fat man in red will be giving Miss K this year, as well as her birthday present for next year, and my nephew's birthday and Christmas presents. Now all I have to do is find birthday and Christmas presents for both of my nieces and I'll be well on my way to being properly organised for all gift giving occasions for the next 8 months. I have even found a Christmas present for Miss K to give me in the Logo Board Game. I will admit I am absolutely mad for corporate logo based quizzes, and have downloaded absolutely every single logo quiz based app for my phone available. If I can't win this game every single time there will be temper tantrums.

The only fly in the ointment of my shopping plans is the fact that it means I actually have to go to the store during one of the biggest sales of the year. This wouldn't be a problem if every other person in a 30km radius hasn't had exactly the same idea as I have. I am not very good at handling large crowds, and tend to lose patience very quickly if I have to push my way through people just to get to the front door. I did consider doing an online lay-by, unfortunately the store I most wish to do my shopping through doesn't have everything I want available online, so I would still have to go to the store to do part of my shopping.

So I have some planning to do, I need to round up a tactical team who can surround me the whole way through the store to make sure no one gets in my way, perhaps a team of strong arms men, or goons for hire would be good. I have some research to do before the sale starts on Thursday. No time to lose my wonderful readers, I've got shopping to plan.

Dear diary (on time for once)

It is officially my favourite part of the day. Mum and Miss K are tucked up in bed and I have the whole house to myself. I'm out of my horrible tight pants and in my nice comfy polka dotted pyjama pants and there is no noise except for the heater which is keeping me nice and warm. (Too warm actually. First world problems) I'm also writing this diary post on the day it's supposed to be written so that's a win for me.

The last time we met, I was complaining about technology and the ways in which it was ruining my life. Well I'm pleased to report that I'm able to log back into my TAFE website (turns out the problem was my out of date software which was easily fixed) and I have almost completely caught up with all of the other students. I have one final assignment to complete then I can focus totally on the current unit. Not bad considering I have just done 6 months worth of study in under a month. I've submitted a heap of assignments to my teacher, but I have to wait until after the term break to get any results back so there's nothing more to be done there.

I've had a bit of a health scare this week unfortunately, I keep getting these violent heart palpitations which I'm pretty sure can be traced back to my smoking, so I'll be making an appointment with the doctor this week to get things checked out, and hopefully get some professional help to quit smoking once and for all. Once upon a time I would have shrugged the palpitations off, but given that I live in a heart smart house now, I am not allowed to sweep these things under the rug and hope for the best any more.

Miss K is a handful as usual. She has discovered that she can scream and growl this week, so every temper tantrum she throws now days is scattered with intermittent deep growls and shrill shrieks depending on how pissed off she is. It's hard not to laugh at her when she's making these weird noises, but as usual I have to pretend I don't think everything she does is absolutely adorable so that she doesn't turn into an uncontrollable brat. We've actually had a few run ins this week as she is starting to really assert herself, and when she knows what she wants and doesn't get it, all hell breaks loose. But for the most part she is her usual bright and cheerful self, getting into everything and wreaking havoc at any chance she gets.

And I'm afraid that's about as exciting as it gets around here at the moment. Between studying and taking care of Miss K I don't really have time to get myself in trouble any more. One more week and then I'm on semester break, which isn't as exciting when you study via correspondence but at least there won't be any online classes for two weeks. I'll be back soon I'm sure, but in the meantime stay awesome.

Frustration station

Hello again my wonderful readers and my little sister. I feel I must say a big hello to her because she is the only person who will still admit that she reads my blogs regularly so she must be my biggest fan. Although she will never admit it to me, she's more likely to call me names than compliment me, but I know that it's just her way of saying she loves me. Or really pissing me off, I can't really tell any more.

I love today's title because it just rolls off the tongue. I heard it tonight on New Zealand's next top model, one of the contestants used it to describe one of her co-contestants, and it just was the most suitable description, I felt I must use it. And it also fits my mood today. Not that I really have anything big I can put my finger on to explain my mood lately, I just feel completely strung out and blah. I think my biggest problem at the moment is the massive guilt trip I'm taking myself on over all of my little faults and flaws, coupled with all the little things that go wrong during every day life and it's all built up into a massive case of the CBF's.

The thing making me stomp my feet right now is technology. It's driving me fully nuts. I tried logging into my TAFE's online course section tonight, only to find out it's out of action, which is just perfect because without it I can't access any new assignments, upload any completed ones or find the answers to all of the worksheets I have just completed, and I WANT TO KNOW IF I GOT THEM RIGHT!!!!! This once again goes back to being the teacher's pet, and I can't stand not knowing if I'm on the right track with the work I'm doing. It's probably the universe's way of telling me to put my books away for the evening and go get some sleep, but like a spoilt child, all I want to do is scream and shake the computer. I also can't find my camera cable, which means I can't upload any of the photos I took of Miss K using her walker today. I really wanted to post one here tonight, so I could share my proud moment with all of you guys, but I guess you'll just have to wait until I get better organised and finally clean out my desk drawers.

Of course the desk drawers are just one item on a very very long to-do list which includes completing 3 units all at once, getting back on top of the housework, washing all of my clothing and taking care of Miss K. There are so many little things that need to be done every day which I have a tendency to push to the side when something more interesting comes along (and that could be anything from a really exciting assignment I want to get stuck into to something shiny that catches my eye). I'd much rather be sitting down and having coffee and chatting with my mum and big sister than doing laundry or dishes or bathing Miss K, unfortunately the house tends to fall down around my ears if I forget these things for too long, and I do end up paying for my laziness in the long run. I'm still trying to find the balance between school and home life, but it's not easy. Although I can say that with a bit (or a lot) of help from mum, Miss K is clean and well fed, she has a full wardrobe of clean clothes, and we have clean dishes to eat off. But I'd like to get to a point where I can do all of this without having to rely on mum so much. I am 28 after all, I shouldn't still need so much help.

I also have to stop getting cross with mum and Miss K when things go wrong. I very nearly took all of my frustrations out on mum tonight when Miss K woke up screaming while I was trying to do my homework. While I tried to calm Miss K down by giving her paracetamol and rubbing her stomach, as well as singing to her and hugging her, mum helped out by getting Miss K a bottle, which ended up being what calmed Miss K down, and I just got so frustrated that mum's idea worked when all of mine combined hadn't. In the end I was able to stop myself from getting angry at anyone, especially since mum had managed to stop the screaming, and just tell mum why I was getting upset. So crisis averted for now and a big lesson for me. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR MUM!!!!

Well that's me done for now. Since I still can't get into my TAFE work I'm going to take the hint and give up for the evening. Stay awesome my wonderful readers until we meet again.

I felt the earth move....

Well tonight I literally felt the earth move. For anyone who doesn't live in Victoria, or who hasn't watched the news in the past 3 hours, Victoria was just shaken by a tremor that measured approximately 5.5. Given that the epicentre of the tremor was a mere 16.8km from where I live, things here got a bit shaky. Luckily considering that a massive chunk of Victoria felt the earthquake, even in places up to 120km away from the epicentre, the damage caused by the tremor appears to be minimal. No fatalities and as far as the State Emergency Services website can say, no major structural damage anywhere. Whether everyone had to change their underpants or not straight after has not been advertised anywhere. 

The first thing I did when I realised that it was an earthquake and not a 16 ton truck ploughing into my front yard was run to Miss K's bedroom to make sure she was OK, and I'm not sure if it was the noise of the tremor or the sound of me and mum thundering down the hallway but she woke up with quite a fright, and it took me almost 2 hours to get her back to bed and asleep again. Then her father contacted me to see if everyone was OK and then tried to start an argument with me. His timing has always been wonderful.

On the plus side, tonight's fun did motivate me to finally make back up copies of all of Miss K's photos, which took me 2 hours and 8 CDs to complete, but if the house falls down around my ears tonight, at least I can feel safe in the knowledge that all of my photos are OK.

The best thing about living somewhere like Australia when a natural disaster like this hits is that as soon as everyone realises that everything is OK, the jokes start. Not even half an hour after the earthquake, the pictures started popping up on my Facebook wall. I even shared one of them on for my friends. This one is my favourite, so I'll share it again with you my wonderful readers.

Yes we will...

But for now I'm going to go to bed and try to get some sleep while I still have a roof over my head. Stay safe everyone and I'll be back soon I'm sure. 

Dear Diary (the late, late, late edition)

OK so this is why I never could make my own diaries last more than a week. I'm terrible at remembering to write in them. This diary entry is in fact a week and a half late. I'm going to put missing last weeks dear diary entry down to the fact that my week was so boring I fell asleep every time I even thought about trying to put it into words. I can't even remember really what I did last week to let you guys know, so you'll thank me for sparing you the mundaneness that was my life two weeks ago.

It's not really true that I can't remember what I have been up to the last two weeks, because the simple fact is I've been studying. Almost non stop. Miss K is rather disgusted at the enthusiasm with which I have thrown myself into becoming a student, because it means that she is forced to have her tea parties and walk up and down our lounge room by herself. That's right, I said walk. My little girl is having a much more exciting time than I am at the moment, which is why this dear diary entry is dedicated to her.

Where to begin though, that is the big question. I did say that Miss K was walking above, but I probably should note that it isn't unassisted yet. For Christmas last year I bought her a walker with all kinds of fancy buttons which plays a large number of irritating songs, and speaks in a most condescending voice to anyone who happens to push a button.

Miss K playing with her walker on Christmas Day

Now for the longest time Miss K played with it by sitting down and pushing the buttons, and any time you tried to get her to use it as a walker, she would crack a massive temper tantrum and make the eardrums of anyone within a 50 metre radius bleed. But I finally decided it was time she learned about the wonderful world of walking, and showed her how to use the walker to get around the room. Well now there is no stopping her, except if she comes across a wall, or a mountain of toys, then it's mum to the rescue to redirect her and the walker. But this new method of transport has opened up a big world for Miss K and she really is flourishing.

Another big milestone for us this week is the fact that Miss K can finally feed herself. This was such an exciting day for me when she finally started accepting her spoon from me and eating from it unassisted I almost cried. It's times like this that I really realise how big my baby is getting and how quickly the time is flying. It won't be long until I don't even need to load her spoon with food and hand it to her, and I think that will be the point I will have to stop calling her my baby. 

Another thing that Miss K has discovered, much to my disappointment is the wonderful world of dancing. I have recently discovered an awesome TV show called Dance Moms, which airs on pay TV here in Australia. My little sister is obsessed with the show and got her hands on the first two seasons for mum to watch, and as a result almost everyone in this family is now obsessed with it, including Miss K. She loves to sit and watch the show with me, and I've noticed that ever since we started watching it, Miss K loves to get up and boogie whenever she hears music. And it's no longer just the bobbing of the head that she used to do, there is foot stomping, and swaying her body and moving her hands. It's too gorgeous for words, but it does fill me with a sense of dread that one day my little girl is going to ask me for dance lessons. I'm sure if I hadn't spent the better part of my teen years watching my little sisters dance and hearing my mum rant and rave about lessons and costumes and competitions I would be more excited about this, however I am very familiar with the world of dance, and have been long before anyone decided to turn it into a reality show, and that is the reason for my dread. But there is every possibility that Miss K has rhythm in her blood and the decision just might be out of my hands. All I can do is wait and see. And ban her from watching dance shows. 

But for now it is very late and I probably have lots to do tomorrow, the only way I can find out is by going to bed. Stay awesome my lovely readers and thank you as always for your patience in waiting for my posts. I'm sure you always feel a sense of excitement whenever you see I've posted another one, or maybe that's just the exhaustion talking. Peace out!!

A question for all parents...

Do any of the parents who read my blogs ever feel like shaking the absolute snot out of their children? I don't think there will be anyone I ask with children who will honestly be able to say no. But the thing is, there is no shame in admitting that your kids posses the unnatural ability to be able to press all of your buttons at the same time. There is also no shame in admitting that sometimes it is nigh on impossible to control your temper when this happens. The shame lies in when you refuse to control your temper and do something you will ultimately regret for the rest of your life.

Today was not a good day for Miss K and I. We almost came to blows several times, and I ended up leaving her with my mum and walking out of the room for several minutes to have a bit of a teary in the privacy of my own bedroom until I felt ready to be able to take care of her again. It probably doesn't help that both Miss K and I are the victims of raging hormones at the moment, (that is something that really shocked me when I discovered it, my 1 year old daughter gets PMS. Go figure.) unfortunately given that I am the adult in this relationship, it is up to me to control my moods in spite of what my body decides to pump through my system. Which explains the walking out of the room. Had I stayed in the same room as Miss K, she would have gotten a smack, and something I have always been taught is never smack your child when you are angry, because you will always take it too far.

I'm pretty happy so far with how I deal with both of our moods, even if it means Miss K sometimes has to have a time out in her cot until we've both cooled down. But it doesn't mean that I am perfect. I can't say that I've never had to resist the urge to smack Miss K when I'm furious with her and the world in general, but the important thing is not that the temptation hasn't been there, but how you deal with the temptation when it arises, and I've never given in to my anger only to regret it later, and I feel that is more important than being a perfect mum. Of course even though I didn't take my anger out on Miss K today, she was still affected by it. It took me a solid twenty minutes to calm both myself and her down and get on with our day, which sometimes can he a harder thing to do than to properly deal with what made you angry in the first place.

But we made it through the day anyway, and we were best friends again not long after our fight. That is one of the things I love about Miss K is her infinite ability to forgive and forget. An hour after everything exploded she was sitting in her cousins lap eating a muffin and dancing along to something on the telly, and everything in the world was right. I don't think anyone could ask for any more than that.

Information overload

So three days into my new course and I feel like my brain is slowly leaking out of my ears. I have successfully completed two assignments in these three days which was no small feat for me considering I had to squeeze them in between Miss K's meals, bedtimes, bath times, temper tantrums and constant demands for attention. It seems that Miss K is not as excited as I am about my foray into the finance sector, and is choosing to demonstrate this by getting into everything she possibly can in an attempt to get my attention. I am beginning to doubt if I will ever be able to successfully juggle being a single parent and a working mum at the same time, because already being a single mum and a student feels completely overwhelming.

Mum is helping in every way she can, by taking over some of the meal times for me so that I can finish just one more paragraph, or taking Miss K for a walk to the letterbox so I can get five minutes peace and quiet, and my big sister kindly babysat Miss K yesterday afternoon, and even managed to get her to fall asleep on the floor, which is something she hasn't done since she was about 4 months old. I am so incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful family who are willing to support me in this insane quest for a piece of paper, and who will even put my needs and Miss K's needs in front of their own. I am just terrified that I won't be able to hold up my end of the bargain and pass this course. Some of the work is so dead easy for me, it's almost insulting that I actually have to go through with studying it. I have an entire book sitting at my feet which is designed to teach people how to produce office documents, but given that this kind of thing has been my bread and butter for over ten years now, I can't get excited about learning something I've known for the past decade. However, there are things that I have never had to deal with before, like business ethics, and just the sight of those words are enough to bring me out in cold sweats.

The fear here is not that I won't be able to complete the work, I've already shown that the workload itself isn't an issue thanks to my wonderful family. The real problem is will I be able to complete it to a standard that my teacher will accept and pass? I guess this all traces back to when I was at high school. It was the first time I was actually any good at my work, and I took great pride in bringing home lots of A's and A+'s. If I got lower than a B+ I was disappointed and beat myself up over it, or if I felt it was unjustified, called my teachers rude names behind their backs. I was the biggest nerd ever and proud of it, and I had the grades to prove it. But it's been over ten years since I was in school and I'm not so certain any more that I'll be able to provide my teachers with what they want. Luckily for me there are a lot of resources made available by the TAFE to help me, including face to face sessions with my teacher every 2 weeks which I plan to make the most of, even though it means driving half an hour in the dark to get there.

Well it's incredibly late and I have spent too much of my day in front of this computer already, so I'm off to bed with a wonderful fat book which is going to tell me all about the OH&S practises that have been drummed into me every time I started a new job. I'm going to prove to my teacher that I can do this subject in my sleep. Ba da boom CHING!!!!!

Stay awesome my wonderful readers, and I'll be back soon, a rambling incoherent mess I'm sure. Until then take care.

Dear diary (a little late)

So I know I was meant to write a diary based entry yesterday, but I got back from Melbourne at about 3:30 yesterday afternoon and both Miss K and I went to bed till dinner time. Then we got up for dinner and were both back in bed ridiculously early. So I really didn't have the time or energy to blog inbetween naps.

Why was I in Melbourne you may very well ask if you are the curious type, and in answer to your question, I tell you to be patient because I'll get to that in a minute. I'll start at the beginning of the week by letting you know not much really happened. I decided this week to flex my culinary muscle this week and cooked a lovely meal of crumbed chicken with vegetables and a beautiful mushroom sauce. Then on Wednesday I made a lovely roast capsicum and tomato soup. I don't cook fancy things like this often, but when I do I like to take my time, which is why I usually start cooking an hour or so before I want to serve dinner. I don't cope well with rushing my food, and as I discovered on Wednesday, that's when I make mistakes. I tried to thicken my soup up with flour without dissolving the flour in water, and ended up with giant lumps of flour in my soup. Luckily I was able to pick most of them out as I hate flour lumps, they remind me of dumplings. Yuck!

As you are all aware I'm sure, Wednesday was my birthday, and it was a lovely day. I was woken up nice and early by my little sister dropping a tin can on the floor on her way to the recycling bin, which is always an effective alarm clock. Much better than Miss K for sure. I spent the day with various family members who popped in for visits, and I felt very much loved by my family and close friends. On Saturday mum, Miss K and I made our way to Melbourne by train to help my uncle celebrate his birthday (his actual birthday is the day before mine which is the only way I remember it). The trip up was fairly uneventful, Miss K was a bit uncertain of the train at first, but once she realised that nothing bad was going to happen she had a great time. It is however very hard to keep a 1 year old entertained for two and a half hours in a tiny moving room that she is not allowed to crawl around in, so I spent a lot of time trying to distract her so she would forget she hadn't gone exploring for several hours. The party was a lot of fun, and there were so many people there, I began to worry that the house would burst at the seams. It was wonderful to see so many people come together to celebrate my uncle's special day. Yesterday we retraced our steps to get home again, and thanks to a very late night (the last guests didn't leave until after midnight then I helped clean up) and a long trip home that Miss K was slightly less tolerant of, we all piled into bed as soon as we got home for a well deserved nap.

Miss K has been in fine form this week as usual. She is talking almost non stop nowadays, and she even coped beautifully with the crowds of strangers at my uncle's place on Saturday night. She has been teething almost non stop for 2 weeks now, but in that time she has managed to pop out 3 teeth, and is working on her eighth one at the moment. We're still trying to stop her from begging people for food, but she is slowly getting the hint that just because others are eating in front of her doesn't mean she will get food. It has also been almost a week since she has pinched me during a temper tantrum, so I think we've got that habit nipped in the bud for now.

Well it is time for me to curl up in front of the telly and watch some trash before heading off to bed. I'll be back again soon I'm sure, but until then, stay awesome.

Bitten by a bug

So I'm meant to be in bed right now. I should be cuddled up with my giant feather doona and my memory foam pillow with Little Women playing on my portable DVD player in the background. I should be exhausted considering what a busy little bee I was today, but I'm not. Not really exhausted anyway, just the normal tired I feel every day after putting in a solid 12 hours of being Miss K's mum.

I don't know what has bitten me but I have gotten some sort of motivational bug which has caused me to catch up on a stack of jobs that have been sitting on my to do list for months. Not only am I catching up on long overdue jobs, I'm also keeping on top of the normal everyday jobs I'm meant to do all the time. And for the past two nights I have actually cooked full meals, with meat and vegetables and sauces instead of microwaving some pasta I cooked and froze last time I felt this motivated. I even have plans for how to spend my time tomorrow if this motivation can hold out for another couple of days. I really hope it can, I haven't felt this good in ages. I even gave my dressing gown a wash, something which doesn't happen often only because I live in it so much I hate to part with it long enough for it to wash and dry. (It's a massive thick blue number which makes me look really bulky but I don't care because it's sooo comfy and warm)

This doesn't mean that all of a sudden my house is spotless and simply pinging with sparkly shiny lens flares which only ever seem to appear in cartoons, but Miss K and I both have full clean wardrobes, which is no small feat with Miss K around because any time I leave her in her room alone for more than 5 minutes she pulls everything out of her shelves and piles them up on the floor. I've also scrubbed out my magic bullet which sat in storage in my brother's rat infested shed for 12 months then sat in a plastic bag in my laundry for another 2 because I didn't want to use it again until I had sterilized and scrubbed the crap out of it. I've managed to sell or donate all of Miss K's unwanted clothes and toys to other people and I'm finally starting to see the end of the tunnel. So much so that I'm hoping to get the rest of my stuff out of storage at my dad's place and start piling more crap into my house. It would be so nice to finally have all of my belongings here where I live, not that I've really missed much of it over the past 20 months that I've done without it, but that's not the point.

I'm also starting to try to weed out some of Miss K's bad habits that I've let pass in the past. She has started pinching me when she's throwing a temper tantrum, and as hard as it is for me to be the bad guy, I'm not letting her get away with it like I would have in the past. I'm also trying to teach her that everyone doesn't have to share their food with her, which is a bit harder given that for so long now she's just been allowed to beg everyone for food, and we've all given in to her straight away, but it's starting to cause problems, and I need to nip it in the bud before it leads to other more serious problems.

Well that's really all I wanted to say to you my wonderful readers for now, I really am exhausted now and my pillow and doona are calling out for me so I'm going to and snuggle up for a good night's sleep. Stay awesome and I'll be back soon I'm sure with more scintillating news to tell you.