Five things (Old School Blogging)

Ok so for any of you wonderful readers out there who follow Baking In a Tornado you will know that she tagged me in a post earlier this month called Five Things. And for any of you who don't follow Baking in a Tornado, what on earth is wrong with you people?? Get your backsides over there now and meet a classy lady and brilliant writer who is responsible for the Secret Subject Swap that I partake in every month, as well as the Fly on the Wall series, which I will be joining as of next month. (Stay tuned, it's going to be legen...(wait for it)...dary)

Any way the five things tag is another chain blog post which apparently was a popular thing when blogging was in its infancy, but seems to have been lost over time. This one doesn't come with any fancy trophies or dinner for two at the Olive Garden, but it comes with seven lists of five things about me. (Well technically the seventh list is five bloggers who I pass the tag on to, but now you're just splitting hairs.)

Because I have just run out of witty banter, I'll plow straight into the lists.

5 Things I Have a Passion For

1. Paper crafts
2. Music
3. Food (seriously, have you seen the size of my butt? that should have been a no brainer.)
4. Word puzzles. I can't get to sleep until I've done at least one at the moment. Just as well I have a massive collection of puzzle books to keep me company
5. Writing. Of course I never did manage to write the best selling novel I dreamed of as a kid, but that's why this blog is one of my happy places.

5 Things I'd Like to Do Before I Die

1. See Miss K grow up happy (Isn't that all any parent ever wants? I don't care if she grows up to  be a secretary like mum, or a cleaner like grandma, or a rocket scientist like....OK I don't know any rocket scientists, but I'm sure they're all very happy)
2. Visit the birthplace of my ancestors
3. Own a house
4. Become a grandma (my mum makes it look like so much fun, I can't wait to try it for myself. Actually I can wait. Until Miss K is 25 at least OK young lady??)
5. Retire near the beach

5 Things I Say a Lot

1. For the love of monkeys! (I don't really love monkeys, although some of them are pretty cute, it's just better to say that than to keep swearing like a fish wife when the children are around.)
2. I can live with that. (Any time my little sister tries to insult me by calling me horrible names that's my come back. She can never beat it. Ever.)
3. I'm going to count to three. (This one has saved Miss K's bacon so many times over the last year, she knows that if I've gotten to the counting stage, things have just gotten real and she needs to pull her head in.)
4. I love you. (This one is usually aimed at Miss K, but sometimes I'll feel comfortable enough admitting it to other people.)
5. You weirdo. (This one is also usually aimed at Miss K, but it's always when she's doing something totally bizarre like pressing her stomach up to the fridge because it's cold, or spinning around on the ground in circles.)

5 Books I've Read Lately

1. The Hunger Games trilogy. I love this series so much I've finished the last book and gone straight back to the first book several times. I never get tired of the story.
2. Girls Night In. This is a massive omnibus of short stories written by some brilliant women from around the world. All the profits from the sale of the books go to the charity War Child which was just one of the warm fuzzies reading this book gives me. Again another book I can read over and over again.
3. Puzzle books. I know technically you don't read puzzle books like a story, but I still have to look at words with my eyes so I'm counting this as reading.
4. There's a Reason for Everything. This is a very old trivia book that was written in the 1970's so some of the trivia has since been disproven, but it is still full of so much interesting information about topics like the origins of superstitions and rituals.
5. You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News. This is a book written by the people from the hillarious and brilliant website cracked.com, and basically includes some of the articles you can find on their website, but in book form so it makes you look more intellectual when you read it. I bought this book when Miss K was a baby, and it has helped get me to sleep on many a night.

5 Favourite Movies

Thank you for finally giving me a list that asks for more than one favourite movie. How can I only love one movie the most? There are too many awesome movies out there to just pick one. So I'm happy to finally be given a place to list in no particular order just some of my favourite movies.

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
2. Cry Baby
3. Despicable Me (Hey don't judge ok I've got a kid now so it's totally ok for me to have a wallet full of kids movies.)
4. Shock Treatment
5. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 the movie. Americans may recognise this one, but I don't think it was even released in Australia. I had to buy our copy from an American seller on eBay. Thank heavens for multi region DVD players.

5 Places I'd Love to Travel to

1. Ireland. In particular Tipperary because that's where my mum's family originated, but the country as a whole would be fabulous to see
2. Italy. This is where Miss K's other family come from, and I'd love to take her to her Nonna's home town so she can see where her family started.
3. Fiji. The people seem to be so friendly, and the beaches are stunning. It's always been a dream destination for me.
4. The rest of Australia. I've been to two of the territories in Australia and three of the states. I'd love to visit the rest of the country that hosts me as a citizen and see more of the beauty that is out there.
5. Tokyo. I think there are just so many fantastic things there that you just need to see for yourself to believe, and I'd love to be amazed. Oh and I've always wanted to go to a cherry blossom festival in Japan too.

5 Blogs I'll Tag

Now this one was tricky because I didn't want to tag anyone who had already had a turn, but I also have so many blogs on my favourites list, I didn't want to leave any of them out.

1. When Crazy Meets Exhaustion
2. Life, Unexpectedly
3. Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
4.We Band of Mothers
5. Ms. Adventures

Now if you were tagged and you don't want to play along, that's totally cool. And if you weren't tagged and you want to play along, that's totally cool also. For anyone at home who is playing, tagged or not, answer all the questions yourself and then send me a link to your post and I'll even advertise the hell out of it for you.

Well that's all from me for now, I'm off to charge my camera batteries and use up some more of my immensely impressive and slightly over the top collection of pretty papers. What's that? you don't believe I have too much crafty stuff??

Yeah, I may have a problem...

Stay tuned people, soon I'll have a post showing what to do when you have too much crafty crap.

The chair killing bottom strikes again and other stories

Hello again people, I know it's been waaay too long between posts, but I've been slowly trying to get into a groove between work and home, and that sadly leaves very little time for extra curricular activities like sharing with you guys. But I'm still here, and things are still going well, and hopefully I will have more to share with you wonderful and patient people soon, especially about my current downsizing. I've been having a huge cull, and have taken the mantra "if you're not going to use it then get rid of it" to extremes by trying to use up a heap of my craft stash so I don't have to throw it away. I'll have more on that as soon as I remember to charge the batteries in my camera so I can take pictures.

So for a bit of a back story, and for anyone who doesn't know how deadly my backside can be to a common chair, check out this post here which goes into details of chairs that I have killed in the past.  Well this week my butt struck again, destroying my office chair at work. Now this time I can't blame sitting on my feet, which is my excuse for most other chairs I've broken (that and shoddy workmanship when building the chairs) as I can't sit on my feet at work. First it is incredibly bad OH&S so I'd get into heaps of trouble, and second I can't operate the dictation machine unless my feet are on the ground. But I have gotten into the terrible habit of throwing myself into my chair while at work, usually because I'm insanely busy, and I don't have time to sit down like a lady, so a lot of my day is spent just diving onto the chair as quickly as possible so I can do the mile long to-do list the boss has just given me before I forget any of it.  Sadly the standard office chair is not designed to be used in such a manner, and my poor chair has been creaking and groaning at me for several weeks now, so  I had a feeling that what happened this week was really inevitable, but it still came as a shock when it finally happened.

It was close to the end of the day, which happens to be the worst time to work in a law firm. That's usually the time when my boss checks over the correspondence for the day, and signs the letters that are good to go out, and returns the ones that need corrections done. So I usually have a massive pile of letters that need to be folded and stuffed into envelopes, another massive pile of letters that need adjustments before they can be signed, stuffed and posted, and yesterday I had a handful of people I had to call to reschedule their appointments because there had been a massive double booking in today's calendar. So needless to say I was incredibly frazzled, and not very worried about being delicate with the office furniture. But this time when I flounced to my desk and threw myself down, my poor chair decided it had had enough, so there was a huge crack sound, followed by a very unprofessional scream from me as I jumped up to save landing ass first on the ground. My office manager happened to be standing next to me when I decided to go all Incredible Hulk on the chair too, so I couldn't even hide the fact that I was destroying the office in front of her. Of course she was more concerned about me than the chair, but I explained that I was so used to chairs breaking underneath me I wasn't even scratched. (Gotta love ninja like reflexes at times like these.)

I inspected the chair and found that one of the five legs had snapped clean off and escaped somewhere to enjoy its new found freedom. I still can't find the leg so it has done a good job of falling off the grid. I just hope the boss doesn't find it on one of her random trips to the front office because then I'll have some explaining to do. Of course if she notices I'm using one of the crappy spare chairs I'll still have some explaining to do, so I can only pray she's too distracted for the next few weeks to start asking any uncomfortable questions. Of course if she does find out about my amazing skills of destruction, I could use it as a bargaining tool in the future. I'll start threatening to break all the chairs in the place simply by sitting down unless I get a longer lunch break, or a higher rate of pay. (Of course she could just use my pay rise to fund the replacement of every chair in the place.) In the meantime I may just start looking at the office catalogs to see if any of the office supply stores in the area sell steel reinforced chairs for flouncers like me.

And so with that I've had to say RIP to yet another brave chair, it tried its best to support my ample frame, but the stress was just too much. Memorial services will be held this Friday, and we ask that instead of buying flowers, you donate the money to the science of finding a chair that I cannot break.

© Reystleen | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Oh the humanity!

Secret subject swap ~ treasured memories

Welcome to Take One of August’s Secret Subject Swaps. This week, 12 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting them for your viewing pleasure. Well everyone else posted theirs several hours ago but due to technical difficulties and the fact that I seem to be late everywhere these days, mine is being posted at 10:30 Australian Eastern Standard time instead of East Coast Standard time.



So I'll start as always with the list of lovely bloggers you absolutely MUST go and visit today, as all of them have posts on their wall right now that are GOLD! 

http://BakingInATornado.com                              Baking In A Tornado

http://themomisodes.com/                                     The Momisodes

http://www.justalittlenutty.com/                           Just A Little Nutty

http://followmehome.shellybean.com                   Follow me home . . .

http://mooreorganizedmayhem.blogspot.com/      Moore Organized Mayhem

http://stacysewsandschools.wordpress.com/         Stacy Sews and Schools

http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com                           The Sadder But Wiser Girl

http://menopausalmother.blogspot.com/                Menopausal Mother              

http://dinoheromommy.com/                                 Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://hypnoticbard.blogspot.com/                        The Insomniac’s Dream

www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com                       Evil Joy Speaks        

So today my subject is What’s your most valued possession and why?  Tell us the story behind it.

It was submitted by: Moore Organized Mayhem          

So this one was a bit tricky for me because I own so little these days, and less of any value. I told mum of my subject and she guessed I'd say Miss K, but given I don't really own her, I'm just borrowing her till she becomes an adult I can't  really use her today.  Anything else I truly treasure has been locked up in storage for so long I can't even remember what's in the boxes. I look forward to the day I finally have the space to start bringing my crap back into the house because it will be like my birthday, Christmas and a walk down memory lane all at once.

There is one thing in storage that I remember very clearly and it is probably the thing I miss the most out of everything. It's a little green box, a little bit larger than a shoe box. The box itself isn't much to look at, but inside the box is every single card I have ever received, as well as a few special school certificates, photos, letters from old friends and a lot of smiles. Opening that box takes me all the way through from my childhood and people I haven't seen in over twenty five years to my youn adulthood to people I haven't seen in over eight years. I think my absolute favourite thing in the entire box (and probably the strangest thing too) is an old rusty horse shoe a work friend's husband gave to me when I moved from Melbourne back home again for the last time. 

I'd always joked with him that he must have had a horse shoe rammed into his nether regions because he always managed to dodge near catastrophic events with ease. So when I was leaving work on my last day he gave me the horse shoe (which he claimed he removed from his nether regions himself, but I'm skeptical) so that I would have his good luck with me wherever I went. I have no idea where he got a real horse shoe from, but I've learned in the past to just not ask. I still smile whenever I see the horse shoe though, a private joke shared between friends that I will remember forever.

From Christmas cards I received from old high school friends to the get well soon card my dad gave me when I broke my foot at eighteen, my little memory box has everything I love to reminisce about...well almost everything. You see I packed it away in dad's storage shed while I was still pregnant with Miss K so all of my special cards I have received since she was born are still here with me now. And of course there are other special treasures of hers that needed to be protected, so we've started a memory box for her too. The outfit she wore home from the hospital, a newspaper from the day she was born and her very first pair of shoes are all packed away safely with her very first swaddling blanket to remind me of the most terrifying and exciting part of my life so far. And one day when she out grows Elmo he'll be popped away too, as well as every birthday card she ever gets and any special school certificates, just waiting to be given back to her one day when she is an adult.

So there you have it, my most valued possession. Completely worthless to anyone else, but certainly the one thing I'd run into a burning building for. Oh, after Miss K of course.

So that's all for now, be sure to go visit the rest of the lovely bloggers taking part in the subject swap today and enjoy the rest of the fun.

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Pictured: not a good place to store your memory box...or your children

Discrimination or genuine concern

I promise I'm still here guys. I'm still alive and kicking (just barely some days). I am actually writing this to you from in the middle of a circus. (A metaphorical one anyway.) My sister in law and her daughter are camping out at our house at the moment, there are dramas going on with the house they live in with my little brother, so we've taken them in for a few days until some stupid paper work can get sorted out and they can return to their house. (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate bureaucracy?) Given that my niece is only 3 months older than Miss K, it's been good having a friend in the house for her to play with that is so close in age to her. Of course given that they are both only 2 and still learning about the delicate art of sharing, (something they both hate as they get royally screwed any time they have to share anything) we've had a fair few dust ups the past few days, but for the most part they get on really well.

Movie time. I was hoping they would actually go to sleep but no such luck.

So the point of today's post wasn't just to talk about the babies, it was actually to share something that happened to me at work last week. Yes I'm still employed, and according to my boss I'm doing a good job. But she still felt the need to call a staff meeting last Wednesday before we turned on the phones for the day and rush hour began. I was terrified that I was going to be given my marching orders, and had been since the day before when she locked herself and the office manager in her office for five minutes without me. I knew something big was coming and I spent the whole of Tuesday wracking my brains trying to remember anything I had done that was bad enough to get myself fired. Luckily for me I wasn't about to face the firing squad (ba boom) but there were a few things the boss wanted to bring up. One was I needed to tidy up the place a bit more, this one didn't surprise me, I hate housework so I avoid it at all costs, but I'll cop that one on the chin. The second one was that I smell like cigarette smoke. That one doesn't surprise me, my boss is a militant anti-smoker and a health nut to boot. I am very aware of the cigarette smoke, but considering I am unable to douse myself in perfumes at the office because she is also allergic to a lot of the chemicals found in deodorants and perfumes there aren't a lot of options for me. I'm still determined to quit smoking for good and this may give me the boot up the backside to go the last few yards. 

But the third and possibly strangest part of this meeting was the one where she disapproved of my work outfits. Now it wasn't strange that she didn't like my attire at work (I've had that complaint at several places that I work. I hate shirts, being so ample in the front and all, I find it difficult to find shirts that fit nicely all over so I tend to not bother wearing them at all.) Her solution was the strange part of the day, and the part I still shake my head over even four days after the fact. Normally when a boss tells me to change my work outfits, they do so with much hemming and hawing and looking at the floor. (Mainly because most of my bosses have been men who find talking about women's outfits about as comfortable as discussing their emotions.) but then they walk out of the meeting patting themselves on the back for being so tactful and leaving me to figure out exactly what the hell it is they want me to wear. But with my current boss, her solution was to have the office manager take us shopping to a local office clothing store down the road from where we work and pick out my new uniform with me. And then she paid for it.

On one hand I'm totally grateful that the boss was picking up the tab on this excursion, especially given that one new jacket, one pair of trousers and four new tops (the office manager grabbed two for herself) cost a whopping $500. But on the other hand I can't help but feel the entire process was entirely wasteful. I nearly fainted when the shop assistant tallied up the final bill, and I don't even know if that price includes the tailoring they need to do to my new trousers. (I am what the office manager calls incredibly short, but I call midget, so I always need new pants taken up.) They will quite possibly need to do the same to my new jacket when it finally comes in, and then we are getting the office logo embroidered on all the tops. It will all look very professional and when I am in the office, we will look like we have a uniform especially with the office manager and I dressing alike now, but I don't know what if anything this new look is going to accomplish except to tear me away from my nice warm duffel coat. (It is pink which happens to be the least favourite colour of my current boss, and I suspect the whole reason this make over happened in the first place.)

Now the boss was very careful in holding this meeting. She made sure that the office manager was in the room with us so that there was a witness to the whole proceedings (gotta love solicitors for preparing for the worst case scenario at all times) and she was very tactful (or as tactful as a no nonsense solicitor can ever be) about the whole thing, but it still stung. It still felt like I was being told I wasn't good enough just as I am. I have never put much stock into my appearance, and even less goes into it now that I have Miss K. My motto has always been as long as it's clean it's all good. The fact that I manage to put make up on every morning before I go to work is nothing short of a miracle for me these days. I have always thought my performance on the job mattered more than my appearance, but apparently this isn't the case any more. I don't know if I can even get enthusiastic about clothes any more, because they just mean more work when it comes to laundry day. (especially if the jacket is dry clean only.) But it looks like I'm going to have to fake it at the very least because my successful passing of the probation period now rests on my ability to smarten up my appearance. 

So I am trying. I bought myself some new gel nail polishes, I may even invest in a new eye shadow and lipstick, and this week I am going to book an appointment at the best hairdressers in town. (The fact that she has been my hairdresser since I was ten makes her the best.) And then I am going to go to work and pretend that I don't feel like mutton dressed as lamb. And hopefully that will be enough to make the boss happy and keep my backside in a job for a little while longer. I'll keep you posted.

Image courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Mutton dressed as...well mutton

Secret Subject Swap - Summer Break

Aaaand hello again my lovelies. It is that time of month again where 12 bloggers decide to go completely insane and let someone else decide the theme of their blog post for one day. We then simultaneously publish our posts, (I am determined to get mine out at the correct time this month if it kills me.) and sit back and watch you wonderful audience members enjoy the madness. So please be upstanding for part one of July's Secret Subject Swap.


Now I will start as always by introducing the other test subjects in this little experiment. 

Baking in a Tornado                              

The Momisodes                                       

Just a Little Nutty                             

Follow Me Home

Moore Organized Mayhem             

Stacy Sews and Schools                

The Sadder But Wiser Girl                                

Menopausal Mother                     

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy                                     

The Insomniac’s Dream                             

Evil Joy Speaks 

So this month my subject was submitted by Evil Joy Speaks, and the subject is (drum roll please)....

"Does summer {break} scare you? Does summer {break} entice you? Why or why not??

So first of all I gotta explain a few things for my non-Aussie readers, just so that you guys understand what the hell it is I'm talking about. Now you're probably aware that our summer is not the same time as yours. In fact while you guys are having your lovely warm summer, we are in the grips of an icy and painful winter. In fact one day last month it was foggy all day. I'm not kidding, I woke up at 8:30, it was foggy. I got Miss K her lunch at 12, it was still foggy. I went and bought dinner at 5:00, it was still foggy. It's just one of the things I hate about winter. Now what that means for us is that while you guys are having your white Christmases, we're all in our shorts and bikinis having salad and cold meat on Christmas day. And it is pretty damn awesome.

The other difference between Australia and America (I'm not sure about the rest of the world, you guys tend to keep your holidays pretty quiet.) is that we don't have the whole of summer off from school. We finish school a couple of days before Christmas, then take the rest of December and the whole of January off, with February (the last and hottest month of summer) being spent in school. I've always hated this system, but I'm sure parents all over the country are more than happy to see the back of their little darlings after 6 weeks of being full time parents. 

Now given that Miss K is still not old enough to go to school, summer holidays are a bit "same old, same old" for us, as absolutely nothing changes for us as far as our routine goes. But it does mean a change in the kinds of activities we do. There are trips to the pool, to the beach, evening walks, water fights, long hot days and long hot nights. There is a massive spike in parties and barbecues and a huge decrease in the amount of clothes worn. And who here doesn't love completely legal partial nudity??

But with the lack of clothes and the party season comes some negatives of course. The heat here in Australia can become incredibly oppressive. To give you an example, a friend of my sister in law's who lives in England was complaining of a heat wave of around 27 degrees celsius (around 80 degrees farenheit). Now when we in Australia are talking about a heat wave, we're talking 40 degree heat (104 degrees farenheit) which is quite a bit hotter, and a lot more suffocating and exhausting. If the needle ever hits 40 plus (which is happening more and more these days) the only thing you can do is stick a face washer in the freezer and stay as low to the ground as possible. (Unless you're one of those fancy pants people with an air conditioner, in which case you can do whatever the hell you like.) There are also mosquitos the size of small insects, who love the taste of human blood and fly around in swarms around barbecues and pool parties. And then there are the scorch marks you get on your hands every time you touch your steering wheel or seat belt when you get in the car. Oh and the melted tar you get on your flip flops (thongs for my Aussie friends who don't really get why you guys can't call your damn shoes thongs.) when you cross the road. 

So I can certainly find plenty of things to hate about the summer holidays, but for every negative there is at least two positives. For example, right now I'm wearing a black bear as a dressing gown as it is freezing cold here at the moment, and I'm afraid if I wear any less while sitting in my lounge room I might get frostbite. That would never happen in summer ya know. 

Well that's it for me, be sure to go and visit all the other participants, you will not be disappointed, and I'll be returning for next month's secret subject swap soon.

                                

The weekend from hell

If I ever wrote any kind of a diary (which I can never do for more than a few days at a time) this is what it would have looked like after this weekend.

Thursday 4th July 2013 6:00pm

Well today we are in Melbourne. I have been summoned up by Miss K's nonna to meet her cousin who is arriving from Italy tomorrow morning. I have been told it will be my job to keep her company tomorrow morning while Nonna is at work. Now given I don't really speak much Italian, and she doesn't speak much English this will be an interesting babysitting job. The trip up here was made easier by the fact that mum was with us on the train, she will be visiting my uncle while I'm in little Italy and we all travel together home on Saturday. I will be interested to find out if Miss K's dad has actually told nonna how short our trip is this time, he tends to forget the little details like that. After a discussion with him last week where he complained that I don't step back enough and let him take care of Miss K, I have agreed that he can bear the brunt of the parenting duties this weekend while I step back and observe from a distance. This will be interesting. I have been pleasantly surprised by the people of Melbourne today, and their willingness to help a lady with a pram get off and on public transport. I was assisted by no less than three strangers today while making the long and complicated journey from the city to the suburb where "la famiglia" live. It gives me hope that common courtesy isn't lost.

Thursday 4th July 2013 11:00pm

Well I am meant to be getting some sleep right now but it is proving impossible. It took 2 hours and a long car trip to finally get Miss K to sleep at 9pm tonight, but the sleep only lasted 2 hours and she is awake again. Nonna has offered to take her off my hands so I can get my rest, as she isn't going to bed any time soon, I think I'll take her up on the offer and try to catch some sleep.

Friday 5th July 3:00am

Just woke up to hear Miss K's screams from the garage which means two things. 1. She is still awake, 2. she is throwing the mother of all temper tantrums which means she is over tired and over indulged. Went into the garage to find her playing with her father, nonna is nowhere to be seen having gone to bed an hour ago. Miss K's dad said she wanted to go outside and when I asked why he hadn't returned her to bed he told me she didn't want to go to sleep. I drag a screaming Miss K back inside and get  her to sleep in five minutes. When will these people learn that what a 2 year old wants and what a 2 year old needs are usually two different things, and you always go with the latter? I don't mind spoiling a child and letting her bend the rules occasionally, but this is ridiculous.

Friday 5th July 7:30am

We were just woken up by a troupe of people walking through the door. The cousin has arrived and there is a whole heap of people standing in the kitchen talking over the top of one another as if they are all well rested and not encumbered with a 2 year old who always gets her own way. I envy them. Go outside to have a cigarette and complain on Facebook that I have no idea what is going on around me given my lack of understanding of the Italian language. It is very hard to be polite to these people when I am so damn exhausted right now. I still have my pyjamas on and bed hair. And to make matters worse Miss K broke my glasses again. I need coffee and lots of it.

Friday 5th July 9:00am

Am sitting in the kitchen with two people, neither of which can speak very much English. Of course one of them is 2 years old and very cute so she gets away with it. I have resorted to downloading a translation app on my phone so that I can string more than two words together for the cousin, and we are attempting a conversation. It is not easy for either of us, but I've managed to find out a little bit about her and she seems very interesting. I still do not understand why nonna tasked me with the job of keeping her company, especially since her son can actually understand Italian, even though he doesn't speak it. I have learned two new words so far, Scimmia, which means monkey, and pazzo, which means crazy. This will help me greatly in conversation because I know lots about crazy monkeys.

Friday 5th July 4:00pm

The house is full of people again. More friends wanting to meet the cousin have arrived. I tried to get a sleep in today but it wasn't successful. Miss K's father on the other hand has been in bed since he got home at 7 this morning. So much for taking care of his daughter. Apparently nonna's nose was put out of joint by the comment I passed on Facebook this morning. Or perhaps it was Tristan's suggestion that I call them all Stronzos which means asshole. While both funny and interesting it hasn't proved to be helpful in the least. I stupidly opened my mouth and offered to visit for Christmas this year, and they are already making plans so I guess I'm stuck with being away from my family for the best family day of the year this year. When will I learn to keep my fat mouth shut?

Friday 5th July 8:00pm

The house is finally empty again, Miss K was asleep at a reasonable hour (it only took ten minutes of fighting and three rounds of there was an old lady who swallowed a fly tonight) and I am alone to enjoy my headache. My glasses were well and truly broken this morning which means I am blind until next Thursday when I can finally make time in my schedule to visit the optometrist. I'm overdue anyway but the headaches aren't fun. Miss K's father did forget to mention we were leaving tomorrow (I knew he would) but I have informed nonna that tonight was our last night and she has very kindly offered to drive us as close to the city as she can tomorrow morning. Need to check train timetables and organise to meet mum and my uncles at the station. Tomorrow is my cousin's engagement party and I do not want to miss this for the world. Our family parties are legendary. I have decided to spend the evening hiding in the front room on our blow up mattress and read the hunger games for the millionth time tonight. I can't listen to another word of Italian for now.

Saturday 6th July 7:00am

Miss K and I have been awake for an hour. We've had breakfast and watched a whole episode of High 5 and still no one else is awake. I've packed our bags and cleared the house of all of our belongings, now I just need someone else to wake up so I can finally turn on the coffee machine and get the caffeine pumping into my system again. Why is it that the only time I want people up early in this house is the one day they decide to have a sleep in?

Saturday 6th July 10:30am

I have just missed my train back home again. I am so frustrated right now. Nonna finally woke up at 8:00 and I informed her I needed to be out of the house by 9:30 at the latest. 9:45 we finally left the house and she spent the next hour arguing with her son about the best route to the train station. I had been told the trip would take 25 minutes at the most. And of course it's all my fault because I didn't tell her I needed to be gone until an hour and a half before the fact. This of course ignores the fact that I couldn't tell her any earlier because she was locked in her bedroom. What's worse is that mum has my train ticket as I brought all the tickets at the same time and handed them to her for safe keeping. I now need to wait 20 minutes for the next train into the city and another hour after that for the next train back home and back to sanity. I'm also going to miss most of the engagement party because it starts at 1, and I won't get home till 2, then I need to get both Miss K and I dressed, (we tend to travel comfortable.) so who knows what time I'll get there. I kept telling nonna that it was fine and I'll just catch a later train but I'm so angry right now I could spit.

Saturday 6th July 7:00pm

Well that was one hell of a weekend. Miss K and I are finally home from the engagement party (we were an hour and a half late so we missed lunch but we made it for the speeches.) I didn't have much time to chat to my cousin which was a shame because I don't see him all that much but I did get to catch up with some family members which usually only happens at Christmas and birthdays so that was good. Miss K and I made our excuses at about 4:30 because we were both drained and ended up zoning out in front of the telly and the computer until her bed time. She didn't even want dinner tonight so she got sent to bed full of paracetamol (for her lovely cold) half an hour early. There was a new comment on my Facebook status when I got home from nonna, calling all the people who had commented on my post "stronzos" which means she has just insulted my family. So I'm done. No Christmas, no weekend visits once a month, no more being nice period. She wants to see a stronzo, she's got it. Mum has just walked in with a 6 pack of rum and cola so I think it's time I drowned my sorrows and forgot this whole hellish weekend even happened. Thank goodness for work on Monday.

image source www.freedigitalphotos.net

Pictured: me all weekend

First week as a working mum

So I had a feeling it would be some time before I felt I had enough energy to come back to you guys, and I wasn't wrong. So first before I get to the point of today's post, a quick update on the little things that have happened this week.

Miss K got over her gastro after about five days. We only had spewing for three of those days, and yuck nappies for another day. She has now been clever enough to catch a cold on my first day off, so I've been dealing with snot these past three days, which while still gross is a lot easier on my sensitive gag reflex. Her dad has split up with his girlfriend and moved back to his mother's house in Melbourne, (no huge surprises there, I've been predicting this would happen for about 2 weeks now.) so we're back to square one when it comes to his visits. We missed speech therapy last week, because of her stomach bug, but we were back again this week and she is improving with such speed it is wonderful to watch. I now need to go out and buy her a few jigsaw puzzles, because she played with some at speech therapy and was so good at it, I feel it's something we need to bring into the house. Miss K is also adjusting brilliantly to spending so much time at her aunty's house, possibly because she has so much fun there. This week alone they went toy shopping, visited my nephew's kindergarten and went to a cafe for lunch. There have been no tantrums when I leave for work, no tears or clinging or anything negative at all. I get a wave and a kiss and she returns to playing. It has definitely made returning to work a lot easier that she is so OK with me not being around all the time. Also knowing that she is in the best place possible means I don't spend the day worrying if she is OK. Of course this week may be different given she is unwell, but I've already been reassured that a sticky green nose isn't a problem.

Now on to the point of today's post. I've been back at work for three days now, and when I thought about going back to work, I always thought the hardest part of the whole process would be leaving Miss K behind. It turns out that was the easiest part. I know I should be going easy on myself as I've been out of the workforce for three years now, but I suck at my job. It has been so long since I've been this bad at my work and it feels terrible. Once upon a time I used to put a lot of stock into the fact that I could learn new jobs fairly quickly, which made being a temp worker a breeze. In fact the first time I got this job it started as a temporary assignment when one of their secretaries up and quit very quickly, and I was so good at the job she asked me to stay on once the contract was finished. It was probably a huge risk for her, given I had next to zero experience working in a solicitor's office, but she gave me the chance and I was grateful for it.

Well she's taken another huge risk taking me back again, for several reasons. The first being the last time I worked there I unceremoniously quit after 6 months, staying only long enough to train a new secretary to take my place, and two I've spent the last three years ignoring the many things I've learnt while working over the past ten years in lieu of tea parties and dirty nappies. And I'm paying for it now. I don't remember where they keep all the legal documents, I can't remember the process for filing things with the court, I had forgotten the security pass for the front door and locked myself out the first day I was there, and I am so very, very slow at completing my work right now. When I left there the last time, I was able to get through a basket of dictation in a day. This week it took me three days to get through a basket. But on the plus side I started a second basket on Wednesday, and managed to get through almost half of it by the end of the day. So I guess you could say I'm getting better, but it's going to take quite some time to get back to my former quality of work. Luckily for me my boss is completely understanding of my position, and is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what I am able to do (or will be able to do eventually.) It just means that for now she checks absolutely everything I do before she allows it to leave the office, which I am totally fine with.

So we are back to playing the wait and see game. I now have to wait and see how long it takes to get good at this job again, I have to wait and see if Miss K is going to be as happy to be left at her favourite aunty's house for three days in a row this week, and I have to wait and see if my big sister finally comes to her senses and realises that my darling daughter is Dennis the Menace in disguise and decides to start pretending she's not at home whenever we come over first thing in the morning. But in the mean time I do have to say how very grateful I am that I have so many people around who are so happy to turn their lives upside down so that I can get what I want. Especially my big sister and her whole family, who have suddenly become cured of any last hints of cluckiness in the past week. There is not a bunch of flowers big enough to say how thankful I am for their help.

photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Would a field of flowers be enough? probably not.