Lazy blogger….. tsk tsk!

So to my audience of…… maybe one, I apologise. I have been a very slack blogger. The fam went away in January and I fully intended to blog in my down time however, there was no wireless where we stayed and quite frankly venturing over the road to the shopping centre and writing at one of those internet kiosks didn’t really get my bloggy juices flowing. So I just didn’t. Since we’ve been back, life has gotten in the way a little and in all honesty I haven’t prioritised doing the things I like (apart from catching up with all my favourite blogs which believe takes a long time when you’ve been away for nearly 2 weeks). I have thought often about a brain purge on here but never logged on to do it. Here I am though, coffee in hand, banana bread in belly typing away. I have so many things buzzing around in my head that I want to get out that it will require a little organisation but I am back!

Tonight I have a leave pass and one of my dearest gals is in town so whatever the night brings I am looking forward to it. Tomorrow I am a lady who lunches with some of my mummy friends – sans children! Amazing! Love my Miss 3 dearly but the thought of a daytime grown up activity without her gives me a thrill of delight! Looking forward to a loooong boozy lunch and NOT thinking about the housework that waits for me in the afternoon. WHo knows maybe I’ll enjoy it a bit if I have a buzz going?

[insert sound of air being let out of a balloon here]

That’s about how I feel today. Deflated. The last few weeks have been really hectic. I work a lot leading up to Christmas, try madly to fit in the shopping because (despite what I say the year before) I never have my presents organised early, then tumble on through New Year’s. A week after that it’s my birthday and then I’m ready to collapse. Add in for 2012 some extra night work, study and my sister’s baby shower and you got one pooped gal! In all seriousness though I have not been sleeping well for all the things on my mind and some extremely vivid dreams and can’t remember being this tired since I had a newborn.

My Masters research has started runnning at uni and apart from feeling like I am flying by the seat of my pants most of the time it has been going ok… except for today. It was no one’s fault, my research is on people with Down’s Syndrome and the demands of my task aren’t suited to all. Today’s volunteer tried his hardest but I just couldn’t get any useable data from him. It’s a bit of a bummer and it just let that last little bit of air out of my balloon today.

Also, I’m starting to suspect the drive to uni is working against me. It’s at least an hour each way and whilst I love my music (and who doesn’t love a good car sing?), I find with nothing else to do sometimes I think too much. I get really in my head and go over situations that have happened, things that might happen, frighten myself with vast mental lists of all the things I have to do and so on and so forth until by the time I get out of my car at the other end I am a mess (well not quite that bad but the clenching of my jaw can’t be good for my teeth enamel). Yes, I possibly do need some therapy… or intense meditation instruction to learn to switch my brain off sometimes but then that would just be something else to add to my to do list….

Feeling a bit… Fleetwood Mac

Oh day of competing feelings. Today is my birthday. As my aunt put it – a non-numerically quantifiable birthday. Although I actually don’t have a problem with growing older. It’s one of the only things in life that I tend not to overthink and worry about. My attitude has always been of the ‘you can’t stop it by worrying’ variety. Such a shame I can’t do that for anything else in my life. It sure would ease much of the stress. For instance, I am torn today between taking advantage of everyone telling me to relax and TOTALLY FREAKING OUT about how much I have to do this coming week. That freaking out would probably not constitute doing anything constructive about the workload, it would rather be made up of me thinking, worrying, making some lists, pondering, putting papers into various piles, a little more mental acrobatics and eventually falling asleep on the lounge grinding my teeth and having vivid strange dreams all night. Phew!

Instead I choose Fleetwood Mac. One of my birthday presents this year was a Best of FM CD. I can’t believe I don’t own more than the odd song on my iPod. So here I am sitting on my computer, Stevie Nicks in my ears several tabs open on Internet Explorer ready to catch up on some blogs. I had a bit of a sleep in today, followed by a massage and a family lunch with the wonderful in-laws. The massage made me feel like sleeping for the rest of the day so I soothed my guilt by reasoning that my brain was too foggy to do anything quality if I worked anyway, ergo the sensible thing to do was nothing. My stepson is not here tonight which is a real shame as the only thing I told him I wanted for my birthday was for someone to brush my hair for 15 minutes straight and he obliged with a home made voucher for said treat – I would totally have cashed that in tonight!

Hmmm upon re-read this post is slightly incoherent and rambling but if nothing else a true reflection of how I am feeling today. It will be posted as is.

 

My favourite days

My daughter is 3 and she knows when I tell her it’s my favourite kind of day it means that I don’t have to work or go to uni and I stay at home with her. It’s one of those today. At the moment she is playing ‘by herself’. By that I mean she is heavily in the middle of an imagination game where she is the mother or the sister or the kindy teacher and she talks non-stop to her dolls and stuffed animals… and me. She talks A LOT but much of what comes out of her mouth is gold. She is difficult to tune out as she repeats something until I acknowledge what she’s said – I just know I am going to get caught in a trap one day where I agree to something hideous without realising it.

It feels like summer now in Sydney. It’s warm and still at the moment after what was a really mild start to the season. I’m not really a hot weather person. Don’t get me wrong, I love the beach and we are lucky enough to have a pool I just don’t love that inescapable heat – the fun of a temperature over 30 degrees is lost on me. I do however love sitting on  the front verandah watching Miss R do cartwheels on the grass or put on dance concerts as the sun sets and the day cools down.

I am sitting here writing this as the uni work I need to do today niggles in the back of my head. This week is the beginning of seeing subjects for my new research and I am just slightly underprepared. My uni mentality has always had trouble shifting from undergrad student who has no academic responsibility between semesters to postgrad who is supposed to count among her skills a drive and motivation to work even when there are a million other things she’d rather be doing. Maybe by the time I graduate I’ll be able to write that bit on my resume. For now I think I will go and pretend to get my hair done at the hairdressers….

Hello 2012!

I love the feeling of possibility that comes with a new year. This year I could be that person who loses weight. Or that person who gets the craft market stall she’s been thinking about for years off the ground. Perhaps the person who learns to enjoy exercise? Oooo or that girl who is super organised and looks after her house on more than just a ‘need to’ basis. Maybe even be the mummy who does all those fun, quality time activities with her child?

Mostly this year I would like to use my time wisely. Fill my time with things I want to do rather than filling my time with thinking about those things. I often think about a quote from a movie I loved as a teenager – Empire Records. Liv Tyler’s character says “there’s 24 useable hours in everyday”, and apart from the fact that her character turns out to be taking speed to assist her to study for long hours in between working incredibly fun shifts with all the beautiful people of the music store, I like this quote. In 2012 I am going to use the hours of my day!

Happy New Year!

Hello world!

I feel the need to write. Time and topics often elude me but I want to sit and type. 2012 will be my year to start. As always at this time of the year I get my fresh diary and crack the pages – stationary lovers of the world unite – and feel that this year will be different. I will tick things off my to do list. I will start (and potentially even finish) all of the projects I’ve been dreaming up. I will be super-mum, super-partner, super-student and super-person… actually I’ll settle for just being ok at any combination of these – don’t want to peak too early!

So this blog will be a collection of all the things that end up in the deep dark corners of my hard drive and brain - just in a slightly prettier more organised format.

About me: I am a (nearly) 32 year old Aussie girl – though I have always suspected I should have been born in Italy. I am a mum to a 3 year old girl, psuedo step-mum to an 11 year old boy and partner (actually fiancee 1 year to the day today if we are being technical) to a lovely man. We live with our two dogs in a good house on a shit street not too far from the beach – walking distance only if you’re ambitious though. I work and study and crave a better balance of both that allows me to indulge in being creative. If anyone has any tips I’d be grateful.

So… here we go…..