A five hour block

January 7, 2016 / Renae / Leave a comment

Last night it happened.

It’s been, at a guess, months since I had five hours of uninterrupted sleep. Months I tell you. And I gotta say, today I feel like a million bucks. Never in my wildest childless dreams would I ever have considered a 5 hour stretch of sleep something to celebrate. And then, as a bonus, after tending to Darby (still in the process of weaning!) I got another two or so hours. And it was all in the comfort of our king size bed with just Hubs and I, as Chanbe stayed in his big boy bed all night long.

The phrase “fresh as a daisy” springs to mind.

It got me thinking, what else I could achieve in an uninterrupted five hour block. This is what I’ve come up with:

I could unpack from our Christmas holiday and find a place for everything;

I could tidy my whole house, vacuum and mop the floors;

I could write a meal plan for a whole month and shop for it;

I could bake up a storm and cook up a bunch of meals to freeze;

I could hit up all of the op shops in town;

I could meet a friend for a movie and a meal;

I could get a good start on the photo books I’ve been wanting to print out;

I could build a LOT of Lego;

I could watch 7 episodes of Nashville;

I could get all my paperwork ready for the four weddings I have booked so far this year;

I could ring around and set up some meetings with builders about our renovations;

I could have another sleep.

Oh I could go on but this is just off the top of my head. Five hours may not seem like much but oh the things I could achieve!

2015: The year of the unwritten blog posts

December 31, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

There have been heaps. Okay, at least a dozen blog posts that I’ve written in my head but never gotten around to posting here this year. Of course there have been a few in years gone by as well, but there has definitely been less activity around here than I was hoping for for the year.

But I digress. It’s been an interesting year. After being miserable in Mount Isa and being diagnosed with depression half way through 2014, I figured 2015 could only be an improvement. And I was right.

We started the year with a bang, by buying our first house and then getting caught in Rockhampton’s first cyclone in 50 odd years.

We headed to Victoria for 2 weddings, one in Feb and a family affair in March. I had been looking forward to that week for 6 months and it did not disappoint!

Our very dear friends visited in April and had a baby girl while staying with us. I know, right? A lot happened in April, actually.

May brought a lot of self-awareness and in turn, the start of some serious self-love. It paved the way for quite an overhaul of body and soul, and it’s also when I started my twice-weekly fit mums class.

We had Darby-doo’s Baptism in June (that I blogged about in September!) and then visitors stayed with us afterwards. It also saw me write this blog post about my dear Hubs.

In July, I joined facebook. It’s been interesting. We also had our nieces stay with us for a week, and I never got around to blogging about it, even though I’ve written the post “I love how they love him” in my head a hundred times. Stay tuned.

We really got into outdoor cooking this year and entertained the neighbours with various delicacies.

I wrote this post in September about being busy that seemed to resonate with a few of you. It also saw me coming out of a bit of a foggy haze. I feel like there were a lot of these posts, both published and not, this year. I’m hoping there will be more action around this in the new year.

In October I shared some “after/current” pics of this year’s hard work so far.

November was a bit light on around here. I started a new monthly post of 10 things on the 10th as well.

And then it was December, and we were in full birthday party swing.

And yeah, it’s now the last day of December, and this is my view for the afternoon.

Unfortunately my poor 101 in 1001 has been very badly neglected this year, and with only 2 months to go until the challenge is over, I’ve gone through the list and picked out the following things I aim to achieve:

011 – Go to a driving range and hit some balls

026 – Do something kind for Hubs every day for a month

033 – Write 20 letters to people (15 to go!)

038 – Go to a Roller Derby

060 – Make pierogi 5 times – 1 more to go!

066 – grow some herbs!

074 – Have my old blog turned into a book

086 – Celebrate my 1000th blog post – 12 posts to go

095 – send a secret to Post Secret

I’ll be updating my 101 in 1001 page in the next few days as it is so horrendously outdated, and I do want to go over my successfully completed items.

So that was the year. It was a bit light on in some areas, but full on in others. I’ve decided to write some ideas for how I want 2016 to look for me, and I look forward to smashing some more goals around my health and fitness.

Won’t you join me?

Brickman

December 30, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

We had an early Christmas treat last Tuesday when we took Hubs’ family to the Lego display at the Brisbane convention centre. First of all, it was just so much fun being together. Hubs’ brother and sister-in-law are visiting from NZ so it’s so nice to spend time with them. After some initial shyness, Quinn came around to aunty Sarah’s charms and were besties after that.

And as per usual, my wonderful nieces entertained my children for me so I could have a bit of adult conversation with other adults! Hubs’ Dad brought 97-year-old Nanna along for the show as well!

How great does she look!? Thank you to Poppy for bringing her along – you make it look easy but we know what is involved! Lots of cuddles for Poppy too.

Now to the Lego! The displays were pretty damn impressive, though some interactive displays would have really made it something special.

There were heaps more displays but considering I started writing this post a well ago, I thought it best I just hit the publish button!

The Happy-haps

December 18, 2015 / Renae / 2 Comments

And there goes another week without blogging. Sheesh! So what’s been happening? Well this time last week I was stressed up to my eyeballs trying to decide whether to drive to Brisbane, or fly, or stay in Rockhampton for Christmas because my poor little brain wasn’t coping with it all! The short story is, I ended up booking flights for the kids and I, using frequent flyer points (for the win!), flying in tomorrow evening. Mum had already booked to come up on Thursday (yesterday) to drive back with us today which was the original plan.

So then at the gym on Tuesday, I put my back out. My damn sciatica is playing up again, so Wednesday was spent flat on my back on pain killers. I gotta say, it was nice to have a break for the day, but I could have done without the pain!

And then, as per our original plan, mum arrived yesterday to save the day! Or at least, to save me from the washing pile. So we are getting prepared for our flight at 5pm tomorrow and we are all very excited. We are sad to be leaving Hubs behind to study, but you know, that’s the way it goes.

Here’s our last week in pictures:

We finally got a new roof! May get a better picture for you.

Chance has been making some epic Lego vehicles all by himself!

Been reading a lot of Strangers in Paradise while resting my back.

It’s well and truly mango season!

I’m really excited about heading to Brisbane for Christmas. It’s going to be the first time all the great-grand children on my mum’s side of the family will be all together! Photo ops! See you soon everyone!

Happy birthday boys

December 10, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

We celebrated Chance’s 5th and Darby’s 1st birthday last weekend, and what a celebration it was. There was meat. A lot of meat. And kids. Many many kids. But the thing that there was the most of, was presents. So. Many. Presents. Chance was absolutely beside himself! Thanks to everyone who was able to come along to celebrate our boys birthdays!!

My beautiful big 5 year old boy. A number 5 racecar track cake as requested.

Gran & Darby in their matching party shirts.

My beautiful family. I’m feeling so lucky right now.

The obligatory cake-eating photo. You can see Chance’s here and Quinn’s here.

Chanbe offering the cupcakes around, and sneaking a few in here and there.

My little Darby-doo. Thank you for being our little spark of joy every single day. No matter what adult-related-rubbish is getting me down, I just have to look at you and everything is okay in the world. You love to get down and boogie just like your Mama, and I hope you never lose that desire to move to the beat. Our little angel.

And Chancey-pants how you make me smile. You are so inquisitive and really are starting to work things out for yourself. I need to remember that you’re not a baby anymore, and that everyday you are looking to learn something new. Help me to remember to be curious as well, and remind me to have fun more often and not be so serious. You inspire me to ask why. Never stop asking why, my dear boy.

10 things on the 10th

December 10, 2015 / Renae / 2 Comments

10 things I want to improve on in 2016:

Keep a tidier house – seriously! Other people do it! Why can’t we!?
Get our morning routine sorted – at the moment we rush and it’s stressful. Chance will be in Prep next year and I’m hoping that will actually help as we’ll be doing the same thing each morning.
Increase exercise to 5-6 days per week from 4. I’ve gone from sporadic exercise to regular exercise, and now it’s time to up the ante.
Join yoga class to help with mental health.
Be able to do a 10km fun run – there’s one in May which is plenty of time!
Not be so attached to the stuff in our house and get rid of a lot of it – See #1.
Be more patient and present with my children – it’s end of year and I’m crazy tired and I heat want to be a nice person for my kids (and Hubs) to be around.
Stick to a budget – I’m 35 and in charge or our family’s finances which are currently in the red. Enough us enough!
More reading with the kids – this has fallen by the wayside lately due to interrupted routines and opting for short films instead. Must get this back on track.
Start Christmas cards earlier next year – I love doing them but I don’t like being so rushed and not having time to write nice little messages on each one.

The end of the day is haaaaaaard

December 2, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Yeah, so this is another one of those posts that other parents are like “oh man that’s so true” and parents-to-be are like “my kid isn’t going to be like that” and people without kids are like “oh I’m sure she’s exaggerating”.

(I could have sworn exaggerating had an “h” in it.)

I’m not exaggerating.

At the end of the day, the ambitions you had of being pleasant and patient and understanding and “earth mother” have been thrown out the door with the day’s compost. Which, I might add, consists of half-eaten fruit and veges that you have lovingly prepared for your children, expecting them to eat fruit and veges because that’s what they’re supposed to do, otherwise they’ll grow up to be dole bludgeing crazy people.

You try. Oh how you try. But by the 5th time one of them (okay, the same one) (I’m looking at you, Chanbe) calls you in for more pats/reassurance there’s not monsters under the bed (thanks Monsters Inc BTW) or is in need of cold water, it’s hard to keep your composure.

Go. The F*ck. To sleep.

I love my kids. I love them more than I thought was ever humanly possible. And I try. I really really do try. But at the end of the day, it’s just so hard. And it’s heartbreaking that sometimes we end our day with annoyance, impatience and frustration. I know, deep down, that if I respond to those early requests, then that will be the end of it, 80% of the time.

The other 20% of the time I’m muttering various things under my breath and just wanting to get on with my evening’s activities.

Tonight, for instance, Hubs and I wanted to go out and celebrate our 8th Wedding Anniversary. 8 years, 8 house moves, 3 kids…

I need to go to bed. I literally just fell asleep at the keyboard, but when inspiration strikes, you gotta go with it.

Happy 8th Anniversary Hubs. Love your guts xxxxxx

What’s the happy-haps?

November 25, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

A friend warned me about this. Her words went something like

“Make sure you keep blogging even though you’ve joined facebook.”

“Of course I will!” Was my reply.

But I have been somewhat neglectful of this space. To be honest, I’ve really found our lack of decent computer set-up partly to blame. We don’t have a PC set up this year that I can just plonk myself down in front of, and start typing. I do most of my blogging on our Surface Pro laptop thingy, but by the time I find it, realise the battery is dead, plug it in to the charger at the desk, scrounge around for the keyboard and mouse to plug in, the effort is a bit off-putting.

The last 6 months have been a bit of a blur to be honest, and the next 2 months aren’t going to slow down for me either. You see, Chanbe turns 5 on Friday. I’ll let that sink in for a minute, but it can’t be that long since this happened. My darling first born has put in an order for a Dusty Crophopper cake, which I’ll do my best for.

Remember this? This is Chance at about 2 months old.

And this is Chance at almost 60 months old 🙂

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????

And 10 days after Chance turns 5, my baby Darby-doo turns 1. I was feeding him today, and just soaking it all in. He may well be our last baby, and I’ll stop breastfeeding him soon, and that makes me sad because I’ve loved feeding my babies. I’m going to miss this post-feed contented look.

And this is Darbs at around 2 months as well.

My boys are so delightful. They absolutely adore each other.

They’re going to be such great pals when they’re older, I’m sure of it.

As well as 2 birthdays, I’m also doing my first wedding expo on Sunday (so nervous!!), we have 2 kindy break-ups (it has begun), I’m ankle-deep in my Christmas card making (I only started a few days ago when inspiration struck! I was going to forgo them this year, but I once I got going, there was no stopping me!) my parents are coming up for a week (so many yays), there are 2 end of year hospital functions to attend (one of them is a child-free all day catamaran cruise around Great Keppel Island. So. Excited.) and then we’ll be heading south for Christmas. I’m so excited to be having Christmas in Brisbane! My mum’s side of the family will almost all be there and it’s been years since we’ve had Christmas day with them.

So yeah, another random post for you to ponder over. I don’t even know how to end it, so I just did.

My Husband doesn’t care about my losing weight

November 14, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Bear with me here.

Aaaaah losing weight. It’s a mission, isn’t it? Well, for some more than others. It can be a lifelong quest, with many ups and downs. Literally. Ever since Hubs and I got together 9 year ago (what the?…) he has never waivered in his admiration of me. Wow that sounds conceited, but it’s true. He thinks I’m beautiful and sexy and lovely. Even at my heaviest, his affections never waned. He just doesn’t see it. He sees me.

What a gift, right? And I do treasure it, I promise.

Whenever I’ve spoken to him about wanting to lose weight, or the latest gym membership I’ve paid for, or the latest class I’ve joined, he has always been encouraging, but never in a way that suggests to me I need to do it for him, or for us. In fact, the only thing he has ever said along these lines is “I believe if you lost weight, you would be happier because you would have more energy to do more with the kids, but it makes no difference to me.” Or words to that effect.

I remember in my late teens, my brother’s then-girlfriend and I attended Weight Watches together. She was wanting to lose about 10kg and I was probably wanting to lose more like 25kg. We would go to our weekly weigh-ins and my number barely budged, while she was losing her 1kg ish per week. I recall saying to my brother one day “I hope you’re being really supportive and encouraging of Deidre’s* weight loss!” (*oh wow, Deidre? Talk about protecting the innocent! Love that name by the way…) He replied to this with a bit of a shrug and a non-committal hmph.

I was so shocked and appalled and felt so bad that my brother was so insensitive! I was 19 after all, and knew all things about all things. Just ask my Dad 🙂

Oh man this is a random post. 2 glasses of wine and a returned husband from the UK will do that to you! Where was I…

Oh yes. My brother. What I realise now, was that he was saying he liked her just the way she is, and if she wanted to lose weight, she was doing it for herself, not to make him love her more. Oh yeah, I was so cluey.

So what’s my point here? I was wearing a denim skirt and “new” (op-shop $4) singlet today, and was feeling particularly svelte (hee hee!) when I went to pick Hubs up from the airport, but nary a comment was made. And that’s fine by me. If I ask him how I look, he will always say beautiful. If I tell him I’ve lost another 2kg, he’ll tell me “that’s great”. But it’s not a big deal, and to be honest, that’s just how I like it. I want to instil that in my kids. A number is just that; it doesn’t define you; it shouldn’t change how happy you are on a certain day. I get that, but sometimes it does.

That’s why I’m so grateful to have a Hubs that loves me from frocked up to completely veged out on the couch. He doesn’t love me in spite of my extra cuddly bits, he loves me because I’m the whole package for him. I guess. Either that, or he really loves my cooking. Which would be fair enough 😉

So my point is, even though I’m losing weight, the only thing Hubs cares about is how happy I am. And if weighing less, and in turn feeling fitter and healthier makes me happy, then he’s on board.

Darby’s first word

November 13, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Enjoy 🙂