Category: Stuff

Afraid of the dark

/ Renae / 2 Comments

Yesterday and today have been pretty cruisey and not terribly newsworthy, so I’m going to blog about something I’ve been thinking about for a while. The fact that I’m afraid of the dark.

It’s great at this time of the year as it doesn’t get dark here til about 8:30pm. For as long as I can remember I’ve been afraid of the dark and I don’t like it. I’d like to change that about myself. Any suggestions?

Because of this fear, I absolutely HATE staying at home on my own overnight. During the day I’m absolutely fine, and feel that I can handle it, but as soon as it starts getting dark, I start getting anxious. It’s so ridiculous! All I want to do is lock myself in my room and will myself to sleep all night long. Don’t even get me started on having to get up in the middle of the night to pee when I’m all alone. If I don’t do it straight away, it can take half an hour to summons the courage.

So what am I afraid of? I think burglars are the big one for me, even though I have never ever ever been robbed. That is just so irrational! I think I’ve watched too many movies where getting up in the middle of the night ends badly. I do wish I were made of tougher stuff.

I read a quote by Marie Curie stating “Nothing is to be feared, only understood” and I’m really trying to embrace that. I don’t want to spend my life fearing something that will likely never happen. What a waste of energy that is!

Anyway, if you have any suggestions about how to become less afraid of “the dark” I would love to hear them…

We’re okay

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Hello lovely blog-readers. Just letting you know that we are okay and haven’t been affected by the flooding in Brisbane. It’s so sad to watch the news and see the disastrous affects this rain is having on the state – I’ve never experienced this kind of rain before.

Thanks for thinking of us.

The cliche continues

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“Wow I can’t believe how big he is!”
“He’s just growing so fast!”
“I remember when he was a newborn and how small he was.”
“Those chubby thighs are so adorable!”
“I can’t remember my life without him.”

Yes, I’m afraid I have muttered all of these phrases over the last couple of weeks. I can’t help it! It’s all true! He’s even grown out of the newborn Huggies nappies and we’ve had to buy the 6-11kg ones that are for toddlers!* Crazy!

In other news, Chance had his first trip to Bunnings today! (See how he’s looking for Hubs!?)

In the end it all got too much for him (and me).

I’m sure he’ll be back again with Hubs some time soon though! We have a working bee planned for tomorrow at Hubs’ Mum’s place and we’re REALLY hoping for a break from the rain! Fingers crossed!!!

*We only use disposables when we get lazy/when we run out of cloth nappies/ when the cloth nappies aren’t dry.

Storage

/ Renae / 1 Comment

Why do we store stuff? Hubs and I have boxes and boxes of stuff stored at Hubs’ Mum’s place, cos we thought it would be crazy to take everything down to Melbourne/rural Victoria with us. Instead we took the bare necessities (and some extra stuff) and have bought bits and pieces, generally second-hand, along the way. It just seems such a shame that we have all this lovely stuff just sitting in a house, 2000km away, not being used. Having said that, I could probably only recall about 10% of the stuff that is in those boxes. If someone told me tomorrow that it had all been accidentally lost, I don’t think I would be overly devastated about it, as I wouldn’t really know what I was missing out on.

So why keep it all? We all know the reasons – “sentimental value” (Hubs and Wifey); “cos I’ll use it one day I’m sure” (Hubs); “just because, okay??” (Wifey).

Hubs has organised a working bee this Saturday to go through everything, so it will be fun to look at what is there. And I’m going to try and be ruthless and get rid of a few things. Mainly books I suspect. And maybe some things that I’ve been holding on to for way too long.

Maybe I should give my mind a bit of a clean-out as well and throw out some stuff that’s been hanging around, taking up valuable room. Like all the body-image crap I’ve been carrying around since I was a teenager. Or the desire to please other people all the time (though, I’m getting better at this one!). I wonder what else I’ll find there that I could do without…

Wedding number 3

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On Sunday the 19th December, I had the privilege of officiating the wedding of 2 new friends of ours. You may remember this wedding – well, the wedding last Sunday involved Nathan’s brother Pete, and it was a truly wonderful occasion. The wedding was held at Emily’s (the bride) aunt and uncle’s old B&B come holiday home in Trentham, Victoria. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too crash hot – freezing cold and rainy – but that didn’t dampen the mood in any way. We had a wet weather plan, but ended up being able to have the ceremony outside in the courtyard and it went splendidly, despite being only about 12 degrees!!

Hubs took care of Chance during the ceremony, and it was lovely to see their faces amongst the crowd, even if it was only from time to time! It really was a lovely ceremony, and Pete & Em decided to self-cater which gave the day a lovely family feel. Oh, and the desserts were awesome! (And look at the scenery behind the house!)

We all had a great day and spent the night before and after at this gorgeous holiday home in Blackwood – we could have happily stayed there another week, just enjoying the surrounds, watching DVDs and enjoying good company. And thank goodness for the fireplace! I believe it got down to 6 degrees overnight. I don’t think Mother Nature got the memo that IT’S DECEMBER!!!!!!

Congrats Pete & Em!! And here’s a lovely little family pic from the day (and yes, our son is going cross-eyed. Focusing is hard at this age!!)

Rain rain, go away…

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We’ve been in Brisvegas since last Monday and it has rained every day. The only good thing about this is that it’s been surprisingly cool for this time of year so the humidity hasn’t knocked me around too much. We’ve been having a really great time catching up with family and friends, but it’s now time to catch our breath, so we’re laying low for a few days. This means watching the cricket (1st day of the Boxing Test = embarrassing), eating Christmas leftovers, and having lots of baby snuggle time.

In the next few days/weeks I will be attempting to blog about the following:
– Hubs going fly fishing with Dad and catching 2 fish
– Our few days in Melbourne
– The wedding in Trentham
– Our trip up to Brisbane
– Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
and whatever else tickles my fancy.

For the time being though, I’m going to check my google reader and see what’s been happening while I’ve been sitting around, staring lovingly at my boys.

A puzzling thing

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I bought a puzzle for Mum a while ago that I thought we could do together when she was down here in July. Obviously we were too busy buying furniture and playing house to do the puzzle, so I whipped it out a couple of weeks ago and the 4 of us got to work on it. I had fun sorting out all the side pieces from the guts – the corners are especially fun to find, aren’t they!? Then I put the frame together. I may or may not have lost a bit of interest for a while after that…

We all had a go at it one afternoon and it started to take shape.

And this is where Hubs and Mum’s enthusiasm kicked in! They really got stuck into it. This is, of course, after Dad and I “sorted” the pieces by colour! 🙂 (That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!!) Can you see what it is slowly becoming?*

And I believe this is about how we left it last, though, it looks like Mum and Dad have done a bit more on it on the side…
Once all the fun stuff was done, and only the sky was left, Hubs all of a sudden found other fun things to do! Ha ha. I’m sure we’ll finish it off in the next few days, if Mum and Dad haven’t already!
*For those playing at home, it’s the Arc de Triomphe

“Aaahhhrum”

/ Renae / 4 Comments

That’s the noise my childhood doctor used to make when he was pausing and collecting his thoughts. Instead of your usual “aaahh” or “um” he used to combine the 2. Why do I remember this? I don’t have an answer, other than to suggest I used to be somewhat of a hypochondriac (there, I admitted it) which meant frequent visits to the doctor. And why am I telling you this? No reason really. Just cos this is my blog and I can write what I like and that just popped into my head…

Also, you may (or may not) have noticed a lack of posting in the last week or 2. There is a reason for this that isn’t related to laziness. Well, not entirely. You see, this is my 399th post and I’m feeling all sorts of self-inflicted pressure to make post number 400 an absolute cracker, even more so than my usual wittiness and awesomeness. (I seem to be brimming with self confidence at present.) I used to have a tendency to get bored of new things quickly, and not stick them out, so the fact that this blog has been running for over 2 years and I have posted regularly is quite an achievement for me and I feel quite proud of myself. So I’ve had a few ideas for my next post but haven’t quite decided on a course of action to take as yet. But there will be photos, I can promise you that.

In other news, tomorrow is my last day at Wangaratta City Council. I can’t believe I’ve been here almost 3 months! I’ve really enjoyed my time here, though I’m sure it’s partly due to the great people I work with, and the fact that there has always been an end date with a whole new adventure on the other side. Pregnancy is still going wonderfully and my tummy is getting bigger by the week. Littlefoot kicks and moves around a lot, and has taken to digging his/her heels into my ribcage which is fun. I’m still feeling fabulous most of the time, with spurts of extreme exhaustion which is manageable. I’m looking forward to a restful few weeks, waiting in anticipation for the arrival of the little person who has already become such a big part of our lives. Oh, and I’m also looking forward to being able to see my feet again, and being able to get off the couch/out of bed without making a “heeeyumph” sound. Hee hee. Hubs finds this particularly amusing.

So if you can be a bit patient, post number 400 will be along in the next few days, and hopefully it will meet all expectations, even if they are all from me 🙂

Bomb dive

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Or is that dive bomb? Whatever. All I know is that the energy I was feeling here has gone on a holiday without my permission and left me at home from work “sick” for 2 days this week. I tried, I really did try. I went to work on Thursday and lasted from 10am til 11am before I had to go home. It was either go home or pass out under my desk for the rest of the day. I wonder if I had done that if anyone would have noticed? Would that still have counted as being at work? Would I have been paid?? Me thinks not. And then the next day it took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work.

Here’s why:

It took 10 minutes to walk the 150m or so to the bus stop
The bus took 9 minutes
I went to the Post Office to post a birthday present and started to feel quite faint
I went to the coffee shop next door to have a little sit down and an orange juice
It took almost half an hour to feel better
It took 5 minutes to walk the 50m to work
It took about a minute to walk up 14 stairs
I had to rest at the top of the stairs for 5 minutes before I could go through the last door to get to work
I sat down and recovered for another 10 minutes
I went to tell my boss I was going home

She asked why I had come in in the first place.

I wondered the same thing, particularly because it was absolutely pouring down rain and it would have been far more logical to stay at home in my nice warm bed. But I felt pretty good in the morning! It really wasn’t until I got to the Post Office, in the heating, and then to work, again in the stuffy suffocating heating, that I started to feel rotten. I think I have some sort of virus or something that is just messing with my body temp/blood pressure. The Midwife I phoned on Thursday said it wasn’t anything to worry about but to go and see my Doc “if symptoms persist”.

So I’m going to try to go to work again tomorrow and hope for the best. I think this will be my last week of work though. I was going to work next week as well, but I think my body is saying that enough is enough.

And the reason I’m sharing all of this? We just got home from a lovely day in Beechworth (post to come) and I’m avoiding doing the kitchen after roo burgers for dinner. “Oh lovely Hubsbaaaaaaaannnnd!”

3 cheers for energy!

/ Renae / 2 Comments

About 2 weeks ago, I started to crash and burn. Until that time I had been feeling fantastic, still walking to and from work, and just generally buzzing. I started to have so much trouble (yes, more than usual) getting out of bed in the morning, and cut back my work day to 10:30-5, and even then I only made it to work 3 days that week. By Friday evening, after my third sleep for the day, I was convinced that this is what all the mothers had been telling me about – that I was at the end of my energy. I was convinced that I would have to give up work effective immediately, and that I’d be spending the following 7 weeks (give or take, depending on when Littlefoot makes his/her grand entrance) on the couch.

But then on Saturday I woke up and felt a little better. By the end of the day (and no naps) I felt really good, and only got better on the Sunday. And by Monday, I was feeling fantastic again, just in time for work! Woo hoo! I still decided to keep my 10:30-5pm work day, and cut back to 4 days a week, taking Wednesdays off. But the energy just keeps coming!

Like today, I was up at 8:30am (though that was a bit hard) and I’ve been to church, done the shopping, done a load of washing, had a leisurely lunch and iced coffee with Hubs in town and had a rest while enjoying the beautiful sunshine and stunning warm weather that Wang is putting on for us this weekend. I’ve cleaned the bedroom, the bathroom, and am about to finish a blog post! The next thing on my list is to put the shopping away and maybe, if I’m still feeling good, make some pasta sauce. From scratch, cos you know, I live in the country now 🙂

Now before y’all lovely people tell me I should be resting and taking it easy, rest assured that I have done these things at a leisurely pace with a number of breaks (like this one!!) and am planning on doing absolutely nothing this evening. Well, maybe make some cards or do a spot of sewing. But I just figure that while I’m feeling this good, and feeling this motivated, I should put it to good use!

Hip hip!
Hooray!
Hip hip!
Hooray!
Hip hip!
Hooray for energy!!!!