Not the finest period in my life

You know that life is kind of shite at the moment, albeit in a packing our large, messy life into boxes to live somewhere temporary before we move permanently into a place yet to be determined.  Normally when you move house it's a step up, or sideways, right - meh, not for us this time.

I'm not going to bore you with the Husbands fixation on eating down the freezer food "because we waste so much food in this house", but I will show you an example of our nightly selection of what we used to affectionately call "freezer surprise", I have added another adjective juuust before "freezer" and it also behind with an "F".

Funny enough, most of the freezer surprise meals are still ending up in the bin because they are so bad so we're not really minimising waste anyway.

I'm not even going to describe to you how on Wednesday night the Husband and I instead of watching the state of Origin (him) or cleaning the fish tank and boxing up the kitchen (me), ended up scrubbing our faux plastic spa bath (circa 1983) out with a combination of Exit Mould and baking soda to try and get rid of the newsprint stains from the tub after two of my children decided it would be fun to play with newspaper in the bath, and then locked themselves in with paper through their hair, crying as they realised what they'd done, and tried to clean it before we busted them.  I think I was still happy at that point.  I'll never get back that two hours of my life.

This is taken while covered in the baking soda mix, I was too traumatised to take photos of it in it's raw state.

But I will show you gladly, where we're NOT staying, only because the dates didn't quite work, thank gawd.

Because I don't do bad bathrooms or kitchens and in this particular place, the bathroom was the lesser evil of the two, even though it was pink and baby blue. And had a shower curtain. 

And I will show you the place we are temporarily moving to, and even though it has an unexpected lodger living in the rear, and has the world's worst parking, and I think may have a little negative spirit stuff going on (just a feeling, in one particular room).  This will be our haven for the next 1-2 months.  It's not all shite really.

My next post will be all about living life happily and dancing.  Oh I so want to dance.  And be nice.

Chaos

I wasn't going to put a photo up to show you how chaotic my house is at the moment, because I'm a little too embarrassed but we've known each other long enough now.
Each time I move house I adopt a slow burn, where I pack and organise over a 6 week period, meaning we live with the silent stress of being surrounded by boxes and rifling through boxes trying to find thing packs prematurely.

I have once done the wham-bam-thankyou-mam approach, packed and loaded in the container within 3 days, but then I wasn't paying for that one, with The Husbands work picking up the tab.."do I want those Big W wine glasses packed in acid-free recycled paper?  Why, what a splendid idea...".

This time, the slow burn had been conducted over a shorter time frame of a few weeks, but the stress of this is amplified by the fact we have been packing to go nowhere.  We're not in much better shape still with the bulk of our belonging heading to storage for "30-90" days and us heading to a small house in a neighbouring suburb (oh you will hear all about that once the reality of living there hits).  But least it's a roof.

With a council clean up imminent we have been rampant in our clearing out of junk, with the boys playroom, an early casualty, as a grumpy husband swept through like a tsumani, sweeping armfuls of the kids toys into rubbish bags "for other less fortunate children", frantically the kids tried to salvage but they knew it was a fruitless exercise.

I am over living like a slob, but I can't bring myself to clean around the chaos, and am tolerating it as long as the bench is clear, the beds are made (excluding the 11 year olds but that has nothing to do with our move), and the lounge room is sort of tidy with some candles lit each evening - aaah, home.

However, the other night while mid way through an intense parenting workshop with our 11 year old, he suddenly pointed to a mouse sitting behind our lounge chair.  While breathing a sigh of relief it wasn't a r_t, because I couldn't have dealt with that, we grabbed plastic containers as it took off heading towards the mosh pit of crap at the bottom of our stairs.  I think as I screamed for the fly spray, the husband had one of those ephinanies where he realised that the love of his life was going to be completely useless in this (and future) situations and it was going to be down to him and his son to sort it.  And only moments later a dazed mouse (from an unlucky aim with a metal bowl) was herded onto a breadboard and flicked with force at the neighbours house.

The good thing is we have a deadline for living like this with a 12 day count down now on.  But my job has been made harder now with every pile of crap a potential hiding spot for vermin.

Remembering Our Mum

OK, I know you're all over Mothers Day, the Sunday papers with articles about celebrity mothers and their mothers, the endless stream of bloggers blogging about mothers day (ahem), the fact that mothers day should really be renamed Mothers Half Day (as my one seems to end with the "what should we have for lunch" chant), so that's why I've left my own ramblings until now.   Actually it may have had something to do with a garage to be emptied in preparation for our move in 2 weeks time, and 3 school projects to be completed, and an early morning airport trip?  But I'm here now.

So the Sister and I lost our Mum when I was 28 and the Sister was 31. That's many Mothers Days experienced as motherless daughters.  Thankfully our mum met my baby nephew before she died, but sadly didn't see him grow into the awesome young man he is today.  She missed meeting my beautiful niece by 2 years to the dot, and never met my 3 crazies.   She did see me get married, but it turns out it wasn't to quite the right husband.  She missed seeing my second wedding, but she would have loved it, so much more her scene rather than my first.  She never saw my father fall madly and happily in love, which is probably a good thing for all.  And she never saw the lovely funeral, complete with all her touches that the Sister, our father and me steadfastly put together through our grief.  She would have loved it.
She never got to travel to see her sister in Canada but she did get to travel to Hong Kong to spend alcohol soaked holidays with her other sister.  She even took new local potatoes to Hong Kong.  Who does that?  I bet she tried to smoke in the toilets on the plane or at least think about it.  If anyone was to thumb there nose to rules, it was Mum.

But she never went anywhere else in the world, apart from Australia, even though she read widely and knew more about the countries I visited than I did.  Her life was too confined in my hometown, but she was too hindered by her health and herself to see the places she might liked to have.  We shudder to think about what would have happened if she did, I think the Sister or I would have needed to travel with her as her minder to stop her getting thrown into a foreign prison, rules, schmules Mum would have thought.

My friends Leonie and Sally are currently treking to Everest Base Camp.  I'm so excited for them.  The night before they left, with only hours to go, they were on Facebook, too nervous too sleep.  I asked Leonie if she'd build a teeny cairn for our Mum at Base Camp.  I've built cairns before on many other times and places but never as incredible as Base Camp. I was so humbled that with so much to do and so many other thoughts on her mind, she agreed, then took time to find out about mum.
Our mum LOVED big skies and rough weather and will be so so happy to have made a tiny mark in the  Himalayas somewhere.  I'm in debt to my generous friends for this gift.  I love that there's a little bit of our Mum somewhere where she'd never to have got to.
Thanks to a whole lot of kindness our Mum will be celebrated this Mothers Day in such a unique and perfect way.  
How do you celebrate your mum and not just on Mothers Day?  

Stress

I think that stress can be this nasty virulent parasite that once inside you, worms it's way around until you're in a state of quivering paralysis, looking at the same lists over and over again, screaming at your innocent babies, sitting numbly with glazed eyes looking at Facebook and generally not doing anything worthwhile to actually solve your stress.  Have you been here?
I'm flat smack in the middle of a stressful moment in my life.  And really, we all have our health and each other and there are so many out there, in a sooooo much worse situation than ourselves.  Perspective kid, I got me some now.
However, I acknowledge that this is a moment of stress, we need to find a roof to put over our heads - long story, I may bore you with the juicy bits one day.  But until then I need to ride this stress rather than fight it.  Because when I fight it, random white hot rage flows through my body when one of my boys doesn't pick up a sock, doesn't eat his breakfast fast enough or other nonsensical triggers that transform me into a hysterical banshee.  My banshee isn't pretty, nor very likeable, especially to her children, her husband and herself.
By fighting the stress I have achieved nothing apart from pushing issues around the table, watching the clock and the calendar countdown and writing scathing blog posts about poor retail service.  Yup, got my priorities all in the right order there.
Today is a new day.  I have three writing commitments, one I will nail quickly for my very patient client (hi Kristy), one that is checking in occasionally with you guys, and one that is big not so much in scale but in reputation and credibility.  I will give it a red hot go.  And if I don't get there, then I still have my health, we still have each other.  I am turning off my social media until a space has cleared, boxes are taped up, stories are printed off, and I will use this stress like a wave of adrenalin and focus.
I'm already feeling more productive.
What have you done to get through stress?

Post script: I'd like to be one of those people who the weight falls off in times of stress, unfortunately I'm not and am more likely to be found clutching a handful of biscuits to deal with it.

Big mistake, huge.

Dear Retail People,
Just thought I'd drop you a quick note for completely ignoring me in your shops today.
Just because you're such a "fabulous" shopping location does not mean that you have only one type of customer.  Remember there are other stores nearby, and there maybe people shopping there for other kind of stuff who also shop at your fabulous shops.  Who actually like to wear nice clothes when they're not wearing trainers and trackies.

Also just a tip, if you see someone popping in to your store wearing jeans, thongs, a birds nest of a hair do and a bright pink t-shirt (because she's rocking colour this week), just a thought, she may not have planned to do any shopping in your fabulous shops, but decided while she was the area by chance, to poke her head in anyway.
You never know where your next deal will come from.  It may have been her.  But you'll never know now because you IGNORED her so rudely and completely as you chatted on the phone or to more fabulous people than her (who may not have been going to buy anything).

Sometimes, it's important to remember that some people don't take rude treatment lying down, and that that woman with the birds nest hair and look-at-me pink t-shirt actually likes to vent about this stuff, and got another retail person in BIG BIG trouble when she told about a million people once who read a newspaper where she had written about the rude treatment she got.  Just a thought.

Sometimes people don't need much, just a simple "hi can I help" and that's it. And that's only 4 words.  Easy.
And to the retail person who in a nano-second looked me up and down, formed a judgement and then blatantly ignored me, I had credit cards in my wallet even if it wasn't Prada.  But those cards are capable of buying Prada (ok, that's a lie and if The Husband is reading this, it's only for effect).

Yours truly,

The Woman in jeans, pink tshirt and birds nest hair.

ps. To the Retail Person in the shop where I looked at the thin, cotton navy asymmetrical jumper with a $495 price tag, it was ok that you ignored me, I was cool with that.

Do you pop?

I'm a slave to the colour black, having learnt years ago that this body needs as much help as it can get to hide, elongate, flatter it, I have black as a staple in my wardrobe.  Anyone else guilty?
But I have some friends who wear colour confidently and well, brightly.  They ooze the kind of confidence that comes from wearing purple shoes, or a bright green card, almost as if it's a "look out world, I am here and I don't give a toss if "rust" is the new black, I am rocking the colours of the rainbow". And it's not in a "look at me" kind of way, no, it's more like "colour is my friend".  Neither of these friends are the tie dyed t-shirt kind of people, they carry their colours with style and general fabulousness. And people comment, and are drawn to them, to their lust for life and colour.
I decided today to conduct a social experiment on myself, to see how I feel when I wear colour (although every ounce of me was gravitating to the vast blackness of my wardrobe.)  I even accessoried with some bright beads (why did I think one string of bright beads was enough in Thailand when they cost pre-barter about $1.20?).

And the result, a spring in my step and some comments, even if the top was circa 2006, and the cardi from Glassons.  It's not what you wear but the way that you wear it right?

Do you wear pops of colour or are you in Team Black like me?  What makes you feel good?

Postscript; do you notice how I have stood in front of a bright painting to make me pop even more?  Do you think those dry splitends are looking a little too dry?

Random Acts of Kindness

How often do you do something thoughtful and considerate for someone?  For me it's not often enough.  It's usually all about me, thinking of how I'm going to make life easier for myself rather than how I can make life easier for others.  There, I've said it.  And no, I'm not really beating myself up about it, because isn't it better to acknowledge it and do something about it, than not even be aware of it.
My planets are not aligned at the moment, I have many balls in the air at the moment (ok, often) - houses, stories, friendships, training, parenting stuff, and I know that somethings going to give.  At the moment it's just the tidiness of my house, and my meal planning, but one day something with more serious consequences will happen.  Like the fact, even though there has been a zillion emails about a band competition my eldest is in tomorrow, and I had read the emails I hadn't actually absorbed the words, and had no idea.
So I was on a deadline for a delicate story I was writing for a magazine I have a good relationship with, but I'd had my head in the sand about it because I was too busy sulking at the prospect of being homeless in 4 weeks, I was under pressure.  But on the one day I needed to nail the story, I had a school commitment.  The lovely Nadine had me on duty in her school canteen that day.  I hadn't said a word but she could tell I was under a bit of pressure, and called me as I was on my way to school. "Don't bother coming in today, we'll be fine, go write your story instead".
She had given me the gift of time.  Story happily written and submitted in much better shape than it would have been had I not had those precious hours to actually focus.

There are websites dedicated to "random acts of kindness", I am humbled by what I read, what people do for others, without hesitation, and for no other reason than to help others.  My parents-in-law head out regularly at night to hand out sandwiches and coffee to the homeless.  My friend Julie has a blog called nomorepastrami where she is profiling and raising awareness for those in need, or charities that do good, pushing back against the complacent comfort of our privileged lives.  Do go have a squizz and a read.  There are many people who do so much in my school community - a few do the work that many benefit from. So many people quietly doing so much, with neither fanfare nor agenda.

I'm kind of just rambling, but after that act of kindness, I was inspired, and thought "I gotta write about this", but then life moved on, and I did too.  But now I'm going back and thinking I need to pay this forward, I need to start.
Isn't the first step?

Have you ever experienced any random act of kindness?