This week...

we got a dishwasher. We haven't had one up til now and I am on cloud nine. Every time I put a dirty dish in it I get a big grin on my face and when I turn it on (twice so far) I have clapped my hands and bounced with glee.

I finished my Kindy reports a day early. This is big for me, usually I am the type that hands things in a day or two late. Being on time has never been my strong point. So to finish and hand them in a whole 24 hours before they are due was a super exciting and proud moment for me. It also meant a weekend ahead of no school work. *ahhhhhh*

I baked, twice. Sago and banana bread. Can you guess the reason why? (Hint: see point one) Baking and no dishes afterwards? My kind of bliss.

I caught up with my best friend for a movie (Monsters University) and waffles. We felt like we were in high school again as we both chose mint fudge choc chip ice cream, the flavour of choice from those years.

I bought a new pair of jeans and only paid $35 for them. Enough said.

I have managed to schedule in a don't-leave-the-house, pyjama-filled day of reading, blogging and relaxing.

I have indulged on naughty forbidden treats; blue brie and pate. Oh how I love them. I'm on antibiotics at the moment so I figure they will kill any bad things hiding in them. This is my justification anyhow.



And finally, this week marks the end of MR's break after finishing up on the mines after 6 years! Unfortunately he is not now living full time with me but instead we have swapped locations from when we were first going out. Now he will be in his country home town working at the family business and I am in Perth. We're back to (as many as we can possibly fit in) weekend visitations after two years of approximately one week of three visitations. I'm a bit sad about it but it also marks the start of the next chapter in our lives together and I'm sure I'll get used to it again. I'll be in Perth probably until the end of next year and then I'll be heading back to the country as well.


How has your week been?

  
  

"I'll just..."

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Perhaps the most rampant aspect of my inner five year old self is the "I'll just..." part.  As in the I'll just do anything at all that keeps me out of bed for one more minute.

We all have our bedtime routines.  Mine involves fill up water bottle, turn out lights and check locks, take off makeup (if I haven't already), floss (if I can be bothered), brush teeth, go to toilet, go get the Meow, get in bed, have a drink, put on lip balm, set alarm if needed, have cuddles with Meow, turn out lights and if MR is home, talk his ear off for as long as he will let me.

Some of the other things I'll just do before going to bed (usually when MR is not at home) on a very regular basis include:
- playing with hairstyle options in front of the mirror
- tweezing my eyebrows
- checking facebook, instagram and the weather on my phone
- playing words with friends
- looking at pinterest on my phone
- reading just one more chapter of my book, which undoubtedly will turn into another 100 pages
- going to find the Meow (who has crazily run off to go back outside to sit on her favourite chair in the freezing cold) for some more cuddles
- after all of the above, go to the toilet - again
- anything else I can think of to procrastinate with

No matter how tired I am, I will still do these things.  I just have this intrinsic urge to rebel against all going to bed type actions.

The Meow has no such rebellious behaviour in regards to going to bed type actions

Admittedly, of late my sleep patterns have gotten slightly better.  I'm going to bed a bit earlier (most nights) and while I've had a few nights this week of lying awake for hours once in bed, those sort of nights are on a decline.  Thank fuck.  It's been hard work getting this far though and by going to bed earlier I mean instead of 1am it's more like 11.45pm.  11 if I'm really, really, really tired. 


Last night, while procrastinating from sleeping and thinking of this blog post I thought, I'll just pop on blogger on my phone and type in a few notes.



The Gods are one day going to smite me one day with a child just like me aren't they?

 

Many Good Things

Today is the first day of school holidays.

Need I say more about good things when the above is the case?

Not really, but I shall.

Not only was it the first day of school holidays but I also woke up to rain on the roof.  How good is rain of the roof when you get to stay in bed?

I am still in my pyjamas and it is 3:15pm.

I got to have yummy banana bread that I baked yesterday for breakfast.

The house is relatively clean because MR vacuumed yesterday.

I managed to find the energy to do a double batch of baking yesterday as well as go to Brown Owls, (amazing what you can get done when you don't need to conserve energy for a week of work) and so MR has headed back to work this morning with two containers of ANZAC biscuits to snack on (his favourite).  

I went to Brown Owls yesterday and had fun chatting and stitching away at this.

I have a $100 reward shopper voucher from Picnic/Hobbs and a $20 one from Myer burning a hole in my wallet for some retail therapy later in the week.

I have a massage booked for Friday.

I have a lovely stack of books from the library just waiting to be read.

My cold seems to be getting better.

MR and I went to Cirque du Soleil's Ovo show during the week and it was just as amazing as expected.  And the bouncing lizards?  Even more amazing!

My baking cupboard has been reorganised as well as finding enough space to have a dedicated pots, pans and frying pans cupboard.  (Today's job is to reorganise the plastics cupboard and tomorrow's job is the pantry)

We got our soil tested on the weekend and have started the steps to improve it so things will actually grow.

In the small area of the garden where things do actually grow, there are buds on my loquat tree for the first time which will hopefully turn into fruit.

And best of all, Summer seems to have finally ended, leaving Autumn a chance to shine (and pour, as it did all night and morning).




  


What is good in your world at the moment?

 

Back to basics

Once upon a time, way back in the beginning of this blog, it was a lot more about good stuff.  And if not nice big good stuff, then the little good stuff. 

There was Maxabella's grateful type good stuff, until it moved to kidspot and childless me felt even more a bit out of place than usual amongst the onslaught on Mummy bloggers. 

There was also my silver lining.  The partial inspiration of my blog name.  I haven't really used my silver lining blog label with any regularity in a long long while now.  And not just because I've been the slackest blogger ever of late.  Well before I petered off. 

Since getting back into work I have felt completely flat out.  It's been great working again but the lack of energy hit me and it's taken til now, after a lovely five day break over Easter in which I didn't leave the house for three days, that I'm finally starting to feel a bit more energetic.  Like maybe I've got my head around this working three days a week business and maybe I can start doing something other than feeling exhausted and shell shocked on the other four days.  You see, I really have done very little of interest to blog about.  Work has got in the way of living, which we know is not the way it is supposed to be, but I have been confident hopeful that my body was going to get used to it again and things would start to balance out.  Fingers crossed that's what happening now.

So now it's time to get back into the good stuff that's been happening in my world.  Big things as well as little things.  Probably mostly little things, because that's what makes each day count.

1. There was much fun last night with MR as we spent a bit of time trying to work out what pattern we had in our fingerprints without actually printing them on anything (don't ask me why we were doing this at 9:30pm, I can't quite remember).  And much hilarity (by me at least) as we both tried to say 'whorl' without sounding like we were drawling American's from the deep south. 

2. Last week I had some lovely retail therapy success for the first time in ages, finding not one but two jackets that actually looked nice and had arms that were long enough.  And a new pair of jeans that were reduced from $230 to $90.  They're on layby at the moment because I was actually just looking for a new top...

3. I have been doing lots of reading lately and really enjoying the peace, quiet and lack of screen time.  On the weekend I read the entire 1111 page World Without End by Ken Follett.  Not my usual sort of read but I really liked it.  I've been trying to branch out in my reading style lately.



What good stuff has been happening in your life lately?

An Easter treat

This year, my family has decided to skip the whole Easter shenanigans.  I've bought eggs for my students, some nice quality chocolate for my Education Assistants and a Ferrero Rocher bunny each for myself and MR because I totally got sucked in walking past them in Coles as we are both big Ferrero fans.  Apart from that, no chocolate needed. 

So I decided to treat myself to some bulbs. 

some of my selections

I am a slightly strange flower lover.  I very rarely have flowers in the house but I love them in the garden.  I admit I do quite like them inside as well but I really cannot stand the smell of most flowers.  In fact, lavender is the only flower I can think of that I like the scent of.  Smelly flowers in the house make me wrinkle my nose and hold my breath when walking past them and they always manage to permeate the whole house too. 

So give me some snowdrops, tulips and daffodils outside in Spring and I am one happy girl.  I also added a batch of ranunculus and grape hyacinth bulbs to my order, new bulbs I haven't grown before.

Right now, my garden is looking S H I T.   Apart from the lawn, which is looking green and lush and SUPERB.  MR is very proud of his lawn at the moment.  We had it vertimowed at the end of last year and it was so totally worth it.  Particularly seeing as MR has been mowing it regularly, fertilising it well and getting rid of the horrible infestation of lawn beetles we had last month.  So yes, apart from the lawn, the dreadful garden needs some major attention.  Out the front, heaps of things have randomly died.  Things that were there before we moved in as well as things we've planted since.  Most likely it is due to lack of fertilising, manuring and mulching because well, we haven't done any. 

I'm still in the learning phase of gardening and to be honest, the idea of digging the soil, digging through fertiliser and then spreading mulch sounds like way too much hard work for my poor fatigued self so it just doesn't happen. 

The purchase of the bulbs has inspired me though.  At least to get a small section of the garden sorted and bulb filled.  That is something I can manage.  And also hopefully, now that it is a bit cooler and MR has gone back onto a shift with 2 weeks off rather than 6 days, I might be able to talk him into doing a bit of garden type things with for me. 

Happily, some of the plants that died are ones I didn't like and wanted removed so my plan of removing them and then transplanting all our agapanthus into those spots (which is a lovely spot in between four hedges type tree/shrub thingos* along our front half wall, so that the flowers will drape prettily over the wall - in my head they do anyhow.. ) can be put into place.

And this is where I need your help...  what else should I be making a list of for MR to do at this time of the year?  I'm sure some of you out there are garden gurus who can help me out with what is needed in Autumn for gardens and fruit trees.  Well, I'm hoping so anyhow!





  

* just incase you thought I was tricking and am actually some form of good gardener, here's proof it is very much not the case

Falling by the wayside

A lot of things have been neglected in my world of late.  The blog, the kitchen, the tidiness of the house, friends and poor MR.

In fact, the only thing that hasn't been neglected has been my bed.  No more are the nights awake until 2 or 3am.  Now I am in bed and asleep by 11 most nights.  Sometimes even 10 or 9pm!  Unheard of, I know.  There has also been afternoon napping which hasn't at all affected my night time sleeping.

Starting back at work has been partly to blame, we're up to Week 8 of an 11 week term and Term 1 with Kindy kids is pretty full on.  I must admit though, I've got a really lovely group who are pretty independent and self sufficient for 3 and 4 year olds.  Three days of work a week is Most Definitely enough for me though, even with having a three day weekend and a day off on Tuesday I'm finding that if I do too much on the weekend I barely cope for the week.

Along with that I've had a week in hospital with a particularly nasty tummy bug back in Week 2 of term and I had Monday off this week with another one which was thankfully only a smidgeon as bad and managed to go away by itself. 

In much better and fun news, there has also been two weddings in the last two weekends.  MR's brother last weekend and the one before than his cousin (which also included a quick weekend holiday to Dunsborough for the event).  They have most definitely contributed to all the aforementioned neglected-ness.

Possibly the biggest culprit, although it is very hard to measure, is the increase of my Leukaemia medication five weeks ago.  It wasn't working as well as it should be and seeing as I was only on half of the recommended dose due to some issues with medication interactions and differing heart rhythms on ECG checks, they decided to put it up a bit higher.  I'm now on an almost 3/4 dose - 70mg of the recommended 100mg.  It's interesting how (in my mind anyhow), when I say I'm tired it somehow seems more lazy and slack than if I was to say I suffer from fatigue as a side effect from medication.  "Tired" is such a hard thing to measure.  I know that I am more tired than I was last year however, as I wasn't working this is not a good comparison.  I also know I wasn't this tired when I wasn't ill and was working full time and playing netball on weekends so therefore in my books that becomes "fatigue". 

After having a big sook the other night about how slack I have been at doing anything at all around the house lately and how everything is messy, how I am practically existing on fish fingers and a bit of salad for dinner when MR is away and when he is home he is in charge of all kitchen duties, how I am possibly the worst girlfriend ever and how MR should move on to happier and healthier pastures, I realised I needed to get over myself and sort my shit out.

I decided to reinstate my Twenty Minute Tidy sessions.  Once each day I do work and twice on days I don't will give me 2 hours and 40 minutes per week in which to tidy, clean and organise the house and garden.  My big goal right now is to do a bit more than than on the Easter weekend and get the house tidied up enough that I can get a new cleaner (our last one finished late last year), which will then decrease my stressing over a dirty house at least, if not a messy unorganised one. 

I've had two sessions so far.  The oven timer goes on for 20 minutes and off I go to work until it beeps.  After it beeps I dismiss all feelings of guilt over the state of the house and my lack of housewife skills.  I've unpacked and put away my case from my Dunsborough weekend a fortnight ago, picked up and put away all the clothes and other associated crap dumped on the bedroom floor, tidied out one drawer of my tallboy and tidied up and cleaned the bathroom basin.  Not bad for 40 minutes.  Today being a non work day, I'm doing 40 minutes - most likely in two 20 minute sessions.  I'm feeling better about it all already. 

Now I just need to work out some really quick and easy meals that do not involve fish fingers...

Sunday Snippets

sorting through my school things

enjoying a picnic and and outdoor movie with MR

tomatoes from our self sown tomato plant

a thirsty meow

a big stack of creative books from the library

a helpful (so she thinks) meow

enjoying goodies from my Christmas stocking

more snippets over at Tinniegirl's

Getting my craft on

There's been a bit of creative productivity happening at my place this last week.

I've finished of a WIP from last Winter, this plaited cotton knit scarf...

There has also been an initiation to quilting when Sarah came over yesterday a sewing day and helped me plan my fabrics and design.  I spent the whole time cutting fabrics but managed to get it all laid out and ready to start sewing...

And check out the yummy lunch we had in between all our crafting - chicken pot pies by Sarah and a rocket, orange and pomegranate salad by me.

Last night while slothing on the couch watching the cricket, I whipped a my first Woollies for Tassie crochet square.  I'm sure you've all heard about it by now, but there is an appeal for 20cm knit or crochet squares for blankets for those families who have lost their homes in the Tasmanian bush fires.  This one is 8/9ths of a pattern from Spincushions crochet along which I'm contemplating belatedly joining in with!

Finally, I've been making some file covers and box labels for all my themes for school this year - everything will look a lot prettier soon!

I'm loving this bit of productivity, I know all too soon school will start back and I will certainly not have the time or energy to be getting so much done that isn't school related, particularly for the first month or two. 

 

Working on a WIP

I decided, given my plan to be organised and finish stuff this year, that I'd best start off my creative year with the finishing off of a WIP. Particularly seeing as I have a couple of other projects that are about to be started in the next couple of days.

I plaited together what I've got so far and I think I like!

This project was started back in September. I saw a scarf on display at the Margaret River Wool Company and thought I might have a go at it myself. They had kits but I thought, it's a scarf, no need for a kit! Basically it is 3 balls of yarn, knit into long skinny scarves and then plaited together. It looked great hanging in the mannequin! However, it came to an abrupt halt after finishing colours one and two and ended up with two different lengths. Goodness knows why! (Perhaps i should have bought the kit after all!) I put it aside in a huff and then it got too hot anyway.

I've come back to it after some advice from MR's Mum who suggested a) it doesn't matter if they are different lengths b) she can help me to fix them to all be the same or c) I could add some tassels on the short one. I think I'm about halfway through the ball of peacock blue now, thanks to part 1 & 2 of the LOTR DVDs the past few nights and hopefully it'll almost be finished after part 3 tonight.

Happy New Year!

Look at the beautiful full rainbow I saw at sunset on the 30th December, one day early to farewell the old year and two to bring in the new one.  But I'll forgive Mother Nature, she can put on displays like this above my house anytime!  It was during the smallest of sun showers I've ever experienced, the pavement was pretty much dry the second after the rain drops hit the ground.  This was my first go at using the panorama feature on my iphone, simply because I couldn't fit it all in with one shot.  I was already standing on the road to take this and the Meow thought this meant it was okay for her to come and roll around on the road too.  That's my house at the end of the rainbow there on the right.  Does that mean a big pot of gold coming our way for 2013? Wouldn't that be lovely.

May 2013 bring you many moments of joy, plenty of good fortune and much healthiness!