Chronic Rearranging!

I rearranged my lounge/dining area again. I’ll do this maybe once a month…. huh, I just realized hormones might be a contributing factor…. As I was saying, every so often I can’t look around my house without wanting to change something drastic.

I’ve removed the breakfast bar part of my kitchen, tried to make my daughter a room in the conservatory, attached (and later removed) a wall mounted bunk bed in the kids room, painted a mountain feature wall in the boys room and I’m constantly rearranging the furniture or replacing it. Today I’ve just finished putting the dining table into hiding and making a little bar leaner type thing with a bit of wood I stole from the kids toy kitchen, and two bookshelves. I also moved the toolbox that has no real home and put the dog crate in it’s place. A small side table has replaced the dog crate, and the toolbox is sitting in the middle of the room waiting for inspiration to strike. I have limited options for rearranging my bedroom but I do my best, the bed has been shuffled around, a display case has been introduced then returned to the lounge, I even changed the way the door opens so I could put the bed against the wall…. Then moved it back a few weeks later…

I don’t know what it is, a change just revitalises my enthusiasm for keeping my house clean. It makes me feel better if other things in life are less than ideal. And it’s just so satisfying to sit down in my newly arranged and clean house, look around and think “I did this. I must be amazing.”

I think I get this from my mother, as a kid I remember her helping me drag all my furniture into the hallway so we could rearrange my bedroom. I always loved sitting down on my bed afterwards in what felt like a brand new room.

My husband thinks I’m crazy when he comes home and everything is different with no warning whatsoever but I can’t be the only person like this right? My mother rearranges (less frequently than me I’ll admit) her office at home and the room that’s become known as the “train room” because of a little phase my dad went through. Occasionally even swapping the rooms completely and I love it, nobody has a better vision of where things could go than my mother. But it’d be nice to know that this isn’t just a strange genetic quirk and there are other people out there than frequently hear “this is different…” every time someone visits.

Anybody?

How in the hell do you make friends?!

As a kid I had friends.

As a teenager I had friends.

As an adult I have 2 close friends that I talk to way less than I should, both are currently living far away. And some acquaintances that I talk to when waiting to pick up kids from school or kindergarten.

Why did nobody tell me to put more effort into maintaining friendships when it was easy to make them? And how the hell do I make close friends now? I’ve never been awesome at social situations, people make me nervous and gatherings of more than 3 can cause some irritating anxiety issues. But this doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy friends, in fact I’ve been feeling desperately lonely lately. I want a friend who can come visit and not give a stuff about the mess on the floor or the fact that we’ll probably just chill and watch crappy TV. Somebody who calls me when they want a movie or drinking buddy or just wants to have a bit of a bitch and moan about life. Meeting people is easy, moving from “person I talked to at a party that time” to “friend who will help distract your kids when they’re driving you crazy” is impossible!

A lot of my problem seems to be when I’m around people my own age they are either in a totally different place in life and I feel like me and my married-with-kids life would just bring them down, or they seem to have enough friends and I don’t want to intrude.

I feel like this post should have a better ending. You know, one where I tell you my fool proof plan to make friends and my first success story using said plan. But honestly, I’ve got nothing. I even googled “how to make friends as an adult” but all of the advice seems like it’s just for meeting people, not making a friend that you’ll still be talking to a year later.

Stuff it, I’ll just get a cat….. or two…..

Sick of Being Fat

I was slowly losing weight when I started this blog, I’ve stopped and started my weight loss efforts a couple of times since then and as of this moment, I’m right back where I started at a whopping 116kgs. And as of this point I’m pretty $%$#%^& sick of it. I hate photos of myself, I hate that I’m sweaty after the slightest exertion. I hate that I feel weak and pathetic after eating an entire bag of lollies/block of chocolate/3 pies or whatever. I’ve always felt like a pretty stubborn person, my parents would no doubt agree, but that strength of will doesn’t seem to apply to food. When my husband has trouble with quitting smoking I can’t help but feel kind of angry that he lacks the will power to just not have one. Then I feel like an asshole for being a hypocrite.

Every day I resolve again to eat better and move more. And every day I fall off the wagon. At this stage I haven’t been on the wagon long enough to go along the road at all. The wagon is a dust cloud in the distance and I’m sitting in the dirt scowling and clutching a bag of marshmallows like it’s my first born child. I could get off my arse and try catch up to the wagon and hop back on, but it’s up a slight slope, I’m already too hot, my legs are chafing and my boobs are to big to run without an industrial strength bra…. Oh look. Marshmallows.

I want to say that I’m starting again, and this time I have the perfect plan, am chock full of enthusiasm and will be 70kg in time for a wedding we’re going to in March next year. But I just don’t know what to do. I’m frustrated, angry and disappointed and I just can’t do it. I’ll still wake up each morning intending to do better. We’ll see if I actually do or not.

Mother Daughter Nails

So I’ve been getting a whole lot of nail stuff from overseas over the past couple of months. It’s been awesome, I’m having so much fun doing my nails. There are just so many ideas out there for nail art (thanks pinterest for much inspiration!) and having a go at a new design is a great way for me to de-stress once the kids are in bed.

I was doing my mother-in-laws nails recently and my daughter asked me to do hers. She has a lot of her own nail polish, roughly 8 different shades of pink, that she loves and she’s so good at holding still when she nags me into painting her nails. I put her off at the time but promised to do it next time I if she reminded me. That night I did my own nails with pale blue, and a free handed cupcake on my ring fingers. I was so happy with how they turned out and I had a bit of spare time the next morning so I sat my daughter down at the table, she chose her colour from her polishes as my gel collection extends to exactly 2 shades of pink and no other colour would do, (where this pink obsession came from, I have no idea) and we got started. I decided to push my luck and see if my almost three year old would keep her little hands still long enough for me to do a cupcake on her nails as well. Plus I was kind of curious to see if my beginners skills would extend to such tiny nails.

She was so patient and very well behaved, I managed to do a cupcake feature nail on each of her hands and they turned out just so freakin’ adorable. Check it out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isn’t this just the cutest thing ever?! I love it!

 

Being so astounded at how well this turned out and how much I enjoy it, I’m considering doing mother daughter nails from home. My daughters kindy teachers are currently fundraising to go to a teaching thing overseas and I’d love to have something to contribute to help with the fundraising. I might talk to her teachers and see if they thought it would be worthwhile to sell raffle tickets and the winner and their child can have matching nails. The self deprecating part of me says that’s a dumb idea, I’m not a professional. But I’d be excited if I won something like that and it turned out like this…. I’ll see how brave I’m feeling when I take Freya to kindy tomorrow…

Either way I can’t believe how super cute her tiny nails are, and I just love that photo with her chubby little kid hand on top of mine 😀

 

 

The Woman Who Stopped

My oldest son has been asking for ages now if he could walk home from school. My excuses to avoid this have been many and varied but basically it boiled down to I’m lazy,  I don’t want to do that walk with the younger two stopping every twenty seconds to pick flowers, arguing over being in the pram or being allowed to push the pram, and I didn’t want to carry anybody once their legs got tired. Oh and did I mention I’m lazy?

So anyway, I finally caved, in a way that in no way compromised my laziness. He was allowed to walk… as I followed along next to him stalker style with the car and the other kids. This was actually a perfect idea, it means Jack gets to learn the way home for the day he’s allowed to walk home (I can’t even imagine not freaking out when he’s walking without an adult… maybe when he’s twenty something…) and gets the chance to practice crossing roads when I’m still there to keep an eye on him. He gets the feeling of responsibility and independence, and I get to know he’s safe.

There’s been a lot of stuff in the news lately about people trying to abduct kids so the first time I followed Jack home I was mentally prepared to explain myself to strangers or cops called by strangers. However nobody even blinked. I got home and Jack was giddy with excitement over walking all the way home. I jokingly mentioned to my husband that I was surprised nobody stopped me or called the police.

Then we did it again, same thing. Cars going past may not have had us in sight long enough to realise I wasn’t parked or something innocent, but we passed people walking and all they did was say hello to Jack and carry on their merry way. I like to think that this is because he was clearly not scared or anything, and had they glanced at me they would have been reassured by the aura of legally responsible innocence radiating from me. But after getting home I kept thinking about it and it worries me that a little boy can be walking alone down the road with a car following him and nobody does anything about it. In fact I think it’s safe to say that terrifies me. Granted I haven’t done this often, perhaps this is just a quiet day and usually I’d have cops tailing me at least half the way. Who knows.

Jack asked to walk home again today so I put the other kids in the car and off he goes. Followed by me driving stalker style, creeping along behind or beside him. maybe 2 minutes into the walk a car pulls over behind me. I think nothing of it and carry on. Maybe 5 minutes later this car pulls up next to me and a concerned looking woman is looking at me through her open window. I explain that he’s my son and he’s just wanting to walk home and she continues on her way. But honestly I am so grateful that somebody stopped when they saw something questionable. Eventually my son, or my daughter will be walking home from school without me, and maybe one day a different car will follow them. And while I hope I will have taught them what to do should that ever happen, I also hope that if anybody saw it, they would stop and check that my kids are ok. And I promise I’ll do the same for your kids.

Finally Mastering Adulting!

…… Just re-read the title I chose for this particular piece and just want to clarify, I mean “adulting” to be “being an adult” not anything to do with adultery….

I say this all the time, but three kids seriously threw me and I’ve yet to recover. I hate to think about the usual state of my house since baby number three became mobile. I shudder to think of the half-arsed meals I’ve thrown in the general direction of the older kids while I was busy. I imagine judgemental glares when I dwell on the steady decline in my parental involvement between children one and three. I envision divorce lawyers when I remember how my poor husband was waaaaay down on my list of priorities.

But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel! My youngest is 19 months old now (by the way, this is how I know how old the baby is now, it’s embarrassing how vague my idea of his age is.) and finally, like only in the last month or so, I’ve started being able to act like a capable adult again. Some of the time at least. My house is clean at least 2 days out of the week, I’ll occasionally manage to have dinner sorted before my husband gets home, at least three days out of the week I find the time to do my makeup, and sometimes I even have super mum moments where I’ll actually do cool things with the kids like make play dough or get them involved in baking.

On one hand, my son is entering the terrible twos and has developed a fierce stubborn streak that endlessly aggravates my daughter and causes no end of conflict. My daughter seems to go out of her way to antagonise her big brother and he knows just what buttons to push to wind her up. On the other hand, when the planets align and my small portion of the world is at peace life is fantastic. When I feel like I’m kicking ass at being a grown up everything, including loud and frustrating children, is easier to deal with the way you imagined dealing with it before you have kids. It sometimes feels like I’m just an epic parenting fail, but knowing that slowly (oh, so very slowly!) I’m improving gives me hope that eventually my house will be clean more often than not, I’ll put my makeup on in the morning rather than while the kids are eating lunch, my husband and I will go on dates, and my kids will be awesome because I’m awesome.

I’m by no means out of the tunnel, but there’s a light and I know I’m heading towards it so it’s all good.

Coconut and Clay CP Soap

Don’t get excited, this post is nothing special (unless you make your own soap, in which case; enjoy) I’m mostly writing it because I keep being unable to find the recipe when I want it. I haven’t been making my own soap for very long but there’s something really satisfying about the whole process and this is my favourite soap that I’ve made so far, and I even made the recipe myself which I think is pretty freaking awesome. I can’t be arsed writing an entire post about how to make soap so if you’re interested here is a great introduction and there’s heaps of other cool soap stuff on the website.

Soap recipes are often written as percentage rather than in set measurements so you can easily customise to whatever size batch you are wanting, but also so you have to calculate how much lye to use yourself, thus keeping the author free of responsibility if a typo causes you to make soap that burns the skin from your hands. I use this lye calculator.

Coconut and Clay Bastille Bar

• Castor Oil – 5%
• Cocoa Butter – 15%
• Coconut Oil – 15%
• Olive Oil – 65%
• 5% Superfat
• Coconut Cream as a percentage of liquid
• Black clay

Add the coconut cream and clay at trace, cure for at least 6 month

I don’t know how big a superfat percentage this recipe ends up with, as it doesn’t take into account the fat from the coconut cream. Also I’m not sure how much coconut cream I use as it varies every time. Usually I’ll use the minimum amount of liquid suggested by the lye calculator, then the difference between the minimum and maximum will be how much coconut cream I use. The clay is also an imprecise art, I just go with what feels right, a heaped teaspoon or so for a 500g batch.

If anybody tries this let me know how it works out and what you thought. If nobody tries it then at least now if I have internet access I can find the recipe!

My Kids Are Shi…..Awesome

I am an angry person, constantly simmering just below boiling point and ready to explode over the slightest thing. Lately even when I’m not angry I find myself yelling just to be heard over the noise so I can tell my kids to take the noise outside or find something else to do. This yelling seems to reinforce my anger problem. Even if I’m having a pretty good day, yelling puts me in an angry frame of mind where a tiny issue tips me over the edge. I hate being so constantly frustrated, I hate being a shitty mum, and I hate knowing my kids are going to remember me screaming at them to shut up while I’m on the phone more than they’ll remember me sitting down playing with them. I’ve spent all day feeling overwhelmed by the noise and my inability to get three kids to just be cool, at the same time. I came on here intending to vent about all the things making me angry but instead I’m going to try to make a list of things they do that make me happy.

• The first is the most recent, actually just happened. We put the kids to bed early tonight, mostly because by the time dinner was done, I was done. Freya has started sleeping in her own room in the conservatory and about half an hour after she was put to bed we see her through the conservatory door quietly appear and start playing peacefully by herself. She didn’t notice us and after a few minutes she gets a toy and heads back to her room. A bit later she comes back out when Doug is walking past the door, he freezes to see if she’s noticed him then just stands there watching her. When she finally notices him her whole face lights up with this beautiful smile. it just made me want to hug her and feed her chocolate.
• When Freya moved into her own room, Jack moved into the bottom bunk and Jack and I turned his top bunk into a quiet area for Jhim to keep his toys that the younger kids might break, or chill out looking at books. After we’d done the basics I had to stop, about an hour later Jack called me in to see what he’d done. He’d been in there the whole time quietly and industriously making the space his own. All of his artwork had been taped to the wall, then when he’d run out of tape he’d stood everything else up in every available space. It was intense, he’d spent so long just doing his own thing. He had a plan and he just rolled with it, I’m not quite sure what made this such an “aww Jack” moment. Partly because he just all of a sudden seemed like a big kid, and partly because, well you know, it was quiet.
• I didn’t see this third bit but my husband swears it happens and that he wasn’t exaggerating. Hayden was outside as we were all getting ready to go out, I walk out the door and Doug turns to me and asks “did you hear that?” in an excited voice. When I just looked at him he explained that Hayden had turned around, noticed a butterfly and said “aw beautiful” (probably more aaaah boo-ful). Hayden doesn’t talk much so whenever he does say more than Mummy or Daddy it just makes me so happy. I’m always comparing him to how much Freya had to say at his age and though I know it shouldn’t, all kids develop differently etc etc I can’t help but be a little nervous about his lack of words. So for him to come out with a word that I wouldn’t include in a list of usual first words was just awesome. Plus, how sweet is that? Butterflies are beautiful, he’s just the sweetest little man sometimes.

Alright, that’s something nice about each of my kids. it was hard but I’m definitely in a better frame of mind now. Thanks partly to this, and partly because the little buggers are in bed now. I’m going to go relax with a book and prepare myself to yell slightly less tomorrow.

My cup is half full… Menstrual cup that is.

It’s been a while since my last post (though I do have a few drafts that should be with you soon), and I’ve returned with a doozy of a conversation starter. Or perhaps ultimate stopper, it really depends on who your audience is.

I’m going to assume the sqeemish have not clicked on a title that includes the words menstrual cup but just in case, this post will be a whole new level of personal so, you know, consider yourself warned. Procced with caution, etc etc

I’ve been reading so many things lately where women refer to their diva cup. Eventually I grew frustrated trying to figure out just what this contraption was. In short, a cup. A cup that sits inside your vagina and does nothing but catch blood.

Eeeeewwwwww.

So why the hell are people doing this?! You could argue it’s environmentaly friendly as the cup is reusable, as opossed to pads, tampons and their accompanying plastic wrappers. But I’m just not that good enough a person, I need a little more reason than it being good for the planet to try something with such a high ick factor. But wait, just like ginsu knives, there’s more! 

Depending on your particular flow, you can go up to 12 hours before having to empty said cup. SOLD!! My periods are bloody awful (see what I did there?) Pads are stinky, uncomfortable and can move, thus becoming completely ineffective. And tampons need to be changed every few hours, you can’t sleep in them unless you want to wake up and change it in the middle of the night, TSS, and as an added bonus for your lady bits; they hurt like seven kinds of hell if you have to pull one out while it’s still dry. Seriously, that’s made me cry before…

So why was I still so opposed to what seemed like the perfect solution? Haha I’m not!

I ordered a cheap one online to try, $15 dollars and 2 days later it arrived just in time for shark week. I sterilized this weird looking silicone thing, then shut myself in the bathroom with the instruction book. I figured after pushing out 2 kids it’d be a piece of cake to jam this thing up there, despite reading hundreds of reviews saying it’s hard at first. And I was right! A pretty relaxed attitude to my vagina helped, I imagine if you were tense about the whole thing it’d be a different story. 5 minutes later I emerged from the bathroom feeling pretty damn proud of myself. I was a little uncomfortable but I figured that was normal as I’m the same for a few minutes after inserting a tampon. About 5 minutes later I was still very aware that there was something annoying going on in my business. Another trip to the bathroom where I cut the stem (think like the string of a tampon) shorter, jammed it back up there and bam! Good to go.

I’m insanely comfortable right now. Normally I’d be getting super pissed off at an uncomfortable pad, or worrying about when to change tampons before I leaked everywhere. And I’m actually excited to go to bed, on my period, WITHOUT A HUGE FREAKING PAD! Seriously, I don’t have words to describe how much I hate that.

Fingers crossed my cup experience continues so positively! I’ll update this when Aunt Flo is done visiting.
**UPDATE**
So, despite being strangely excited about this period and the chance to try my new cup, my body took a while to get on board. Somehow every time I tried to use the cup my fricking flow would stop. So when I went to empty it and there was nothing there, I’d give up, wait for it to start again again and give it another go. After 3 days of this my body finally got the message and so far, I have to say, this is the best thing ever! Ah menstrual cup, shall I list the ways I love thee?

First off, having it in when there was no blood? If that had been a tampon I would’ve had to pull that sucker out completely dry. Menstrual cup? No worries? It’s safe to have it in and it doesn’t dry you out like tampons. So actually perfect, if your out and know you might suddenly start gushing like Niagara falls, you can do a preemptive strike against nature and wear the cup in case.

No leaks: Like, absolutley ZERO leaks. I’ve had two heavy days so far, days where I’d be blowing through a tampon or pad in about 3 hours, probably forgetting to check often enough and end up overflowing plus, definitely waking up with a pad that’s migrated to my leg and bloody underwear. Which brings me to my next point…

Sleeping was sooooo comfortable. I’m one of those horrible people that toss and turn and throw limbs around left right and centre until I’m somehow occupying 90% of the bed and my poor husband is left curled up in the tiny triangle of space made by one of my arms, one of my legs, and the edge of the bed. This guarantees that a pad will not stay in it’s intended place, and tampons aren’t a go for that long. TSS or leaks. Urgh. And, I sleep naked, underwear and a pad just rubs in my face (or more accurately my hoo-ha) that for one week a month being a female equates to being frustrated and miserable. The cup has made my nights comfortable again. Empty it before I go to bed and again in the morning. In between those two times I can forget about my period. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

I’ve been emptying the cup roughly every 4-5 hours during the day and so far the fullest it’s been is a tiny bit over the halfway mark. On a lighter day I can definitely see going 12 hours. I was expecting such a learning curve and am so happy that this experience has been just ridiculously easy for me. 100% satisfied with my cup. I’m pleased to say I’ll be saying f*** you to tampons and pads from now on.

Menstrual cup? No. Menstrual holy grail.

Weight Loss – Beginning again

There’s been a serious lack of weight loss posts here. Partly because my loss slowed down and writing about it became disheartening but mostly because after the pause in writing about it I stopped losing weight completely. I’d plateaued and postponed doing anything about it because of various silly excuses. Then I started gaining weight, then my scales broke and that was an excuse to just not think about it.

Then I hopped on the scales at my Mums house.

Back up to 115kg. heaviest I’ve been when not pregnant is 116.

So now, despite not having working scales to track my progress I’m making (yet another) fresh start.

Day one – I am HANGRY! My doctor said it’ll take about a week for my stomach to get used to the smaller portions, and to focus on eating healthy during the day and have a small dinner. So here I am, 6:41pm and desperately wanting a sugary chocolaty second meal. I can’t even justify calling it a craving for a snack, should a 2L tub of ice cream dare show itself in my freezer I would pounce on that like a tiger and demolish it in record time. And woe betide anyone who dared get in the way of my spoon.

Anywho… I digress. Hope my stomach gets the message soon about eating less. And hope my brain resets to not need sugar sometime before I fall of the wagon in spectacular fashion.

Too hangry to write more. I’m basically typing as a diversion to stop me going and scoping out the pantry….