My little garden gnome..........(last fine day in March??).

Sunny Saturday = Washing, washing & more washing. We've both been down with a mystery lurgy for the last week & it's been piling up again.......have only just started feeling energetic enough to do any of it. Missed my lectures this week & am furiously trying to beat the clock to do all my basic chemistry and orientation of the human body WebCt assessments before Tuesday when the next lot of work hits. So much for this being a part time course. Or maybe its the fact that its the first time I've actually attempted any study with someone else to look out for apart from myself. Whole different ball game.

Anyway, got my marigolds, tomatoes and sunflowers into the planter boxes and some washing done. Min outside with me on her magic carpet enjoying looking around at the outside world (oooh, grass.....oohh...bees/flies/lizards)

At lunch time caught the food bowl with her foot so most of her meal ended up (splattered ) on the splatter mat . I've been dutifully cutting up things into little pieces so she can do the recommended 8 month old finger food thing, but God its messy . Wish I could just fast forward to the serving up her a normal meal and her being able to get the food in her mouth instead of everywhere else....few more months methinks. The nappies are also getting atrocious. Making the child carers and even Linds gag. As tiring as it was, exclusive breastfeeding was so much easier.

Back to work (gosh that Women's weekly is looking interesting right about now)

Progress!!

Had a good day today. Actually its been a pretty good week, all told. Adressed some of the pressing gardening issues today, wish I could say I'd done it all myself but hired a local guy to bring back the hedge out the front of our units and whipper snipper down the side of mine and all the garden beds. He shall be back! (To fix up fences, put some soil in the garden beds so somethings might actually grow) Almost back to a state of being able to dream about putting some life and colour back into our garden (Autumn probably not the best time to contemplate that, but I am seeing visions of rose bushes, a veggie patch, a bird bath, a set of swings...a proper lawn)

My nursing course started this week, although I only made it to one of the two days of orientation, I am very excited about the next adventure. I think I can see myself being a nurse....I know a few, and its not such a big leap between music and medicine. Now to seriously start brushing up on my biology knowledge. There must still be some in there, somewhere.

Spent the three weeks prior in a temp placement at the Centrelink call centre spruiking the Government's latest stimulus package, reporting people's earnings, being bored out of my brain, smoking too much in the quadrangle in the freezing cold , missing the baby and watching a crane put more levels on the Centrepoint carpark. Needed to do it , partly to clear some debt, partly to prove to myself that I am actually capable of getting myself a real job, and getting myself and a small child organised enough to function in the 'real world' again.

I wasnt. We barely functioned, I was grumpy & tired, the house was trashed, I spent my Sundays depressed at the prospect of going back there, and sadly spent too much of my wage on lunch & parking & gifts for Minerva as little guilt offerings . The icing on the cake was when she yelled at me all morning whilst I was trying to get her breakfasted and dressed and then got to the child care centre and gave the carer a big snuggle!!! Grrrr!! I should be happy that she's settled in there so well and loves to play with and watch the other children, but I felt like instead I had signed over my mothering role. I knew this single motherhood would all be a huge balancing act, and so far I have dropped more balls than juggled them! Still, it's only early days.

Now I will only be on campus Monday's & Tuesdays, and there is only one full time prac placement this year, so that and study time will be the only things that will come between me & my girl, who is growing up so fast!!

We finally made it thismorning (to the 5th week!) of the swimming classes I had enrolled us in at Kingston. I didnt know any of the songs, but the teacher was great, and Min had a ball, splashing about and yelping getting thoroughly distacted by the dolphin decorations on the ceiling!! the pool is also warm, which will be a definite incentive to keep going throughout the Winter.

Had a flying visit from Nanna Di on Monday/Tuesday. Felt odd racing off in the mornings but had some good catch up time on Monday , took the stoller along the beach and finished up with a girl date at the local beachside ice cream parlour (which we filled up with sand )walked around Big W searching for beanbag beans and instead coming out with baby outfits and lollies. We are so impulsive and undisciplined!!

Keiran around tonight after a few rough weeks with us. Think we are back on track (or at least communicating, which is a nice change) and have agreed to weekly dates , and also agreed that we should organise an outing soon with just us and no third wheel in the form of a delightful but unfocussing nearly 8 month old) I am soooo ready to just go out and hang out without her. I need some of myself back!! It was really great just hanging out in the back yard on a balmy evening shooting the breeze. I really like him . He's complicated , but then so am I, and I guess I have to once and for all put to bed images of a nuclear family, being married and suburban and having a brood....unless of course.....;)

February already.....

It was groudhog day recently. And the idea of groundhog day seems a bit like what life is like for me at the moment. Trying to get somewhere but waking up and still being in the same place. I guess some people call this stability ...... or just endless holiday syndrome. Funny, towards the end of being pregnant I couldnt wait to have time off from the structure of work, but it seems that I prefer it now, Having someplace to go, something tangible to do. Not that I dont love being Min's mum, its just that its so....relentless!! And not terribly mentally challenging...and can be lonely......

Minerva has learned how to sit up by herself & isnt she so very pleased with herself....funny , these milestone things, you can never quite remember the exact moment when your child masters something, but there has to be one? Still no indication of wanting to do the rolling thing or that first toothy peg popping through, but all in god's good proximodistal developmental time!!! (yes, I am still overdosing on parenting manuals)

Went to the info/enrolment night for the enrolled nursing course. 220 applicants for 60 places...sheesh. Well, it obvious that there are just too many people in the world, that's what. My car broke down on the way home, and this drunk woman came running down the slope and started waving in the traffic. God!! Ract arrived but only after a kindly policeman had managed to reverse the car out of the overtake lane and back into the bus slip lane....embarrassing. One more thing to buy this year, a decent, safer set of wheels.......

Have just been up post 3am feed (when oh WHEN will she sleep through???) listening to an mp3 that keiran did..mish mash of him playing guitar bits and singing a little. He told me his singing was horrible but its fine. Not perfect, but marketable, which is what he was hoping for, anyway. Have told him so. Even toying with the idea of doing a bit myself this year, and have managed to get 3 students (all voice, no less) starting this week. No idea what to teach them of course, but we will get there. (quick trip to uni/con libraries to raid materials!!)

Have returned to work and can actually remember how to do it!! Quite relieved about that, had been having awful nightmares about it for yonks now , including one last week about throwing a complete hissy fit and walking out on one of the board members...ouch!!

Heading up to Devonport next week to show off Minnie to Granpa Spark's sister, Marlene. & to return Mum's quilt that she spent 5 painstaking years making..she's entering it into a competition up there soon. Have to squeeze trip in on the few days I have off between swimming lessons for the little chicken on thursdays and back to work tuesdays.....

Have seriously been thinking of just retreating and having some more stay at home mummy time, as I still cant even seem to get all my housework done, but know that I would become completely barking mad if I stayed home for the rest of 2009.

ciao!!

2009..ready & waiting!

Well. Here we all are then. New year, new house (or rather, should I say, old house, having lived at Mum's proposed retirement flat a few years back) in Kingston, new boyfriend (as of Christmas Eve..certainly wasnt anticipating that one!!)
It all seems to look far too promising!!Last year was remarkable for its unpredictability...at the start of 2008 I had a job, a man(questionable!), a cat, was pregnant, was reasonably settled housing wise, and by the end of October it all became unstuck. Was homeless, fleabitten, single with a baby , no job and few prospects. (see post before last)
So am cautiously optimistic about 2009. Thank god for my mother is all I can say, without whom who knows where we would be now. she has generously let me move back into her property to give us some sort of stability for the year & to catch up a bit with the pile of debts that have been accruing steadily since I left work to have Minerva in June last year. Not only that but she spent the best part of a month looking after us up in Devonport , re washing every skerrick of household linen & clothing that we own, and fighting our wars for us with the last real estate agency. (Just got a call from the residential tenancy commissioner, who is actually going to ask for some of our lost bond and fumigation costs back...wonders will never cease)
All in all, we had a nice quiet Christmas, spent lunch on the day down on my little brother's block at Castle Forbes bay with quite a hangover from the champagne & oysters & night feeds the night before....and a quiet New Years Eve with family & new bloke. Not sure why we all had to sit up til midnight and then everyone buggered off home and mum toddled off to bed. I felt like ratshit for two days afterwards.........
First hot Summer day today at 31 degrees, am waiting for new couch to arrive (no more wicker cane jobby, may actually be able to slob out properly and feel comfortable feeding Miv). Other recent happenings include my Grandfather, Neil Watson, dying on the 19th of December from having to have an operation to repair two broken legs sustained during a fall. He was 86 and had advanced cancer so one of those deaths that are sad but probably better quick than lingering. They flew his body down to Tasmania from Victoria and he was buried a few days into the new year at the Huon cemetary, where Watson's Rd still shows the generational echo of centuries of our family's heritage.
Taxi combined dont seem to be that keen to give me any retraining/work in the radio room despite fond farewells and promise of return to work flexibility, so I've made tentative enquiries towards doing the dip enrolled nursing at tafe. Depending on how I go I may choose to go on and study to be a registered nurse at Uni. Or I may be at Tafe a week and decide its all too soon and I no longer have any brain cells and just stay at home with Minerva and look for some part time easy work. Preferably cash in hand. Nothing like a bit of optimism!!
So here's to a better and brighter year. May we all live, love, learn and leave a loving legacy...

confucious say...pay the fleaman, or the fleas come back!

Oh, what a week....................I'm almost not sure where to begin with the drama that encapsulated my small Glenorchy abode. And. All. Because. Of.A MINISCULE. Parasite...........
You hear things about people sleeping rough in sheds and outhouses in the depression but one never thinks the expereince of lying awake at night scratching oneself to bits because of fleabites (or whatever the hell they are) And the agony of thinking that at any moment the baby will wake because they've made it to feast on her too.......but this is what we faced as the week begain.
the landlord couldnt have been less interested in helping in they tried NOTE TO ALL TASMANIANS: DO NOT RENT THROUGH MCGREGOR 1ST NATIONAL!!!!! they are a bunch of shysters. Not only did I get to the lease signing to be told the poroperty was going to be $10 per week more expensive than what it was advertised for on the rentals list (not much, it may seem, but enough to someone currently trying to survive on the single parent pension...........) then 6 weeks into the tenancy all hell breaks loose...or should I say hot day=massive amounts on bites in bed..legs, thighs, belly, elbows, AGONY!!!!
Ok. So obviously I have led a cushy life until now not having experienced the joys of being host to a multitude of microbial vermin. Maybe they will up the rent again for the privelelegde........argh.
Anyway. I have no budgeting skills at the best of times, but the need for a fumigator & the brakes on the car being cactus & getting fixed at the same time has left me $60 short (am lening it from my sis in law tommorrow) , & completely broke & in debt ...or should I say...further in debt.....until saturday.
Work still has not given me a starting date. I am seriously stressing. I hope the bugs die. The end............

waiting for the mechanic.........

Today got off to a weird start...my acqaintance Yasmin Shoobridge, a fellow singer/teacher of musicy things & all round hippy & personal numerologist and shiatsuer to the stars (ok so I made that last bit up, but hey, this is my first blog, there has to be some self grandisement somewhere, doesnt there?? Popped by at around 7.30 am as she was dropping off her partner to work & thought she's drop by and meet the baby (Minerva..more about her later I'm sure) & the new flat we moved into in Wariga Rd about a month ago now........We ended up talking about life, men, the horrors of labour, and ....meridians. And stretches you can do to enhance or energise these meridians. And hey, sceptical old me had a go at a few and by jove, they work!
Am still waiting for the meachanic from Jackmans to pick up my car which is unroadworthy ...he still hasnt arrived, I still havnt showered & dressed , the baby is still sleeping although I can hear little noises emitting from her room so It wont be long til she needs another feed.....& we're due at Pixie child care centre in 1.5 hours...something tells me its going to be a not happening sort of day. On top of that I have piles of washing, & some serious music memorising to do for up coming tso concert...see Maria Grenfell's blog "The Domestic Cantata". Quite funny really, she's set a poem about the joys & intimacies of breastfeeding to music...I quite like the syncopated bits about Egyptian frogs at the start of the piece too......am looking forward to this concert after not having sung at all during pregnancy. Too busy with work & being huge & tired..........