Around 9.30 am:

• I'm about to have another massage. Wonder if it will help. Can't be bad for you though, can it?
  
• My OH (other half) is home today!! That's only 18 nights without him. [*insert sad face here*]. I feel like there should be special celebrations each time he comes home from being away, but he tends to come in, I get a hug, a kiss, and he's all just 'ok, so I'm home, what's the big deal?' (And at some point he will clag out on the lounge or even on the floor, and catch 40 winks, and serenade us all with the noise that we do not miss when he is away. )
  
  There is something different, psychologically, going down here. I think some of it is that he's Mr Pragmatic, and I'm Ms Emotional. But also it's the difference between the experience of the ones who are home without a family member, and the one who is away experiencing something completely different. When they come home, they are just happy to be home, and just slot back in to what it was like before they left. A & B - two different scenarios. Meanwhile, here, we've been operating as a four person (one parent-3 kid) family.. and it takes some adjusting...
  And if you can make sense of that, you're doing better than me.
  
• The grass in the back has grown about an inch since Monday! Rain, humidity, and off it goes. How dare it! It was one of the jobs that I needed to look DONE for just a bit longer. (Apologies to those in drought areas.. if I could send some rain your way I would!)
  
• Ms 13 and Three Quarters is not going with the flow with the Big Ride training plans, which is pushing me into the camp of self-doubt - the camp of 'you guys are crazy, and what on earth are you forcing your poor children to do here - making them ride 500km!?' (The kind of camp my mother is in - which is why I don't really even ring her anymore, because anything the kids are doing that seems to involve a bit of effort gets a comment that implies we expect too much of them.) It's also the camp probably a good 50% of people who hear what you are doing are in. (The other 50% are all 'go you, you're amazing - what a fantastic experience for the kids!'... but their voices are being drowned out a bit at the moment...)
  
  Ms 13 is wanting to fit in some social things over the next 2 weekends (in between her netball commitments as well!) .. and is saying stuff like 'we've done more training than we did last year, so I don't know what you're so worried about.' and 'I'm not doing this again next year, it's really cramping my style - I want to have a LIFE." (And this came out just because I needed her to wait to talk about our plans for the next two weekends once Dad got home - today...)
  
  Um, darling, don't know whether you noticed, but you haven't been on a bike for 3 weeks, with Dad having been away, so you have hardly been horsewhipped with the bike training!! You spent a full 24 hours at your friend's place last weekend! - I hardly call that not having a social life! We have 2 weekends left before the Ride. (Which you said you wanted to do, and you know after last year what it involves!) We do need to get some more km under our belts! You can't do a few decent rides, but then not get on a bike for a month, then expect to be able to ride 9 days straight!! It would be like not doing any rep netball training for a month or so, then turning up to State Age and expecting to play well and at peak fitness!
  
  And while we're on style cramping, well, maybe next year, you guys can forget your netball, because having pretty much every weekend of the season written off because of running you around for YOUR netball - and all the stuff you like to do after school pretty much cramps OUR style!
  

9.30 pm:

• He got home. Hugs and kisses. And then he stood back and peered intently at my face, and with very badly disguised mock seriousness said "Have you done something to your eyebrows?!!"
  [He got hit.]
  
• Massage was good. I think. Again, lots of tight spots. Don't know that it was a good idea to try to swim hard this afternoon.
  
• We are setting up for the getting up at the Ungodly Hour of 5 am to go in to the Community ride. And thence to various netball engagements.
  
• He made a liar out of me and didn't fall asleep. Even picked up the girls from swimming (while I had my class) and took them down to the beach for a late afternoon surf.
  
• Early to bed, if we can.

Labels: bike riding, daily

# posted by Tracey @ 10:12 am