I've had one of those weeks. Not that anything particularly BAD has happened. It just seems to have been a week which has taken me to the edge of empathy and tolerance. A week when a sigh and a "takes all types" just doesn't cut it. It's probably called "people rage".

I'm not the type of person who would usually ever dream of telling someone they were a f*#%wit... but this week I felt *that* close to doing so to someone. Can a woman be called that? If not, then "a stupid, obnoxious b*tch"?

I don't know.. There have been previous things said by this woman that I've let through to the keeper (after a bit of a rant and some eye-rolling at home.)

Then there was Tuesday. Well. I can *just* cope with someone (her) telling another (who was needing my email address to send me stuff to put on the netball website) that I 'send long and complicated emails' (she refers to the time when I had to set up the netball committee with a gmail account, and she is patently someone who can't absorb more than a one-line instruction).....

But when, for the second time in recent history, she insists that a group of teenage girls (of which my middle daughter was one of) MUST automatically be to blame in a situation... then... I get a little .. testy.

I was at the netball clubhouse sorting out some registrations when I got a call on my mobile from my 13 year old. She had been at our local beach with friends. She was upset and blubbering (so that initially I thought someone must have drowned!). I then managed to ascertain that her mobile phone had got wet, and that a certain local boy - let's call him "J" - was involved. The way I heard it through her wailing was that he had thrown her stuff in the water.

To explain the interrupting phone call, I cursed about this "J" throwing her phone in the water, because he and his mate have lately harassed the girls everytime they've gone down to the beach. My daughter has even called me from the beach before because they have taken their gear and hidden them in the bushes before, and thrown their towels in the water, thrown sand at them... and generally been annoying little shits.)

"That woman" I mentioned above said "Who? "J" ?? Oh, he's a lovely kid.. he wouldn't do anything like that. The girls MUST have done something to him first." Huh? Blame the girls immediately? ... wtf?... This sweeping statement follows on from a netball issue a few months back when my daughter's rep team played her team, and at the committee meeting following it I objected to her sweeping statement that "ALL those 13 year old girls KNEW what they were doing.. they were ALL the same..." because I knew that my daughter was actually a bit naive (and not in the clique) - and genuinely not the type to deliberately cheat, or throw a game...)

"Well, that's crap", I said, "he and his mate have been harassing them for a while... taking their gear while they are in the water, and I'm over it... I'll bloody call his parents...."

"Well, good luck with that" she says. "Watch your back. I wouldn't tangle with his father."

!!!

"Well that says it all", I said. "If the father is like that, then no wonder the kid is a little dickhead."

And I had to therefore wonder about her intelligence, never mind her blatant assumption about "girls" (AGAIN) never mind her apparent need to give her immediate opinion (about MY daughter, as it happens) when it wasn't sought in the first place!

If I'd had any presence of mind I might have suggested to her that she must have been a right piece of work as a teenager given the assumptions she jumps to about all 13 year old girls! (As well as asking, anyway, how the hell she was coping with doing nursing at uni, because I'm sure the information she would have to absorb would be a hell of a lot more complicated than a page of instructions giving the log in and password to a gmail account, along with how using google docs online could be used by the committee.... I mean, THAT is like rocket science...)

Fortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to say that, because that would have just made me a b*tch, wouldn't it?

So I was riled up with this woman, and of course I was pretty furious about this "J". As it turned out I hadn't accurately deciphered my daughter's blubberings. What had happened was that at school that day he had threatened to take their stuff if they were at the beach.. so they had decided "prevention" was in order, and put their bags closer to the water than usual. Not taking account of the tide. No "J", but a wave.

An error of judgement by the girls - and particularly Ms 13, who was the only one with a phone in her bag - but spurred on by the threats and harassment nonetheless. And leaving nothing for us to go to the parents with if we chose to ignore the reality that there are unsavoury parents out there.

Her mobile phone is kaput. Which, as you can imagine, led to some rantings by one of the parental units in the house. (Not necessarily me either...)

So I'm a bit miffed with human nature this week.. and the fact that I pretty much have to suck it up, and just vent where I can, because I am not the type to confront people. (Especially if it is just to tell them what I think of them!) And that there are kids whose parents don't care about where they are or what they are doing, and who might well decide to set out on a campaign of harassment if approached when their little darlings impinge on the rights of others...

And then Halloween in our neighbourhood simply showcases this, with gangs of kids roaming the street, using Halloween as an excuse to run riot. This year only one egg made it onto our property - and thankfully not on the actual house this time. But it certainly wrapped up the theme of the week

And of course this week I seem to have come across more fools in cars than I might usually... you might have even seen me blow the horn a few times at someone who kept veering over into my lane....

And the eldest daughter nearly failed her Yr 10 trial school certificate maths, and we ended up with an appointment up at the school, because much of this has to do with the utter uselessness of the teacher, and finally something had to be said. But some of it is down to Ms 15's attitude, and lack of self-motivation to study. And so when her father and I banned the computer so she would have time to do maths, we were called 'unreasonable'.. which then led on to being called over protective parents, because she knew (correctly) that she wouldn't be allowed to go to a Halloween party at a town nearly 2 hours drive away!! (As well as the fact that she has still not been allowed on sleepovers when I don't know the parents...)


And the scariest thing of all, to me, is that there are a significant amount of people in the US who would happily vote in McCain with that woman Palin... to lead the nation that is (perhaps unfortunately) still, ostensibly, the leader of the 'free' world. Heaven help the world.

As I have been reminded this week, it takes all types. Just sometimes that is a very big worry.


[Go to http://iftheworldcouldvote.com/ and continue to ease my fears just a little bit! Unfortunately the world will not be voting.]

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Labels: aarrrgghhh

We had a stack.

All 5 of us, both bikes (and a handful of jellybeans) splattered all over the road.

All had been going well with the Brissy to Gold Coast ride. We were about half way - I had been just about to announce the 50km mark to the girls. We'd had a great ride along the dedicated bus lanes out of the city - which had been closed off to buses for the bikes. Lovely smooooth road surface, and the only ups didn't even require the granny ring.

As we got further along, we then detoured onto the service roads that run alongside the motorway, and then some loops on back roads.

After stuffing around with loos, and refilling water at the previous rest stop, we found ourselves riding among slower (and less experienced) riders. You can tell them by the more erratic way they ride along the road. Should have known better. We came up behind a group, Marc was chatting to some guy beside him about the 29 inch wheels on his bike, and I was riding behind him. (We'd lost him in the mêlée of the start, so hadn't managed to actually do much drafting up till then.) We were humming along this flat country road at around 28kph... and I could tell Marc would shortly endeavour to find a way around this group of slower riders spread out across the road.

Suddenly it all went to hell. In a split second, the triple wobbled, then went down, because the girl in front of them - and we're talking right in the middle of the road here - hit the brakes HARD . Because her PEDAL FELL OFF! (We're talking el cheapo K-mart type bike here - probably never been serviced....) (What about coasting, calling out, "stopping"... that sort of thing? )

Marc had nowhere to go - she seemed to go left, so he tried to go right, but then she angled back in front of him. He clipped her wheel, and down they went.

And because I was riding his wheel I had nowhere to go. I could see it happening in front of me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had barely enough time to register the shock of seeing them fall in front of me (because Marc is pretty competent at handling a bike.)

Then the awful realisation that I couldn't avoid them.

*Crash*....we went down. Bikes and bodies all over the road. Zoe sandwiched between the two bikes, as the tandem had landed on top of her... and crying that 'ow! owwww! owwwwwwwwwww!' cry that sends a mother's heart into panic.

Dazed, we scrambled up, hauled the bike off her, and limped with bikes to the edge of the road. I was concerned about Zoe, but vaguely noticed blood dripping down my left forearm from my elbow.

Marc was relatively unscathed, so he assumed first aider role - thankfully we were carrying our own first aid kit. Mothers patently make shocking patients when their kids are involved, because I kept telling him to look after each of the kids, when it turned out that I had the worst injury - a nasty gash on my elbow - which to him looked a bit drastic, though he decided not to enlighten me too much at the time. He got a wound dressing out, and bound it up. Cait had corked her hip/thigh, and struggled to walk, but didn't feel she'd broken anything. Zoe couldn't quite decide which of her legs hurt, but settled on a twisted ankle on one. All of us had various grazes and bruises already coming up. On my left leg, blood from gravel rash mixed with grease - and I'd also grazed a mole there. Errgh....

Plus a little bit of shock all round.

Official help was all but useless other than the moral support of the highway patrol motorbike cop. We figured we probably wouldn't need an ambulance, but were a bit nonplussed when one came along, and informed the cop that they only stop if they need to take anyone to hospital. Noone bothered to check us out themselves. (Even the cop was nonplussed about that...) Some riders, and a woman in a car, did stop, and she gave us some old towels, and pulled jackets out of our panniers to keep us a bit warm. Other than that, noone else had first aid stuff, and no gloves, so were unwilling to touch us because of the blood! All in all, we were pretty lucky Marc was ok to tend us all.

A bike mechanic guy also stopped, but Marc had all the gear we needed for that. The sag wagon was notified, and we knew it was on its way. While we hated the thought of not being able to finish the ride, none of us girls were in a fit condition to finish (Perhaps I would have been stupid enough to had I not had the girls to consider ... although my elbow was hurting enough to make me realise that steering a bike would be a bit difficult.) Our tandem would fit in the trailer on the sag wagon, but the triple would be pushing it - plus Marc is always antsy about it being scratched, not that it didn't now have a couple of dings in it. The pannier rack was skewed where we hit it...and he's yet to do a proper check on what else might be damaged on it. He had to tinker with the brakes to get it working ok when he decided to ride it on by himself to the next checkpoint and meet us there - at least another 20km or so.

The girls and I were finally deposited at the checkpoint by the sag wagon, and we headed for the first aiders. I asked them to look at the girls first - though Cait kept saying "Mum, you go first, you're worse!" 'I'm right, you girls first" , I said, but she pushed me into the seat before her. Then the girl took off the wound dressing Marc had put on my elbow, and said immediately "That'll need stitches" - while the girls gasped in horror at the sight of it. Kind of glad I couldn't see it myself.

Marc arrived, and we decided that the logical thing to do was for him to get a cab the nearest train station and head back to Southbank to collect the car. It was a long and tedious wait there at Coomera State School - just behind Dreamworld - and the girls were taunted with the sounds of the rides there (Their boring parents have been too tight and too obsessed with bloody bike riding to take them to the theme parks!)

During our wait, Alison and Zoe finally wandered off to the playground, which allayed many of my concerns about how injured they might have been. Cait was sore but stoic.

Marc got back and we got the bikes onto the car, and headed for the Gold Coast by car, still a bit shell shocked and basically spewing that we'd come all this way, invested money in petrol, accommodation, etc, and we weren't finishing the damn ride. Brought undone by an inexperienced rider on a crap bike, basically. We've tried to rationalise it as the risk you take participating in these mass rides... Mind you, it really did rub salt into the wounds to have to drive past the Finish point on the way to the hospital.

A lesson learned regarding riding amongst so many people. It made me wonder whether the mass rides are a good idea, but you do them to take advantage of road closures (and thus a certain degree of separation and protection from vehicles!)

I'd steeled myself for a potentially long wait at Emergency, but good fortune had a 24 hour medical centre just across the road from the hospital. I was seen there pretty much immediately. "Now I have to warn you that you will have a scar", said the doctor. "Not worried." I said. (My husband knows me well. When I told him the doc said that, he said 'You'd be cheesed off if you didn't get a scar out of this! At least you'll have something to show from the day. Battle scars. The rest of them won't.

So we are all healing, and the vivid replaying of the accident over and over in my head is abating. Marc, to his delight, discovered that he did get a couple of grazes after all. On his butt (and in his bum crack! - so he's a bit limited in the sympathy stakes..)

Today I can finally bend up my arm enough so as to be able to do my bra up by myself, so things are looking up. And of course my main worry was being able to ride this weekend in Melbourne, what with the air fares and accommodation booked for that. Heel of my left hand is a bit bruised, but I'll be ok on the back of the tandem. (I'll have to be!) Stitches supposed to come out on Sunday will have to be removed on Monday. Chiro appointment for Cait (and me) tomorrow. The younger two have already been back at netball and swimming, so they have come up ok.

Back on the bike, for me and Marc at least. I'm not too sure how the girls are going to feel about doing so - but as I've just ordered $450 worth of matching cycling jerseys for us all, they may not have a choice! We breed and raise 'em tough around here.

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Labels: aarrrgghhh, bike riding

I was so going to vacuum today. The house needs vacuuming like you wouldn't believe. Oh boy.

So what setback might you throw up for a procrastinating, dysfunctional housewife (still recovering from a sore knee - still can't bend it completely, so crouching down low is.. inconvenient...) when she has finally located the vacuum cleaner floor brush attachment she's been looking for all week, and she finally gets her arse into gear and off the computer, and sets it all up and starts to vacuum?

You make the vacuum cleaner go PFFFFTT that's what.

As in.. (5 seconds into using it) *labouring sound, funny smell, turn off quickly.. can't turn back on again* kind of PFFFFTT.

I swear we've only had this vacuum cleaner a few years. Four at the most. How long should vacuum cleaners last? And what am I going to do now? Try and get it fixed? Buy a new one? (Visitors next weekend... don't have long to do anything about it either...)

Not to mention we've just bought a new washing machine and all.

The great gods of electrical appliances are up there havin' a larf.

Labels: aarrrgghhh, housework

Here's another quick mix cake recipe, as promised.

Passionfruit Butter Cake (quick mix)

125g butter, chopped
¾ cup (165g) castor sugar
2 eggs
2 cups (300g) SR flour
½ cup (125 ml) milk
¼ cup passionfruit pulp

Combine butter, sugar, eggs, flour and milk in medium bowl of electric mixer, beat on low speed until ingredients are combined. Then beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth and changed in colour. Stir in passionfruit. Spread into greased baba/bundt pan. Bake in moderate oven about 45 minutes. Turn onto wire rack to cool.

~~~~~~~

Note that it's only quick if you don't "accidentally" put 250g butter in it. Which is twice the amount of butter it says in the recipe. Which happens if you buy a double sized pack of butter (because it's cheaper) but don't *think* and just cut the big one in half to 'get' 125g, like you do an ordinary size pack... Very clever. Not.

[These brain snaps are a disturbing trend.]

So, hmmm, I don't think it's turned out. Funny that. (The concept that cake recipes have a certain balance of ingredients to make the cake turn out just right.) It tastes a bit.. buttery.. and it's falling apart a bit.

So, ... I've had to make another cake tonight.

Actually... I'd already started grating lemon rind to make another Lemon Delicious cake, because the one Alison made for Marc's birthday last night has kind of nearly disappeared, what with the girls taking a slice each to school, then having another slice when they got home from school, and he got home tonight and exclaimed "What's happened to my cake?!!" And he also said 'How come I didn't get a cake to take to work?' So being the lovely wife that I am, I started making him another one, just after I put the passionfruit one in the oven.

And then as I'm unwrapping the rest of the butter for that cake, it suddenly dawns on me the mistake I've made with the passionfruit one. Doh!

Seeings as they are so quick to make and all, I was quite prepared to make Yet Another Passionfruit cake as well - to use up the passionfruit the neighbour keeps giving us. While I'm in cake-making mode. BUT. I've run out of SR flour!

So it looks like I'll have to take this Lemon cake to tennis, the kids and he can pick at the buttery, falling aparty Passionfruit cake (and clog their arteries), and after I've restocked the pantry tomorrow, I can make him another lemon cake to make up for the kids eating all his birthday cake, and I can make another passionfruit cake to use up the passionfruit.

And I'll yield to more temptation and eat the damn stuff.
Next time we have a home game at tennis, I'm offering to take fruit.

~~~
And now the lemon delicious one has stuck to the pan (like they normally DON'T), and perhaps I should just give up making cakes, quick-mix or otherwise.

Arrrrghhhh!

Labels: aarrrgghhh, daily, doh, recipes

Just having a moan. Because I have a forum in which to do so. Nobody around here is going to listen to me. Marc just rolls his eyes in bemusement. The girls are hardly going to be interested. So I will pretend 'you' are.

My legs! My back! They say 'no pain no gain', but this is crazy. I must have trashed myself at the trainer on Wednesday (Damn those bloody lunges!) even if she thinks I could be pushing myself more... "You should see your face!.. oh the seriousness of it!!!" (For crying out loud, if it looked like I was enjoying myself, she'd increase the weight, or the difficulty factor! - and guess what! You can't change 44 years of drab muscle tone in a few weeks! And *cue the quivering bottom lip*.. it's actually hard! It hurts!)

Maybe I consolidated the effects at tennis yesterday, but it was hardly what you would call a strenuous workout, winning three sets easily and losing one just as easily, and basically playing at a pretty low standard when all is said and done. Plus I refuse to do any spectacular lunges for the ball. We are not playing for sheep stations, and 'Paranoia' is my middle name when it comes to the chance of doing my back in again.

My thighs -specifically my quads - are rubbish! Marc thinks I should be going for a bike ride today. I am thinking a walk around the supermarket will be an achievement, and that is only if I don't have to stoop to get anything off a bottom shelf. My lower back has, today, decided to remind me that it exists. And can hurt. "Hey, remember me? I used to give you a bit of pain, but I've been a bit quiet lately, and you've become... how shall we say... complacent. Just a bit too optimisitic in fact. This is to let you know I'm still around, and still fragile. Hah! Thank you for your time."

Ironically, the cautionary back-saving wisdom - 'bend at the knees' - is not particularly effective at this point in time. Walking up stairs hurts! Squatting to pick something up hurts! Oh my legs!

Reckon I'm getting stuck into the housework today? Not likely.

Labels: aarrrgghhh, grumpy

The raging within.

The feeling like you've got a dam about to burst inside your rib cage, and you're not sure if it will come out as tears, or a raging outburst.

The decision not to get up and go bike riding at 5.30am like I'd been looking forward to because it was too bloody windy, ok, and that is just NOT "recreation". (Do 20 to 30 knot gusts count as too windy, or was I just being a wuss?)

The regretting it the rest of the day, because Oh My God did I need to do some serious exercise-endorphin-inducing SOMETHING today, and it probably wouldn't have been so bad, and why did he just go 'ok' and hop back into bed and not try to talk me into it? (He said he didn't want to have to put up with me complaining, and sadly that comment is justified because I probably would have grumbled and moaned, at least until the retrospect had set in afterwards.)

The frustration at the slothfulness of the children all day, and pondering my failure as a parent because my kids don't go out and JUST PLAY OUTSIDE. Sure they exercise a lot with organised stuff, but they don't just go out and ride, or wander, or play. Outside.

The slamming out the door when told that I wasn't communicating my 'instructions' properly. (What part of "Attention Family! With this new council garbage system, all food scraps go in a container that needs to be lined with paper, OK" don't you understand?!! Does it matter whether that might have meant 'don't use a plastic bag' or 'don't put it straight in a container' ?? Same outcome. Use bloody paper!!)

The disappointment when he didn't come looking for me, and has carried on like nothing has happened since I got back. For god's sake, what about a hug?

The crankiness over having STUPIDLY decided to make those bloody crumbed chicken drumsticks for dinner (so that he didn't have to do a BBQ in the wind) because they involve PREPARATION, plus THE CLEANING OF THE RACKS afterwards which quite frankly is a pain in the arse, and guess who the idiot is who does that all the time? What kind of mental dinner choice was that? And there's another parenting failure because your kids haven't been taught to get in there and help with the washing up. (That's what having a dishwasher does...)

The just about biting the eldest's head off when she THEN asked "What's for dinner?"
...."What you're bloody given" was the response.

The wondering if this is just frigging PMS, or is it exacerbated by the other STUFF that has happened, and is this going to keep welling up inside me no matter how much we talk and reconcile and actually experience closeness we hadn't had for way too long?

The 'I think I'll have another full strength beer, because maybe alcohol will dull the senses, seeing I didn't manage the emergency exercise escape clause that has worked on other occasions.

It's going to be a long few days.

Labels: aarrrgghhh, introspection

You'd think with, currently, 3 cars* in our household this would be an unlikely scenario, but as I went to race out to my trainer class just before 10am, I realised that Marc had accidentally gone to work with 'my' car key to one of the cars in his pocket. That car is parked in front of the remaining car (which I do have keys to), so I can't get out!

[* - our 'third' car is one we need to sell, a little Ford Laser hatchback, but it has a leak, and after constantly getting puddles in the front floor well after it rains, the carpet has been pulled out of it awaiting Marc finding the time to diagnose the source of the leak and fix it before we can sell it. Funnily enough, between bike riding and all his work trips, there hasn't been the time to attend to that, so we are embarrassingly, at the moment, a 3 car family, with only 2 drivers.]

So we've been 'playing' musical cars over the past few weeks, and this is how it has panned out:

He usually drives the Laser to work - and he left it there while he was overseas. Twice in that time I have had to take our Commodore station wagon (which is the car we use to carry our tandems on specially designed roof racks) into town to get the air conditioning fixed - and on Thursday last week I left the Commodore at the workshop, walked to his office, and drove home in the Laser. He always leaves his Laser key near his desk in case anyone in the office needs to move it. I didn't think ahead, though, and just used mine, which resides all the time on my key ring. I like to carry all my keys all the time.. something he harasses me about, but I find it more convenient that way. Hmmm. Till today. (I can feel some more hassling coming on.. though I will forever defend my right to my 'clump' - which is a whole other storyline!!)

Anyway!!

He got home on Friday, and picked the Commodore up and drove it home.

He drove the Commodore into work on Monday because he took the triplet into the bike shop to have something fixed on it.

Yesterday he drove the Laser, but because I'd not picked up his key, he took the key off my keyring. However he went to the airport for a one-day work return trip to Sydney, so didn't get to retrieve his key from the office.

This morning he started putting his gear in the laser to go to the office, but then decided he should take the commodore in case he needed to bring the triplet home. So he transferred his stuff back into the commodore. And took off. With, as it turns out, the laser key in his pocket.

Doh!

So, despite having a key to the third car - the Landcruiser - I can't get out because the Laser is blocking it. A fact I realised 10 minutes before my trainer session was due to start.

"On yer bike!" I hear you say. Yes, I would, if it only took me 10 minutes to ride the distance I was going to drive, never mind the fact that the dirt back road would be mud after the bucketloads of rain we've had in the past 24 hours. I've rescheduled my training session to another day - so I really should do something physical now. Like ride my bike somewhere? Although rain is still threatening.

Marc will have to drive home with the key because I have to take Cait to Touch this afternoon. Of course, if he does so, it will most likely rain and touch will be cancelled.. fate and karma are like that, are they not? Besides which, don't you think he should take some time off today after having to get up at 4.50 am!! yesterday to catch a 6.30am flight... and getting home around 9pm.! That's a stupidly long working day in anyone's language... and the poor guy doesn't really need to throw in an unnecessary 40km!! Says me.

[Ed. later: Says me? *snorts*. He drove home at around 3.30, gave me the key, and drove back into work - because ... "I've promised stuff to clients!". See, he is taking tomorrow off to take Ms 11 to a swimming carnival.. so, ohmigod, couldn't take more hours off just before that. Nup. Never mind the fact that we just went about 20 days straight without seeing him at all. (I would also put money on him taking work calls during the carnival... and taking his bloody laptop to try and get some other 'urgent' stuff done in between races!)

He left with me making very pointed remarks like "Work-life balance, darling.... work-life balance..."]

Labels: aarrrgghhh, doh

One of the few definitions that ever stuck in my head from my junior high school Commerce classes was the concept of Opportunity Cost. - "The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action."

Opportunity cost doesn't have to be assessed in monetary terms, but rather can be assessed in terms of anything that is of value to the person or persons doing the assessing. I suppose you could just call it 'making a decision between 2 things', but it is getting to the point where, on an everyday basis, I get myself so worked up comparing the opportunity costs of way more than two things, or action. Over what I could/should do during the day - with the 'costs' being stuff like boredom, or the likelihood of getting a sore back, or the likelihood of being interrupted, or how hot or dirty I will get doing it... or how much preparation beforehand is required.. (and the list is endless really...) - that I don't do any of it!

That's when I wonder if there is such a thing as Opportunity Cost-itis.. and whether I might have it (and what can I do to get over it..)

A quick google using 'inability to make decisions' led me to Dependent Personality Disorder, which is a bit confronting, and I don't think I quite fit all the criteria....(it's bit scary how many I do, though...). Maybe I should just look up the dictionary under "lazy" and "procrastination" (or just plain 'addiction to the internet'). Actually, every one of those 'tendencies' are probably bound up in it all as well.

But seriously... every day I spend so much time weighing up which of the many household chores (that I hate so much) I should do first, I end up doing none of them, and opting for the easier, more or less decision free option of sitting here. [Then I run out of time to tackle any decent project.. so I may as well sit here and have another coffee till I have to be somewhere that I have actually managed to arrange or commit to.]

I am even doing it today over tackling the bike riding blog posts that my OH is hassling me to complete, rather than posting on here...

Poor Time management skills are quite possibly involved as well. If something is more tedious.. involves more concentration... then I put it off.. and do something easier... and I don't allocate myself appropriate time frames to do certain things. (And in some case then the not-done job just gets bigger and bigger, and requires a bigger time frame to accomplish it in, so I put it off some more, because I don't have the time.. and.... arrghhh.. it's all a vicious circle.

Of OC-itis.

Does that make sense? And if it does... how on earth do I cure myself of it? (And please, please, noone do what my GP once did when I tried to talk once about having trouble with getting housework done.. She started telling me what she did, which of course just made me feel more insecure and useless, because, seriously, if it was as easy as doing what other people say they just get in and do, don't you think I would have done it by now?!!)

Labels: aarrrgghhh, introspection

While it seems I am always looking for good excuses not to do housework, I could really do without this one... which I did forget to include when I talked about my skills in Avoidance.

It's my back. It could be a million times worse, but it's so bloody frustrating. It's been an issue since my early 20s, and I have no idea what I ever did to it. I clearly remember trying to wash up one time, and my back was giving me such grief, I stood there with tears streaming down my face. Small wonder I tend to put off the washing up. Once, when I worked as a doctor's receptionist, I was sitting in an office chair, and swivelled and bent forward to reach something, and was all but paralysed in that position.

After several years of trying physios and osteopaths, I found that chiropractic treatment - on a monthly maintenance basis - has been my saviour. It has kept me on a pretty even keel, and has allowed me to do most things. If I aggravate it at some point, the chiro can usually get me back on track. It might be costing a fortune, but if I have relatively pain free movement (and as a bonus, I rarely get migraine type headaches anymore), then it is worth it.

My first Trainer session last week aggravated it , and my theory was that trying the leg presses was enough to fire something up. We worked around it the next two sessions, and I was happy to get back to my chiro (who had been away on holidays) yesterday. It was gradually improving anyway, and after the adjustments I felt even better. And he confirmed that the training was a good thing (strengthening my muscles, particularly my abdomen, could only help.) He just outlined what I should avoid.

So yesterday arvo I was all 'yee ha', and I got out there and mowed the yard, as I have mentioned. (It did BADLY need doing - it wasn't just a convenient avoidance excuse. Marc was busy with all the bike mechanic-ish stuff last Friday (the public holiday), and then we did our 2 days of riding, so he didn't have time to do it, and it had gotten ridiculous. )

But I think maybe the mowing has done something to my back - perhaps just the starting of it (pulling the cord thingy...) Who knows. (Well actually maybe I do know. He said to avoid bending/curling where you put pressure on your lumbar region, and what else are you doing when you bend down to pull the starter cord on the mower, and snap it back...)

I woke up this morning ok.. but as I started moving around, it's playing up, dammit. Twingeing.. grabbing... worse than it was last week. It hurts all the time - not just in certain positions.

I've just cancelled out of the training session I was going to do at 1.00. I had planned to ride my bike there, but I don't even feel like doing that. It was an effort to collect the garbage and recycling and put the bins out. It's a pretty good reason not to vacuum or the like, but .. really... right now, I'd give anything to feel physically capable of shoving a vacuum cleaner or mop around. Really!

Labels: aarrrgghhh

(or "Struggling for Content" - to quote 'someone' reading over my shoulder.)

I've always thought the English language could be pretty ambiguous, but I didn't realise that two people (who were married!) could have such a vastly different understanding over a general term used to estimate quantity. (And only discover this after more than 20 years together!)

We had a BIG debate in this household tonight. I have to add here that it ran along gender lines, (which means that he was outvoted by 4 to 1!), although that probably wouldn't be relevant in a larger scale sample. It does make me wonder (as I do occasionally) what planet he is from! ( I thought it was only Mars!)

It started when he took exception to my "under-valuation'"of our triplet bike with a post I made on a tandem bikes discussion forum. We are concerned about a change of plans on this Big Ride we are going on in March; an almost surreptitious change we picked up on their website in the past week suddenly has all bikes being put on trucks to be transported over a particular unsealed, and steep, section of road which was previously advertised as a choice to ride. Our beef with it is that there is no way we want to chuck our (new) triplet on a truck where it might get scratched and damaged. Despite getting a bit of a bargain with it, replacement cost would probably hit around 10K (aussie dollars). Not wanting to be specific I just said that the bike was worth 'several thousand dollars'. It got the message across that it was valuable. I thought.

"It's worth way more than that!!" he said.

"Yeah, yeah.. so, let's not split hairs, I was generalising... to give the picture that it's an expensive bike we don't want scratched."

"But get real, we paid more than $3,000 for it!"

"Three thousand?... I said several."

"Yeah, well, several is around three."

"No, no, no", the rest of us chorused. "It's more like six.. seven... eight... "

And we kept arguing back and forth, and will probably never agree! The girls and I reckon a couple is 2, a few is 3 or 4, some is around 4... and several is more than that.. say 5 - 10."

Of course I jumped onto Google, and discovered that many have been 'here' before, and the same disagreements ensue. A dictionary doesn't really help - "More than two, but fewer than many". (Now define many!)

My conclusion from my browsing is that those general words we use for quantity do depend on context and the spin you are trying to impart.. (I don't know what other non-specific quantitative word I could have used! The next one up is 'many'!)

Still, even with that in mind, this ambiguity in our language could conceivably lead to some greater misunderstandings (and even let downs!) than we had here tonight. If not with interpretation of quantity, then over what constitutes worthy blogging material. (Like he's an expert!)

Labels: aarrrgghhh, opinion

Oh god, it's nits. And it's my fault it got this bad. She was scratching her head before christmas, and I have just felt too crap for the last few weeks to deal with it - to do the tedious conditioner comb through. This afternoon I have just spent a couple of hours on Zoe's hair, to the point that she was crying, and I was just about crying, and I know I will have to do another treatment tomorrow.. and then every few days to get rid of the bastards.

Notes on nits:

If you live in a cooler climate that doesn't support head lice, then think yourself bloody lucky. These days, around where I live, where it is virtually sub-tropical, they are all too common, and they, in fact, like clean hair, so although there still feels to be a stigma attached to them (believe me!), it does not mean you are dirty.

If your child is a boy (and has short hair as is most usual) think yourself bloody lucky.

If your girl child has thin hair (long or short) think yourself bloody lucky.

If your girl child has short hair, think yourself bloody sensible.

Saying for a couple of weeks "Stop bloody scratching your head" is not an adequate way of dealing with the bastards.

Just because it's Christmas .. New Year... holidays... doesn't mean the bastards won't lay eggs and multiply.

Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there. In fact, by the time you can see the bastards, her head is riddled with them. RIDDLED.

Drinking wine to 'get you through' the conditioner combing treatment could be dangerous. Two hours later, and I'm a candidate for Northern Girl and Rootie Toots NaDruBloDa or whatever it was (and I'm too heady to even work out how to link to it/them right now but I will when I'm sober, I promise.)

Getting drunk and depressed while dealing with the mother of all nit infestations can also cause extreme facetiousness when rung up at 7 pm by some call centre letting you know that your local exchange is now broadband enabled (when you have already been on broadband for two years and have already received numerous calls in this vein..)

Getting drunk and depressed while dealing with the mother of all nit infestations, while still recovering from 6 weeks of a bloody respiratory infection, can also cause you to cry when your husband and two elder children (just now) return from a late afternoon bodysurf and you see that he has dislocated his shoulder AGAIN.... It is back in - the girls helped him - but he will be sore and sorry and not totally able for a while, and oh F-U-C-K, I/we just do not need this right now. (Sorry, that was swearing, but I am drunk and disorderly - and distressed.)

Labels: aarrrgghhh

I think I was waiting for a defining moment when I could say "Eureka! I am completely better". But it's not going to happen that way, and if I wait till there is not one ounce of snot or phlegm left, and I don't cough at all then I might be waiting forever- or go insane in the meantime. This
"Rest" tactic is all very well, but I now feel like a blob. Which is not unsurprising, seeing I have been acting like a blob. And now, having been a blob for a few days, it feels harder than normal to get going again. (And that's saying something - you know I'm the master of procrastination...) And I have more work to do to get back to normal because I feel fat, look fat - and I really wonder whether I would have been better off to have kept up some sort of exercise.

It would help if I didn't have to fight through everyone else's lethargy as well.. It's nearly midday and Caitlin is still in bed. We slept in till 10ish (we're in this stupid cycle of going to bed after midnight, then sleeping in big time.) And now it's midday and I've had breakfast, sat here, and not done another thing.

Marc keeps sitting at his laptop doing work stuff - which is fairly normal for holidays - but it feels I have to fight for his attention even more than usual because he is disappointed or cheesed or something because we haven't been able to bike ride. He is at the goddamn laptop the minute he comes downstairs in the morning... (At least I have the good grace to eat my cereal before I get on the computer!) He is there now.

It's not like we don't have other Stuff! to do other than bike rides. Yesterday I finally got him to talk about our extension plans - after glaring at him when he said he had to ring someone at work. Just now I've reminded him that I have a chiropractor appointment at 2.30, and I reminded him that I'd suggested we all go into town. (We'd told the girls we'd buy new boogie boards after christmas..) He denied all knowledge of that suggestion!!

So I am sitting here in a bit of a "NOBODY EFFING LISTENS TO ME" funk. The kids are bad enough.. but when I know I've spoken to him about something and it's gone in through one ear and out the other, then I wonder why I bother saying anything at all.

Enough! Time for some action. A bomb under me, and a bomb under each and every other person in this family...

Labels: aarrrgghhh, daily, Resolution

For heaven's sakes.. what is wrong with me? Twice in two days I've cut my finger with a knife, and both times just because I was handling it stupidly.

The first was when I was wielding Marc's pocket knife to cut old rubber stoppers off the legs of a stool. He had been nagging me to buy replacement ones (but I'd put them on the 'non-essential' list before Christmas - something he didn't seem to quite 'get' for some reason.) So, Monday, I bought the stoppers.. and by hook or by crook, they were going on the damn stool NOW. I asked him to do it, but when he hadn't moved to do it within 5 minutes, I figured I'd have to. (Patience woman!) You wouldn't cut in a downward motion when your left hand was underneath, would you? Nup. You wouldn't. I would. Ouch. Middle finger, near the nail.

Last night I was cutting a nectarine with one of those wiltshire knives that live in a scabbard. It had some bruised spots, so I was hacking them off, then decided to cut off the rest of the flesh in pieces. Around the stone. Downwards cut again. Hand underneath? Yes. Why? Don't know. *Owww.* For god's sake, how stupid was that?! Pad of thumb this time.

Nothing drastic. Just inconvenient. I'm just a bit worried about what where I'm headed with this stupidity.

Labels: aarrrgghhh

I know I claim to be a chocoholic.. but the truth is that I'm more accurately a plebian Cadbury milk chocolate-a-holic. Pfft, I hear you say... Sorry. It's just how I am. Caramel is ok.. but basically, I can leave a box of centred chocolates sitting on my bench all year (after I picked out the caramel centred ones) .. but I'd demolish a block of Cadbury Dairy Milk or Caramello, solo, in a night, given half a chance.

I thought most people close to me knew this. And that, yes, yes, I know that real chocolate connoisseurs like Lindt, or whatever other Swiss brands, and ra, ra, ra, yeah.. shut up!

So, last week when my mum AND sister gave me (well, us.. Marc and me) the token pressie that we erratically exchange at Christmas.. and BOTH of them gave us a box of Lindt Lindor chocolate balls.. I was.. well.. nonplussed. I don't like the damn things... the softish centre makes me a bit squeamish, almost. And Marc isn't really into chocolate at all.

In the spirit of resolutions made to not end up like my mother, I didn't say anything (except to ask if they had shares in Lindt.) I did grumble to Marc and the girls when we were alone - a "grumble" along the lines of 'FFS, you'd think my own mother and sister would know by now that I don't like those sort of chocolates!'

A bit sad. It's really a case, with my mother at least, that she thinks I should like Lindt, so it doesn't matter what I really like. Thou shalt be given Lindt. Or maybe she just never takes much notice of me and doesn't have a clue despite all evidence to the contrary.

I decided to turn it on its head, and figured that, seeing I'm whingeing about wanting to lose weight, then if you MUST get given chocolates, then maybe chocolates that you don't actually want to eat are the best sort to get. Yep. Right.

The girls think it's pretty funny. They like them - they're not fussy - so, hey, all the more for them.

But wait. There's more.

Today, the visiting sister in law gave us "our" christmas presents. (They live about 4 hours away, and as I wasn't planning on seeing them (!) I had sent theirs to them before Christmas. - a book shop voucher each for the boys, and some home made (by the girls) chocolate truffles and shortbread.)

Guess what she gave Marc and me. Go on. Guess. .. Ah.. It was a bottle of wine. ('Huzzah!' I thought, ' at least I like wine!'). And then. A box. Of. Lindt. Lindor. Chocolate. Balls.

Caitlin managed to hold herself together while they were still here, but has since just about wet herself laughing each time she thinks about it.

Me.. I don't know whether to laugh or cry...

The only good thing is that at least I won't be getting fat on all... that... chocolate....

Labels: aarrrgghhh, eating

I was going to cast aspersions on.. um... Santa's M.O. - but that wouldn't be PC. Would it? But honestly... You would think after ... so many.. years, Santa would have the equal distribution of prezzies between 3 siblings in one family all sorted. Wouldn't you? Hmmm. You'd be wrong. It's a random escalation of purchases fest here. One each of this sort of thing. One each of that sort of thing. Repeat until it looks like it'll fill one of those gift bags each. Mostly 'fill up the bag' stuff.. but hopefully a couple of 'oh cool!' things. Until the sighting (and purchase) of an 'oh, Child X will love that' item .. but then the score needs to be sort of evened up.. quantity-wise.. and sort of size wise, because you can't have one sack/bag appearing to be overflowing, and one half empty looking. Can you...? (And then what if the X item is something a bit on the large side?)

I'm going insane. I'm also starting to think I've not removed things from 'hiding' places, when I have. I took a list with me to town this afternoon, but lost it, and so forgot stuff. So still one more trip to town required this week... Plus what feels like a kazillion and one other things.. that I could be doing now, but it's 10.30 pm, so I'm not starting anything else now.. that would just be stupid.. when I can blog instead. And wait and see if I catch Marc online.

When I think about it, it's not as bad as Rootietoot's list. Well.. at least I have more than one day to do my list. And I don't have to flea dip any dogs.

I did get to cross stuff off my list today. I did achieve.. I did, I did. Mainly in terms of getting a few parcels sorted and sent, and the snail mail cards done and sent. Not as much as I would have liked to achieve...but still. I plead general unwellness and still having a few coughing fits. I think I feel a bit better.. but I'm still not "well". I must have looked shite because I got an 'early mark' from netball this evening. (Very strange that nobody said anything about me not being at the lunch on Sunday... guess they didn't miss me.)

I have three more days to:

mow the yard
vacuum the house
change/wash sheets on all beds
several more laundry loads, by the time Friday comes around
make mini xmas cakes (which I should have done already...and would scratch if I hadn't already soaked mixed fruit and almonds in brandy)
post birthday present to nephew
sort lilos/air mattresses (for canyoning...)
finalise present shopping
write a packing list for girls (and supervise packing)
write a packing list for me (including food/condiments, sheets/towels for holiday house)
get girls to stop slothing/fighting/saying 'it's not my turn to do that' and HELP ... for god's sake
stop eating bloody shortbreads (leftovers from Ali's homemade batch)
wash car/vacuum
sort someone to collect our mail
do the actual packing
get through kids Touch tomorrow afternoon..
and 3 x swimming squad classes on Friday afternoon.

Oh there's more.. but that will keep me going till I revise it...
Maybe I'll come back and put that strikethrough thingy through it all... so I can see that I am getting somewhere.

The hilarious thing is that, when the school teachers got their card (the photo stuck on a silver card with transparent photo corners).. plus their gifts (the girls decorated plates with porcelain pens, then we bake them... Ali had the most wonderful teacher this year, so she put 'Best Teacher Ever' on hers..).. and one of the teachers apparently said 'Your mum is SO organised!'... when the reality is that my house is such a disaster zone, currently I'd be embarrassed to have any visitors step foot inside....and given that I don't work, I have no reasonable excuse for being in this state. Only that I'm a walking disaster zone. We haven't even put the tree up this year, and I simply cannot face doing it when we are going away. The older two don't care.. but Zoe does.. and I feel bad about that.

So shhhh... Don't tell anyone I'm actually going nuts. I'll just keep trying to keep up appearances.. making it up as I go along...

Labels: aarrrgghhh, Christmas, daily, sick

This is it. The photo has lost quality along the way.. but I'm beyond worrying about it. It's not that important anyway in the scheme of things.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

How about those moving thingies, eh. Copying and pasting Javascript is so cool.

Marc has left for the flights to KL. He didn't wake me while he packed this morning. Once he did, to kiss me goodbye, and I needed to get up to go to the loo, then the coughing and sneezing and that started, so I didn't get to sleep in any longer. Which is a bummer, because I reckon I could do with it. I'm not feeling on top of the world right now. Headache to add to the mix. And we were going to hit the shops. Arrrghh... crowds... ugh.

Zoe decided to make 'snowflakes' as her 'cards' to her friends.. so she is busy producing confetti. Easy enough to vacuum up. Thank you to E. for the inspiration via the parcel of goodies that arrived recently!

Now to hassle #2 about what she is doing for friends and teacher. (She has just come and asked me if she can make shortbread!)

(And what #3 is doing for her teacher..?)

And to wake up DQ.

And to take something for this headache.

Merry Christmas.

Labels: aarrrgghhh, Christmas, daily, sick, sooking

Not drunk blogging, just one of the classic lines Ali's related from the school camp she went on this week. The permanent teachers at this camp had a few good tricks up their sleeves to combine discipline and fun. She's hardly stopped talking about it since she got back about 3.00 yesterday afternoon. $165 well spent, I'd say.

We got up at 5.00 this morning to go for the community bike ride - this time with the girls (considering that we have to start doing some training for the Big Ride.) Weather was dubious looking.. cloudy, windy. I wasn't keen. But we went. And it started raining half way to town. And I gave him the big "I told you so" look. Oh well, we were up, we were there.. we had bike rain jackets... and it actually wasn't that bad. Rolled up to the start, to a very small turnout.

A couple of k's into it, Cait, my stoker.. my passenger... had an Attack. A full blooded DQ (Drama Queen) attack. Cold legs, wet bum, didn't want to be there. No.. didn't care about getting bacon and eggs at the cafe when we finished. She was so painful, I had to pull out after a few kms and ride back. She copped an earful all the way.. and then for the next half hour of killing time sitting in the car. That sounds dreadful, but it's not like this is some new 'thing' we've just dreamed up and decided to make her do. She was saying at the end of the Big Ride earlier this year that she wanted to do it again. And so we are. And so THIS was training.. and.. guess what, kid. It might rain on the Ride.. and you'll get wet! You'll have to push through a bit of discomfort.

Of course, being the teenage DQ that she is, she'd also ignored the advice we've given her ever since we bought them all bike nix. You don't wear undies with bike nix! Never. The seams dig in.. and guess what. If you get wet, then your cotton undies are going to soak up the water, and your bum will be wetter. But oh no.. she knows best.

I left her in the car while I met the others (after they did their ride) at the cafe, and we had bacon and eggs. The other two were fine. It didn't rain the whole time.. and despite being a bit wet, it wasn't that cold. And they got their promised big brekkie.

Gave her an ultimatum. Decide now whether she's IN for the Big Ride or not. If she's not, I'll buy a bloody road bike, and ride myself. I can't put up with the DQ act. If we're doing it, we need to do training rides, and the training rides start now. She made ME miss MY training ride today. So I was NOT HAPPY. And boy did she know it.

So we've been home a while.. and the phone rings; it's my mother. I deliberately didn't mention the bike ride. I know what she would think. But then she asked me if we went.. and I'm not a good enough liar to just say 'yeah.. we went with the kids'. I glossed over it.. 'yeah, Marc, Ali and Zoe did it, Cait had an attack and we didn't'... AND of course she says "I wouldn't want to go for a ride in the rain anyway."

[No, Mum. In my whole childhood you also never went in a swimming pool, or swam with us at the beach. You never did ANYTHING with us that pushed us out of our comfort zones or helped us challenge ourselves... AND ANYWAY... I didn't even ask for your effing opinion.]

Arrrghhhh.

Meh... so today.. disintegrated. Tired from getting up early, but not achieving what I set out to achieve when I got up early. Had a sense of urgency about getting things done, because Marc leaves tomorrow for this work trip to KL.. back Friday.. we leave Saturday morning. But we didn't seem to achieve anything much at all. Watched some good cricket?! I suppose.. I HOPE .. it will all fall into place this week.

Alternatively, I could just have a nervous breakdown and be done with it.

Labels: aarrrgghhh, bike riding, daily, teenagers

Damn cough. It's been hanging around for a couple of weeks now. One of those ones that don't take you out completely, but wear you down gradually and insidiously. With cough medicine I'm managing to sleep ok, but I'm paying for it in the morning, (where you have to cough up all the crap sitting in your lungs...) with coughing fits where I just about throw up. Inexplicably, after one of those attacks, I feel like bursting into tears.. even though I know it could be much much worse. It eases off during the day then.. then hits again at night.

Needless to say it's not doing much to inspire me to any heights of creative thinking in the present buying department. And it's thrown me right off any niggling urges to vacuum or clean bathrooms... or to get out and burn some calories. I've been going to my swimming classes (simply because I've missed too many already..) and I can swim ok till we have to swim hard, and then it brings on another coughing fit.

Randomly, amongst the coughing, I'll have a hayfever-like attack of sneezes.

All in all it's an assault on my very weak pelvic floor muscles that I don't really need. My abdomen hurts with each cough now.. but somehow I don't think it's the right sort of ab crunch that will transform my belly from the jelly that it is. My lower back hurts with each coughing attack as well. Lucky I have a chiro appointment today. No doubt my propped-up sleeping posture is contributing to my problems in that area.

Then I need to hit the shops, and miraculously come up with solutions to the present (as in 'gift') dilemma. I am only buying for the kids, and my nephews, and I've got nothin'. NUTHIN' ! Totally stumped. OK.. I'll scrape by with the girls...though it won't be an 'ooh ahh look what Santa brought me christmas morning.

But the boys?! No effing idea. This is ridiculous.. world gone mad.. noone NEEDS anything. Somehow, I don't think a little card saying 'For your Christmas present this year we've donated money to buy a starving kid in a poor country some FOOD' is going to cut it. [Now that I've put that in black and white, I'm seriously thinking of doing something like that with the girls.. but I wouldn't DARE do it as a replacement for a present for my nephews.. the fallout would be unbearable.]

*cough, cough... sniffle... sob*

Labels: aarrrgghhh, Christmas, sick

Naff post title.. but I think I'm a comedian. Apologies to Midnight Oil.

We still have electrical problems. But I have my dearly beloved back home, and being "with" him has been a greater drawcard than blogging over the weekend. Would you believe. Even if the 'with' involves, at some stage, sitting in close proximity on the lounge and watching the cricket with him. All together now.. "Awwww".

Well, there is more to it than wanting to hold his hand a bit, or rest my head on his shoulder and sigh, or finally get to bed - together - on Saturday night.

It's stuff like the novelty of a family meal - BBQ meals even. (He is OIC bbqs around here.. I don't try to cook them myself). It's the sitting down together, all five of us (and a bottle of wine).

It's being able to have a conversation that doesn't involve typing.

It's being able to watch Zoe skip around the stage in a ballet concert - and suffer through all the other items - together. (And we were not impressed with what the Grade 3 ballet class was 'showcasing' but that's another story... we'd rather watch them play netball! At least you get to see them for more than 2 minutes!)

I am so glad he is home.

The electrician, after 2 visits, replaced the circuit breaker in the meter box. And it 'went' for half a day, then tripped again. Marc spoke to him this morning, and got the distinct impression he wasn't really interested in solving the problem. Too much like hard work... sheesh. Looks like it is up to my Mr Fixit, who fortunately has the knowledge to 'play around' with power points (when the power is off.) We now have a mission to isolate each power point in turn, to discover where the 'breakdown' is. Fortunately there are only 7 points on this circuit.. and he did the laundry one before heading off to work. So far so good, 2 loads of washing.. and no circuit breaking. Next one in line is an outside one that requires some moving of junk from me.

And yes, you heard correctly.. he has gone to work. Three weeks away- for work - 11 hour days, and then usually dealing with emails etc back at the apartment ("I had one day off" he says) ... and he can't take today off. Pffft.. don't start me.

BUT. I am so glad he is home.

Labels: aarrrgghhh, awwww, parenting

I don't know if that's a peculiarly Australian saying.... meaning absolutely cheesed off, mad, cranky, etc etc etc....

But I am SPEWING!

I just went to get into my swimmers for my swimming squad. Umm.. where are they? Ah, that's right, I threw them in the car on Saturday when we went to that BBQ.. there was a pool there, and I thought if the adults went in I'd feel like a party pooper if I didn't. Rash shirt, and swimmers got thrown into the car... The girls threw in their stuff as well... loose.. but threw everything into a bag to take in. I could have sworn I left my swimmers in the car, as they were a bit damp.

However, they are (now) not in that bag (with the rash shirt, and sunscreen), and they are not in the car. The friends who we visited aren't home (contacted S. on her mobile; she hadn't seen it, but it could have been picked up and thrown in with their stuff... she will check when she gets home.)

Too late for my swimming. Which I missed last week because of the gyno appointment. And another couple of weeks because of returning from our bike trips.

I have no other swimming costume.... Arrrgggghhhhh!!!

Labels: aarrrgghhh