Wagging Work

It is Monday morning, a work day and I am NOT going to work.  Why?  Because I haven’t had enough sleep again, because I have worked far too many unpaid days in the last month, because I need a mental health day, because I think it is going to be a long week and I am falling behind already.  Maybe I am not going in to work because I am hot and bothered or perhaps that should be because I am hot and I can’t be bothered.  Whatever the reason excuse I am not going to my place of paid employment.  Of course not going to work doesn’t stop the phone ringing about work-related issues, with the first call coming in just before 8.30!  My phone is now on silent and I am trying to ignore it.

Now just because I am not at a place of paid employment doesn’t mean that I will be a lady of leisure, the to-do list is long and ever-so-exciting.  It includes such fun items as more laundry than the usual thanks to both kids having nose bleeds during the night.  I need to organise dinner for tonight, for tomorrow night (when I go from work to school pick-up, back to work then off to cub scouts with boy-child before getting home at 7 for 5 seconds peace before doing the scout pick-up), Wednesday night and while I am at it I may as well organise something for Thursday night during the mad rush between dance lessons and netball.  In order to actually organise dinner I first have to go and get food.  Despite the fact that the kids will happily eat beans on toast every day, I won’t!  We are out of fresh fruit after the rabid hordes ate 2kg of bananas amongst other fruit over the weekend (oh those rabid hordes – my kids alone).  So that is about all for the essentials, the rest can wait if I don’t go insane in the mean time.

The stuff that would be nice to have done would include getting rid of all the ’stuff’ that hasn’t been put away over the weekend, cleaning up every one else’s mess in the bathroom, sweeping and mopping the floors downstairs and my favourite – vacuuming.  I really should dust because girl-child has hay fever and looks like miserable.  Perhaps the dusting should get moved up to the first list.

So what to do with my day off work?  It should be an action packed, fun-filled day.  I can’t wait, I want to crawl back in to bed and actually get some sleep!  Maybe if I can get everything done this morning I can reward myself with a nanna-nap, hopefully that will be a motivator.  Gotta go, things to do…

Embarrassing

There is a reason that I am the one that normally has the camera and is taking the photos.  Very occasionally I let others take photos of me.  I have just flicked through the photos that girl-child took yesterday and realised that my eyebrows are all wrong, clearly I am long overdue to make a visit to the fur shop (the place of hair removal to normal people).  Apparently having legs that are so hairy you could pass for an ape isn’t enough to make me realise that a trip to the fur shop is well overdue but that is another story.

Mouse Me!

The photo also reminds me of a few other things – one is that I hate photos but am occasionally happy to make a fool of myself for everyone to see even if I did refuse to leave the house looking like a mouse.  Two, perhaps a 6 year old isn’t the best person to do my face painting.  On the up side – having her clean the face paint off my face was a little like a massage!

Where are the Boy Folk?

After saving his funds all year, well almost all year (a few dozen packs of pokemon cards were purchased along the way) boy-child has saved up enough money and gems* to trade for an iTouch.  He was saving up for a DS but as I am not a huge fan I offered to split the cost of an iTouch to encourage him to get one over the DS.  (I have since seen more about the DSi that I really like, but I am stubborn and pigheaded so I refused to change my mind or the offer.)

Anyway, moving on, the final count left him with a grand total of $150.70, a whopping 70 cents more than he was required to save, and to say he was a little excited at the prospect of having his own iTouch would be an understatement.

Almost the owner of an iTouch!

Man-child is not disappointed to not have to share his iPhone and games any more either!

So right now the boy folk are out purchasing an iTouch and discussing the apps and games he should load.  Girl-child and I are having a quiet day in.  She is snuggled on the couch, under a blanket not feeling too great apparently hay-fever has hit her for the first time ever.  I am simply enjoying the peace and almost quiet for a change.

* Gems are an additional bribery tool we use around here.  Random acts of kindness can be rewarded with gems that can be later traded for 10 cents however it also acts as a swear jar of sorts and bad language and inappropriate behaviour can cost gems.  It works a treat, you don’t have to be consistent or anything, the randomness of a bonus gem or 3 can be a great motivator.

Fluffy Pink Stuff

My head feels like it is filled with this…

Fluffy Pink Stuff

Sickly sweet, headache inducing, sugary goo.  Full of air and not much else.

For a day that I wasn’t actually going to work, it was a really long day.

I was in the office by 9 this morning and didn’t get home from work until nearly 8 this evening.

I am NOT going to go to work on Monday, I need a rest.

Good night!

Did I Publish?

It is 12.41am and I know I wrote a post earlier but I can’t remember if I hit publish. I have spent the evening at a friends sharing a few drinks and chocolate. It was a great night but I hope I haven’t blown NaBloPoMo this early in the month. If I weren’t so tired I would check now instead of writing a post but after a few drinks that would be way too logical!

Stage Mum

Both of my kids dance and they absolutely love it.  Unfortunately just because they love dance doesn’t mean they are any good at it.  They aren’t totally appalling, just kind of ordinary, easily distracted and if the truth be told, lazy.  Once upon a time they were both kind of good, danced around the house all the time wearing dance clothes or costumes and were always perfectly groomed and adorable.  Now?  Not so much.  Boy-child generally complains if he has to change out of his school shirt unless even he can see that it is dirty.  Girl-child no longer wears perfectly co-ordinated outfits with matching ribbons in her braids or buns instead she favours  a multi-coloured, urchin effect that tonight included grey dance pants, a pink singlet, black warm up top and red skirt with very scuffed shoes and fuzzy ‘I’ve been running wild all day’ hair.  It is a great look for both of them.  Girl-child does a combo class of classical, jazz and tap whilst boy-child does tap.  He is waiting until his arm is stronger before he starts hip hop.  It is strong enough now but I am happy with only spending the one hour at the studio so I am not reminding me.  Whilst it is a beautiful studio, I really don’t want to spend hours there.  I enjoy my hour of peace and quiet where I can catch up with some reading, do some paperwork or on occasions chat with friends over a hot chocolate.

As I was sitting there this afternoon trying to catch up on some work I couldn’t help but overhear one mum screech at her child ‘to get back into class’ then turn to the other mum’s in her circle of stage mum friends, roll her eyes and comment that she didn’t spend an hour last night practicing with her child only for said child to go to the bathroom during class time and miss some important learning.  Oh lordy, you would think she was talking about the next Rudolf Nureyev and not a bratty little kid in the under 6 dance class!  She then continued to rattle off just how often she was at the studio with her children.  It got to 4 different classes over different nights before I got bored and tuned out.

When I next looked up she was then commenting on one of the teachers and how her child was being ignored in the class he was doing, that the teacher was spending too much time with the other students and not her child prodigy.  The other parents were nodding in agreement, I think merely in a way to make her shut the hell up and they could get back to their gossiping about how exclusive their clothes/shoes/handbags were.  Then at the end of the class the same stage mum cornered the poor teacher.  Fortunately at this time I had moved away and couldn’t hear the exchange but based on the body language it went something like

“Why isn’t my child, the prodigy of the dance world, front and centre for the performance?”  ”My child is the best.”  ”My child deserves to be a star!”

The teacher madly and frantically trying to find away out, looking for a way to escape, begging anyone to interrupt the barrage.  I don’t think he got a word in, or if he did it wasn’t heard.  Any money I end up stuck next to this stage mum at the end of year performance having to listen to her extol the virtues of her child prodigies.  I can’t wait!

Spam Bot

I haven’t been on twitter for ages, perhaps even weeks.  It has been sitting quietly open on my desktop just not used.  I have flicked by it a number of times and contemplated reading tweets but have refrained claiming that I just didn’t have time.  Occasionally I would check the direct messages that were sent my way – they are so few and far between that I really didn’t check often at all, I would wait for my email to notify me.

So to cut to the chase, I had a direct message from someone who I don’t often message so I thought I would check it out.  The message was asking ‘Is this you?’ with a link.  Now I have been in the local media of late and I was wondering if I had been discovered in the real world so I clicked on the link.  It took me to a page that said Twitter was busy, try again later.  As the dupe that I am, I did try again later, many, many times.  Eventually it took me to a different page, a page that I can’t really remember but I think referred to losing grip on reality – a fair description of my world of late.  I wondered if it was a subtle suggestion that I should take a step back and try to relax.  Of course before I replied, after checking the link a few million more times, I was sidetracked by life and promptly forgot all about Twitter.

The next time I thought about Twitter was again via email, saying I had more direct messages, this time from friends saying I was sending random messages.  It seems that my Twitter account has been infiltrated by an evil spam bot.  I have been sending out spam to people left right and centre and not only to people that I follow!  OOPS.

Of course I had no idea how to make it stop, I couldn’t appease the Twitter gods so I did what any good help desk operator recommends – Shut Down and Reboot.  Fingers crossed it has worked.  If not, any suggestions on how to remove a spam bot from Twitter?

A Winning Day

I studied the form for hours a matter of seconds before declaring that ‘Shocking’ was going to win the Cup.  Being the huge gambler I am, I suggested 50 cents each way would be an appropriate bet.  Man-child doesn’t do baby bets like me so bet $5 for me so I won just over $100.  It was the only bet I had for the day, not a bad result for a few seconds research!

Here are a few more reasons why today was a great day of fun in the sun, or in the shade under the trees on the soft green grass as the case may be.

Someone to serve food

Relaxing in the Shade

Girls Hiding in the Trees

It was an awesome day.  There were 5 families enjoying the day in the park.  Not only was it much more fun being in the park but they changed the camera angles for the main race and you couldn’t really see our house!

Happy Days

Hooray, the sun is shining, the sky is full of helicopters over the race track, the picnic is spread out and the barbeque is about to be fired up. What is even better is being in the park with friends, sipping bubbles, watching the racing and listening to the kids run and play.
Today is a great day, perhaps photos will follow.

Melbourne Madness

Racing fever has hit town and the neighbourhood is alive.  Now normally it is hectic around here, but for a change it is and not just my house that is crazy but the whole area.  You see we live just up the road from Flemington Racecourse.   In fact we are so close we can hear the race calls from our house.  As you can imagine with 100,000 people converging on your suburb, traffic is always going to be crazy so we stay local.

Traditionally we would wander down to a park and sit in the sunshine with dozens of other locals who don’t want to brave the insanity of traffic and transport.  A friend drags his tv and lounge suite out to the park, we bring over our old bbq (actually come to think of it, I think it is still there from last year!), a shade gazebo and a laptop to ensure that we can keep up to date with the race odds.  It is a great day, the kids all play cricket or frisbee, climb trees and ride bikes and we all sit around eating and drinking.  Generally we are in the park from late morning and go home as the sky darkens having overindulged all day long.  We have been doing this for the past 2 years with plans to do it again tomorrow.

That was until we saw the weather forecast.   City - Shower or two. Windy.  Min 17, Max 20

That doesn’t bode well for electronic equipment in the middle of a park.  Apparently the tv in the park has been cancelled so now what to do?  We could still go to the park without the tv but being able to watch the race is what set this picnic apart from other picnics in the area.  The location is so central that many people walking to the races walk by and have been known to join in on the festivities.  The other option is to just open our house again and have everyone come over here.  It will still be fun but not the same without a park for the kids to play in.

Regardless of all the planning, the weather can change again and it probably will.  Today it was supposed to be windy and also have thunderstorms.  Now there is a slight breeze and beautiful blue skies.  There were a few showers earlier in the day but they have been and gone and it is now the perfect day outside.   I am happy to just make it up as we go along, and make any decisions in relation to moving furniture out to the park tomorrow but I think others like to have some real plans about what to do for the day.  I wonder if we could just say if we aren’t in the park we will be here and cross our fingers and hope for the rain to hold off.

Who knows where we will end up.  If you do happen to watch the Melbourne Cup, the Race that Stops a Nation look our for us.  When they are showing overhead views of the track you will see where I live.  Perhaps if we do end up celebrating the day here at home, I might see if I can get the kids all in the backyard with balloons or something equally as colourful to see if you can see them!