Another year older

and I like to think I have expanded my wisdom bank a tad more. I should bloody well hope so at least! Another busy week but a fun one. Last weekend my folks came up and stayed for the weekend with us which was nice. We went out for dinner on the Saturday night to a local fish and chip joint that is very yummy! On Sunday we celebrated fathers day and my birthday early as I would be away on the actual day. I was very spoilt and received lots of lovely gifts and homemade cards from the kids. A gorgeous weekend all round.
On Monday I flew to Brisbane for work, the lovely Shona collected me at the airport and we went to Tangled Yarns to visit the lovely Kelly and to check out her beautiful store. It is so nice to go into a yarn store that is light and airy and welcomoing and best of all HAS PRICES!!!!! After my Melbourne trip and this one I can officially say I failed the self imposed yarn diet LOL I had an all day meeting on Tuesday and then met up with friends on Tuesday night. We went out for dinner and then I stayed with my gorgeous friend Becky who dropped me at my hotel on Wednesday after a morning cuppa and chat with Jo and Kathi (who came for dinner previous night). it was so nice to see Kathi and Becky again and to finally meet Jo (and Shona and Kelly) in the flesh. We have all chatted online for 5-7 years and formed so really lovely friendships through our likeminded philosophies. Wednesday I checked into the hotel near the airport ready for my ooober early flight home today then I bussed it into Southbank to check out the museum and the Leonardo DaVinci exhibition. Only had a very brief scout around the museum and then went down to the exhibit and was very impressed. Crap venue for it but the contents made up for it. I had no idea he had done so much, he truly was a man before his time. I thoroughly recommend you go see it if you get the opportunity.
I then got a bus back into the city and had a wander around then a train back out to the airport hotel.

So now I am finally back home, exhausted, coughing and a sore throat but feeling quite relaxed. I had a meeting this after noon and think I will take tomorrow off to rest and try to shake this chest flu I seem to be carrying around with me permanently.

thankyou to all who sent me a happy birthday wish, I logged into Facebook after a few days off and was inundated with well wishes. Such a lovely surprise.


I almost forgot, on Thursday my boss handed me a magazine article that I had loaned him and in it was an envelope with a card. It was a thankyou card for all the hard work I have done and a gift voucher to my hairdressers! I was in shock and tears (yes I am a sook) and touched by the generosity and kind thoughts. I am in a good place at the moment I think and am counting my blessings :)

tired, so very very tired

Fuck I am tired! I really am exhausted. Not the I've had a big night exhausted, not that "I've been up all night with a baby" exhausted. Just the weeks have caught up with me kinda exhausted. Since the CEO resigned at work I have taken on all the operational side of her job plus maintained my duties and inherited the odd extras as well and it is starting to take its toll. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I work well under pressure and embrace a challenge but it is a stressful job with a lot of responsibility and I am tired. We are going thru some huge re-structuring of the organisation which will see some exciting changes and developments so it is a great time for us and I am really thrilled to be part of it. Be nice to get some new staff on board though :)

Yesterday I went to Bicheno to speak with a newly hired staff member and do a brief induction with her. Took the opportunity to have a night with my folks and came back to 'town' today. Kids are catching up with their father tonight as they haven't seen him for 9 days. Back to our frantic routine on Monday with school holidays over and a busy week ahead. Doing interviews in the South and North West next week for new staff which will be interesting. First time I have sat on a panel interview so is a great learning opportunity for me.

Gave myself a crash course in web maintenance using a system I am very unfamiliar with so have been breaking and fixing our website on a pretty regular basis LOL Anyone want to make a website easy to use for me?? FREE?????? Actually the more I get to know it the easier it is becoming, still wouldn't mind someone else doing it for me.

Have been knitting myself a pair of socks. I am on the second sock and pretty damn pleased with myself. For an anti-sock knitter Iz dun gooden!! I will post pics when I can be fagged getting the camera out and doing some. Still have tons of UFO's piling up in my cubby hole.

Facelift

As you can see I have been playing again LOL Found the link to this blocker background site on a blog I read and decided to have a go. It is so easy even I couldn't break it!

Still need a new header but that can wait.

My week has been busy as usual, on Monday I drove up to Wynyard on the NW coast to visit with one of our consultants and to deliver a new work van to her. Was lovely to finally meet her as we have only talked on the phone previously.
I had to hire a car to come back home in and it was a Nissan Tiida, very nice I might say and it has now gone on my list of potential new cars. My usual work car is an Astra which, although economic etc I just don't feel completely comfortable with and it doesn't have cup holders. Small thing I know but when I am leaving at 7am I need a cup holder for my mocha!

Lots of meetings this week, mostly internal and very little else done due to my work computers committing suicide continually, I have had 2 die and it is shitting me big time! Friday, I hit the road again and went to St Helens for a family resources expo and launch of a new family resource directory then headed South to Bicheno for a meeting with the school principal to discuss potential partnership projects with him. A pretty successful day in all. Best thing, I stayed with my folks without kids on Friday which was nice :)

Drove home yesterday at a leisurely pace and am enjoying a quiet and restful weekend. Kids get home from their 'dad' this afternoon.

Haven't been doing much on the craft from other than churning out squares and triangles for Nienna's quilt. I bought a shit load of wool last year to make both kids a knitted blanket and since I don't have time or concentration to do anything more than a square this is the perfect time to start it.

I do feel my pace is more than hectic and hope that once the organisation gets 'organised' again and we work out what we are doing management wise my work load will decrease again. Since the CEO left I have had to pick up her workload as well as maintaining my own so interesting times have been had. Overall though I am really happy with what I am doing and believe it is a positive time for PGT.

Salmonella anyone??

On Tuesday I went to Hobart for work, after a huge day I decided to cancel my dinner date with friends and have takeaway in my hotel room instead. Turns out that was a huge mistake. I had a bad night feeling uncomfortable and just 'not right'. Skipped breakfast and left early to attend the Parenting in the Early YEars Conference and grew increasingly sicker as the day went on. By 4pm I had spend the last hour puking in the loos at the Grand Chancellor and trying to get my trade table packed up and loaded into the car without; 1. puking 2 passing out 3 shitting. Well 2 outa 3 ain't bad adn I passed out at the car briefly. Rang my office and temp boss to say I wouldn't be back to Launceston and then rang a girlfriend and requested a bed and a bucket.

I have no idea how I managed to get to her place in one piece but I did and spent the night there and then drove home Thursday afternoon.

Needless to say I survived, but holy shite I had my doubts for a while. The doc confirmed food poisoning and prescribed some tabs for it. I still feel a bit fragile and achey but can at least keep food down today. Four days without food certainly won't do me any harm! I knew there was a reason behind my weight! LOL

Mind you when looking at the photos I took with the kids (previous post) I can see that I was carrying a lot of fluid in my face because it doesn't look nearly as puffy and gross as it did before.

So that was my eventful week. Will elaborate on conference and some other stuff but off to watch the end of the Eurovision final as I just remembered it is on again tonight DOH!

Bin a long time

I knew it had been a while but didn't realise quite how long. Far out! Where does the time go.. I really do barely have time to scratch my butt nowadays.

We have settled very nicely and I am convinced this was the right move for all of us. Since so much has been happening I might just update everything seperately rather than go into a full on monologue LOL

HOME:
Cooler weather is becoming more the norm than the oddity now and I a grateful I have a wood heater and a lovely daddy who brings me wood! Very spoilt as most places here use electricity for heating and that is quite expensive. As for electricity we have a 'pay as you go' system which is quite good. It means you apply to the electricity company to have the power connected and you get a card that you can put credit on at various places (newsagents etc) and then you put the card in a little slot type machine where the metre is (or would be) and it adds the credit to your account. I like it as you can add some each pay an dnot get stuck with a big bill every quarter.

We have a great winter veggie garden on the go. We planted sprouts, cauli, broccoli, spinach, leeks, beetroot, herbs and lettuce and it is thriving, well as much as it can thrive under the vigilant watchful eyes of the snails!

I am finding it hard to keep up with the house hold chores and find my saturdays are filled with washing and cleaning etc but a friend of mine has a daughter who wants to earn some cashola so I am thinking of handing over the domestic chores to her LOL How decadent!

BEREN:
Beren didn't want to go back to school at the end of last year. HOwever this year he can't rave quite enough about how much he likes his school, nay, loves his school. Isn't it funny! He will be seven in July and really is thriving. He has friends, he actually approaches people and initiates conversation which is heart warming to watch as it has taken a long time. He really is happy within himself. Don't get me wrong, he does have his moments of moodiness and anger but for generally he is pretty laid back. He is loving being able to read and is reading chapter books without pictures and helping teach Nienna to write! His teacher says she finds it difficult to ask him to put his pen down in creative writing and often has to promise to give him time later to finish as he tends to write several pages at a time.
Physically he is very confident in himself now and is enjoying playing football at aschool and keen to have a go at rollerblading at the rink near us, he can have that on his own!
He is a very loving boy and it really warms me that it is such a common thing for him to be half way thru eating breakfast or something and he will come and hunt me out to cuddle me and tell me he loves me LOL a sweet boy he is.

NIENNA
Oh boy!!! Miss N will be 5 on the 3rd of May and what a handful she is of late. Very temperamental and defiant as usual but sooooooooo god damn................... argh!!!!!!!! An example; last Tuesday morning she had had a bad nights sleep and was tired when I got her up for kinder. The next 1.5hrs was spent with her screaming, throwing things, yelling and sobbing. Eventually she got dressed and went to kinder and was as good as gold when she got there. Now I know many of you are thinking why didn't I just let her stay home, apart from the fact that I work Miss N is the type of child that will go "OK so I just need to scream a bit and I will get what I want, cool!" and believe me she will run with this idea. She was fine and I knew she was not ill, traumatised over something at school but just being feisty and challenging because she was tired.

I am taking her to see the doc next week (if I can get one to see us next week! serious doctor shortages here) as her tonsils have been enlarged for a couple of weeks and she is having breathing difficulties just like Beren experienced. I don't want her to suffer for the length of time he did and i really do think she is going down the same path so I want her on a wait list sooner than later for adenoid/tonsil surgery. Learnt my lesson with B on that one.
She does love kinder and creche and is writing like a champ but because she has skipped a step and doesn't know how to sound out words etc our free time goes something like :

"mum I want to write " I love barbie and want to have a barbie princess party for my birthday and invite all my friends", how do I spell that mum?"

To which I then spell out all the letters and spaces for her so she can write them, LOL Trust me this gets tedious after the 1ooth sentence@!
All in all though she is still my tiny cuddly Nu and is a dear girl who loves her brother and me to death.

KELLI
I am enjoying being closer to family and friends here. Mind you this week I caught up with a friend who lives in Melbourne when I was in HObart LOL
I don't have the circle that I had in Melbourne and I really feel that and even writing this I feel my eyes tear up because I miss my RavRocket girls so much and feel quite lonely at times. I don't even have the time to feel that I am part of an online community anymore either as I just don't get on the computer at home much. I spend so much time on it at work that I don't want to sit here in the evenings at all. I am losing touch slowly I fear.
I am feeling very unhealthy atm too as I have had such a hectic couple of weeks with work and work travel that I have been neglecting myself and eating loads of crap. I am making a vow to change that as I feel disgusting and sluggish.

I am knitting and crafting but do have a back log of things to do and furniture I have bought and want to renovate but haven't yet. My garage is filling up fast LOL

I do think it was a good move despite my missing friends and I have met some new people and know that it will just take a bit of time and I will create a circle for myself here too.

the kids dad is still here and living in a crappy little caravan. He has the kids after school and every second weekend. I really have to turn myself off to him and his 'life' as I get too angry/sad when I think about it. I have actually learnt some valuable lessons these past few weeks and it has been a difficult learning curve for me. It is amazing what kids can teach us adn I think we often forget that they are great teachers.
When A first moved into the caravan I was convinced that the kids would hate it and it was terrible for them and really transferring my feelings about it all onto them and assuming I knew how they would feel. I found that I was commenting on things A did or said alot.
One day when the kids were late getting home I mentioned it to Beren that we couldn't do something and he said
" MUM, don't blame dad like you always do it was our fault because we wanted to finish a game on the playstation!"
Well, that stopped me in my tracks and gave me pause for thought! Had I really been that vocal in my thoughts? I obviously had and knew that I had to stop that. It has taken a lot but I know that if A lived in a gutter the kids would probably still be happy with him and want to spend time with him and just because I wouldn't want to live the way he does is irrelevant. the kids love him no matter what and just like being with him. Yeah, they watch lots of tv and play lots of playstation but they also learn a shit load of stuff about science, astronomy adn stuff I don't know. they can tell me all the planets and every thing about them! so I have learnt to keep my mouth shut and look at the positives and at the fact that my kids like spending time with their dad.

I am sensitive and I do get hurt sometimes when they want to be with him and say I am too strict etc but I also know that becaues I have boundaries, am a good role model and do have rules and routines they benefit from that and one day they will appreciate that. Their dad may be a good playmate but comes a time when you need more than playmates.

WORK
It has been harding going to full time work. I am very fortunate that I work in a flexible environment where all my colleagues are mums and understand the demands of juggling family and work. I have found it very hard not being able to spend as much time with the kids as before and often have moments of incredible guilt that I am putting my needs before theirs. Mind you if I quit and told them that I would be collecting them from school and they wouldn't be with A every day they would probably mutiny LOL
This week I changed my hours so that I can work extra hours on the Fridays the kids are with A for the weekend and finish early on the Friday they are with me, that way I can pick them up from school and spend some free time with them or go away or something.

I am finding my job challenging for a variety of reasons but incredibly fulfilling too. We have just submitted a grant for a project that is my 'baby'. It is for a pilot series of three playgroups in disadvantaged areas around the state that works with children and parents in a community garden setting. they will learn about gardening, nutrition, sustainability, frugal living and such. Research has found that when trying to teach parents this in some areas it is falling on deaf ears and facilitators haven't been able to reach the people they need to reach but using the children as a way to teach does work so I am really excited about this. It is the first time I will have managed a project from start to finish and I am over the moon about it. Our funding/grant person is very positive that we will get the grant so fingers crossed!

The other project I have been working on that is a first of it's kind in Australia is also something I am quite passionate about. there is a program called My Time that runs around Australia supporting families with children who have disabilities and Playgroup Tas co-ordinate several groups in the State. However this new one is a first and will run out of the Hobart Ronald McDonald House
This program will have a play consultant who will play with the children and a facilitator who works with the parents, either just listening or providing network links, taking them to the pool, coffee, movies, massage. Whatever the parents what or need really. It is a great program and we have a media launch next week. I hope to see families who are in the house, at the Royal Hobart Hospital and past RMH visitors utilise the service and I am sure it will be awesome! When I look at things I am helping implement I am so proud with what I am doing and know that for someone out there I am making a difference.
This week also saw my immediate boss, the CEO resign. Thus, I have been run off my feet as I am now the contact for PGT until a replacement is found and I have inherited a shitload more work. We are playing a waiting game to see what the Committee of Management decide to do as there are a few paths th eorganisation could go down. *insert drumming fingers sound here*. So, in the mean time it is bum up and head down. Next week and the following week see me travelling to the NW coast for one day each week and then I think I am back down in Hobart for meetings again. Can't say my job is boring that is for sure!


Well, that is our catch up in a large nutshell. I will post about Beren and my trip to Beauty Point next blog rather than run off the page with this one.

Worlds biggest playgroup

This week is National Playgroup Week. As a result I am feeling rather sleep deprived! Up at 5.30am yesterday to travel to Hobart to help out at the event we were hosting. We had a great day and the kids had a ball. I got lots of squidgy baby cuddles while mums filled out application forms and even got to do some knitting during the 2.5hr drive there and back. Oh, I wasn't driving either LOL

The face painter is my boss, the CEO of Playgroup Tas LOL How is that for hands on. It is fun to see how the girls out on the field work but it does mean I lose a day of my work and well, the CEO and I are rather expensive playgroup consultants so when we get new staff for Hobart it will be much better.

I am however still loving the job, I still have moments where I can't believe I am doing it. I have been filled with self doubt at my abilities for so long that it is difficult to come out of that mindset and be proud of myself. Which I am kind of, because I have achieved alot in the past few years and come an awful long way from the suicidal, anxious ridden mess I was almost 5 years ago.

Yesterday we also met with the team from The Smith Family in Hobart. An awesome organisation who we hope to form some more project partnerships with. It is so inspirational to talk to people who do so much out there for others not as fortunate as us. I count my blessings everyday.

Four days and all I've broken is my computer!

I am loving my job! I feel as though I have found 'my place'. At the moment all I am doing is introducing myself to the Community Development networks in Tas and starting to collate info on what PGT is currenting doing so I can then get a picture of gaps in services etc. Am off to Hobart for two days next week. One will be spent at a seminar of volunteer recruiting and the other day spent in meetings with council and a couple of community houses.
On Saturday I helped out the Launceston Playgroup Tas team set up a playgroup at the Great Duck Race.

I only stayed a couple of hours but as I was leaving the rain started, and oh boy! It poured and I got drenched, I only hope they managed to stay a bit dry under the marquee.

The rest of the weekend was spent watching a dvd, doing some knitting and playing with beads and stuff. Today, I baked 4 dozen muffins for the freezer, stewed about 6kg of organic plums and made some record bowls. I am having a stall at an easter market in Bicheno and plan to put some succulent cuttings in some of the bowls and leaving some others as is. It is fun making them.

This afternoon Beren had arranged a play date with a class mate who we discovered lives two door up from us. Luck would have it that he has a little sister Nienna's age, who is in the other kindy class on the same day. the kids had a great time and played really well together. Here they are hosting a puppet show. They made tickets and everything and the boys did the show while us gals sat and watched.

I have been test running our wood heater this weekend too. Very nice I might add!It has vents behind it into the hallway too which is great as it will warm my office space nicely.

Currently reading Trudi Canavan's latest epic, The Magician's Apprentice
This is a prequel to her Black Magician trilogy and is proving to be as entertaining and brilliant as the trilogy is. If you haven't read her books but like fantasy I thoroughly recommend them.

I hope to get more organised and with it after a few weeks and won't be so neglectful. I have been knitting but haven't taken any pics, must do so soon or people will begin to wonder if I have stopped all together. Definitely not enough hours in the day any more.

Ooh, almost forgot. If you are wondering what the title meant, on Friday I thought I would be clever and put a picture of the kids on my desk top at work. Easy you say, and so I thought. However, we work on a remote server so have to log in twice and get a different window up that then has all our email and file storage etc. This is the desktop I put the pic on but it then went blank and I couldn't even right click to remove the picture, thus couldn't access a damn thing and just ended up having an early mark for the day. The IT guy was out woop woop and didn't have phone coverage and I was the only one in the office. DOH! Hope it is fixed now !

WOOHOO!!! I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!

Yup you heard folks! Moved to Tassie, started at uni, applied for job, got job, defer uni........... what a week!

I couldn't say no to this as it was perfect for me and I sooooooooo wanted it. I will be the Community Development Officer for Playgroup Tasmania and responsible for co-ordinating five offices statewide and drumming up more members for groups and networking with other organisations within the state. It is full time and I will defer Uni for a year then hopefully study by distance part-time.

It was hard to give up uni but I felt that the way my health is I don't want to overdo it and find that I can't manage either. As the position is a newly created one there will be a lot of ground work to do so I think that will be enough for me this year. Also I haven't worked full time since before having Beren so that in itself will be a shock to the system.

So, if you see a round, loopy looking girl around Launceston with a big arse grin on her face, that is ME!!!!!