Blogging for the sake of Blogging

Well it has been 2 and 1/2 weeks since my last post & that should give you some idea of how busy I have been lately.

I love my job & I love my family but some days .... well what can I say, I am too tired to even think of the words to describe it accurately but Aeriel acrobatics on a tightrope while juggling jelly and riding a unicycle standing on your head ... I think you get the picture.

I must count my blessings though - I have a 13 month old child who has been sleeping through the night for several months now and an 8 year old who is able to help out a bit around the house.

I also had dinner cooked for me tonight. Steak, salad & pasta. In the 9 1/2 years I have been married, the number of times DH has cooked dinner would probably average once per year To be fair though, he has cooked 3 or 4 times since I returned to work (getting close to averaging once a month) and that is a huge improvement on when we were first married.

I am going to see Mamma Mia tomorrow night with some friends from work (actually I am only aware of one other person who'se going, so hopefully there will be more than that) and it will be good to have a night away from the family doing something just for me for a change. I also have a tupperware party on Friday night but while they are a good opportunity to get a bit silly with the girls, it's still a lot of responsibility/work hosting one & as it is dinner & drinks (or pizza & plonk depending on which side of the tracks you live) it will mean preparation & cleaning up afterwards. Anything to get the sales right !!!

Anyway, my light at the (not so distant) end of the tunnel is a holiday in the Atherton Tablelands next week. We will be away for 6 days & 5 nights & are even taking Cheetah out of school for 4 days. This holiday was a special treat using some of our tax refund & now it looks like it will be the last family holiday for at least a year.

DH has resigned from his job & has verbally been offered another job but hasn't actually been given this offer in writing yet. He is a bit stressed about it. The new job is about 20k more than he currently makes, plus a private use station wagon & free fuel in Qld for a very similar job to the one he does now. How could he refuse. He's a bit ticked that he is going to have to start back at square one with regards to accruing long service leave, but them's the breaks ! At least if this new job doesn't happen, he could probably retract his resignation but in a male dominated blue collar workforce his pride would take a bit of a bruising (stereotypical - maybe, but accurate).

Cheetah's clarinet lessons are going super & I am really impressed with how quickly he is picking it up. He would probably be doing even better if it weren't for the complete breakdown every few days when he "keeps playing a C instead of an E and tries so hard to do it right, but it just keeps happening ...... (this is where the words get lost in the tears)" or something to this effect. I keep pointing out that the next day he plays the difficult piece & is laughing because it's perfect & seems so easy & then a few days later a new piece is causing drama's. I have tried pointing out how often I make mistakes and have to keep working at it until I fix them but that's different because he "keeps making the same mistake over and over.... (tears again)". I have tried to help him recognise the problem before it becomes a problem & give him coping strategies (ie. realise that he has played a piece incorrectly 2 or 3 times so get up walk away & do some silly stretching & rubber lip exercises & then try a different piece before going back to that one). That doesn't work either because Cheetah doesn't like to give up before he has mastered something but he gets so tense he has no hope of mastering it. Any pointers here Mum-me???

On the positive side, these only affect the one practice session & usually the next day he is able to play the piece really well. I am not looking forward to when he begins to learn music that will take more than one practice session to master.

Cheetah also had his school photo's today. I wish photographers would take photo's on the first day of school when the uniforms haven't got chewed collars yet & no brown stains from milo yoghurt that is drunk straight from the tub instead of using a spoon & no holes in the shorts, and socks are white instead of brown & kids stay neat & tidy all day because they are too busy meeting friends & sorting out where they fall in the pecking order this year, etc. At least Cheetah is one of the taller ones in his class and is usually standing behind other kids. We also got the individual portrait & apparently he tried to hide his chewed collar. It will be interesting to see how that worked out (as when he showed me, it looked sillier than just leaving the collar as it was). I used to get frustrated at such things, but I have long since learned that unlike those sterilised picture perfect (pun intended) photo's of the girls & boys looking pristine in new uniforms & perfect smiles with not a hair out of place, photo's of my son will be a true reflection of him, not some photoshopped alter-boy butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth impersonator, but my gorgeous dimpled ratbag with that silly grin & mischievous glint in his green eyes that means I can never quite fully relax.

Now it is too late to finish that huge pile of folding so it will have to wait for yet another day & given the choice between sleep or dishes I choose sleep. I hope you have enjoyed my insane ramblings for today & I shall try to blog at least once more before we go on holidays (as no internet for those 6 days).