Upset tummy. New clothes.

I'm sorry to sound like a broken record (oh who am I kidding this stuff is my bread and butter) but I am feeling sorry for myself because M has gone away again for work and Baby B and I have had the....look this is going to sound indelicate....we have the Galloping Trots.

I feel better today than I did yesterday. Thank God for my retired father who could come and do his best to help out. Since he has a gammy knee he can't take full control of the ship but at least I had an offsider.

Also my back is still killing me.

I have decided to distract myself by telling you in minute detail about all the new clothes I have bought recently, both with my own pocket money (read: I went to the op shop) and with some Pin Money given to me by the Mater.

Trouble is my phone is missing, and I can't find the camera. SO I can't take any photos. I have decided to make do with description instead.

OP SHOP PURCHASES

- Above the knee Sussan denim skirt - $4!!
- Floral Just Jeans blouse thingo - $3!
- Whit Tshirt thing - $3!

OTHER PURCHASES

- Stretchy fitted lime green knee length skirt thingo - Target $10
- This white blouse from Sussan

Picture stolen from Sussan website - it was $99.95 which frankly is OUTRAGEOUS because it is as thin as anything and will probably become shredded in a few wears but I really liked it and I was spending someone else's money.

- Some camel coloured linen shortsy type things from Sussan too
- A flowy black top from Katie's. Dead cheap.
- A groovy Mexican type scarf from Target that I saw Rachel from Redcliffe Style talk about on her blog
- Dress from Piper at Myer - it's a sort of lime green yellow geometric patterned shirt dress thing. Can't remember how much but as always TOO MUCH for what it is which is about 2cm of material. GOD EVERYTHING IS SO EXPENSIVE OR IS IT JUST ME?
- Got M a pink polo shirt from COuntry Road.

I really like COuntry Road and wandered around a while looking at their nice things but just can't cope with how PRICEY it is for, you know, just a cotton top or whatever. I mean GOD! I think I am the only one who thinks this because I was listening in on a convo in the store that went along these lines;
[Grey bobbed linen-bedraped customer] - Ohhh you have so many nahhhs dresses at the moment, they are just greashhhhhhhh
[CR shop ladies] - Oh I knowwww, I knowwwww
[Grey bobbed one] - And so reaaaaaasonable! Just so REAAAASSSSSSOOOONABBBLLEE!
[CR shop ladies] - Oh I knowwwwwwwww, I knowwwwwwwww, so reaaaaasonable!

I was about to interject with a "Reasonable? I'll give you REASONABLE!" but thought better of it since I was walking around fondling the garments in a fairly shameless and covetous way and it might have looked hypocritical and God knows I could do without THAT!

Anyway, here's hoping my guts sort themselves out STAT or that at least I lose some GODDAMN WEIGHT from this ghastly state of affairs. Knowing my luck I will probably PUT IT ON or something.

Anyway, yours in Comfort Shopping and Toilet Sitting

xx

Cold. Yoga. Hirsutism.

Hi guys.
Hope your week is traveling well.

I was doing a spot of fairly inadvisable reading of the Slapdash Mama back catalogue today. Apart from the whole UGHHHHH people are reading the SHITE I am writing feeling I got, I was also struck by a common thread. So common, in fact, that it is in fact referred to as the COMMON COLD.  That's right. A considerable number of my erudite missives are complaints about either me or (God forbid) M or the kids having a bloomin' cold. Just SO INTERESTING for everyone I am sure.

Well GUESS WHAT!!?? I have a cold. Right now. This minute. The kids and M are just recovering from one too.

Despite my suffering I still went to work. I'm not sure if this wasn't seen in a negative light by my colleagues what with the wastepaper basket overflowing with snotty tissues and all, but a working mother never has any sick leave to waste. Don't get me started on that.

I also dragged my carcass up to the yoga class I go to at work at lunchtime. I was VERY unenthusiastic, but felt compelled to attend. Mostly because I had forgotten to make my payment to the organisers and had to scab $65 off my longsuffering yet cheery workmate MG. I understandably felt that after his generous loan I really couldn't skip it, more's the pity.

Anyway it was quite a stressful class, what with my stuffed up snout rendering my yogic breathing ineffectual, and my feeble attempts to conceal my utterly feral unshaved legs from the rest of the class. I am determined not to weaken and shave my hairy pins until the end of winter, when I can start a brand new regime of waxing, and therefore hopefully reduce the amount of time I spend attending to my body hair.  Anyway I spent a goodly amount of the class today lying flat on my back gazing at the ceiling. Still, it's the thought that counts.

Speaking of body hair, I am totally over mine. Or should I say, it is totally over me! Like ALL OVER ME! I have always been a fairly hirsute lady, but I swear as I get older I get hairier and hairier. I am developing a veritable beard. Not a day goes by when I don't suddenly catch sight of my chin hairs glinting in the sunlight and have to make a hasty dash for the tweezers.  Maybe I should just grow it and get a job as a bearded lady? I could have my own You Tube channel, that seems all the rage these days.

My legs are bloody hairy too, and my bikini line (if you can call it that!) goes almost to my knees.

I've ranted about this before but frankly it's worth repeating. I sort of felt the need to apologise for it at my last de-pelting at the beauticians.

"I swear I'm just getting HAIRIER and HAIRIER! I mean it's practically down to my KNEES now!" I remarked to her.

She shrugged disinterestedly and said, in an accent reminiscent of the Gay Mancunian Heroin Addict caracter "Keanu Reevess" from Saxondale, "Oh, it's just hormonal, all that hair is. Hor-MON-al."

Fuck you hormones, you've been the bain of my existence since I was an early blooming twelve year old, with a bra strap ripe for the snapping by over excited pre teen boys.

Anyway I will leave you with a snippet of a Saxondale episode, featuring aforementioned Gay Mancunian character, for the unenlightened of you who aren't familiar with it. Enjoy.

Ranting with The Lounge

Hi everyone. I am so disorganised that I have left my post for The Lounge to the utter last minute. And doing so has meant that, because me laptop is having a spack attack, I am going to have blog from my phone. I know. I am living on the edge. Somebody stop me!

Because blogging from the phone is as time consuming and laborious as turfing your own backyard on a steamy January day, this will be short and sweet. I can hear your sighs of relief from here.

The topic today is Ranting and Raving.

Baby B knows it isn't healthy to keep it all inside. LET IT OUT LET IT OUT LET IT OUT!!!

Hahahaaaa.

I will adopt my dot point blogging proforma for this post, what with the short and sweet goal.

Ok. Deep breath. Out with anger, in with cupcakes. I mean scones. I mean love. Yeah, love. Not those other things. Although I do confuse food with love, we all know that already.

- On my drive into Brisbane for work, there is a long stretch of the motorway that has signs up saying 80km/hour, because there are apparently "no lane markings". This enrages me beyond measure for multifarious reasons. Firstly, because I am as law abiding a citizen as they come, I do 80km/hour. I abide by the limit. I pootle along, even though the normal limit is 110. I do what i am told, people. I do what I am told.

- My issue is that I am the ONLY person who does this. I crawl along at a granny pace while all around me agro P platers, semi trailers, soccer mums and tradies in utes hoon past me at a rate of knots. It makes me so angry I could...why, I could  just about scream! I clench the steering wheel in rage with the veins in my neck popping out in sympathy. WTF people!!!?? Why you no drive at the speed limit??? I know it is tortuously slow but I don't make the rules! I hate you all!

- My rage is compounded because although the speed limit is reduced as a result of an alleged absence of lane markings, this, my friends, is patently untrue. There are freaking lane markings! There are! I can see them! Ok, I will admit that there is a tiny section devoid of lane markings, but 99% of the 80 zone is marked and ready for action. What the hell? Did they leave the signs out by accident? Is it a prank? Am I being punk'd by Ashton Kutcher? You little shit I'm onto you!

My already stressful commute is rendered almost intolerable by this stretch of road.

It is a bloody scandal and an outrage.

There are starving children, an entire Australian election campaign functioning in a policy vacuum and asylum seekers rotting in detention centres, but for ME the BIG ISSUE IS RIGHT HERE.

MY LIFE IS ALREADY SO HARD WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO MAKE IT HARDER? I mean, I'm well educated, middle class, white, with a loving husband, two cute kids and a house in the suburbs. What a hard freaking life!

POOR ME! WHAT ABOUT ME! IT ISN'T FAIR! I'VE something something AND I WANT MY SHARE CAN'T YOU SEEEEE? I WANNA LIVE! YOU JUST something something GIIIIVE!

Is your life made dreadful and intolerable by inexplicable road signage and thoughtless drivers?

Do tell old friends!

Workin' and commutin'

Hi everyone. Thanks for your nice comments on this post about my little girl P. I'm hoping all is behind us, so I can focus on the TRULY BIG ISSUES OF THE DAY. LIKE THIS!

Sigh. My life is so hard. I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I am not independently wealthy and I have to...I know, I can hardly say it...WORK for a living.

I KNOW.  The horror. The outrage. SURELY THERE HAS BEEN SOME MISTAKE???

Where is my tennis court? My swimming pool? Further to that, where is my Swimming Pool Boy? How come I don't get to spend all day sipping Pimms and reading on the banana lounge?

It's a cruel twist of fate that I have ended up this way.

Yeah yeah I know there are starving kids in Africa and unemployed types round the place but STILL. WORKING FOR THE MAN HEY? WHO INVENTED THAT?

Not. Fair.

Ugh I mean I know I am freaking lucky to have a job. And yeah it's two days a week and has flexible working hours and is paid well and matches my qualifications perfectly. Yeah yeah so what?

I AM STILL GOING TO MOAN ABOUT IT OK?

BOO HOO! WAAAH!

I can't seem to focus at work at the moment. M and I are ALWAYS LATE.  I have a really long commute and I EFFING HATE IT.

I've been doing this gold darn commute for bleedin' years and years and I've felt the whole time that it was a temporary thing. BUT IT ISN'T! UGH. Thank goodness it is only two days a week - any more and it would KILL ME. KILL ME I TELL YOU!

I have a carpark at work so these days I drive. For some ridiculous reason I have NEVER, like NEVER been organized enough to get my hands on any books on tape for the drive. I have friends and acquaintances who do a similar commute and are making their way through the Modern Classics at a rate of knots. I am just killing my brain with commercial radio. Dumber by the kilometre. If that's possible.

I have experimented with other modes of transport over the years. I used to catch the train quite a bit but it's such a rigmarole. Queensland is not know for its commitment to public transport. UNDERSTATEMENT. To get to the train station I have to drive 10 minutes. Then wait for the train. Then catch the train which takes over an hour. Then walk over the river from the train station which takes another 15 minutes. I NEED A SHOWER AND A LIE DOWN AND A SECOND BREAKFAST AFTER THAT I CAN TELL YOU!  Generally speaking I prefer to be stuck in traffic in my own car than at the mercy of Queensland Rail. Particularly with a full bladder. And 90% chance that the train loo will be broken. And the train station one too. OH GOD THE AGONY.

Also the high probability of being trapped in the carriage with a group of teenagers talking about BOYS and OTHER GIRLS and MUSIC is even worse than the pain of the full bladder. Oh give me a full bladder any day. Anything rather than suffer through the interminable and dimwitted convos of the youth of today.

The train trip was made slightly more palatable once I got my first Ipod. It was quite the thing! It didn't matter what shite the Young People spouted I was able to exist in my own bubble. And don't give me that "Oh back in my day we all used to talk to each other and have singalongs and play cards together on the train and knit each other sweaters and share Christmas Pudding together" because I'm Not Buying It. 

I have to say though that the Ipod situ did end in tears once though. This would only happen to me.

One morning I couldn't find my headphones so I stole M's new fancy ones. They were that type that you sit right into your ear canal. Noise canceling ear hook thingos or some such.

I tried them on at home and they were a bit fiddly. I had to twist and jiggle them to get them in right but I did it eventually. Pleased with my find I shoved them in the bag and headed to the train.

Once I got on I found a spot and sat down, grabbing my ear phones and shoving them in. They felt uncomfortable and like they weren't in properly, so I kept gently twisting them every now and then, until they seemed to be in position.
 I sat for while, gazing blankly out the window, ignoring the awkward fact my knees were gently touching those of the man facing me, until I felt a weird movement and realized the ear phone had fallen out of one ear and was hanging free.

But hang on! I could still feel something inside my ear? I had a bad feeling about it all.  I gingerly put my finger into my ear and BINGO! The ear bud had come away and lodged itself firmly in my ear canal!

I panicked. But only on the inside. Because EMBARRASSING! I looked furtively around to see if anyone was watching, and gently probed my passage again (what? get your mind out of the gutter).  Nothing doing. Panicked, I poked harder, which only served to shove it in further.

OH GOD NO I thought, panickedly. SHIT SHIT SHIT! It's going to end up lodging in my SINUS! Or my BRAIN! I CAN'T FEEL IT ANY MORE. WHERE HAS IT GONE?? STOP TOUCHING IT! STOP POKING IT! STOP IT STOP IT!

I restrained myself and put my hands in my lap. Shit a brick. There was another 40 minutes of the trip to go and I was stuck there on the train with an ear bud pushed half way into my brains. What the HELL WAS I GOING TO DO?

I tried to formulate a plan. I was SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE but remained poker faced. You would never have known my inner turmoil.

OK. When I get to the train station I am going to RUN ALL THE WAY TO WORK and then get one of the security guards to help pull it out.  NO! NO! Shit! I can't do that. The security guards are my NEMESES and I can't let them see my WEAKNESS! I will never hear the end of it. They will taunt me forever and dob me in for accidentally stealing a Visitors Pass. They already hate me DON'T GIVE THEM ANY FODDER! Should I ring M? Shit he can't help. Should I pull the emergency cord? Yes! I think I should. OK I'M GOING TO GET UP AND PULL THE CORD! OMG THIS IS TOTALLY AN EMERGENCY! I AM TOTALLY GOING TO DO THIS. IF THIS ISN'T AN EMERGENCY I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS!!

OK. OK. Hang on. Hang on. No it isn't. Calm down CALM DOWN! OK.

This is what you will do. You will get off at Central. You will WALK QUICKLY TO THE NEAREST MEDICAL CENTRE. And they will extract the ear bud. And you will then proceed to work and nobody will be any the wiser.

OK. So I did just that. The 40 minutes felt like 10 hours. Finally I got off at central and bolted to the nearest medical centre, as per the plan.

I came panting up to the receptionist.

"Please!" I gasped, disheveled and wild eyed. "Please, I need to see a doctor. NOW! IT IS AN EMERGENCY! I HAVE AN EAR PHONE STUCK IN MY HEAD!"

The girl rolled her eyes.

"There are no appointments available. You will have to go down to our sister medical centre, on A___ St."

Just my luck. I turned and ran like the wind to the other medical centre, and repeated my panicked plea for assistance.  As luck would have it, a kindly GP saw me straight away, and extracted the offending ear bud with a set of long thin tweezers. And he managed to keep a straight face.

"Oh THANK YOU!" I gushed afterwards. "OH, hahaha, oh dear I suppose this sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME! RIGHT? Doesn't it? AM I RIGHT? I'm right aren't I? All the TIME RIGHT?"

He looked at me pityingly. I hurriedly paid the receptionist and high tailed it out of there, arriving at work without a moment to spare.  The only thing I comforted myself with was the knowledge that my quick thinking had saved me from a lifetime of disgrace and humiliation at the hands of our sadistic and slow witted security guards, had I let them in on the secret.

Anyway this is a cautionary tale. If you are a meddling idiot, you know, like me, do not use those weird sticky inny ear phones. Because SHAME AND HUMILITION WILL BE YOUR DESTINY. MARK MY WORDS.

The end.

I prescribe comfort reading.

Hello my dear readers. How I love and adore you all. Thank you for reading this blog. I haven't been posting much recently, I haven't been feeling like it.

I've alluded to feeling bad several times. I don't want to seem like I am "vagueblogging", a term I learnt recently that refers to people who drop vague hints about dramatic life events or personal torment to titillate their readership without going into too many details, in a sort of attention seeking and irritating fashion.

I also don't like being all earnest and issues-y. Look there's a time and a place and other blogging peeps rock the earnest genre but I'm not good at it, I come off moany and sort of emo, or like I'm hamming it up.

I thought I'd quickly be honest about things, in a way that suits me.  I want to quickly chat about stuff and then move on, and hope that it won't define me. I think it's probably good to mention things like this as part of a person but not to obsess about them. If we want to normalise being a bit crazy in the brain then we probably should treat it like any other chronic illness, like diabetes, and touch on it occasionally in a sort of matter of fact way without getting dramatic.  Sorry if I've offended anyone by saying that, and I hope nobody is getting too eye rolly about the whole thing.

Anyway the thing is I have rather a bad and sometimes debilitating problem with anxiety - in fact, I have GAD (Gad-zooks!) which stands for Generalised Anxiety Disorder.  I am sure I have had it my whole life but it is only in recent years that it has been formally identified.

At the moment, it is quite bad.

It doesn't really sound like a particularly debilitating thing, anxiety. It sort of sounds like you worry a bit about things, that you dwell on stuff, that if you tried hard enough to be POSITIVE you might be able to get on with it and just shut up.

It's not like that.  For me, over the years it has taken slightly different forms.

It's been with me as a sort of constant worrying and obsessive thought patterns, that when really bad caused me constant breathlessness and a never ending feeling of nervous butterflies in my tummy.

When P was a baby it developed into major depression. I took antidepressants and it was utterly life changing because I realised what it must feel like to be normal, there was an absence of something that had permanently dogged me.

At the moment I have sort of taken to thinking of my brain as a separate sort of spiteful entity that likes to torment me at random moments with heinous and frightening thoughts.

 I imagine my brain as the Samuel L Jackson character from Pulp Fiction, sort of torturing me and taunting me with ghastly thought patterns.

Suffice to say being regularly forced to relive stressful memories or walk through unbearable scenarios regularly and relentlessly is farking exhausting and leaves me at a low ebb, and it is quite tough getting simple things done, let alone commute to work and look after a family. I also get really run down and am constantly getting colds. The constant adrenalin running through my body renders me weak and depleted.

People with a genuine anxiety disorder can't just stop worrying, or keep calm, or whatever. They aren't "negative" or "whingers". If you are lucky enough not to know what it is like, then good for you, but you aren't more "positive" or "organised" or whatever, you just don't have this particular problem to deal with.

Props to you.

They have a brain that malfunctions. They have obsessive thought patterns that have worn a groove in the neural connections so deep it could be the doorsill at Westminster Abbey.

You can't tell them that other people have it better, it could be worse, first world problems, stop being so negative, think positive - because they know all that already. It's their arsehole psycho obsessive brains that don't get the message.

You can't change that overnight. 

 

There's plenty of things I can do to help myself and also people who I can and will engage to help me, I can't be bothered going into details but it's the old fish oil, exercise, psych, comfort reading Ladies Detective Agency novels blah blah.

Anyway, hey ho, this is me at the moment. I was toying with chucking the blog in completely because I am so tired all the time but I love it so I will just be a bit more relaxed and ad hoc about it, as suggested by my lovely Lounge Lizard colleagues.

I mean, when you feel like poo you just want to be miserable and talk about boo hoo topics and get all introspective and MOODY and frankly who wants to read that shizz - NOT ME AND NOT YOU I AM SURE!

It truly is a first world problem - I mean, obviously. I guess if I was living in sub-Saharan Africa I wouldn't have any time to be a mental I'd just be, you know, struggling to survive and avoid death from famine or war. But as it is I am a first world girl, living in a first world world, not getting enough exercise, running a busy stressful life and having a good old Celtic genetic tendency to be a mental.

At least I'm not an alcoholic. BONUS POINTS TO ME!

If you ever want to talk about this sort of thing feel free to email me about it.

Anyway, I feel better having said something about it, like I've unblocked myself again (and I don't mean digestively speaking, boom tish!).

Thank you for reading. When I get home this evening I will have a hot shower and do some comfort reading of the Ladies Detective Agency -  Mma Ramotswe and her endless talk of boiled pumpkin and Bush Tea are good for the soul.

Ahhhhhhhh.....


Yours in mentalness

Sarah

Getting my Eeyore on.

I had so many things I wanted to blog about today.
International Women's Day for shizz, how much Twitter scares the living daylights out of me, Helen Razer, Destroy the Joint, rude keywords that land people on my blog, how the cracks in my heels make me feel like the mother in Muriel's wedding and other equally highbrow stuff but I am too freaking sick. As far as the search terms go though, let's just say that basically if I hadn't done that post on breast feeding I don't reckon anyone would be reading this blog at all. Thank you perverts of the world! Every "boobs out" "big boobs out" "mama boobs" "lady preaching with her tiddies out" search you do that lands you on my blog is another notch on my belt!

So I am as sick as a proverbial dog. I'm writing this on my phone from my sick bed so it'll probably look wacked but that's ok because it will be an accurate representation of my mindset at the moment anyway.

I've got the most foul congested chest. And of course I'd chosen today to redeem that facial voucher M got me for Valentines Day at the salon.

It was less than ideal. I lay on the table wheezing and bubbling like Darth Vader. I always feel a bit claustrophobic with gunk being rubbed all over my face anyway but today doubly so. I seriously felt like I was drowning in my own mucus. The beautician was polite but I could tell she was grossed out. At one point she said I sounded like an emphysema patient but without the croaky voice and nicotine stained fingernails.
What a bloody waste.

Skin looks good though. For a change. Note to self; drink more water. Might help with the whole "mostly getting about looking like a dried apricot with adult acne " issue.

Also I'm sad because P had her first ever sleepover at my mum's place without either of us there and I missed her and did a bit of mental catastrophising about what could go wrong and was so glad when she returned. But now she seems to have decided that she doesn't like me much, and has ignored me and smirked when I tried to ask for a cuddle. There was a LOT of smirking. What is she, 14??? She kept it up all afternoon. Consequently, what with my consumptive constitution and this attitude from little miss, I might have had a little weep on my bed.

I think my mother sees it as karma.

I have no idea how I will take the attitude of the teenage years.

Hold me....