Saturday Morning Rain, Peace and Quiet

Today the boys have gone to work on a friends house with the Workaholic and I am having a lazy morning with Leon.

Leon my Bed Buddy this rainy morning.

It's pouring in Sydney.  It's a great day to be home!

At some point I must get going and clean the bathroom, put away washing and vacuum the floors, but right now I am enjoying the quiet.  I love the sound of rain.

While I lie here patting the cat, I am contemplating the return to "normal" that is immanent in the House of O. The Workaholic starts his new Sydney job.  It is a time of decisions for me.

When he went away for work I looked for a part time job, withdrew from my studies and focused on single parenting.

Now I need to rethink things.  I need more time at home. The Workaholic makes more mess than the rest of put together.  My 8 hour a week job is actually way more than 8 hours because I need to drive so far between appointments.  It doesn't work for my family but I am in the terrible situation of really loving my work.  I know I fit in well for the company and that is making it really tough to extricate myself.  I feel ridiculous! It's a no brainer, but still I just can't resign and move on.  Most of all I need to upgrade my qualifications so that I can get a real job when the Munchkin starts school in 2015.

I just can't understand why I am having such a problem with this!

How's your Saturday looking?

School Holidays are here again!

Big blogging break has been had.  I just couldn't blog, there was too much happening.  I know some people blog their best in times of crisis.  I had no inclination to blog at all.

And now, Term One is done.

It has been an interesting time.

The Little Man started Year One.  He has a great class and a wonderful, calm and gentle teacher.  He started Karate.  He loves it.  We have seen an amazing transformation in him.  He has really matured and is finally focussed on something he loves.  I cannot recommend Karate enough!

Yellow Belt Grading - Now he gets to wear the suit.  He 's stoked!!

The Workaholic has spent the last five months living away from us while working in Wagga Wagga.  It was the only job he could get.  It took 11 months, but he finally got a job.  It was tough on him, he is such a home body.  He coped pretty well.  We gave Skype a workout and he knows the drive to and from Wagga like the back of his hand!  Now he is back home because he starts a real job in Sydney at the end of this month!

The boys and I stayed home and got on with life as normal as possible.  Single parenting is tough, I really appreciate that now.  The up side though was that housekeeping is so much easier when it's just the boys and I.  The Workaholic is such a messy bugger.  Don't get me started on the washing...

I started a part time job in November and it has reminded me how much I love training.  It made me decide to upgrade all of my qualifications and go after a real training job.  It also reminded me why we chose for me to be a stay at home Mum while the kids were little!! It's tough fitting kids and their activities around work.

The Munchkin adores pre school and asks everyday if it is a pre school day!  He is hilarious.  Such a delightful little personality!!  He's recently discovered that he can curl his tongue.  It is his go to pose for photos now.

The Munchkin and the tongue.  He finally watched the Wizard of Oz
with me and now knows why he is called the Munchkin.

We are enjoying the down time of the school holidays and getting back to some form of normal in Term Two.  Fingers crossed anyway.

So that's us in a teeny tiny nutshell.  How are you going?

Job Hunting

I am job hunting.

Job hunt mess on my dining room table

It is a very long time since I have looked for a job.  I have pretty much been self employed or a stay at home Mum since the 1990's.

Writing a resume has been interesting.

Meeting selection criteria with relevant and recent examples even more so!

I don't even know if I want a full time or part time job.  I just know I need a job.

The Workaholic is still unemployed so we desperately need an income.

It will be a big change for all of us.  The boys in particular.  They have always had me here.

It will be a massive period of adjustment.

Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for me.  I really need a job!!

Any tips for a Mum who has been out of the workforce for a very long time?

Marilla

Yesterday I put my almost 21 year old cat, Marilla, Miss Kitty, Miss Milly, to sleep.

Marilla

It was a gut wrenching decision. It has been coming for a long time and quite honestly, should have happened six months ago. I've been struggling to keep up with her incontinence and it has been a massive extra pressure on me on a daily basis. I just couldn't imagine life without her, so I kept cleaning up after her. I've never had to euthanise a pet, it was a big deal. In the end I came home on Friday morning and opened the door to a puddle of poo and I knew it was time. I got straight back in the car and drove to the vets where I sobbed on the receptionist and made the appointment for Saturday morning.

It was so peaceful. I knew it was the right decision.

We took her to my parents house and buried her in there garden with their deceased kitties. The boys insisted. It is turning into a bit of a pet cemetery over there but it's comforting to know she's there. Next time we visit, my brother or my Dad will have made her a grave marker and the boys will have a chat to her.

The boys say good bye.

The grave

She was an amazing cat. We were blessed to have her in our lives for so long. She mothered us all when we needed it, she loved people, let my kids, my nieces and nephews do whatever they wanted to her and she was a fighter. Man was she a fighter!

She had a range of health issues over the years because of her start in life as a breeding queen in an overcrowded colony, but even though the vets left me with her at least 4 times over the years because she was going to die, she would make a miraculous recovery. She's had papers written about her by vet students. Her condition was amazing for her age and I swear she could have gone on a while longer if I could have kept looking after her.

If Marilla taught me anything it was to never give up. Thinking about her over the last 24 hours, it has reminded me of something my Grandmother told the Workaholic when she was in her late 80s when he asked her what she thought the secret to living a long life was.

"I decided I was simply not going to die until I was ready." She had been told in her 50s that she had catastrophic kidney problems and not long to live. She died at home as her favourite TV show finished, just shy of her 90th birthday. I think that was on her terms and almost miraculous.

I hope Marilla is OK with my decision and at peace. She has left a gigantic gap in our family.


Have you struggled with the decision to euthanase a pet?

Wordless Wednesday

The Munchkin had a Birthday!

and a party!

Father's Day was quiet and relaxing.

Linking up with Trish @ My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday.

The Sky is Falling

Today I am running around like Chicken Little, totally sure the sky is falling.

Out my front window...

Maybe it isn't, but just maybe it is.

Things are still tough in the House of O.  No work on the horizon. No contract payout agreement in the offing.

I've started applying for jobs, I'm selling on eBay and we are revisiting the idea of an interstate move.

The last six years of knocks has left me battered and bruised and completely unable to rise above the crap and well, quite frankly be my usual sunny self.  I knew it would get to me sometime.  My Mum says she can't believe I've made it this far without cracking.

The Little Man is reacting to the tension and getting into trouble at school.  He's grumpy, he's teary, he's a monster, he's a sad little boy.  It's so frustrating that his first year of school has been marred by all this drama.  The me I wish I could find, would say "It will all work out, this crap happens for a reason."  The me who is here right now says "When will we get a break, I just can't take any more drama or bad news."

It's not even the money worries that have pushed me to the brink today.  It's the fact that The Workaholics Dad went into hospital last Monday and for six days none of his FOUR siblings (or his Dad for that matter), bothered to tell him.  He found out on Saturday morning because he phoned his Dad because he hadn't heard from him and he answered his mobile from his hospital bed.  His family just do my head in.

I don't have anything clever to say.

I just thought writing this down and posting it would be cathartic and explain in some way why I am still absent.

I hope you are all doing it a bit easier than me!

Patches of Blue Sky

Things are tough in the House of O at the moment.

I was starting to think our horrible 2012 was finally turning around in July.  It was not to be though.

No sooner had the Workaholic settled into his new office, phone number and email when more drama reared its ugly head. It was with foreboding and horror I listened to him tell me about the fraud he had uncovered in his new employers Queensland operations.  I knew right then and there we were in for more crap.

The Workaholic spent six weeks investigating, collating and explaining the issues to his new boss.  Six weeks of 6am till about midnight, including weekends and his boss lost the plot.  He trashed the office and told the Workaholic to leave.  He's not ready to deal with it.  It's so much money that he's going through mourning.  We understand this because we've been there but we were already at the end of our resilience.  We just cant wait for his sanity to return.  We thought we'd be OK because the Workaholic had a contract.  We are still waiting for him to pay it out.  It may go legal and to be honest I'm not up for it and therefore keeping as far away from the drama as I can now!

It's the Munchkin's third birthday this coming Thursday.  Luckily I have his gifts and the party we are having for him this Saturday is just family and friends, so I have minimal preparation to do.  I don't think I could cope if we had planned a big bash for him this year.  I'm so amazed by this little guy.  He is such a joy in the midst of the daily drama we have been living this year.

On another positive note, my studio is almost finished (even though I have lost a corner to the Workaholics office) and I'm selling my excess bits and bobs on eBay.  I'm pretty excited to get my studio back up and running.  I'm in the process of going through my old shop stock and organising my workspace.  I picked up some fab chairs on eBay so I can teach in there too! Watch this space for some geee-orgeous jewellery creations coming soon.

I am also really excited by the progress the Little Man is making at school.  He has jumped three reading grades in a couple of weeks and his Occupational Therapist is thinking he will be ready to stop seeing her by the end of the term.  This weekend he got a merit award and was given the class mascot monkey for the weekend.  He's really blossoming.  A big tick for our choice of school.  It's totally worth the fees we have managed to scrape together in these difficult times!

'Bobo'
The class mascot spent the weekend with us again this weekend.

At this point, I am trying to concentrate on the positives (this is Living Life Playing the Glad Game after all!!) but it has been really hard with all of the obstacles I keep running into, but most days I think I am winning.  I still have the Plan.  I'm just moving a bit slower that I wanted to.


Small patches of blue sky amongst the grey is what I am focusing on!