Just Nicky

Best Laid Plans and All That January 31, 2008

I had a bit of a flat day yesterday, which prompted my last post, so I decided that today I would get off to a better start by walking Leila to childcare with Finn. It seemed like an excellent way to start the day.

I got the pram out of the garage and came inside to make up Leila’s bottles and get Finn to put on his shoes. Then I heard the unmistakable ‘dop-dop’ of rain on the pergola roof. I looked outside. It was raining lightly. I came and checked the weather radar online (I love the radar!). We were being hit by the leading edge of quite a lot of rain. No walking to childcare for us! Instead we hopped in the little red car as quickly as we could and got to childcare and back before it got too heavy.

So now it’s back to the drawing board for motivation.

I’m just a housewife … January 30, 2008

One of the things I’m coming to terms with in the business of being a stay-at-home-mum is the fact that housework is now what I do, along with child rearing. I have given up a fat salary and a job that sounds fairly serious to be - in essence - a child care worker and house cleaner. Not that I’ve mastered either of those … if I were employing myself to clean the house, I’d be sacked for doing a really crap job of it! But the point is that, where my job description used to say ‘Test Manager’ (or Test Prime, or Technology Manager, or Lifecycle Manager, etc.), it now says ‘Housewife and Mother’. Whatever self-actualisation I obtained from my job now needs to come from housework, wiping nose and bums, being thrown up on and having inane conversations with children under 5. Any wonder I’m seeing a shrink? … that’s a very lame attempt at a joke, by the way.

It’s a massive change of mindset and a huge learning curve. My paradigm has shifted and it’s an ongoing adjustment. One thing I am coming to understand is just how thin our veneer of self-esteem is. I was no better a person working for a corporation than I am juggling Leila’s hands and feet while attempting to extract a pooey nappy from under her bum. And what I did at the corporation had no greater value than negotiating the switching off of the telly so that Finn will come and have dinner. In fact - all modesty aside - I suspect I’m a better person for doing what I do now and I’m sure that it has a much greater value than anything I did in those years of logging defects on code. And I have no wish to stop doing it any time soon.

So here’s the rub: In this brave, new world in which I live doing housework is where my feelings of being productive and useful come from. There is nothing more productive and useful than running this household. It is what I do.

Another New Year’s Day January 29, 2008

I’ve always felt like the year doesn’t really start until after my birthday, since most thing don’t really get going again until the beginning of February. This is particularly so for us this year.

Today is the New Year’s Day of our ‘working’ year. Mark has gone back to work. Leila is back at childcare. Things are beginning to happen. The kids will begin swimming lessons later in the week. I need to enrol the in the first of my subject for this year.

This could all feel pretty daunting, but I’m looking forward to the ‘busyness’ of it all. One good thing about Finn’s kinder schedule (4 three hour sessions a week) is that it imposes a structure on the week and means that I will have to think about how best to use my time. With Leila’s 2 days at childcare, I have six child-free hours a week. Some of this is already taken up with seeing the shrink and I imagine the rest is likely to get pretty sucked up by study. I’m going to try not to use it doing housework or running meaningless errands. I need to learn to do the former with the kids around and they can tag along on the latter.

For now, though, things are off to a gentle start. I think today is the first day that Finn and I have been home alone since Leila was born. It’s caught us both a little off guard. He became a bit upset before we took Leila to childcare, although he was fine with leaving her there. And he keeps telling me that he wants to go everywhere that Dad goes - a sweet, if impractical, sentiment. I’m resisting the urge to buzz around like a bee in a bottle. There are things that could/should be done but they’re not going anywhere and I figure a slow day is not a bad thing for either of us. After lunch I’m think of taking Finn for a walk to the post box near his kinder as a practice run for actually going to kinder.

For now, though, I’ve just agreed to watch a Thomas episode.

Water January 23, 2008

The daily average water use in 2006/07 was 303 litres on a per capita basis, levels not seen since 1945/46 when that figure was 300 litres per person per day.

In 2005/06 average daily water use was 330 litres per person per day. - Melbourne Water

I invariably take a big deep breath before opening our quarterly water bill. Water is such a big issue in our lives these days that the bill’s arrival always feels like some omen of doom. Given that we run the (not-water-efficient) washing machine almost every day, I always expect to find that we’ve used an horrendous quantity of the wet stuff and will have to take major steps to reduce our usage.

Our bill arrived yesterday. The average daily water usage for our household was 520 litres. I was ridiculously pleased by this. If you don’t count the kids, it means that Mark & I are each using 40 litres less than average. Hoorah for us!

I might go and run the tap a bit to celebrate…

Taking a Big, Deep Breath… January 22, 2008

Finn was playing some silly game involving spinning a ring from one of Leila’s toys around on a pen. Naturally enough the ring would fly off the pen after a few spins. It was not the sort of game he should have been playing inside and we should have been vigilant enough to stop him.

The ring flew off the pen and hit one of the handles on the buffet, breaking it. … Let me rephrase that. The ring flew off the pen and hit one of the handles on my art deco buffet which I love beyond all reason, breaking the irreplaceable bakelite discs on one of the handles.

Am I annoyed? A bit. More than anything I’m sad. So sad that I can’t look at Finn or the buffet.

Although it’s largely ignored and not used properly, I love that buffet more than any other piece of furniture in this house. Seeing it damaged almost makes me cry.

Finn and Mark have gone to Bunnings to buy superglue. In the meantime I am chanting, “It’s only a thing, it’s only a thing, it’s only a thing…”

Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love by momma a

I broke my resolution not to buy books to buy this one. It’s not that it was so special that I couldn’t resist it. As it happened I was at Highpoint on my own and wanted to have lunch, but I can’t stand sitting by myself and eating without something to look at. Also, I had an appointment to see my shrink that afternoon and she is always running late so I needed something to read while I waited.

Having broken my resolution to buy it, I felt particularly obligated to finish it. And I did last night. Fortunately I enjoyed it, so I don’t feel that the resolution was broken for no good reason.

Gilbert tells the story of the year she spent in Italy, India and Indonesia (Bali) following a difficult divorce and disastrous relationship. In Italy she explores pleasure. In India she develops her spiritual side. And in Bali she finds a mix of the two and, ultimately, falls in love again.

This is a true story, yet it felt like fiction to me. I don’t know if this is a strength or a weakness of Gilbert’s writing. On the one hand I’m sure this sense made the book an easier read than it might otherwise have been, but on the other I think it might dilute some of the lessons Gilbert has to impart.

Non-Buddhist Thought for the Day January 20, 2008

“We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.” –Epicurus

Pinched from The Happiness Project.

The Woman With No Time January 16, 2008

The woman with no time to waste was at it again last night. I’d left neutral feedback for her on Ebay and it seems it wasn’t good enough for her.

Buyer - thanks so much for alerting everyone to YOUR rudeness in my feedback.

Me - Ah, the woman who doesn’t have time to waste, unless it’s to waste mine.
Go away.
BTW - Duplicating the testimonials on your website is very unprofessional.
(the url for her business is appended to her emails, so I’d looked at it and noticed that the testimonials have been cute and pasted in twice. it makes it look like she has more that she really does. and I just couldn’t resist having a dig at her.)

Buyer - I am so flattered you took the time to read them All individual all real all true.
You must do something equally valuable with your life too
All the best

Me - If you’d read them you might have noticed that you’d cut and pasted them in twice you idiot! (OK so I probably shouldn’t have started name calling…)

Buyer - Thank you for this one it is testimony of your harassment and badgering I will keep it to file charges against you should you contact me again

Me - Well, you have my address and phone number, so you know where to send the cops. And while you’re at it, make sure you provide them with all our email communications - just make sure you don’t cut and paste any of it twice…
Seriously, if you really don’t want a response from me, stop emailing me.

There was nothing new in my inbox this morning…

Rude? Moi?? January 15, 2008

I recently listed some stuff from our garage on Ebay. This is my communication with the buyer of a fan:

Buyer - Nicky you don’t travel/work into the city at all do u?

Me - No X, I don’t.

My partner & I are at home at the moment. If Wednesday isn’t convenient for you, just let me know when would be.

Buyer - Ok..is there a number I can call u on ….

Me - Our number is XXXXXXXX

Buyer - Why would I drive all the way out there with ensuring you were home first? (I had sent a second email to all the buyers advising them not to turn up here unannounced, since you never know what people are likely to do - didn’t seem unreasonable to me.)

Me - You’d be surprised at what people will do…

Buyer - I don’t have time to waste.

Me - Well, you appear to have some to waste…

Are you going to let me know when you can collect the fan?

Buyer - I have changed my mind I am willing to wear the strike than do business with such rudeness. Keep it

OK, I will grant that I am a bit grumpy today due to problems with my neck and I can be a bit of a smartarse … But, really, the woman has no time to waste, yet she does have the time to send me pointless emails without telling me when she can pick up the fan.

Anyone want a fan? I’ve relisted it.

Bits and Pieces of Inspiration January 13, 2008

I read and find bits and pieces all over the good old interwebs that strike me as inspirational or useful in some way. When I’m clever I remember to bookmark the site or subscribe to an RSS feed, but most of the time I kid myself into believing that I’ll remember the url or know how to find it again. Of course, this is rarely true and all too often I find myself sitting in front of the computer wondering how to find that great site I was looking at the other day … you know, the one with the really interesting stuff …

The other thing I forget to do is to share these gems with others. Today I am attempting to remedy some of that. I’ve subscribed and bookmarked and now I’m sharing. Here goes:

I found The Happiness Project via Fiona’s blog. I’ve subscribed to the rss feed and have joined the Facebook group. I read it daily, but have done little else so far. Still, it makes me think a bit and that’s rarely a bad thing.

I’m not sure how I started this off, but today I’ve found a couple of sites that I think will be very useful. The first is Unclutterer, a blog about getting organised. I’ve subscribed to the rss feed and I’m hoping it will be a reminder to me to get on with removing the crap from our lives.

The other site I’ve found this morning is 43 Folders. It’s a blog about “personal productivity”, but I think of it more as a collection of good ideas to be bounced around inside my head. The things that have resonated with me this morning are these posts on clutter (I do have a bit of a theme going here) and this eloquent one on (under)achievement. Through the comments on this post I found an online mindfulness bell that I’m going to use to monitor my computer time.

Speaking of mindfulness, I’ll also throw in a couple of sites that I visit when I feel the need for Buddhist inspiration. There’s Buddhanet, a repository of all sorts of Buddhist stuff and very useful for reminding myself of the basics, such as the Four Noble Truths. And there’s the Buddhist Thought of the Day on Facebook, which I often copy across to here (The current one, by the way, is “Living should be perpetual and universal benediction. - Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei…“). Some of them are impenetrably obscure, but a lot of the them are beautiful and poignant in their simplicity and ability to strike right to the heart of an issue.

That’s probably enough linkage for today.