Song words I’m still singing…

You know how you hear a song and it suddenly makes everything different or somehow it’s the philosophical awakening you needed.

I don’t know any new songs.

I like my old songs. They keep me warm. The words make me feel better.

Examples to follow:

-Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog where no one notices the contrast of white on white.

-Seems I’m not alone at being alone.

-Hold on for one more year then maybe, these skies will start to clear

-And you know it might not be that bad, you were the best I’d ever had

-Don’t hang up again, there’s nothing else I know how to do

-But on these Summer nights when the weather’s fine, I miss him by my side

Arrfgggg! Yes my music taste is still 16 year old girl. Or maybe that’s when I last felt the most vulnerable or something.

Music while baking is my thing. I can’t sing, dance or play an instrument but I can bake goods while swaying in time and emoting.

Do you listen to sad songs on repeat? No just me? And Elton?

“They reach into your room, oh oh oh

Just feel their gentle touch

When all hope is gone

Sad songs say so much”

Okay. Ignore the Elton lyrics but I do like a song that takes me back to a time when I was a different me.

Life goes on though. Time to learn some new songs?

Not to replace the old ones just to supplement them.

xx

P.S I’m going to Italy on my own on Friday. Just FYI.

A brief life update…

Greetings. How are you?

Me? I’m good. I just bought some pants from Aldi (aka House of Aldi) so I’m clearly living the high life.

My work life has been a bit hectic. I’m at a new preschool and there have been several occasions where I’ve had to ask children to stop throwing chairs. I ask in a loud (screeching) voice but they usually listen so that’s good. But I feel like I’m not a very good teacher sometimes.

Actually made it through the first 8 weeks without filling in an incident report so doing okay.

I told one of my favourite little darlings that I had a headache and she told me that she actually had 4 sicknesses so that was worse. In case you’re wondering they were: 1. Headache. 2. A cold. 3. Blocked nose and 4. Sore tummy.

Thankfully both her parents are doctors so should be okay. Although the same girl did look at the fat bits on my arms and say “is that where your skin is shedding and the new skin will grow”? Such a confidence builder.

Speaking of sicknesses my 9 year old has reached the milestone of vomiting outside. Yay! An hour after getting home from school he ran outside and vomited into the garden with me yelling out “Are you okay? I’m so proud of you”.

My life has been hectic for someone who only works 2 and a half days a week now. Mondays and Tuesdays are full of appointments and meeting people for coffee and having naps and watching Netflix.

I’ve had a flat start to the year thanks to my previous workplace being quite awful and calling me mean names via their solicitor. It’s not personal is my new mantra.

I’ve been tired and a bit sad but it will get better.

I don’t have a lot to say because I’m doubting myself a lot and not really even sure I know what I want to say or if it’s even worth saying.

So I won’t.

I’ll try again soon though.

Ciao. xx

Not broken yet…

Hey there. How are you doing?

No. How are you really doing?

I’m okay, just.

This is the first week out of 4 that a certain person at work hasn’t accused me of doing something bad either publicly, privately or in writing.

So it could have been a good week but it rained a lot today and the roof leaked and then my colleague was head butted in the face by a child accidentally so that wasn’t good.

I had a job interview on Monday and haven’t heard back by Thursday night so it’s safe to assume I didn’t get the job. The fact that they can’t be organised enough to tell me that I didn’t get the job means it probably wasn’t that great anyway. I also shouldn’t have joked with them about notifying me of the interview outcome by pigeon.

My favourite 9 year old had a melt down before dinner as I wouldn’t let him have chocolate biscuits as I was literally (how could it be figuratively) serving up his dinner.

My bones are tired and my spirit is tired and if you ask me to do something that isn’t already on the list of things to do that runs through my head at 3 am then I don’t know how to do it.

I missed my sons expo at school today because I didn’t know it was on or it wasn’t on the afore mentioned list. Thankfully one of the other mums sent me a photo of him with his box of tan bark project.

We go to Japan next week and I equally can’t wait and can’t be bothered.

The thought of all the things that might go wrong and that I haven’t anticipated is making me feel ill.

In other news reading this post makes me think my anxiety might be having a festive season spike and that a day of rest this weekend is a must.

I hate that my family get tired me but the kids at work get the me that’s funny and kind.

I taught one of my groups for the last time today and at the end I went round the circle and said something nice about each child.

Then one girl put up her hand and said her dad can do back flips.

Another put up their hand and said her dad can do 100 back flips.

Then one girl put up her hand and said her dad has showers.

This sums up my life. Say nice things to children and they will charm you with random thoughts and nonsensical truths.

For the record I told them that I think having showers is much better than doing back flips and I wished them all well for the future.

Life keeps going even when you want to push pause or even just shut the WiFi off for a bit.

Please let me sleep well tonight and tomorrow I get to have porridge in bed and let my thoughts sit in peace for bit.

xx

Yesterday was plain awful… (bonus points if you know what movie that’s from before your read the post)

Well hello real world!

Things had been going a little too smoothly for a while so it came as no surprise this week when I got thrown under the bus.

I’m okay. The driver saw me and slowed down in time so I’m not road kill just wounded.

This is all a really bad metaphor of course.

I’m fine.

One of the parents brought me a take away coffee at the end of the session. Another friend made me delicious Greek biscuits last night. People are still bringing me food and drink without me asking so I must be doing something right.

But hey it always hurts when someone you’ve liked for years isn’t so nice to you.

It’s harder too when you know that the person is grieving and you know they’re a good person and so you try and take the massive breach of privacy on the chin.

It’s hard to keep the ship steady sometimes though.

The waves surprise you when you’re comfortably reclining on the sun deck thinking the seas will remain calm forever.

It doesn’t take much to break you when you’re already stretched thin at this time of year.

I’m trying to be okay.

Zen like. But with a mouth full of mince tart.

I want everyone to be nice and friendly and kind and see the good and say nice things about my hair.

I had a good chat to the kids at work today. We talked about listening and how sometimes grown ups are too tired to listen to kids at home but it doesn’t mean they don’t love them. Just that they’re busy.

I think I’m too tired to listen to myself.

I’ve mended all the bridges I can and now I’ll see if they can hold my weight.

Just made myself feel a bit sick with self pity there.

I apologise for that.

In the words of the wonderful orphan Annie “Yesterday was plain awful. But that was that. Not now”.

Today was okay.

I hope yours was too.

xx

Just some randoms…

A short list of strange things that have been happening to me:

⁃ I had a massage and the masseuse man thought that rather than relax I would be interested in hearing about how he had to get the wax off his newly laid kitchen tiles. FYI he used Jiff but it was a tricky job because sometimes you could only see the wax in certain lights. Then he applied two coats of sealer. He also recommended I come back in 2 weeks. I hope he’s had time to paint the bathroom by then.

⁃ I saw an Irish doctor today and he said I have a mild case of gastro and that I should eat lots of potatoes. I will pass his advice on to the families of the 4 children in my class who were all vomiting on the weekend. Sharing is not caring! Keep your kids home if they’re sick even if they really love kindergarten.

⁃ Last Thursday I hid from a boy at kinder because I didn’t want to hear about his bunk beds again. But then he told me that his girl grandpa (aka grandma) has big boobies and I forgave him his repetitive stories about the bunk.

⁃ My son asked if he could break an egg on his head. I said yes. Now he keeps counting the eggs in the fridge and looking and me with egg cracking eyes.

⁃ Today I had to see a pathologist to have some bloods taken and a stool sample and she went into far too much detail and I really don’t want to put my own poo (or anyone others) in the fridge.

⁃ Cannot stop wondering why do people say “cross the t’s and dot the i’s?” What about dotting the j’s?

⁃ Sometimes I lie in a really uncomfortable position because I don’t want to disturb the cat. This makes me feel like a really nice cat person but also uncomfortable.

⁃ And something else I discovered today was that when you’ve been feeling sick for a few days and decide to do a pregnancy test you might not even have enough wees to activate the test properly. (I mean it could only have been positive if the vasectomy didn’t work and the pill stopped working that day but it was still an exciting 3 minutes of pondering life.)

So yeah. That probably sums up my week. Plus apologies to my neighbours when I decided that I wanted to look up as many cover versions of a song I like on Spotify and play them loudly.

I might come up with some deep thoughts soon rather than just this meaningless drivel… but maybe not.

Love ya. xx

Sorry and stuff…

Sooo… I just had to apologise to my family for frantically turning the house upside down looking for kids shoes that we’ll need in 8 weeks.

No reason. Just suddenly and urgently needed to find those shoes.

They were found.

Life goes on and I apologised for being cranky for no reason.

Don’t you just love apologising?

I’ve had another fun week being a preschool teacher.

Some of the highlights included a girl remarking on how amazing it was that there was no hair on my lower legs but that my knees were so hairy. Hey kid I had a 2 minutes shower and you’re lucky I didn’t come in full hairy yeti mode.

Another boy saw me and straight out asked why I look like that? Like what? I’m not sure but it didn’t seem like a compliment.

One of the girls in my class told me I was funny and that she liked me times 100 so that kind of made up for all the other unnecessary honesty that seemed to be spreading.

Speaking of spreading there were 2 cases of head lice this week and a suggestion that the second case may have come from Pakistan. I told the mother that Pakistani head lice sounds very exotic and hopefully can be treated with Australian products.

Someone at the preschool left an empty packet of paper sitting on the shelf and it was nearly enough for me to turn the hose from the newly planted veggie patch on my colleagues as some form of water interrogation.

I’m totally over it now. Can you tell? *eye twitches*

So life keeps going.

There are 8 weeks until the holidays.

Which would be stressful considering the amount of work that needs to happen in that time but thankfully finding snow shoes for Japan is no longer on my to do list.

All the nice words and some bonus flowers…

Hello everyone!

How are we doing today?

Great. Now back to me.

This week I’ve received many, many compliments and kind words.

I’ve been arguing a lot with my husband who has been sick, but not resting and choosing instead to share his germs around. Love is love.

Back to the good stuff though.

On Monday at work two children vomited. The first was clear and straight forward. The second was disgusting and has put me off strawberries for a while.

The first vomit occurred in my classroom and we cleaned that one up quickly with minimal shouting for a bucket and debating the need to run sometimes even though there is a no running inside rule.

The second was a boy from the other class but with the two teachers in there dry reaching at the thought of the offending vom I volunteered to clean it up. I donned a purple mask and blue gloves and disinfected every surface of the bathroom.

The next day my colleague brought me flowers to say thank you. They have affectionately been dubbed vomit flowers and look lovely in my room.

On Tuesday while playing outside a small boy with excellent hair went to kick a soccer ball but slipped and kicked his shoe over the back fence.

After quickly discovering that we could not reach the shoe and despite the boy with excellent hair saying not to worry about it as his mum could just get him some new shoes I got in my car and drove to the back neighbours. I knocked on the door and explained the situation and the shoe was back at the preschool before I was.

As I walked into the room a little girl grabbed my hand and told me I was such a kind person for getting the shoe back. Genuine kind words from a child who appreciated what I had done. So sweet. #mademyday

On Tuesday night I had a seriously lovely message on messenger from a friend telling me that she loves me and thinks I’m ace. I naturally accused her of sending a chain mail scam and thought she might have been hacked. But no. Genuine kind words again without the pressure of something bad happening in 48 hours if I didn’t resend the message to 5 friends.

So many kind words.

People saying thanks and acknowledging me and what I’m doing is a little bit hard to take but lovely.

So the message here is to say the nice words, be genuine with your friends and give vomit flowers when necessary.

Some people are awful but lots of them aren’t.

xx

Save the date?

Recently someone asked me to save the date for something.

Weeks later and I lay awake racking my brain trying to remember who I was saving the date for and what the date was.

I awake every day nervous at the thought that today might be the date that I was supposed to have saved.

So instead I am saving all the dates.

I am making no plans until I know that have not double booked myself.

In reality I am not that popular but my preference for napping rather than socialising allows me to live all dates saved guilt free.

I am tempted to post on social media that I have saved all the dates in the hope that someone will reveal the exact date that I promised to another.

In my dream it play out like this with someone replying to my rampant availability with a “ha, except that date I asked you to save for that thing” to which I would reply with “of course”.

It’s hard being vaguely popular with a busy brain.

Last Saturday I had three things on. Three social things where I had to leave the house and people. I had to practice mindfulness driving on the way to a baby shower as I felt my heart racing with the horror of having to converse with people who like me enough to invite me out.

Please note that Saturday was not the date that needed to be saved.

So I will leave you as always not just wanting more but down right disappointed that there was no point to my point.

xx

Do not reply to this message… unless you want to.

Greetings!

I’ve not blogged for a long time now.

I’ve not wanted to be heard and replied to. Does that make sense? Social media feels like you’re putting something out there because you want to be heard and acknowledged and sometime I just want to be really quiet and ignored.

Usually when I’m quiet and trying to be ignored I get upset that people are ignoring me but that’s another story. Us humans are a complicated bunch.

A few months ago I went on a big trip overseas with my husband and two sons. I shared lots of pics on Instagram and a few update posts on Facebook.

Which was lovely and of course a great way to share things with family and friends.

Except that when I got back people kept telling me that they liked what I wrote and wanted to talk about swivel chairs and husky rides and The Blue Lagoon in Iceland and I didn’t really want to talk about it anymore.

I know I can be rather funny when I want to be but sometimes my brain doesn’t want to be funny it wants to be alone.

I follow some lovely people on social media and I’ve even reached out and contacted some when I think of them in my real life.

I like reaching out and looking after others. I’m a little uncomfortable when it happens the other way. Perhaps I’m worried that I won’t be able to return the favour or do enough to say thanks. (Deleted the bit where I was worried that I wasn’t worth it.)

I’ve got a new friend at my preschool. A grandma who seeks me out and hugs me and calls me her princess in such a way that you have to believe her. I was invited to her home on Tuesday and she sat next to me on the couch practically force feeding me three different types of baklava, pistachios, Turkish coffee and sparkling water. All while holding my hand and looking at me. Who knew that sometimes you just need the love of an Albanian grandmother to put things right?

She told me she loves me many times. She told me to come back with my husband and my boys. She told me to come again. To eat more. To sleep if I wanted to. She checked several times if I needed to go to the toilet before driving home. I didn’t.

Love, kindness, compassion, friendship and all the other good things are out there in the world. They’re in people that you do know, the people that you don’t know and the people that you might not have time for.

Life is lonely sometimes. Especially when you’re surrounded by people asking you to do things and expecting you to deliver. Look for the people who are grateful when you help them.

And help yourself too.

Right O! Obviously I’m channeling Oprah circa 1998.

But hey I just finally felt ready to say hello and not be scared of a reply.

xx

Change happens…

Hello! Remember me?

Sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I look at who I am today and wonder what happened to the old me.

The old me used to love reality tv. I watched and voted for strangers on tv programs. I even went to an Australian Idol live filming once. Strangely enough it was the final 3 voting show and one of the contestants dropped out so it was the only episode ever where nobody actually sang.

I can’t stand reality tv now. Not because it’s junk but because I don’t want to care about strangers on tv anymore. I don’t want the crazy scripted stories and all the nastiness.

I used to be a chocoholic. Until one day 14 months ago after eating a delicious chocolate brownie the night before I woke up and discovered I’d lost the taste for chocolate.

I got 20 boxes of chocolate from my students at the end of last year. I was so excited to get several large boxes of Roses chocolates in the hope that I might start liking chocolate again but it seems it’s not to be. My husband however is reaping the rewards of my taste change.

Things change.

I used to be scared of some things that I’m not scared of anymore.

And I’m scared of things now that never frightened me in the past.

I guess the fact that things change gives us all hope that the bad things will change too.

Nothing that is too hard now will be too hard forever. At least that’s the hope isn’t it?

I have a couple of beautiful friends whose brains play awful tricks on them sometimes and make their days so sad and empty.

Mental illness is such a wicked thing to grapple with.

It doesn’t fight fair and it doesn’t care who it hurts.

But things change.

Things get better.

As a preschool teacher I have daily moments of silly laughter at the things the kids say. I am so lucky to have that.

Last week a child came and asked me for a smoke. I was surprised until I worked out she meant smock. She was asking for an art smock.

After talking about tadpoles turning into frogs and caterpillars turning into butterflies a child asked me if I was going to turn into a dog.

I took my glasses off for a moment and one girl yelled out “it’s still you”.

These little people make me laugh with their easy going attitudes and their ability to make friends based on a mutual favourite colour.

So yes, things change. I used to like chocolate and reality tv and now I don’t.

You might change too from time to time.

Change can be as good as a holiday or it can be a blooming nuisance.

So please try to find time for a laugh or a moment of respite from the bad changes.

Or if you must… eat a box of Roses chocolates while watching reality tv if that helps.

xx