Category: The Me stuff

The Sick Post

I tweeted this at around 10:00 this morning:

“I have just realised that I can stay at work and be a stupid martyr or simply get in my car and go home to bed.’grabs bag’

Today I went to work when I shouldn’t have. I felt like crap and I sounded worse, but I felt like I would set a bad example if I just stayed home.

Now I’m wondering what kind of example I set by going to work and potentially making my staff sick.

In response @deniswright tweeted me this link.

The article deals with regrets terminally ill patients have about their lives so I have been pondering them and here are my thoughts. I challenge you to do this meme too as a sort of emotional barometer.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I think my life is true. Sometimes too true and in your face honest. And sometimes downright bitchy. I gave up living the life I thought my parents wanted me to live a long time ago and am much better off. Not that they didn’t only want the best for me, it just wasn’t the best for me right then.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.
I was very guilty of this before we had children. I used to work 12 hour days without breaking a sweat. I once broke my ankle and after surgery and spending 3 days in hospital I still only took 7 days sick leave. Life is too short. Trust me.
In saying that, having children caused me to re-evaluate my relationship with work and my perception of my own worth in relation to work. It took me a long time to figure it out and I’m still busy trying to find the balance. I have realised that there isn’t a solution that will work longterm, you need to constantly check that what you are doing is still working. What I learned most recently is that I’m not ready to be either a Stay-at-home-Mom or a Work-at-home-Mom.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I express my feelings ad nauseum, but not always to the right people. And sometimes when someone really really close to me hurts me I’m not able to say so. Another work in progress.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Tough one. I’m not a really good friend at the moment as I started working full day recently and I’m still trying to find my feet. So, to all my friends reading this: know that I love you and think of you often even though I don’t call and write as often. You know who you are..

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I’m pretty happy. Yes, I wish I could have less debt, an iPad and more time, but I have everything that matters to me and I’ll be damned if I’m going to jeopardise it.

If you blog yours, please comment here and leave the link?

The Couch Chronicles

Tonight I am so tired I don’t even have the energy to switch on my laptop. I don’t think I’ve been so happy to see a Friday in years.

Not happy in a I-hate-my-life kind of way, just happy in a I-really-need-to-gather-my-thoughts kind of way. And in a I-really-miss-my-kids kind of way.

I can tell the day of the week by how many hugs Daniel needs at night: 10 on a Monday and 10 x 10 by a Thursday. Isabel asks for a glass of water on a Monday and water, medicine, hugs and kisses by a Thursday. And Mignon wanders around for a couple of minutes on a Monday and by Thursday night we can hear her down the passage singing songs until she eventually passes out.

They are such little troopers. I feel really bad about yanking them out of bed so early in the morning and dropping them off at school when it’s not even properly light yet.

But. We do what we need to.

Ps please hold thumbs, we are hoping to add another canine child to our family. Details to follow..

Pps I blogged from my phone. Just so you know.

Hope

I was lucky enough to interview some amazing women this week that are applying for work.  Women that each overcame a serious set of personal challenges to be where they are today.

And they each want to pass on their determination to people in similar circumstances and live as beacons of hope.

I have interviewed many people over the years and I am probably a bit of a cynic, but these women really stood out for me.

This made me think of all the amazing women that I have known for many years or met either IRL (in real life) or online.  There are so many, so I will just briefly share some of their stories and link to them.  This is my small contribution to giving hope to anyone that might be reading this and going through something difficult at the moment.  These women are all very special and have each overcome their own set of circumstances.  They are fighters and survivors, because that what we need to do:  Fight and Survive.

My friend Camilla is a breast-cancer survivor.

My friend Tertia is a fellow infertility survivor, amongst other things.

My friends Candice and Caz have both lost babies (and so has Tertia)

My friend Sally has recently had her third baby and home-schools.

My friend Tracy recently started a support group for young Moms that have no support.

My online friend Hanlie is busy with an amazing self-discovery journey.

And last, but not least, my online friend Melanie is the brain behind the Twitter Blanket Drive, an amazing initiative.

At the Willowbridge Slow market today I came across this necklace and I simply HAD to have it.  This is my message of hope to you.  On the back of “hope” it says “love”, because what is the one without the other?

Hope you can read the message on the card!

If you want to contact the lovely lady that makes these beads you are welcome to email her on beaditforward@webafrica.org.za or contact Marieta Fichtner on +27 82 976 5885.

 

Nostalgia

After supper tonight I had one of those whoooosh flashbacks to my childhood and decided to make “Melkkos”.  It probably directly translates from Afrikaans as “Milk food”..

All I know is that it is the comfort food that comfort food would have eaten if comfort food could eat.  Or something 🙂

I only had a vague recollection of how to make it so I dug out my MIL’s 1973 Kook en Geniet (that iconic book of Afrikaans cooking) .  I have lots of memories of eating this as a child and specifically remember once when we had a power failure in Durban my Mom confused ground cloves for ground cinnamon in the dark and it tasted horrible over my favourite dish!

My Mom’s recipe involved rubbing butter into flour, but I found a much easier recipe that I tweaked:

  • 1l milk
  • 1tbsp butter
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup castor sugar
  • pinch of salt

Heat the milk and butter either on the stove or microwave.  Meanwhile, mix the castor sugar, flour and salt.  When the milk is hot, pour about a cup into the flour mixture, stir very well (I used the hand blender) making sure there are no lumps and pour the flour mixture into the milk mixture.

Stick back on the stove/microwave and let it boil for about 3-5 minutes until thick-ish and creamy, stirring often (once again, I used the hand blender for this).

Pour into bowls and sprinkle some sugar and cinnamon to taste over.  It took a whopping 15 minutes to make and was better than I remember it. (Sorry Mom!)

What was your childhood comfort food?

Here’s a pic of the kids’ bowls, they loved it!

But wait, there’s more..

“Your Mom probably knows you best, she’s also human so forgive her indiscretions – you’ll need that same forgiveness one day”

This is a quote that my Mom cut out of a magazine for me today.  It’s her way to ask for forgiveness, a forgiveness she doesn’t even need to ask for anymore.  Now that I’m also a Mom I understand that she was always trying her best.  We all survive our childhood with some sort of hangup.  At the very least we can expect that our kids will have sort of hangup.  Because we are all human.

This quote topped off a rather emotional day for me after the rough start this morning.

It was my lovely boss’s last day today.  Even though I didn’t work for her for very long the company she is going to is VERY lucky to have her.

I was also keeping my eye on twitter the whole day to see how well Norwin’s (@norwin) little boy was going to make it through brain surgery, which he did with flying colours thank goodness!  Click here to visit Jay-Bee’s blog, his story is incredible and he has wonderful parents!

I also took these pics on our annual school nature walk on Saturday.  We always say we should go for walks there more often, but we never do.  But this year I’m serious. Pinky promise.

Our beautiful mountain!

Here are the kids on our picnic blanket:

My Mother’s Day wish list

I came across this brilliant blog post today courtesy of twitter (Thanks Nikki!) and thought it would make a nice challenge.

I’m not good at saying what I want for special occasions and generally we scoff at Valentine’s Day/Mother’s Day/any other soppy occasion that get shoved down our throats by shopping malls.  Last year we also had a rather unfortunate Father’s Day gift episode which resulted in me vowing NEVER EVER to buy anything that is not socks or handkerchiefs for such similar occasion again. So far it’s worked really well for me.

But back to ME. What do I want for Mother’s Day? (except for a day off I hear you ask)

I have made a little list of do’s and do nots to guide my darling Husband and some gift suggestions.  Please feel free to add to the list or even better, do post of your own and leave the link in your comment.  I challenge you.  We are worth it!

  • Do let me sleep in
  • Do not let me do dishes, wipe down surfaces, mop up pee accidents, cook any meal or make my own coffee (wait, maybe I’ll make my own coffee, I know I’m full of shit)
  • Do pack the 3 lunches for Monday
  • Do not hog the remote
  • Do not subject me to any form of whining. And that includes the children. Ok, just kidding, but a day with children that excludes whining would be great, but I’ll probably just dream on.
  • Do let me have a long LONG afternoon nap, but wake me soon enough so I can still manage to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  I’ll leave that tricky decision up to you.
  • Do not require me to feed, brush the teeth of or dress any child.  Please present them to me for perusal fully dressed and looking angelic. (snort)
  • Do ask for sex, I might be in a good mood if all the above conditions are strictly adhered to.  Maybe.

Gifts:

As you know I’m rather easy to please gift-wise.

  • I do NOT want anything that remotely resembles a mug or a tea pot.
  • I DO want need PJ’s for winter.  You know my size..
  • I do NOT want chocolate in any shape or form unless it’s that Lindt Bunny I didn’t manage to find for Easter.
  • I do want an iPad2.  Fair enough, I know it won’t happen, but hey, I’ll keep asking.
  • I do NOT want lingerie unless it’s another lovely bra from La Senza.  You got it SO right last time!
  • I do want something Gatineau.  Anything Gatineau.  Sigh.
  • I do NOT want flowers.  I promise.
  • And lastly, I do want Mac Foundation.  And lipstick.  And several other items from the Mac counter that would leave your credit card in a sorry state.

And yes, I know that it’s Daniel’s birthday this month and we need curtains and and and so I don’t really expect the iPad.  Or any of the expensive stuff.  But I made this list and I’m quite proud of it.

What’s on your list?

Easter, balance and stuff

Seeing as how I am spending so much time thinking about being Good Mom/Bad Mom, I was having a conversation today about work-life balance and remembered that my friend Leo sent me this link recently.  It’s a talk Nigel Marsh gave last year at TedX about balance and it is well worth the watch.  (Just note that it’s about 14 minutes long.)

This morning was really, really tough for me.  Daniel is still not well at all and as I left for work he said:  “Mommy, I’ll miss you so much today”.  BUT there’s a whole long weekend ahead of us and we managed to have a great catch-up this evening.  By Saturday morning I’ll probably be whining about how loud the kids are again!

We are beginning to worry that he might have mumps and admittedly I did Google it to death and saw some truly scary images of children with mumps.

The whole neck thing he’s doing freaks me out no end.

Interestingly enough I started Googling “do children who have had the MMR still get mumps” and I got as far as “do children” when Google very helpfully suggested that I might be searching for “do children go to heaven”.

True story.  Go ahead, try it, you know you want to!

 

We are staying home for easter and plan on a lot of family time and catching up with friends, can’t wait!

We also (hopefully, barring the potential case of mumps!) have our annual easter egg hunt aka a bring-and-eat on Monday which is always fun.  This year there will be wine.

What are your plans for the long weekend?

Just some random stories

  • My first day at work was fabulous.  Lovely people, lovely company!  I am also the proud owner of no less that 6 blisters.  I haven’t worn heels for longer than an hour in MONTHS, so I took the ‘comfortable’ pair of heels with as a back-up.  By 10h00 I was wearing them and by lunchtime I was buying plasters.
  • Isabel had a croup attack on Thursday night.  She’s never ever had croup.  At 01h30 we woke up to that barking cough and 10 minutes later I was at the emergency room.  They nebbed her and I brought her home.  Round trip: an hour.
  • On Saturday morning I had my hair appointment and clothes search for a make-over shoot this coming week.  I have never spent longer than 2 hours in a salon on my hair.  Normally I run in, they plonk the stuff on and 2 hours later I’m running off.  This took 4 hours. 4 HOURS.  The result:  a lot of blonde streaks.  My first attempt at blow-drying this morning was spectacularly unsuccessful so I’m dreading tomorrow.  So far I’m going to have a possible footwear fail as well as a hair fail.
  • Tomorrow morning is the first morning we have to mobilise the kids and be out the door by 07h15.  We used to let them wake up by themselves and saunter out the door at around 08h00.  I also have to get up a LOT earlier because now I have to a. Shower, b. Dry my hair, c. Put on decent clothes and d.  Put on my face before we leave.  Should be fun. (I’m making a mental note here to keep my sense of humor in tact, I might need it in the morning)
  • We also had a live-in domestic move in today.  It’s a lovely lady by the name of Sylvia who is undaunted by noisy children, mess and dogs.  She also didn’t run screaming for the hills when she arrived late afternoon just after friends had left us after a long and rather boozy lunch.  Which entailed several bottles of wine and almost all our crockery standing in precarious piles around the kitchen.  As we walk in the door I apologise for the mess saying we had friends that have just left.  Oh, she says, were they here for the weekend?  Whilst casting an eye over all the bottles our friends had left from a tasting, all in various stages of emptiness.  ‘cringe’
  • I’m slightly nervous for the night as Mignon has now also started with a croup cough, which I thought wasn’t contagious.  But according to the Great Oracle of Google it is a contagious as the common cold.  My Mother is on standby for tomorrow..

I cast a mental eye over my life tonight and even though there are some enormous changes at the moment it’s all good stuff (except the croup).  We are very, very blessed.

Stand by for more news..

ps: yesterday we saw a long bridal stretch limo with a bridal party in it, and as it passed us it had that tell-tale little dove (Doves undertakers) on the back window.  Hilarious!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I go back to work full-day.  It’s my first job at a completely new company in almost 10 years and even though it’s a contract for now it’s still all new.  New people, new building, new route to work, new morning routine.  But I’m looking forward to the new challenge and all the people I’ll get to meet.

In the week that I’ve had to think about the change this will bring in our life as it is now I have come to quite a few realisations:

  • I instantly felt an extra rush of love/guilt for the kids.  Because as a working Mom those totally go hand-in-hand.  In some really weird way I’m looking forward to missing them.  Not that I don’t miss them during the day now, but this is different.
  • Emotionally I’m a lot better equipped now to deal with a full-time job.  The girls are bigger and they are with Daniel all day and incredibly well taken care of.
  • We have an amazing support structure.  We have Grandparents, friends and teachers.  We have the entire veritable village it takes to raise a child (or 3 in our case)
  • Maybe I’m just not meant to be a work-from-home kinda person be it right now or forever, but time will tell.
  • I have also realised that Entrepreneurs come in many shapes and forms.  You don’t have to have your own business to be entrepreneurial, you can be so within an organisation.  And that’s ok.  It was a biggie for me.
  • And lastly, this is something for me outside my family where I can make an actual difference.

I can’t wait!!

Problem? What problem?

I have been writing this blog post in my head for a while now and toying with whether I should say something or keep quiet.

When I write I try not to be whiny and if you have known me for any length of time you will know how much I HATE drama.  Which means that if I’m going through a rough time I tend to withdraw from my friends and family.  I’m really not good with talking about feelings and (even worse!) feeling like a failure.

Without harping on about it I have had a spiraling sense of failure for a long time now.  I tried, in my messed up head, to pinpoint when it all started and it’s probably around the time I had the girls.  I remember really battling to get my head around being a working Mom to 3 children in such a short space of time and struggling with feeling guilty for not being able to spend more time with them.  This probably put in motion a sequence of events which now leaves me in a rather precarious position.  And a rather bruised ego and extreme lack of confidence.  (I hear you gasp in shock and horror and YES I hid it well)

Of late I have been a really bad friend, quite a bit of a bitch and completely stressed out and anxious.  And lonely.  And because of this I messed up something which just left me literally breathless.  And even more pissed off.

I have been using my children and my marriage as my anchor, which it is and should be to a large degree, but there needs to be a balance.

So today I took stock.  I know something’s gotta give.  Because I’ve been feeling like this I haven’t been able to write because God Forbid someone should think everything isn’t completely fucking honky dory in my life.  Well, it’s not.  And if I cannot write I almost cannot breathe. Not being to talk about how I’m doing is almost like the proverbial elephant in the room, it’s had a profound effect on my ability to enjoy something I love: Blogging.

I prefer natural remedies, am very passionate about Homeopathy and have resisted the more ‘chemical’ route of sorting out my anxieties etc, but today I decided to go on to Anti Depressants.  For most of you it is not a biggie, but for me it is.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a biggie it is for me.  But I know what’s best for me right now and for myself and my family and the rest of the very important people around me it needs to get done.

There.  I said it.

And tomorrow I will write about camping.  Promise.

And thank you for reading and bearing with me, I love you all!