Money isn’t Everything

But sometimes in the world it can feel like it is.  I needed to remember that even if we lost it all it still wouldn’t be the end of it all.

I have my loving partner K and my 4 beautful girls.

Once I let go of the stressing about money something marvelous happened it came freely.  I am now working in a job I love in hours that suit my family.  I looked at my sewing pile with interest the other day.  the lonely half made bear is calling me and story lines are jumping in my brain.  1/2 written stories remain 1/2 written but they are there.

Weight loss is on the cards again. And I have actually been moving more.  I bend, I stretch, I walk, I rock I push, I pull.  eating?  Who has time to grab anything unhealthy a piece of fruit is all I have time to snack on, and already I can feel the weight moving.

As a personal carer for the elderly I look death in the face everyday.  It doesn’t depress me, I help these people who have led full lives and some I know will be gone from my life soon while others a little longer.  I look into their eyes and connect with them briefly.  I am able to make them smile and soothe their fears momentarily.

I sing to them. Old songs about goats, bikes and dogs.  Or I sing hymns.  A lot of them join in when nothing else will get them to talk.  Sometimes I sit and watch over them while they nap.

I look at their houses and think about what I could make that would suit them, prayer beads, a teddy or a bag.  Never the same for a person.  It is actually helping me get in touch with my creativity again.

Inspiration can come from anywhere.  I come home to what I have and am inspired to be more for my family and be more for myself.  I appreciate what I have and what is important to me.

Getting back on track

Wow reading so many blogs has fried the brain over 500 posts WOW!  You guys have been really busy. Some I didn’t read and others were skimmed over so if I missed anything really important I apologise.

I have been examining my stores  I have 3 months worth of most things and more for other staples.  I haven’t been cooking alot lately what with the adjustment to a new job but yesterday pulled out the ingredients and baked a cake.

IT was reassuring to know that I can do this when I feel like it!  It gives me a sense of power.  I need to take stock of what I am going to prepare for meals.  But the brain is having trouble jumping from being a stay at home mum to a working mum with limited time.

So why am I working?  We have debt and I want it gone.  So working is it for me.  The girls are all in kindy and school and the hours I work fits round this mainly.  I will have freedom in 5 years.

That’s it 5 years.

Not such a bad figure for the rest of my life.

Gotta love those drugs.

The good ones of course!
FLu fighting drugs, antidepressants they are great drugs.  I would miss them if they ever became unavailable.

I am feeling so much better.  Things are looking up and I have moved into a new phase.  I am working!

Pretty scary in some ways but in others it makes me feel good.  I am a personal carer.  I help elderly people stay in their homes.  It involves study and becoming an assistant in nursing.  This can lead to more things though and the job is very flexible.  It is lovely to have certain pressures relieved and I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

I am very interested in my jewellery, bears and writing again and just have to learn how to juggle everything.  The computer tends to lose out which I don’t think is a bad thing but I do miss my online friends.  Ah well it will settle into a routine soon enough and I will be able to rejoin the world of the living more fully!

Talk soon!

I don’t wanna go! (a rant)

I have started a new job. It’s been about 3 weeks and I’m not happy.  This of course isn’t helping me chase the black dog off, he is taking full advantage of it and I’m uptight for letting myself let it happen.  Lots of mums work I know this.  I have to work I also know this BUT I DON”T HAVE to like it.

It’s a night job telemarketing.  I don’t “cold call” people which is a saving grace, these people I phone have entered a competition and although they didn’t win the major prize we are phoning them to offer them a great deal.  And yeah the deal is pretty good.

The trouble is, I don’t get to eat with my family any more.  I leave at 3 or 4pm depending on the day and don’t get home till after 9.30pm.  I don’t get to help them with their homework, I don’t have tea with them, I don’t get to snuggle in the evenings and listen to them and I don’t get to put them to bed.

Today I am really feeling it as my DD11 is in a concert and I won’t get to see it.  I am heartbroken.

I am so tired.  Because I am home through the day I still have to do all the stuff I did before.  Do all the chores and errands required.  Prepare tea and have it cooking (god bless slowcookers), get up to sick kids through the night.  Eh who am I trying to kid most of us know what it’s like.

All I see of my girls in the morning is telling them to get ready for school.  Chasing the 4 of them up takes about 2 hours.  So there is no real time there.  In the afternoon it’s about 1/2 hour.  If I’ve been good then I get to spend a little time but some days I’m running round trying to do last minute things.

I had been making a go of changing the way we eat but DH won’t bother and even if I have something almost done a few times I have come home to find it scrapped and he has gone out and bought what he wants.

Oh well rant over.  I have to hang a load of washing, prepare tea, feed the animals, clean the house and put the rest of the shopping away.

The Black Dog came a visiting

and that was the end for a while.

It happens about this time of year and this year was made worse by lots of extra pressures that COULDN’T be ignored no matter how much I wished otherwise.

I have also been watching the world with a wary eye and trying to figure out what is going on.

Just not a good time for it.  Just call me phoenix as I will rise from the ashes again.

I wanted to write and couldn’t, I wanted to make bears and the fur made me unhappy, I wanted to create and it felt like the well was empty.

But I am on the way up and I will overcome, I always do.  The well is filling and the Black Dog doesn’t like the fact the shadows are leaving, albeit slower then I would want.

Thank you for all your concerns the comments and emails I have received have been welcome and helped shake it off.  So while I chase the black dog off again please know I will be back.

A bear

There is a bear in the works.  Amazing!  I haven’t made one for ages and then all of a sudden the urge is there.  Must have something to do with not wanting to clean up. LOL  It will be a lovely lilac one and I am happy to feel fur in my fingers again.

Let me tell you I must NEVER ever give something to my loving partner to post.  Swap parcels have sat in his car for weeks until I realised no one had received them. *sigh*  I managed to get a few off (he spent the money grrr) and will do some tomorrow.
Jewellery is off the list at the moment.  I just feel lack lustre when it comes to it.  I forgot to take photos of my last set so hope my SB takes a picture of it so I can show you.

I picked some rocket from my vege patch yesterday and had it for lunch with tomato, cheese and olives.  Unfortunately only the rocket came from my garden, lesson learnt start planting winter veges earlier.  I have decided to plant my fruit trees in the front garden, more chance of surviving I think.  More sunshine, more chance of me watering them (remember I’m new to gardening) and remembering them.  Just haven’t informed K yet.  Ah well he’ll live.

Miss T comes back from her camp today.  I miss her when she is around and although she is an independent soul I have a feeling there is a lot of show.  She is more like me then I realise most of the time.

She is such a good kid and I love her so dearly I can’t believe it could go wrong in a a year or two when she hits her teens.  She is loving and wonderful and I am so proud of her.

What else do I need to do?

- I need to scrub the bathroom floor.  Although it is wiped down most evenings after the girls have their baths it still needs a good scrubbing.

- the kitchen needs a tidy up, a sweep and a mop.  In my house if it isn’t done daily you can tell.  And I missed yesterday so today is it.

- plant the fruit

- tidy the lounge

- pull chicken out of freezer.  Apricot chicken tonight

and others.  Better get going

Decluttering

flicker – goblinko

Oh look let’s face it,  I’m a hoarder.  A much improved hoarder but the tendencies are there forever waiting to leap up and sink the teeth in.  I am careful to make sure that I don’t hold onto things just because.  I need to have a reason for holding onto them.  A real reason.

Bottles I am using and less are coming in so I do tend to hold onto them.

Other stuff getting much better.  K still claims we have too much junk but looking at it now it is a lot of kids stuff.  Kids toys are my nightmare.  4 girls seems not to just quadruple the amount of toys but increases by about 20 times.  Toys are handed down, toys are made, toys come into the house as gifts and toys just seem to make their way in.  I had implemented a very rigorous handing down technique as in NOT much at all was handed down.

Well it is time.  Miss L is 3 ⁄& a 1/2 and despite looking like she is only 1 it is time to move her baby toys on.  It will also be a time where I look at what she plays with and cull other stuff.  Miss C will also be having this done.

flickr – dreamcicle

flickr – Lia Kitty

I know what they like to play with you only have to look at the floor in the lounge or their bedrooms and I will take my cue from there.

It won’t be happening fast.  I will take my time and work through it.  THe trouble I have is that although the girls will often not play with something for ages they will then pull it out and play again, like blocks.  So I need to think so I don’t regret it.  And we will see how it all pans out.

Check In

Planted something – didn’t happen. Although I tended to my little aloe vera plant.  I am hoping it will fill the large pot it is in and then I can split it and grow it in another pot as well.  I am waiting on some fruit plants I have ordered.

Harvested something – eggs and a few rocket leaves

Preserved something – froze some flour to kill any bugs so I can pop it away

Cooked something new – Pea and Ham soup which was meant to look like this

unfortunately despite my best attempts it failed.  My slow cooker died and so I transferred it to the oven on low.  I went out.  K came home and being helpful pulled it out of the oven and on top of the stove to help thicken it a little and then he went out the back.  Result burnt, inedible pea and ham soup.  Can anyone say chips?

Managed reserves – Rotated some food out to be used, oh yeah and sorted clothes for the girls.

Prepped something – does a shopping list count or a wish list?  No?  Well then I took a large bag of shredded paper and buried it in the garden where I plan to eventually have some shade loving plants.  I will continue to do this the entire length of the area.  The soil is very sandy and this will be a start to adding organic stuff to it.  I will be doing more to it later.

Minimized waste – A lot of recycling being done, this generally goes to various schools.  Due to K deciding the house needs a cleaning from top to bottom, we have a little more rubbish the normal.  I had been keeping us down to the equivalent of about 4 shopping bags (could be 5) but this week I would say more like 8 more to go though.  I have a pair of jeans that have rubbed through on the inner thigh so I am going to add some fabric down the seam to help them last longer as well as a few patches to give it the “I meant i to be like this” look.

Learned A New Skill – how to take tablets without water, invaluable.

My menu for main meals the following week looks a little like

Monday – Dutch curry and rice.

Tuesday – This was going to be impossible Pie but it looks like it is going to be a chicken and rice pie dish thing to make sure we use up all the chicken, oddly enough after preparing two chickens for a meal while I was at work I was also given a chicken from work.  Couldn’t say no to that But will rearrange the menu to accomadate it.

Wednesday – Impossible Pie

Thursday – Chops and Veges

Friday – Apricot Chicken

Saturday – vegetable dish thing (our very first real meatless meal)

Sunday – Roast

So what have you got planned?

I’m alive

I can breathe, not as easily as I would like but the breathing hasn’t stopped during the night, and that is a bonus.

We have had a couple of nice windfalls this past week.  I have been looking at my girls trying to work out how to get them some new clothes without having to spend too much especially the elder ones.  The younger ones get hand me downs from the older ones 95% of the time only getting gifts of clothes from family generally.

Well in the past week we have been given 2 huge bag fulls of clothes.  One from friends and another from family, 1 bag was carefully sorted through and culled (sorry My Misses are not allowed to wear g-strings) plus some others were unsuitable. I am not much of a seamstress and will just give these to charity.  But the other bag yielded a wealth of good things for my daughters.  They are right for winter and summer and have some nice things as well popped away for another year, the two of them are wearing the same size clothes now so their wardrobe choices are endless.  Well until the younger overtakes the elder.

I am hoping with the improved health to be able to get out of the house and post some items well overdue.

This week the challenge is to spend less then $40 on groceries.  Less if possible.  I baked today

Anzac cookies, yogo, no bake cookies, pikelets and rolls.
I will be buying fresh veges, milk and a couple of hygiene items but that’s it.  Wish me luck.

Dear Diary

Tweekedbylife – Flickr

Well feeling much better today. Strong drugs can make all the difference in the world. I am feeling better although the constriction on my chest is still tight and last night still had to sit up and tell myself to breathe. Quite an eerie feeling as you wake to find you can’t draw air. If I had been told that I wouldn’t panic while it was occurring I most likely would have laughed. I mean you’re not breathing and it feels as if your body has forgotten how. But no it must be survival instinct. I sit up and start telling my muscles what to do and it clicks pretty quickly.
The Dr is concerned and wants to see if it clears up once my infection has cleared up. If I haven’t cured by Friday it means Saturday a trek back , blood tests and xrays. I have a sneaking suspicion this will be done anyway as the problem actually occurred before I became ill. The illness just exacerbated it.

picturejockey – flickr

K had a rude shock today I had been trying to explain finances to him and I finally managed to get it all down on paper AND get him to look at it.  It hit him.  It hit him hard and he stalked out.  I feel better he knows exactly where we stand and he settled down and starting to figure it out.  He has realised that if it hadn’t been my careful budgeting we would have been in trouble long ago but enough is enough.
So what was the reason I showed him after trying not to stress him?  I was sick.  He had a go at me about spending (which was unjust he was the one who took $40 out of the account for hamburgers for himself and a friend!) and I tossed everything at him.  Not the best way maybe but I wanted to show him.

Anyway he is thinking and I am no longer alone in carrying the burden.  If we sold the truck we would be fine.  Still paying part of it off but fine.

Peace will return to my heart and I suspect part of my health problems will lift as well.

Norby – flickr

We will soon return to our normal programming.