6 things to be very happy about

6 thingsI realise I have been a little negative lately when talking about my renovation and my temporary homelessness. It’s a bit nauseating considering I am about to move into a beautiful home and most people in the world would wish for “problems” like mine.  But anxiety is a terrible affliction and it doesn’t allow you to choose when and where you should feel like you are falling apart.

In an attempt to counteract my negativity and try and quash my anxiety I’ve decided to focus on the positive – and there’s a lot of it.

  1. We are staying at my sister’s house for another 4 nights (we have been here for 7 already). She and her family have been amazing and kind and generous and it feels a little bit like a holiday at times. Mr Pencil and I are living in her granny flat complete with our own fridge, TV and ensuite.  Little Pencil has his own room in the “big” house, it’s like Southfork (for anyone as old as me that remembers Dallas).  Spending time just being with all of them is just as it should be – it feels very right.
  2. Little Pencil is only marginally happier than Fluffy Pencil to be surrounded by cousins and an amazing aunt and uncle. I fear Fluffy Pencil has found new favourite people and none of them are from the immediate Pencil family. He has always loved my sister and her family but living with them has taken that up another notch or two him. He has not been alone once this week. He is possibly the happiest he has ever been and if he could talk it would be to ask if he could stay here when we move out
  3. Mr Pencil seems way less stressed living in this house, it may or may not be that he and my brother-in-law have been known to indulge in a post work drink or two together. Either way they get on really well and it’s like living with a  friend – except ones that get called out a lot (being a doctor on call is shit – I have realised that).
  4. I have not cooked a meal in forever.
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  6. I am about to move into a simply stunning home.
  7. I am truly and absolutely blessed to have a sister who did not hesitate to take us all in with such grace and generosity even if she is highly allergic to dogs and Fluffy Pencil licks her feet as she attempts to eat dinner. It’s hard to take in 3 houseguests and a dog but every single member of her family have been amazing – even when I have been grinding my teeth with anxiety.

Phew, that feels better

What’s making you feel happy today?

 

Putting my stresses in little boxes

Tonight when I barked at my husband for the second time in an hour he sent me this text

little boxes

I realised, when I sent a  tweet saying “I am so tense I am almost choking on tooth powder created from grinding my own teeth”, that he was right. I needed little boxes. Mostly I need the boxes whinge about my day – so here goes

I woke up at 2am. Not the normal waking-up-to-do-a-wee-at-2am-because-I-drank-a-bottle-of-water kind of wake up. But a proper full on I-am-awake wake-up.  I am living in my sister’s house because MY HOUSE IS STILL NOT READY so going to the kitchen to make a cup of tea wasn’t really on. Nor was switching on the light or howling loudly in frustration. So I played on my phone till 4 am, at which stage I fell into the deepest sleep possible making me very angry when my alarm went off at 5:30am.

At 7am my son informed me that I had forgotten to get him cups for his school project. Yes, apparently it was my job to remember and shop for his assignment (which I will need to tell you about in another blog post). So, being the ever-dutiful mother I went to Coles at 7:15 am.

At 7:45 his friend rang the door bell to come and collect him – that little piece of information telling me his friend was coming over had never made its way to me so clearly he wasn’t ready and I had to shuffle the friend, his mum and their dog out of the house because my sister’s family were still asleep.

At 8:10 Little Pencil realised he was going to be late for school so begged me to take him there although my sister lives so close to the school that getting in the car actually takes more time than walking to the school but he was stressed and so I took him. We got there 15 seconds later and he realised he had left all the stuff I had schlepped to get from Coles at the crack of dawn.  I went back to the school.

I tried to do some work. I was probably tetchy and painful and then I wrote a post that included pictures of Little Pencil as a newborn and I cried most of the morning.  Read the post here

At lunch time I had to meet my brother-in-law to take him shopping. Committed readers will know brother-in-law Pencil suffers from schizophrenia so the shopping journey is sometimes a little fraught… not going to say anymore about that. But, when I took him home there was a truck parked outside his place blocking the road. The back door swung open and there were rows and rows of dead pigs hanging on hooks. Picture how you would react if you saw dead people hanging on hooks in the back of a track – that’s how I react to seeing dead animals.
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The truck blocked my way and the driver was aggressive and hideous, as you would be if you drove dead pigs around for a living, and I had to shout at him with my aggressive South African accent to get into his truck and move. No one feels better after shouting at someone. #truestory  I can still see those pigs hanging in the back of the truck. And it fills one of my boxes of anger with deep sadness.

After dropping off my brother-in-law who had told me a lot of stuff that I couldn’t even pretend to understand, I rushed off to the new house to try and do a load of laundry because we are living out of bags and everything is dirty. I have no idea how to use the ridiculously fancy washing machine (which came with the house)  so I pushed a few buttons and hoped for the best. Apparently hoping for the best does not come with a time frame so I had to leave while the washing was still happening.

Went back to my sister’s house, fought with Little Pencil about homework, gave my sister a lift to the city, raced back home to nag Little Pencil to get ready for Tae Kwondo only to realise that his Tae Kwondo uniform was at the new house. Got around the block on the way to get said uniform when Little Pencil realised he had not sent his homework to his dad to print (have I mentioned that we are not living in any form of order?)  We drove back home and then started again.

When we got to the new house I went to retrieve the washing from the machine feeling rather smug that I had got it all done when I opened the door of the machine to the realisation that I had washed my brand new very dark jeans with everything else including Little Pencil’s blue school shirt. Only problem is that the blue school shirt was white when it got thrown into the machine.

Dropped Little Pencil at Tae Kwondo and got bitten by a mosquito IN MY OWN CAR but I soldiered on and raced home to get some work done.

Mr Pencil came home after picking up Little Pencil at 7:30 and suggested we go get some dinner because I had forgotten about that little detail. He sent Little Pencil to shower and change and that’s when I remembered that I had taken ALL of Little Pencil’s clothes to the new house. All of them. Including his pyjamas,

Look it doesn’t get much better after that but I can’t complain much more because I am exhausted and stressed about not having a proper home and I am in terrible pain from gnawing on my own teeth. Tomorrow is another day.

PS I just spotted a cockroach near my bed.

Oh dear retail sector – the signs are all just wrong

I have solved Australia’s retail issues – okay I haven’t actually solved them but I have been able to pinpoint them which is very excellent news for everyone I am sure. Who needs economists and analysts when you have a woman with a credit card and a mobile phone with camera?

Sadly I am pointing my finger straight at the doors of the big department stores, and today at Myer in particular because that is where me and my camera were feeling duped yesterday.

The Sale

Like most shoppers I love a bargain, so obviously I was drawn straight to a jacket that had such a HUGE reduction

sale price

Seriously. Could you resist?

The Fitting Room

This little note appears in the change room (which coincidentally has the most unflattering or realistic) mirrors in the world.

fitting room

I really wanted to leave a note saying “Thank you for not employing any staff to help me” but I didn’t want to be too passive aggressive (so I wrote a blog post instead – I know, I know).

The catalogue

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catalogue

 

I did not take a photo of the many empty cashier desks or the vast empty spaces where customers and employees should have been because, as you can see I am a very bad photographer. As it turns out I also feel quite peculiar taking photos of shops.

I just wonder how people in business are scratching their heads about the state of retail when retailers are treating their customers like this.

Are you a department store shopper?

 

Homeless

There are certain everyday rituals that I cling to – for an anxious neurotic like me they make me feel grounded and safe. They are my comforts, my constants, my luxuries and without them I am er, less comfortable, more anxious and way more unhinged.

I love closing the curtains at the end of the day. The actual act of closing out the day makes me feel cocooned and safe, it signifies the hurry and stress of the day is over and the family are about to be together at home, shoes off and relaxed. The reality is often different because of stupid things like homework and dinner and you know, reality. But somehow I still take comfort in the closing of the day.

Next on my list is a bath – a bath for me is like immersing myself in heaven except I don’t actually believe in heaven but it’s the closest analogy I can think of. I bloody love a bath – it ‘s warm, quiet and provides an ideal reading space.

The last ritual that I must perform at least three time as day is drinking tea. Drinking tea is like the portable version of having a bath except nothing like having a bath at all because the only thing the two things have in common is being warm and liquid.

As you can tell from my creature comforts – I am a home based kind of girl. I love nothing more than being at home with my people and dog around me, if the people are out I am equally happy just being at home with the dog. The only thing better than going home is actually being at home. But for the past 4 weeks I have been homeless.

Our beautiful “old” house is now in the possession of its new owners and although although I keep expecting them to call and say thank you to us for letting them buy the most beautiful home, I think my connection with that house has truly come to its end. The new house, which was going to have a small renovation but is basically being rebuilt because Mr Pencil is a frustrated architect/builder/designer/spender of huge amounts of money and kept changing all the things, was not ready for us to move into and so we came to this temporary accommodation in the home of a beautiful friend.

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This house is not my home and although I am so deeply grateful to my friend for letting me stay here while we were homeless it is someone else’s home – with someone else’s furniture and plates and cutlery and everything – except a kettle.

Today we went to check out the new house which is meant to be habitable (although not finished) by Tuesday when the person whose house we are staying in comes home, It wont be ready. It is still a building zone. And worse – the woman who owns the house we are staying in is actually coming home two days earlier than I thought she was .

Tomorrow we are homeless again. There is no way we can move into the new house until Tuesday at the very earliest – although our stuff is only coming out of storage the following Thursday. First World Problems

Pass me all the valium. And a stiff drink. For someone whose calm comes mainly from being at home these are the worst of days for me. But they too shall pass.

Thank God for my sister. Three human pencils, one fluffy pencil all descending on my sister’s family for two nights.

It’s (hopefully) not the end of the world

My husband has a very difficult job, It’s unrelenting, it’s almost impossible to get it right and it pays nothing. Of course I’m not talking about the billion hours he spends in the office , that’s a breeze compared to the job he has to do of trying to calm my anxiety.

Ever since I met Mr Pencil, and way before that I have been a frightened person. I am scared of most things but my one big fear has always been the very rational fear of the end of the world.  Not the end of “my” world as every psychologist in Johannesburg and the Eastern suburbs of Sydney has tried to convince me, but the REAL end of the world (and yes I know the psychologists are probably right and it’s all analogous and metaphorical and shit but it’s my fear and I am describing it my way).
[Read more…]

I was nominated to do this

 

I have been nominated for something that I am not even scared of which makes a very good change because ordinarily I run away from nominations lest I have to be competitive. I don’t have a competitive bone in my body and quite frankly entering competitions scares me a bit.

But this isn’t  a competition it’s for the 2014 Liebster Awards which I didn’t know existed until Tamsin Howse from Kiki &Tea nominated me to take part. She explains “it’s basically a blogging chain letter where you have to answer a series of questions posed to you by the person who nominated you, then you get to pose 10 questions to the people you nominate. “ I will totally answer her 10 questions but am afraid I can’t nominate anyone else to do the same because I don’t er, know who to nominate BUT if you want me be nominated just let me know in the comments and I’ll totally come up with 10 questions for you. Warning the first one will be – can you please make me a cup of tea?
[Read more…]

The worst letter I could ever receive

It’s been a hideously unsettling few days for my little family. We’ve moved into a temporary house for the next 4 weeks while we wait for the new one to stop being a building site.

It’s not actually a temporary home, it’s someone else’s very permanent home. Just not mine. And it’s hard to live in someone else’s home no matter how gorgeous and lovely and kind those people are.

It’s harder even to pack up everything you have and decide just what it is you’ll need for the 4 weeks you have no access to any of your stuff.

I’ll divert at this point to tell you that I’m the worlds worst packer and have never once got holiday packing right. So the fact that I packed 4 weeks of clothes for myself on a very warm day means that I have nothing to wear in the cold.  Did I mention how cold it is at the moment?

I knew moving would be hard because as I revealed before, I am very bad at change. I don’t like chaos and I hate moving. What I didn’t expect was just how anxious it would make me.

On Saturday (the day we took our “stuff” to the temporary house) I became so anxious I could feel my insides unfurling.  I actually needed to hug myself to keep them in. I would have asked my husband but I don’t think I was behaving in a way that warranted hugging.

This was all  BEFORE I went to pick up sushi for us for lunch and the lid of the miso soup came off the container and souped up everything including my mood.
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To add to it all I still have lingering symptoms of flu. And diabetes.

But the very worst thing about moving was something that I never ever expected – a letter from my new temporary neighbours

letter h

This is the worst letter I could ever receive. Ever. And it may be the reason I am never leaving the house again.

If you are looking for me I will be at home hugging the dog

So yes, this week has been a blast.

I’m falling apart

roof

Exhibit A : the house is not ready for us to move in

“I’ve had an epiphany” my husband screams from the bedroom as I fret in the lounge. I am siting at my computer reading the invoice from the removals company for perhaps the 18th time that day. It is around 9am.

“What kind of epiphany?” I manage to mutter thinking for sure he’s going to say something about the joinery that he has been designing for the new house. I brace myself for him to tell me that the extra 2mm he’s “epiphanised” will make the cupboards even better.

But no.

“I understand why you’re so anxious about moving” he says. “It’s your childhood, it all makes sense to me now”.
But it doesn’t. Mr Pencil can blame my childhood for a lot of things but he doesn’t realise that all people get stressed about moving. Or don’t they?
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Random thoughts from my very full head

brain-dump-to-do-list

In case you’ve been wondering where I’ve been lately, I’ll let you know that I have been at work. Well I’ve actually been at home but I have been working so I’ve been a really slack blogger.

I’ve been writing so many posts for Kidspot that I am almost out of words. Almost.  I’ve actually got a lot to say but I am full of thoughts that aren’t forming themselves into posts – so I’m just going to throw them at you

  • I, like everybody else, have been gutted by the events of this world over the last few weeks. Unlike everybody else I am very immature in the way I deal with these things. It has not been fun to be my husband
  • My house is still being renovated and I am still the worst project manager in the world. I have decided not to complain relentlessly about the building process because people all over the world are dying
  • I still hate our government and I wish Tony Abbott could see the tragedy of having to flee your own country and seek asylum as clearly as he can see the tragedy of a plane being shot out of the sky
  • I have lost a considerable amount of Facebook friends over the Israel/Gaza fighting. Nothing compared to the death of innocent people
  • I am tired of explaining to people that being Jewish does not necessarily mean you are Israeli or even that you agree with everything that the Israeli government do. Not even everyone in the Israeli government agrees with what they are doing
  • I am completely  horrified by the judgment being piled on Peaches Geldof most especially by anonymous writers whose anonymity I think I may just see through. I wrote about that more fully on Kidspot today – you can check it out here
  • I am equally annoyed by self righteous people all over the internet and by adults who behave like school girls
  • I still have unresolved school girl issues
  • I have huge issues with the images that the TV news is showing us. I have lots of words to say about that – I am going to write them for Kidspot tomorrow
  • The skin on my feet is so rough I am starting to look like an elephant.
  • I have discovered that the key to eating well is being organised. While I am fairly well organised in every other facet of my life I can’t nut this one down. Must be some deep rooted issue
  • My friend challenged me to write a gratitude journal for five nights and I forgot after two although I remain grateful for lots of things
  • My fringe is in that in between stage. Between awful and horrific
  • I have developed an unnatural obsession for eating oranges
  • Since I joined the gym I have been sick. Like proper sick with a chest infection, fevers and laryngitis which I didn’t complain about because it seemed a little selfish given the state of the world
  • I have a friend who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer and I wish I could publish her texts and emails because not only is she a brilliant and witty writer, but she’s so brave and amazing and her attitude so bloody down to earth and unexpected and inspiring, I want the world to hear her voice. I will nag her more rigorously after she’s completed chemo because I’m sensitive like that
  • I’m loving working at Kidspot. A more supportive, funny and amazing group of women you’d be hard pressed to find. They’re bringing back the joy of working for me. No agenda. No nasty. No schoolgirl shit . Just a bunch of incredible people working together

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And those are my thoughts for this minute.

How about you ?

7 things you never knew about me

The other day the beautiful Kat Caravella from Mamma’s Vida tagged me in her Versatile Bloggers Award post – I was so excited to see my name in the same post as Award that I momentarily forgot that I am hate awards and the competition that comes along with them – but more about that later . The Versatile Bloggers Award basically asks of you to tell your audience seven things about you that they didn’t know before (or at least that is how I interpreted it).

It’s a funny thing when you blog and use social media a lot, people believe they know everything about you – but of course they don’t, they only know the bits you share which is why coming up with 7 things you don’t know about me was both easy and hard. But I think I did it

  1. I hate wearing shoes. Wherever I am and whatever I am wearing, I would rather be barefoot
  2. I detest shopping. Shopping centres make me claustrophobic and insecure
  3. I have an extremely addictive personality. This has got me into all sorts of trouble in the past but for this minute my only addiction is Candy Crush which is the healthiest of all my addictions I can think of so I’m good with that
  4. I am not good with crowds. That’s not true – I absolutely detest crowds
  5. I hate competitions of any kind. I feel sorry for the losers and I cringe at the thought of being a winner
  6. I really don’t like birds. Even though I am a huge animal lover and I would never harm (or eat) a bird I really don’t think they’re very nice creatures
  7. I have never seen ET, The Notebook or the end of The Sound of Music
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Surprised at all?  Or did you always suspect me of being a shoeless addict that hates shopping, people, competitions, birds and movies?

Tell me seven things I might not know about you and if you’ve already participated in this before – drop me a link to your blog in comments so I can read your post