Things have settled down here somewhat and it was lovely to have husband home for the weekend. Even lovelier that he got a taste of the less-than-lovely Miss Annabelle. Such a contrast to what she's normally like, so at least he knows now that I'm not actually making it up. She's definitely not her usual laid-back, easy-going self these days... though right now she's playing happily in the bath on her own so she's not ALL devil-child.
But I've got it in my head now that we'll go to Qld in July. That's it. Decided. And I would like all the necessary approvals and paperwork to be done... errrr... yesterday if you don't mind. Patience is not my strong point at the best of times and right now time is of the essence. So of course the head honcho at the U of Q is overseas for 2 weeks and our program coordinator here at U of A was not available today. Things are not progressing at the lightning speed that I would prefer.
The only thing to do is to use this as a practice in mindfulness.
.. as the Black Eyed Peas would say. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen the clip below.. do yourself a favour. But before you get side-tracked with that, how's this?
I keep doing my cards and I keep getting the Tower. For those of you who don't know, the Tower means everything being turned totally on its head. Sudden, unexpected change of the hugely chaotic kind. BIG change. Sometimes catastrophic, sometimes not. But either way, not something you'd expect. I also get a lot of moving cards (fairly self-explanatory given the upcoming move to Qld) and a lot of happy cards. So my interpretation of all this was that while I'm coasting along thinking that I'm going to stay in Adelaide until the end of the year given that all my investigations into moving up earlier have come to a big fat NOTHING, what's the bet something sudden and out-of-the-blue is going to happen which means we can go earlier? I think I might have even said to my friend Carley that I reckon I'll get an offer in June and have to be gone by July. That would be the Tower.
Fast-forward to now and I had a bit of a melt-down this week. Annabelle has turned into some rampant feral child who I feel like I don't even know and I've turned into an angry, intolerant mother who I feel like I don't even know. I called husband and told him that this is not going to work and I'm pulling the pin on uni and will finish it in Qld next year (ok, possibly a slight over-reaction on my part and may or may not have been influenced by hormonal instability but never mind that).
So Mav being Mav and all firing off emails and punching out letters got straight onto the head of program at UQ, introduced himself as a new member of staff and asked for help with our relocation.
WELL... are they rolling out the red carpet or WHAT?! They could not be more helpful if they flew a private jet down to collect me.
So there will be some logistical nightmares to sort out and all of this still depends on Adelaide Uni approving my final subject up there, but it is looking very promising indeed. Did I mention that the only week I would have to move interstate (pack up, move house, settle child into a new kindy, settle me into a new uni, find a new house, not to mention move the whole shop that I've worked so hard to set up here... ET CETERA!) is the very same week that I have booked a non-refundable holiday at the Sunshine Coast? That is the Tower.
Fingers crossed it all works out. Then I'll be getting these ones...
When Mav first moved to sunny Qld I figured it would be no big deal since he travels so much anyway.
I was wrong. It is completely different.
He comes home for the weekend about every three weeks. That's two brief days home and then three long weeks in between that he doesn't get to see Annabelle or me and that I have to do it all on my own. He's practically missing a year of her life.
I have to admit it's ok when I need to do my uni stuff because it's easier when there's not someone else around trying to talk to me or watch TV or generally be distracting. I can be super focused when he's not here.
But the downside is that I have to do all the parenting on my own. All the drop offs and pick ups, all the baths and getting dressed, all the bedtimes and just the general answering all the constant "Why's" and responding to all the whining and the complaining and the arguing with every little thing I say (which seems to be a delightful four-year-old thing). All the setting up the paints and getting more water and taking the kitchen outside then bringing it inside and photocopying the colouring paper and getting out the play-dough and getting a drink of water, no cordial, no water, no not in that cup in this cup please, and making a sandwich, and negotiating whether she can have a marshmallow, and tying ponytails, no not one but two ponies, one up one down please and of course the never-ending picking up of mess that gets strewn from one end of the house to the other.
And of course she got nits this week. De-lousing, combing, checking for eggs morning and night and needing the negotiating skills of the UN to get her to let me do it because she hates having her hair wet.
And all the washing and folding. And putting the bins out and bringing them back in. Those are the things that Mav does and it usually annoys me that he is obsessed with washing because he normally just washes, hangs out, brings in and leaves me huge mounds of clean clothes to deal with when I was quite happy leaving them in the hamper with a lid on so I didn't have to deal with them. But now I'm so sick of washing I can't even begin to tell you. All I do is wash. And I don't know how many times I've almost forgotten the bins because usually I never have to do it.
So yeah.. I'm over it. I'm getting snappy and irritable and I seem to have a permanent head-cold just from being run-down and tired. I can't wait to be done with uni and then I'm taking six months off and lazing around on a big farm in Qld and taking daily trips to the beach with Annabelle before she starts school next year. I'm having one LONG holiday when this is all over.
This shop is taking up a lot of my time lately. Well it's not that it takes up a lot of time - it's more that I have precious little spare time as it is (only the evenings after Annabelle is in bed) and I've been using that time to get the shop set up instead of doing other things.... such as my thesis.... or my neuro assignment....
So I'm going to have to open the doors with some basic stock and then just build it as I go. I had this idea of it being fully stocked but that's a bit unrealistic especially in terms of my own cash flow.
We had Annabelle's FOURTH birthday party on the weekend. Oh my goodness, where does the time go?! She had a party at home because I thought that would be cheaper. Silly me. By the time I got the party paraphernalia and the Tinkerbell cake and spent $120 on party food (which four year olds tend not to eat as it turns out..)I could have just as easily taken her to Groovy Chicks and Pirate Ships for the $300 they were going to charge me. Ah well.. I think we all need to have the home party experience just once. I'll put photos up soon!
... it's a great message. I think I'll be buying the DVD!
Not sure if you can view this properly unless perhaps you click 'Full Screen'. Otherwise, click the link below to go straight to the Website. And thanks Danielle for bringing this to my attention. :)
Here is the working model of my shop. This is the test site so none of the links will work. I've disabled the real shop until the products are all in and ready to go so that my competition can't sniff around until I'm ready to launch...
Meanwhile, back in my real life I'm still LOVING placement. I've got my own outpatient clinic with a pretty full caseload of clients and today I am starting my first mindfulness group for mums in the sick babies ward (up to 12 months old). Some of the babies and mums are there for a very, very long time so we hope this gives them some break and some skills for coping with the stress. Wish me luck with that. I hope it goes well!
Still looking for a final placement in Queensland so we might be able to move up there early (like July) but no luck just yet. I'm allowed to enrol in my final subject at Griffith Uni - Gold Coast campus. That would just be one class per week. Mel thinks he can get 3 days of kindy for Annabelle at the UQ kindergarten right next to his office so if I can just get a placement we're good to go. Keep all your fingers crossed.
Posts
