Pre waking musings

I am feeling so tired and so sorry for myself.

Mehki was up last night crying and screaming for Gods knows how long and for god knows why.
Seriously that kid is going to be the death of me.At 12:30 last night, it felt like he had been screaming for hours, nevermind the fact that I'd only been in bed for 3 hours. I gave him a dose of neurofen and another drink and packed the little bugger back off to bed. Craig gave me a wakeup call at 5am, but I was far too tired to stumble out then, so I got another wakeup call at 5:45 when he got to work. Bless Him. (Not really, I want to shake his teeth out for being so reliable!)

I have so much I have to do, but then I got asked to work today. Ugh. I can't say no, we really need the money at the moment, but what about my assignment that is due on Friday? I wonder if I could get an extension until Monday?

AF due today, I tested 2 days ago and it was negative, so I'm not feeling hopeful this month. even though Craig and I were both feeling really good about this month. I have had sore boobs, and felt a smidgen queasy and felt off my food. Not too mention I had some bleeding midcycle that had me stumped as I'd never had it before. Oh well, nothing I can do about it I suppose. But I am sad this was my last chance to have an 08 baby. :O( The worst part is we are both thinking about it all the time, we've even got names picked out, talk about jumping the gun! Ava Violet and Jali Nathaniel :O)

Anyway I have a billion things to do, it's 6:30am and the kids are still in bed, (I've sent Leeara back twice already!) I'll try and sneak in a shower and a couple of other jobs before the demons get up.

:(

I had a really bad afternoon as a parent today, I mean really bad. I don't think things have ever been this bad. I'm not going into details I'm too ashamed.
Needless to say, this is the end of my selfish parenting. No more yelling, No more swearing, and no more 'hang on a minutes, i have to wash the dishes' (Unless they have maggots on them)

Leeara is 4 for goodness sakes, she is going to school next year, I am working 20-40 hours a week, if I don't start making the most of her now, before I know it she will be gone.

Gosh, I'm not the parent I thought and hoped I'd be. It's so hard to try and juggle all these things that life throws my way, the only thing I know is that my kids CAN'T suffer because their Mummy can't get her shit together.

They just Can't.

I don't want for anything

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately.

We went to town the day before my birthday and bought a heap of DVD's, then Craig told me that was my birthday present. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. He had told me he wanted to buy me the notebook, because I have been saying for ages that I wanted it, so this was one of the DVD's we bought.
He came home on my birthday with a bunch of tulips from leeara, a bunch of carnations from mehki, and a block of chocolate. And he organised for his Mum to have the kids so we could go out for tea.

SO why did I feel so ripped off? Was his present really that thoughtless? Or have I simply watched too many movies and have come to expect too much?

And then I realised when my Mum asked me for the second time (after my birthday) what I wanted for my birthday. And do you know I can not think of one damn single thing. The ONLY thing I wanted and had said I wanted in the last few months was the notebook, and Craig had that on the to buy list.
Of all the things in the world, I can not think of anything that I'd like. I don't want clothes (although I probably need them) I don't want a new car, or fancy perfume, or $50 worth of bath stuff. I don't want makeup. I don't want for any housy stuff. I rarely wear jewelery.
SO what's a person left to get me? And do I overcome this consumer driven hype that I MUST get a mega expensive birthday present, that costs heaps and will show everyone we have 'the bling' (when we don't, and don't really desire it either!)

All the things I want are not things that can be given. I want more patience, I want to be less pessimistic, I want to be more motviated, I want to be a more healthy weight, I want to be less of an air head and be more concentrated. I want to keep a tidier house and be more garden proud and get my garden into good shape. These are not things that people can give me (bugger!)

So what does a person get when they want for nothing?

Busy Busy!

Netball starts next week, I cannot wait to be back out there getting some regular exercise.

I've been feeling very off colour these last 3 days, very off my food which it totally unlike me, even chocolate doesn't appease me. Everything I eat tastes like kitty litter (albeit unused thank god!) and I am just totally not hungry.Although microwave popcorn is going down a REAL treat!
8 days until I know if I am UTD, 8 long painful days, which will hopefully pass very quickly considering that as above, netball starts, I will probably have to work 5 of those 8 days, AND I have my first uni assignment due in 11, and I haven't even started my readings yet!

It IS on the to do list, truly it is!

Craig only gets public holidays off and weekends, and so today was just great, we bummed about the house and did virtually NO housework or yard work, did our rendition of chilled out parenting (locked the kids outside haha!Okay, not so much as locked but coaxed them outside!) Craig played the PS3, and I read a book. I start this book called "Ma he sold me for a few cigarettes' on Friday night, and I finished it today and then read a book called "Slave"
I had forgotten just house much I LOVED reading! Once I get into it, I find it hard to stop, but why oh why do I choose to read the type of books that are going to break my heart and expose my naive self to what really happens out there in the big wide world?

Ok bed me, I want to get up early, go for a walk, plan my week to include some study and some exercise, and take the kids to do something cheap but fun (We are back in the poor boat until Craig gets paid on Thursday!)

I have a teenage daughter

I am at my wits end with Leeara. She is 4 years old going on 14, and has an answer for EVERYTHING. She is rude, and bossy and tempermental. She whinges at anything and everything and is generally driving me mental. This morning she yelled at me " I just had a good sleep last night and now YOU'VE ruined it"

God Help me, the terrible two's have gone on forever. She better bloody be a well behaved teenager!

How is it?

That when I'm not working I can afford 4 days childcare, but now that I've returned to work, I am going to be out of pocket at LEAST $100 a week with my increased childcare costs and $90 a week in fuel. Truly if you consider the fact that I am doing an unskilled job that any Jo Blow can do, I have to wonder if it's even worth it?

I'll reassess at the end of the financial year I guess, and if it's costing me too much to work, then I won't. I'm hoping to be pregnant soonish anyway, and I doubt I'll be working after I've had #3 :O)

I have a problem

This happens to me every semester. I can't cope with the workload I am putting on myself.
I'm trying to work, and trying to find time to study and semester has only just started and I can't find time to study how the hell am I going to find time in the middle of the semester?
I'm being a terrible Mum. My son woke 3 times last night and I ended up screaming up him. I feel so bad. Why can't he sleep through the night? And to make it bloody worse he screamed for ages, the minute I picked him up and put him down he comes running through the loungeroom with the fucking smirk on his face that just sent me berko.
Why can't the boy sleep.
Somethings gotta give, and if I don't decide soon it's going to be my sanity.

Why am I so indecisive? I've only just gone back to work and now I'mm questioning whether I should be working or not, life as a working mother is hard, and I mean BLOODY hard. I have getting home at 630pm everynight, stupid retail hours. I really want to study, but when I wasn't working I couldn't find the motivation to do it from home, and campus is too far away. I don't know that being a SAHM suits me either. I'm not a motherly person, which makes me sad really. I don't sit down and role play with the kids, I don't get maternal rushes of glee by banging pots and pans together.
I'm a practical, no nonsense, everything has a purpose, teach them lessons type Mum. I'm the sort of mum who puts more effort into preparing where we are going (food, drink, weather appropriate clothes, WHERE we are going) that when we get there I don't chill out with the kids. I rush them off to play on their own so that Mummy can have 5 minutes to collect her thoughts.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Why can't I just decide what I want to do? :(

Wasteful Companies

You know what REALLY annoys me?

Wasteful multi national companies.

Without naming names of course. So if a 3kg bag of sugar gets sliced with a knife prior to being put on a shelf, it is dumped in the bin. :( Not given to the needy, not put in the staff room for the staff to use. Dumped into landfill, what a waste. Did you know that certain large companies had this nappy policy whereby if you bought the wrong size nappies, and returned them for a different size, your original ones GOT THROWN IN THE BIN! This was supposedly a 'precautionary measure' you know in case some put razorblades in the nappies or something.
Are you freakin kidding me? Disposable nappies are a necessity for some people, and SOME people cannot afford them, and perfectly fine packets are being thrown in the BIN.
Staff cannot even buy damaged stock. Meat that goes out of date today cannot be sold, so it gets dumped. Seriously if it was COOKED today imagine how many hungry people that could feed?
Why can't these companies see the damage they are doing to the environment and see their pure gluttonous wasteful ways? It makes me so angry.
Why can't the staff buy the damaged open stock? Because they don't trust them not to 'damage' something so they can buy it.
Now comes the point, what can I do? I am a staff member at one of these stores. I cannot take the stock and distribute it as I see fit, because I will get sacked for stealing. Yes that's right, a ripped packet of lollies will get thrown in the bin, *I* can't eat them, because then I am STEALING from the company.

How the hell are these places allowed to get away with this? Anybody have any ideas on where to begin to rectify this problem?

My kids...

Have have one of those days where your kids just drive you absolutely bonkers, so much so you threaten to leave your other half with the kids and tell him you will happily give him full custody? (To which of course he replied "LIKE HELL, I'll fight you for 50/50!)

Good God, do I REALLY want anymore kids? Can I even cope with anymore kids? Honestly!

The embarassing part is...

Okay, so this is where I confess the REALLY embarassing part from my last post.

When I say cement mixer. I mean one of those small ones. *sheepish grin*
Picture this. The boys needed a cement mixer to put my new clothesline in.
I forgot it was in our yard and just reversed straight into the blasted thing, with an almighty bang. Boo Hoo Hoo,my poor car! AND my poor ego!

The last thing I hit was a parked car when I was trying to pull out of a car park!

Lunatic Driver coming to a town near you

I am so freakin' angry at myself, I just reversed my Tarago into a cement mixer. Fuckity Fuck Fuck Fuck.

The only two times in my life that I have had an accident are when I have hit a stationary object. How on God's green earth did I ever get a friggin license?

So Mad.

One beer musings

33 hours down, 4 to go. My feet are about to fall off I'm sure of it. My eyes are hanging out of my head. My feet are swollen and aching. My back aches. Every inch of my body aches. Why did I want to go back to work? That's right a little thing called money, so we could have extra of it. Although my childcare fees are going to double, and petrol is going to cost me at LEAST $90 a week. AT LEAST! I keep telling myself, "You are building your super, AND will have extra money" ad keep ignoring the fact that I am doing an unskilled labour intensive job, SOMEONE has to stack shelves right? Or all the rich people wouldn't be able to eat. Right? Yes Amber.
I've set up a contribution of $20 per week to my super, which means as a low income earner the government will contribute quite a bit to my super, okay so $1500 a year might not seem like a LOT, but it's $1500 I wouldn't have had otherwise! Instead of one payment, I get 3 payments. You know you are nerdy when you are 43 years off retiring, and you are getting excited about your super.

What else? I've changed the account my pay goes into, because we don't budget for the money if it goes into my regular bank account, I fritter it away here and there, but never have anything to show for it, but by not having ready access to it, means that I have to put some thought into spending it first. I have a few bills I want to get cleared up, then I want to save some money, and then start funelling some money into our loans. It's hard to be financially dedicated, it's so nice having that extra money, but 12 months of being strict will set us up for life. No joke! We have to renovate the house, make it bigger and do some improvements. That' s it. We have no need to buy anything else, we now have a car that can comfortably fit in more kids. Our debt is under control, and soon we will be paying a stack off our debts, and have them paid off quicksmart, which will mean we will have so much money left over, to save, or pay off the house, or even go on our first family holiday, now THAT would be nice!

Strict, Budget, Lifetime Setup! It is totally achieveable with a bit of dedication.

How?

How on earth am I supposed to find time to study, and clean house, and spend time wth Craig, and be a parent, and play netball, and work 37 hours a week?
I know that I won't have 37 hours everyweek, but gee I really need to get my shit sorted before we are half way into the semester and I've done jack shit, and then panic, and drop out because I've got so far behind I don't think I can catch up.

Plan Amber, Organise Amber. YOU can do this. Relax your standards, Focus on eating properly, exercising, routines, relaxing as a parent, stop and take time to smell the roses. The world will not crumble if I don't fold washing, and trash the lounge room with the kids instead. Stop, and think, plan, and organise.. I CAN DO THIS!

Exhaustion and Insomnia

How on earth can I be suffering from insomnia when I am utterly exhausted to the bone?

Note to self- You NEED to exercise. Start looking after your body.