Eight

First, can I please put a call out there to other bloggers/people who are reading this.

1) How the hec do I become a member of someone's blog, rather than just a follower? I can't post on friends' blogs when the rules are that only members can post comments and it's driving me insane.
2) How the hec do I post a comment on someone's blog fullstop?? There is only one person's blog that allows me to post a comment, and that is as 'anonymous'.

HEEEELLLLLPPPP!!!


Second, I'd just like to say this: "My massage last night gave me a headache".

A friend of mine - the lovely DT - is doing her massage course (diploma or certificate, I think diploma and then she is going to move on to bigger and better things next year). Such a shame really, because she needs 'guinea pigs' to practise on, so ho hum, I guess I am able to oblige. :-)

So, every second Tuesday (notwithstanding sick kids or parent teacher interviews) DT visits me at 8:30pm after Mr W is in bed, and gives me a lovely....FREE....massage. Just the thing for someone like me who sits at a computer at work all day long. Thank you very very much.

So last night DT comes to visit, and gives me the magic treatment. (As an aside, I do wonder whether she will ever again have the experience of giving someone a massage while they listen to the Best and Fairest count for their footy league via the internet, but that's another story).

DT left me in such a state of relaxation, that I forgot to set my alarm for this morning. However, with the recent electrical issues I have been having (see earlier posts), I have set my mobile phone alarm to go off at 5:55am, just in case the electric alarm clock packs it in overnight. The phone sits on the other side of my bedroom - I'm sure you know the trick, put the mobile phone alarm AWAY from the bed so that you have to get up to turn it off.

I have never had to utilise the phone alarm, I simply unset it every morning once I am up.

Except, of course, for this morning, when (as a result of me being so relaxed that I forgot to set my electric alarm clock last night) I was woken up suddenly at 5:55am by the most horrible sounding alarm from my mobile phone at about four hundred million decibels. Well, OK, maybe not four hundred million, but that's how it felt as I was suddenly woken from one of the deepest sleeps I have had in a while.

I am sure you have all had the experience of being suddenly woken from a deep sleep, that experience where your eyes open instantaneously, but your body is at least an hour behind, and your brain sits up in it's cerebellum fluid and says "WTF WTF WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!". Your heart isn't far behind, bouncing out of your chest saying "WTFWTFWTF?!?!?!?!?!", until your brain settles down just a little and says "I think that's the alarm" and your heart says "WTFWTFWTF?!?!?!?!?!?!", and finally your brain says "I don't feel so good, that was quite a shock, Janeane, I think you have a headache now", and every other part of your body says "We agree".

Meanwhile, your heart has stopped saying "WTF?!?!", has somehow managed to settle back into a mostly normal pattern, and you now have the mammoth job of getting out of bed and heading over to the mobile phone to turn the alarm off, when you are still wondering if this is real or some kind of sick dream.

Well, in my case this morning, it was REAL baby, oooohhhhh so real.

And that's why my massage gave me a headache. (DT, you can now breathe a sigh of relief, as you now know it wasn't the ACTUAL massage that gave me a headache!)

My little fellow is quite sick tonight. He woke up this morning telling me he had a sore throat, and grimmacing each time he swallowed a piece of toast. I (as a product of my good ol' dad) said "You'll be right, off to school". Doh. He got out of the bus and into the car this afternoon, and looked atrocious, soooo sick the poor little darling, the mother guilt consumed me totally. He has that horrible cold/flu red nose and that red rash above his lip, he can't breathe properly and he's sneezing constantly. I don't think he will be going to school tomorrow, which means that I won't be going to work. Bugger. Being at home bores me to tears (nearly literally).

I will have to tie my hands together too, because the cupboard and the fridge become my friends when I am bored at home.

But, in preparation for a long and boring day at home tomorrow, as well as taking care of my little fellow, I shall bid you all adieu and good night.

Talk tomorrow

Janeane
xx

Seven

Tonight I am MIGHTY angry.

Some pickle has hacked into my iTunes account and used the gift card that I had sitting in there, which was a present from my gorgeous friend CD.

I've had the card since Easter, and added it to my iTunes account a couple of weeks ago - waiting until I finish my current book to then go and purchase a talking book on iTunes (I switch from actually reading at night to listening to books on the iPod).

On the weekend I got an email from Apple saying that my Apple ID had been used to download and purchase an App called 'Kingdom Conquest', but from a device that was not associated with my ID. The email directed me to a website where I could update my password and check out security settings etc. It all looked legitimate, but of course I was worried about phishing, so tonight I checked out the web for any other people who may have been caught out....and it was all legitimate stuff.

I checked out my iTunes account, and lo and behold, it had been disabled for security reasons. Went through the whole process of re-setting a new password, and finally managed to get into my account, only to find that the $20 card that I had sitting in my account is now down to just 54cents. Bloody mongrel has gone in and used a gift to ME from MY GOOD FRIEND to purchase some stupid game.

I am putrid on this one - I've gone to Apple Support to try to email them to advise it wasn't me, and there isn't a direct email to send to (no doubt because they would probably get heaps of emails if there was one). There's 'Customer Support', but from what I can see this is based on the philosophy of 'ask around, someone has probably had the same issue you had, and will be able to help you'....ie 'the forum solution'. And the emails they sent me clearly stated "Don't reply, this is an automatically generated email" - it directs you to 'support', that being the said forums I've mentioned above!

I don't want 'the forum solution', I want my iTunes gift card money back!!!

There's also a phone number, so I'm going to ring them. Now, actually.

Talk tomorrow

Janeane
xx

Six

Sunday night....the end of the week for some, the beginning for others. Starting the lunch routine again. Starting the ironing routine again. Starting the 'get into bed it's a school night' routine again.

Two pics from my weekend. Glenn and me at Glenn's brother's 50th birthday do, and the lovely Ainsley and I at my brother in law's 50th do. Both on the same night. BIL's in Lower Plenty, Glenn's brother's in Richmond. Guess who was driving....


It ended up being a 4am morning and man am I shattered. I only had three glasses of wine the whole night (which began at 6pm when we left Glenn's for party number one, BIL's in Lower Plenty). Once again life is pointing out to me that yes, I am indeed getting older. 4am mornings are no longer my 'thang' - irrespective of the amount of alcohol consumed (or not), I am just too old to pull a 4am-er. Despite sleeping until 10:30, I have only just managed to get through the day (although am more than a little proud of myself that I also managed to do the food shopping AND visit Rebel Sport to buy the Father's Day gift from William for his Dad).

Coincidences are soooooo coincidental. Glenn and I had always known that my sister's sister-in-law (ie the sister of my sister's husband - are you following me??) - we shall call her CR - were born on the same day. That's the same day EXACTLY, not the same DATE, the same DAY. We discovered last night that they were also born at the same hospital. On the same DAY, in the same YEAR. etc etc. Oh....my....God. It was freaky enough when I first started going out with Glenn and we realised that he already knew CR because his kids went to school with her kids. That was freaky enough. But this just blew us all away.

Tonight while driving home from Glenn's house a fox ran across the road! That's right, it just scampered across the Brunswick Road on ramp to the Tulla and into a piece of vacant land. Not so special you might say, except that when my mother was dying, she told a family friend of ours that whenever this friend saw a fox (ie NOT one in a zoo or in captivity), that was mum giving a sign that she was with her. She told ME that whenever I came across a white feather, that was her giving me a sign that she was with ME. (In the ten years since she died I have, in fact, found two random white feathers; one was on the ground at a park I was walking through, the other just seemed to come from nowhere to my feet). Tonight, I'll take the fox.

Which then, of course, got me to thinking how much I miss my parents. Obviously I am OK with the fact that everyone dies etc, but sometimes it messes with me as to whether or not they can (like I tell everyone that I believe) see how happy I am now. I feel like I have strong faith that they are with me, travelling this journey on my shoulder, but then I have moments like tonight that make me think....well, CAN they? ARE they? And I do wish there was a way I could know for sure. Particularly with Dad, you know he always worried about his kids, even as they grew into adults, and I know that he was concerned about the whole 'divorce' thing in my life, as it wasn't something that he really condoned. He was more of a 'stick at it and work it out' kind of guy. (He once told me that my marraige would be more successful if I was like Mum and put lipstick on before M got home, so that I looked half decent for him!).

Thankfully, not long before he died, Dad did actually tell me that he thought I was going OK, and that possibly it was a good thing that I had left the marriage, because he could see that I was happier. I don't think he was ever really settled with the fact that I moved into another relationship so soon after my marriage fell apart, but I do wish that he could see how much Glenn has changed my life, and that five years down the track I am still with the same partner, haven't chopped and changed, that wasn't what it was about, it was about finding someone that I was compatible with, plain and simple. And I was just lucky that it was a quick find (not without its rocky patches of course, but it has all worked out in the end)

I KNOW that he thought I was making the wrong decision going into the funeral industry, he told me, and I'm really miffed that he went and died just five weeks after I started, because nearly three years down the track I am as happy as a pig in the preverbial with my job, and am doing quite well at it.

And as for the single parent of a child with a disability, Dad was ALWAYS worried about how I would cope with that, and again I feel like I am coping quite well (apart from the occassional meltdown!).

I just wish I could be positive that somewhere, somehow, Dad knows how my life has panned out, and that I am OK. It's one of the things in my life that bothers me. Maybe it's not wanting him to be worried, maybe it's selfish and wanting him to be in a position to admit that he didn't have the faith in me that he should have, that he needed to let me grow up a bit. Maybe its that I still 'need' his approval.

Either way, sometimes I get pissed off that he's not here to share in my successes.

OK, I'm bawling now, so I'm going to go to bed. I'm tired and emotional after pulling my 4am morning; that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Talk tomorrow.

Janeane

Five

The electricity problem has been solved. SSS came for one final visit this afternoon and discovered that my problems apparently originated from the wiring in the garage. Some wire was touching some other wire that it shouldn't have been touching, and that was shorting everything out. Good old SSS - someone write that man a cheque.

I'll be checking the tattslotto ticket tomorrow morning, so maybe *I* will write the cheque.

Well, here it is, Friday night and here I am at home, all on my ownsome....and loving it. Every now and then one needs to have a 'me' night, and tonight is that night for me. By choice. Hoo-ray.

I've bought Chinese food for dinner (and scoffed waaaayyyy too much already), cracked open a bottle of Chardy (only had one glass, drinking alone isn't something I really do) and have watched an episode of the fantabulous Rumpole on DVD. Gotta love Rumpole.

Now I'm about to pop into bed with Jane Austen and the folk from Mansfield Park. I love these sorts of nights.

So, it's a short one from me tonight people.

Talk tomorrow (or maybe on Monday night, I have two....YES TWO...parties to attend tomorrow evening - flits eyelids like the social butterfly that she feels- so may not have the time or energy to check in).

Janeane
xx

Four

I've found a simple solution to this whole carbon pollution thing - and it doesn't involve a tax that will increase our cost of living and higher power prices.

We all simply need to get an electrician to re-wire our house, and after that none of us will be able to use multiple appliances at once without tripping the goddamn safety switch. As a result, we will never use more than one or two appliances at a time, and will cut down on our carbon emissions.

Granted, the cost of the electrician might be high, however if the government gave us a grant to re wire our house in the same way they were handing them out for solar panels, we would generate new jobs for apprentice electricians as well. There you go, a twofold solution.

Plus, we would probably also generate new jobs in the telecommunications industry as a result of the multiple phone calls we had to make to relatives/friends/said electrician to report and discuss these electrical issues that we were having.

SSS (God love him) seems to have wired something arse about, and this means that I cannot currently boil a kettle without the house being plunged into darkness. Or use a toaster without the same result.

Now I agree, there are other ways to skin a cat (or in this case, boil a kettle), that being the use of gas, and thankfully my stovetop is of the gas kind, so it's the saucepan (for boiled water) and the griller (for toast) for me until SSS comes over AGAIN tomorrow afternoon to see whether he can work out what circuit goes with what switches.

I could take my electric kettle into my bedroom to boil, it works in THERE. But that doesn't feel right....that's the realm of cheap hotels, don't you think? Not at your HOME.

This is in no way a reflection on SSS's abilities as a sparky. Indeed, when I was speaking to him this evening, he was as perplexed as a perplexed thing about why this was happening, and why certain sockets worked with the kettle and others didn't. Nor is it the kettle's fault. Nor the toaster's. Nor anyone's really, I guess it's just one of those things. In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever understand HOW those sparkies can keep track of all those little wires and fuses and things. I reckon it actually takes a fair bit of nouse, which is obviously why they cost so goddamn much!!!!! Dentists, vets and sparkies. kaching kaching kaching.

As a disclaimer, I should note here that I am not actually paying for any of this, as I am living in the family home as one of the stipulations of my father's Estate, so it is 'The Estate' that is actually paying for these not-so-little fixups. But damnation, am I glad I am NOT paying for it, else I would be starting a special little crop in the garage to sell in order to pay the bill.

Which would probably mean I would need an electrician to set up those special blue-green hydroponic lights, and the process would start again. Hydro lights to grow the crop don't work? Well, I think you might need your whole freakin house rewired.


Today's William moment: We got in the car this afternoon to head to our traditional Thursday night fancy restaurant (Maccas), and the most horrible smell drifted up to my nostrils. It was rancid.

In that psychotic mother voice that we sometimes get I said to him "Did you just fart?", to which he replied "Why do you ask?"

So I asked him again: "Did you ju...st....FART?!?!?!?!?!"

"Yes", he said in a matter of fact voice.

"Twice"


Talk tomorrow

Janeane
xx

Three

Evening!

There's nothing nicer than a hot cup of coffee and starting a new blog entry. OK, that's not true, of COURSE there are MANY things nicer, but I am feeling a sense of comfort as I sit here at my trusty puter and write some more stuff.

I'm currently having the house re-wired. The lights had been flickering intermittently, so I called the Landlord to advise, and an electrician turned up on my doorstep to check things out. Turns out that house needed re-wiring, so last Friday, and this Monday, Sam the Super Sparky aka SSS (not his real name) and his apprentice have been fixing light switches and putting in new switchboards.....and a safety switch.

Aaaahhhhh....the safety switch. I set it off three or four times on Monday night, no doubt due to the fact that one or two of the appliances here are from the Dark Ages (or at least the 'when I was a LOT younger' Ages). Every time I cursed the safety switch for making all the lights go out, I simultaneously THANKED it.

SSS and his apprentice are back tomorrow to work on the actual electrical wiring, so I am hoping that the safety switch will no longer need to do its work after tomorrow. I'm also hoping for a light in my toilet, but that's another story.

I've swept the floor tonight in preparation for tomorrow - SSS makes the apprentice get down on his knees with a dustpan and broom to tidy up the mess they make. Fair enough, part of a tradie's modus operandi should be leaving the house as they found it. Only problem is that when the apprentice was down on his hands and knees sweeping stuff into the dustpan.....half of it was mine. Imagine my horror to see the poor lad sweeping up dustbunnies from my floor that were well and truly there BEFORE they started the electrical work. How embarrassing.

Tomorrow the only bits he'll be cleaning up WILL actually be the ones they've created. I did ask him whether he did dishes/laundry, but he said that he didn't, which is a shame really.

I had quite a substantial moral dilemma today. Went to the letterbox and there was a letter addressed to someone who used to partially live here, a while ago, that I never really liked. Should I have opened it to see what was inside? That is, of course, the question. It is still sitting unopened on the table. I don't know where this person now lives, so can't on-send it, but could do the old 'return to sender' thing. Or....I could open it. I think I will 'return to sender' it. No doubt if I opened it I would be disappointed, this particular person would have changed their address for anything important, it's probably just a flier for a sale or something. The envelope does have a window.....maybe it's a cheque - this person collects them.....

Now my dilemma is whether I should delete what I've just written or keep it there. Ah...blow it all...I'm keeping it there. :-) Is that bad?

Talk tomorrow

Janeane
x

Two

Me me me me me.

I really just typed that to get started, and seeing as blogs are those kind of self indulgent ways of telling the world all about yourself, it seemed like a good place to start.

I had a funny thought the other day - I voiced it to my work colleagues and I was KILLING myself laughing. I think it must only be something that those with kids can really appreciate - there is only one other parent in my department, she wasn't there at the time, and I haven't passed the joke to her, might do that tomorrow. DP (work colleague, single mum and freaked out sense of humour such as myself) came to visit my dept yesterday, I told HER my hilarious thought, and SHE thought it was funny, we laughed together until we cried, she called me an idiot, and we LOL'd (I use that term so that I appear hip and with it).

The thought was this: It seems that all children want to go to places that end in 'World'. Seaworld, Movie World, Dream World, Disney World etc. The next time Will says that he wants to go somewhere fun and exciting, I think I'll take him to Coles New World. He's sure to love it, because it ends in 'World'.

It doesn't seem as funny when it's written down in Times New Roman font, or whatever font this actually is. But Man O Man....when you say it out loud, it is HILARIOUS. Seriously, I had tears.

On another note, tonight while cooking dinner I got the salad ready, popped the chips in the oven, started toasting the hamburger roll, then stood in the middle of the kitchen thinking "I feel like I should be doing something else". Couldn't think what it was, so started working on my Greek salad for my lunchbox tomorrow. Until I smelled the burning, and realised that when you make hamburgers, you're supposed to cook a round bit of beef patty thing, NOT light the frying pan with the oil in it and just leave it on the flame. I just knew I'd forgotten something, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

Of course, it may have been the shock I gave myself earlier in the evening that made me forget what I was supposed to be doing. I started filling up the sink to wash some dishes (no electric dishwasher for me), grabbing the dishwashing liquid to bring on the suds. Flipped the lid of the liquid and gave a squirt into the water....and realised that I had, in fact, grabbed the Crisco vegetable oil and was squirting that into the water. The oil had been on the bench, next to the dishwashing liquid, waiting to be used for the hamburger.

Thankfully, when I did get around to putting the oil into the frying pan for the burger, I did in fact use the Crisco, and not the Trix. But, of course, I forgot that the oil was IN the pan until I smelled the burning (see above).

But now, at 7:25pm, with the child tucked up in bed reading his comics, I can head off to my little piece of Heaven, my own bed, and join all the folk in Mansfield Park via the literary genius of Jane Austen.

Talk tomorrow

Janeane

One

Have decided to 'blog' my life - why not, everybody else seems to be doing it.

And these days, what with working full time and all, Facebook just doesn't seem to have enough space to write my week down and communicate with those that I have simply not had the time (or energy some days!) to call or call in on.

So, hopefully, by doing it this way, I can share Will's and my happenings with those people that matter....without having to send them one of those emails that mean 'I'm thinking of you, so I'll send you a joke to show you that I'm thinking of you'.

Instead, I'll force you to think of ME while you read this blog (if you can be bothered). Hahahahaha.

Janeane

PS: This photo is of us as we waited for the train to take us to the Model Train show at Caulfield Racecourse on Sunday. Will had an absolute ball, I took lots of pics, but have uploaded them to Facebook. I think from now on, with all of this extra space to write about our adventures, I will put them here instead.

PPS: I don't really want the world seeing my life in words, so I'm setting this blog to private status (if possible, shall investigate now). This means, I suppose, that unless you have been willing to create your own login, you will be unable to read it. This means, I suppose, that what I just wrote becomes superfluous. This means, I suppose, that I LOOOOVE using big words like 'superfluous', that I'm not sure I can actually spell.