If you’re not a Novacastrian and would like some background information before reading my rant please head here: http://www.theherald.com.au/newssearch.aspx?q=figs&sb=rel&so=asc

I never felt the need to weigh in on the Newcastle Figs debate. Probably because, to be completely honest, I wasn’t really that interested. Until now. The other day I was driving down King St, the street parallel to ‘Fig St’ and there were at least 6 cop cars parked there. I glanced over to my right to see the large construction fence in place plus an enormous police van.

My first thought, what an absolute waste of police resources. Why aren’t those resources being used to combat the moron’s that cause upteen problems on the streets at night. Or to catch dickhead drivers. Or to…. I could go on and on, but I won’t.

No, instead these police resources are being used for the safety of the removal of the Figs in Laman Street, Newcastle, because of the greenie protestors. Look, don’t get me wrong, I care about our environment. Ok, so I use disposable nappies, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want clean fresh air, and grass for my daughter to play outside.

But I’m a realist. And realistically, spending millions, yes MILLIONS of dollars fighting protestors is beyond ridiculous, especially when these trees are being removed because of safety issues. And plus they’re replacing the trees! Yes that’s right replacing them with properly grown, more suitable figs.

I’ve heard comments that Newcastle should be ashamed of itself for the removal of the trees, due to their history and how it wasn’t good for our children. I’m sorry but what is embarrasing is the absolute waste of Council money on this. Even more embarrassing for Newcastle is the fact that there were death threats made against Councillors. Death threats. Over trees. Seriously give me a break. It is so absurd I can barely put it into words. How dare someone think that a tree is more important than another human beings life.

I don’t know the exact in’s and out’s of the whole debate and frankly I don’t wish too. What I do know is that some people clearly need to pull their heads in and see the more important things in life. My child’s safety when walking down the street is more important to me than the history of the trees. And to threaten another persons life, that not only affects them but the rest of their family as well including their children just makes me sick.

Millions of dollars and death threats. That’s what Newcastle should be embarrassed about.

We’re all guilty of judging other parents, and offering advice, but what happens when judgement is misplaced and unneccesary.

Recently someone commented that they can’t wait for John and I to have a second child, implying that we’d then appreciate how hard parenthood really is. Because apparently John shot their child ‘a look’ when their child was misbehaving and the parents were doing nothing about it. Did the comment piss me off much? Um, yes just a tad. To fully appreciate this comment, let me start at the beginning.

When I was pregnant there were many, many people rubbing their hands together smiling like a stupid cheshire cat waiting to see how my darling ex-bachelor husband would handle fatherhood. I even had the suggestion made to me that if we sold tickets there’d be a line around the corner wanting to catch a glimpse of John in the early days of fatherhood.

I could have easily jumped up and down telling everyone to stick there comments where the sun don’t shine, instead I smiled sweetly and rubbed my own hands together knowing full well they’d all be shot down when John turned out to be a wonderful Dad. I wouldn’t have married him if I didn’t think he’d make a wonderful father. And of course his little girl came into the world, melted his heart and had him changing nappies before he could ask, what’s that smell?!

John’s own father even commented he was pleasently surprised at what a hands on Dad his son was. No pleasent surprise for me, I always knew he would be.

So our gorgeous daughter has been and is a wonderful baby, full of personality and cheekiness, a good sleeper and a good little eater. That’s not to say we don’t have shitty days or shitty nights, but over all we’d like to think we’re doing a pretty darn good job. So why not compliment this instead of being negative and making comments like the one that started this whole rant.

I don’t doubt that 2 kids is much harder than 1, but it doesn’t necassrily mean that you know more or are better parents then someone else because you have more children.

The most amazing pieces of advice usually come from those who don’t actually have children of their own. I was recently told that I needed to put more effort into my blog. I needed to get myself and Sophie into a routine and set aside blogging time for myself to improve my blog.

How nice would that be, regular time set aside for myself to blog. That would be great. In a perfect world. And we all know that said perfect world, unfortunatelty does not exist. While Sophie is in a great routine (thank you ‘Save our Sleep’) not everything is the same everyday. I’d love to say, right I’m going to blog every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But what happens when Tuesday night Sophie screams for an hour at 11pm because her mouth is hurting from teething. Or we sit up at the hospital for 3hours from 1am because her temperature sky rockets to nearly 40 degrees. Or when I put her down for afternoon nap and sit down for my scheduled blogging time and she throws up all over her cot.

Unfortunately as I’ve mentioned before this blog has taken a back seat to motherhood, and rightly so. Posts are few and far between but blogging doesn’t always have to be everyday, or always 3 times a week. Most bloggers aren’t paid for their writing (happy for that to change if anyone wants to pay me!), it’s all for the love, and in my case, it’s cheaper than therapy.

So back to my original rant about judgement. At the end of the day, those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And before you judge another parent, just remember, we’re all doing the hardest job in the world, all with different children, all with different beliefs. And don’t forget to look in your own backyard before criticising others.

Rant over.

As Louise puts it:

My plans were:

0600 depart Newcastle

0730 arrive melb

1330 (1.30pm) hair in portsea

1630 (4.30pm) wedding.

Actual

Fly in and land as per plan. Other half advises that he didn’t bring pants (WHAT THE??) and that he would like to go shopping. Deep breath out… OK lets do breakfast then go to Chadstone (I’m sure the worlds BIGGEST shopping centre and even has its own Tiffanys and Co) Arrive Chadstone 1000, deal is Boy shop for pants then phone me when ready. Game over no later than 1200 to drive to hair appointment. I intended to go get mani and pedi to not spend too much money… oh yeah I LURVE CHADSTONE.

Well – long story short – I wandered round Chaddy, found a dress I have been searching for (involved asking a stranger where she got her RED dress from) had to buy new matching shoes, got my nails done and then…

Bride rang and said ‘can you talk to dad, he sounded distracted when she phoned him earlier.’ So rang dad. Dad was his usual organised self, not, and was charged with picking up the wedding cake. WELL. At 11.20 he had not LEFT HOME YET and the cake was at Chaddy, which was like Charlestown on a Sat morning. DEFINITELY NOT EMPTY and in no shape to simply breeze in and collect a wedding cake! So I said to dad that we were in Chadstone, and we would do the cake (I had visions of no wedding cake at reception…) So we hare around Chaddy to find a trolley then fang to the cake shop, get cake and hurtle into car. We zoom down to the reception (golf course), drop cake off, and I hurl Mike* off at the Country Club (next door thank Tgoodness) and race to get my hair done.

Meanwhile I forgot to metion why I am racing around… WELL

Jen* (Bride) had phoned and was telling me the updated location for …. PHOTOS. Um what photos I am thinking… the photos BEFORE THE CEREMONY at 2pm. Krikey! Hair appointment 1.30, cake dropped off at 1.20, and um PHOTOS AT 2? And amongst all this, Jen had booked my hair appointment time! SO arrive at hair 10 mins late (land speed records on back roads of Portsea) no chit chat, just wash blow dry hair pinned, off to the parents of the grooms small seaside waterfront mansion. Launch into a bathroom, did the superman change from jeans to dress, race out in time for one snap photo then off to the on-location photo shoot at the beach – it’s a clifftop ceremony. LOL the only makeup I have on is a swipe of mascara and some lip gloss! Note: father of the bride is at the parents of the grooms mansion.

Arrive at photo location with sister, bride and father of the bride. Take photos. Jane* (other sister) and I travel to next clifftop for ceremony.

All guests arrive, we all cram into a clifftop walkway and ceremony begins. I am facing bride (downwards) and Jane is on opposite side of crowd facing upwards. Both of us commence scanning crowd for father of bride. Nowhere to be seen… mind you there is 80 people squashed in. maybe he is just ‘amongst it all’. I am standing next to parents of groom. Mother of groom (Marilyn) and father of groom (Rob) whisper. Marilyn turns around and says ‘wheres Glen?’ (Father of the bride) I have to say ‘don’t know!’ mmmmm. Ceremony starts. Ceremony finishes. Celebrant calls for Marilyn and Glen to come forward to witness the signing. Marilyn – tick. Glen – absent. ABSENT!!! The father of the bride MISSED THE WHOLE WEDDING and was nowhere to be seen. I race through carpark to phone and ring him. He answers and I screech WHERE ARE YOU (I was hoping for no answer so maybe he had had a heart attack and a VALID reason for a – answering phone and b – not being on site) Im LOST he says. I have to resist the urge to tell him to keep driving – home – and make sure he gets here. I go back to the ceremony and Jane has signed the docs in dads absence.

THEN…

Father of the groom delivers a lovely speech. Then father of the bride is asked to step to the mic. Father of the bride spends the first 2 mins telling everyone how he was instructed to speak for 3-4 mins only and that the father of the groom spoke for too long, but, dear listener, he wont. Then he rambles and stammers in a speech so shocking that was focussed on why his wife didn’t come (including telling everyone how Grace (his step-daughter) was ‘last chance at australian girls choir’ ) two tearful, over the top references to our mother, then a long winded ramble about Jen (Bride) better fitting to a povo 21st than a 33yr olds wedding. The speech was so bad that people were talking about it AFTERWARDS.

Other than that, the bride looked stunning in a strapless vera wang. Weather was to die for.

Phew. I have vented.

Ever had a day like Louise’s?!

*Names have been changed.

You may have noticed that over the last year or so posts have become few and far between. Time is a factor, as any new mum will say, sleep, eating and a shower comes before blogging in your ‘spare time’. But then there’s also the issue of topics. When I write I’m always cautious not to offend anyone. A differing of opinion is fine, but I would never want to intentionally offend someone. Especially someone that I knew.

And there lies my problemo. Off the top of my head I could think of maybe 10 topics that would make great posts. So why don’t I write about them? Because I feel that I can’t, and probably shouldn’t. Well not on such an open blog anyway. One where people know who I am. One that family and friends read, who could think, hmmm is she talking about me?

I’d love to blog about friendships. The good and the bad. Relationships, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And so much more. But they’re not all my stories to tell. Well not so publicly anyway. I’d love to tell you what a bunch of morons a certain organisation are. I’d love to be able to write about a heartbreaking illness. One that far too many people can relate to. But it wouldn’t be right.

Blogging/writing has always been my therapy. It makes me feel better to bash on the keyword and write things down. So for many of these topics and posts, they will remain drafts. Drafts in the safety of the flipside of my website and some drafts in the safety of my head, as I daren’t write them down.

Are you a blogger who feels the same? Do you have an anonymous blog or do you freely tell all your stories?

Image credit.

Do you ever feel forgettable. As in you meet someone and when you see them again unless you’re with your husband or your dog (yes the dog) they don’t remember who you are. Don’t worry this isn’t a woe is me post, more of an observation.

I’ve met numerous people at the yacht club where hubby sails and while walking, often with hubby and Jack the dog, but when I’ve then seen these people without hubby or dog they wouldn’t have a clue who I am.

It got me wondering if maybe I’m just that type of forgettable person? Some people have defining features like gorgeous red curly hair, or are extremely tall, but I’m just pretty average.

There was even people at our wedding (friend’s of John’s) that when I’ve seen them without John they haven’t had a clue who I was!

I understand in some circumstances a quick meet and greet when you’re busy may mean that you’re not entirely concentrating, but I’d like to think that when I meet people I will remember them.

I can often be quite bad with names, and try to remember to tell myself to do that thing where you say it back to them, as in nice to meet you Liz, but of course that doesn’t always happen. But while I sometimes suck with names I never forget a face. And if I can’t remember your name or where I’ve met you I’ll still smile at you!

How do you remember new people that you’ve met? Do you ever feel forgettable?

The strange thing is these comments are on posts that are more than a year or two old. I haven’t published any of them, which actually goes against how I believe you should deal with it. In the past I have published negative comments and then responded. But to be honest right about now I just feel like I couldn’t be bothered.

I couldn’t be bothered to respond to someone who thinks I should dump my husband because he ‘showed his true colours’ by initially saying no to having a dog. (All his concerns were quite valid actually, but don’t tell him I said that!!) And I couldn’t be bothered to respond to someone calling me an idiot and a jealous bitch over a post that was written in good fun and filled with sarcasm.

I understand that not everyone has the same sense of humour and may not appreciate sarcasm, but if you don’t like it then feel free to read something else. I’ve read often on other people’s blogs about why they blog. Most say for themselves, others say they like to know people out there are reading what they write. Effectively they’re comment whores! Oh look there’s that sarcasm again.

Blogging for me is theraputic. It’s a great way to vent. Sometimes people can relate and sometimes they don’t and that’s fine. But last time I checked your own personal blog is for writing words of your choosing.

I’m feeling a bit deflated at the moment about the whole blogasphere. Clearly I took an extra dose of sensitivity this morning, or maybe I’m just confusing it with lack of sleep!

I’m sure I’ll be back soon enough, sarcasm and all.

Something I say almost everyday...

Everyone likes to look nice. Even when just heading out to do the groceries you always feel better if you’ve put in a bit of effort to look ok. The problem is these days that my ‘looking ok’ consists of trackies, a t-shirt and, wait for it, a pair of thongs. Yep I fit right in at good old Marketown (the shopping centre in town). It would be safe to say that I’m more than entrenched in ‘Mummy Mode’. Mummy Mode consists of getting up and making sure the baby has had her bottle, breakfast, a clean nappy and a cute outfit on, and I get a shower, wet hair in a pony tail and a tracksuit. Any time I used to have perusing my wardrobe for something to wear is now spent washing up bottles and sterilising them along with pureeing and pureeing and some more pureeing.

I think that like most women, especially Mum’s there’s a gaping big hole in my wardrobe. No my crazy architect husband din’t design some weird wardrobe (although I wouldn’t put it past him), I feel that my range of clothes is lacking a middle ground. I have a gazillion, yes gazillion t-shirts, singlet tops, tracksuit pants, 3/4 cargo pants and more pairs of thongs than you can poke a stick at. I have gorgeous gorgeous cocktail dresses and about 20 maxi dresses. Now the maxi dresses used to be my go to outfit all the time, paired with a little cardi on the cooler days and I thought I was looking a oh k. But now. Well after 6 months of breastfeeding, the girls, puppies, twins, whatever you want to call them, how about boobs, just aren’t what they used to be. Short of walking around with my arms in the air to give them a nice lift, I can’t get away with not wearing a bra anymore. And unfortunately most of maxi’s aren’t bra friendly.

So back to the gaping hole. I feel I lack some casual sophistication in my ensembles, as in, I don’t have any of it. Granted I have some lovely tops that look great with jeans, but they don’t fit me anymore, not across the boobs and definitely not across the tummy. I am so tempted to wear a pair of spanks on a day to day basis even though my husband thinks that’s taking it to a whole other level of ridiculousness.

So on Saturday we went on a little shopping trip. My mum looked after Sophie (she loves any chance to get her all to herself) and about 2pm John and I hit the shops. I wanted a new pair of jeans, and a nice top to wear to my Nonna’s upcoming 80th birthday. The jeans were quite successful and I found a nice pair of Lee jeans that weren’t too low cut, I didn’t want to be that mum with her arse always hanging out, and they were a great colour. The girls in the shops were lovely. Delightful even. I didn’t feel uncomfortable and unfashionable like I usually do and of course I got the obligatory aaaaaawwwww’s when I told them I was a new mum and this was my first pair of non maternity jeans since Soph was born.

Next came tops. I could have cried when a size L shirt didn’t fit me in General Pants Co. I wouldn’t consider myself a big person. Maybe a 12, possibly sometimes a 14 at the moment with the extra boob baggage, but nope, no luck with the Large. We went to several other shops before I hit a wall. Thankfully not literally, although the rate we were going a face smack would have been more fun than trying to find a damn top. The fitted one’s made me look like I was about 5 months pregnant and the more flowing one’s made me look like I was about 7 months pregnant and trying to cover it up. I then became too tired and too cranky to care. “I’ll just wear my pyjama’s” I said to John. By that time he had had enough too!

You see the truth is as a new Mum I don’t know what to wear. Probably not much different to what I wore before I guess. I could go and replace my lovely tops with bigger sizes, but they’re only going to get puked on or have mashed broccoli thrown in their general direction. Plus I don’t think a silk Country Road top is all that appropriate for doing the groceries. I could wear plain tops and accessorise. But these days Sophie will put anything from the dog’s tail to the TV remote in her mouth, so the last thing I need to do is tease her with dangly necklace’s and earrings.

At least winter is only just around the corner and jeans, boots, a jacket and different colour scarves should get me through. Soph will have fun munching on the scarves. And as for the tracksuits; they’ll always be my non-fashionable best friend.

Where’s Trinny and Susannah when you need them…

Image

Yes it is only when he is left, and it seems the other dogs too. Our pooch Jack is lucky that I’m home a lot of the time. But people have to go to work, so these dogs are left a lot of the day.

So the yapper got so bad one night that we messaged our neighbours. They felt awful and left a little card in our letterbox apologising. I then felt bad that we had complained. Then the other night the dog yapped from 9pm till 12.45am. I was reluctantly half way through messaging the owners when their car pulled up and the dog ran back inside through his doggy door. We didn’t send the message, but part of me wished we had so the owners knew what had been going on.

To say we’ve become a little precious about our sleep is an understatement. Every parent knows how important it is to get as much sleep as you can when you can. Sophie thankfully has been sleeping through the night on and off for the past month, yet we haven’t been able to get a full night sleep. Whether it’s the stinking hot weather, people walking past outside making noise, or the bloody dogs barking, a full uninterrupted nights sleep has eluded us.

The point to my rambling is this. I fear that I’m turning into an annoying whinging neighbour, and an old fuddy duddy. While we didn’t end up sending the message the other night to the yappy dog owners, if it happens again, I fear I won’t hesitate to let them know their dog has been keeping us up for hours yapping his little head off.

I don’t want to piss the neighbours off and you know, end up on Today Tonight, but surely there must come a time when enough is enough?

Would you have a whinge? Or just grin and bear it?

I don’t understand why people rush at the airport departure gate to get on the plane. It’s not like we’re all fighting to get a seat. Check your boarding passes people, there’s a special seat saved just for you!

I don’t understand why people waiting for a lift stand so close to the doors. AND then don’t move when people getting off the lift need to get out. Seriously people the lift isn’t going to disappear into thin air before you can get in. Get out of the way and give the people getting off SOME ROOM.

I don’t understand why some people feel the need to destroy other people’s property or public property. How about I get something from your house and set it on fire, or cover it in spray paint. You wouldn’t like that so much I bet.

I don’t understand how my husband thought I’d find the following conversation amusing:

Hubby: You’ve done well throughout this pregnany, just big a beach ball tummy.

Me: Yeah I haven’t put on that much weight, but my bum’s a big bigger.

Hubby: What do you mean? You always had a big bum.

Yes my husband is hilarious. Pfft, men.

Anyway! And now to the point of this post. Yes don’t be so surprised, there is a point, it’s just that my mushy baby brain isn’t working as per usual at the moment.

I don’t understand why people think it’s ok to short change you for something you’ve paid for. Let me tell you a story. The other week my friend went for a 1 hour massage that her hubby had bought her for her birthday. Her appointment was at 5pm. She arrived at 4.50pm. The massage therapist finally came and got her about 5.10pm. Then left her to change and get organised. By the time she came back it was about 5.15pm/5.20pm.

Then at 6pm the massage therapist said to my friend, ok time to turn over. She snuck a look at the clock, noticed it was 6pm and thought oh good I’ve probably got another 15 minutes or so, and she was looking forward to the scalp massage. Nope, she was wrong. “Ok” said the massage therapist, “all done”.

Hmmph thought my friend, that wasn’t an hour. As she got dressed and made her way out to reception she contemplated saying something to the receptionist, but the massage therapist followed her out there and then there were other people in the waiting room. When she got home and told her hubby, she thought about calling them, but then wondered what good it would do.

Unfortunately I’ve had the exact same thing happen to me, but at a different place. And it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s many many other people with the same complaint. If the massage therapist was running late, then that’s not the clients fault. If you pay for an hour, then you should get an hour. No questions about it.

On the other side of the coin, I had a body treatment at a spa once and when I went to the reception counter after the treatment the lady said, ‘Oh I’m sorry the therapist seems to have finished about 20 minutes early, here’s a voucher for a 30 minute facial’. I nearly fell over!

Noone likes to feel like they’ve been ripped off, but it can also be hard to say something without feeling like you’re causing a fuss.

So, if you had’ve been in my friends shoes would you have said something? Have you ever had a similar experience and said something or not said something?

Gut feeling...

Don’t worry it’s not another pregnancy post! Not right now anyway!

I’ve never been someone who lives my life by gut feelings. And that’s not because I don’t believe in following your gut, it’s because more often than not I don’t get strong gut feelings to tell me what to do.

When we were in Florence we bought some beautiful leather jackets. I paid for mine with cash and hubby put his 2, (yes 2) on his credit card. This detail will become important I promise. So we get back to the hotel and showed our friends our purchases. They too decided to go and have a look and so we headed back to the store where we bought them. They also bought 3 jackets between the 2 of them and the guy offered to post them back to Australia.

Hubby said let’s go get ours and have them posted too as we still had about 3 weeks of our trip left and being summer in Europe we wouldn’t need them. I hesitated. Then I hesitated some more. C’mon said hubby, there’s no point in use lugging them around. Did I mention that I hesitated. Eventually I said ok and we walked back to the hotel to get our jackets for posting as well. Walking back I kept thinking I would much rather just carry mine if I have to. Hubby thought I was being a bit silly worrying that they wouldn’t show up, and the guy had assured us they would be waiting for us when we arrived back home to the freezing Aussie winter!

Ok, I finally said, post them, but they better be there when we get home. We gave our friends business address so that there would always be someone there to accept the packages.

So we get home and guess what? That’s right folks, no leather jackets. I bloody knew it, was my first thought. ‘Just give it a bit more time’ was Hubby’s attitude. Ok, so maybe they got stuck in customs, or, or, I don’t know, maybe never got posted! Days went by. A couple of weeks went by. Every night I’d say to hubby, I bloody knew it, I just knew it, I had a really strong gut feeling just to take them with us, but no we had to bloody post them. Yes I went on and on and on, you get the picture.

Hubby kept saying, we can just call the credit card company and say we never received the goods and get refunded. Yes that was fine for his 2, but remember, I paid cash for mine.

Then finally we get an email from our friend that a package had arrived from Italy. Woohoo I thought, finally our jackets! Unfortunately it wasn’t jackets, but jacket. Just one. One of our friends. I was very deflated to say the least. We emailed the company in Florence who assured us that 4 had been posted, and 2 were posted to the wrong address so they were waiting to get them back to re-post them. Yeah right I thought.

Then wouldn’t you know it another package arrived. It was my jacket and hubby’s 2 jackets. Relief is seriously an understatement. So about 4 weeks after we got home and 7 weeks after we’d purchased them, we finally had our sweet smelling leather in our hot little hands.

Unfortunately however, I seem to have put on some back fat during the last couple of months of pregnancy and won’t be wearing my leather jacket any time soon. Well not comfortably anyway. And more unfortunately our friends other 2 jackets are still yet to arrive. I am a little more hopeful though than before seen as some have arrived.

And so that was the tale of our leather jackets and me not following my gut. And while we have a mostly happy ending, I still wish I had have followed my gut that day in Florence. And next time that happens, I think I’ll be putting my puffy pregnancy foot down.

Do you get strong gut feelings about things? Do you follow them?