Going with your gut.

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?

Reactions, smactions…

See you soon Paris!

In just over 2 weeks we will be leaving the country for nearly 8 weeks. 8 weeks of travelling around France, Italy, Greece and a Dubai stop-over to see some gorgeous friends. (Friends that actually set-up Hubby and I!) It also means 8 weeks of no Jack, our beloved puppy. But I won’t get into that now, that’s a whole other Puff Piece!

If you haven’t been by Puff lately, you’re new or you’ve been living under a rock I’m 13 weeks pregnant. Yep that’s right I’m up the duff and about the embark on a whirlwind overseas holiday before baby comes along in October and makes 4. (Me, hubby, dog and baby).

Our preggers news has been met with hugs, kisses, screams of delight, happy dances, you name it! And it’s been really lovely. Combine that with news of our trip though and the responses have been a little mixed.

“Fantastic idea, get the trip in before bubs comes along.”

“Have a great time, and you’ll be fine travelling while pregnant, especially since you’ll be into your 2nd trimester, when you’re meant to have all your energy back!”

“Oh, does that mean the baby wasn’t planned?”

“Oh you won’t be able to drink wine over there.”

For those that know me they’d know that the whole wine thing is neither here nor there for me. The thought of not being able to drink is kinda like meh for me. But yes I will miss the soft cheeses. I am slightly in love with soft cheeses, originally started by my Great Grandmother feeding me lots of camembert as a kid, but at the end of the day I wanted a baby more than I wanted soft cheese. If however you’d like to give me an extra special, somewhat unconventional ‘you just pushed a baby out your vagina’ present, feel free to give a seafood platter with a side of soft cheeses and prosciutto.

So where was I? Oh yes, different people’s reactions. I found the question of ‘was it planned’ to be a relatively weird one. I kind of understood why they were asking, but in all honesty I don’t think I’d ever ask someone that unless they offered that type of information.

Some people might think I’m crazy travelling while pregnant, but we’re not backpacking or going to Iraq. Where going to Europe where we’re going to stay in nice places, well as nice as my Husband would let us book without breaking the budget, and I don’t plan on doing anything outrageous, except sightseeing and shopping.

What do you think about how different people react to different things? (And it doesn’t just have to relate to my story!)

Would you like cold fries with that?

Yesterday while out shopping for pink things for our new baby niece, Hubby and I decided to grab a quick bite to eat. We were in town so headed into the mall and sat down at the first little cafe we found.

Quick easy order, 2 chicken tandoori burgers. Our drinks arrived quickly, but then time started passing by when it came to the food.

A young waitress came out and said are you waiting on two chicken burgers. Yes, we replied. More time passed and one burger arrived with the promise the other wasn’t too far away. My chips were cold and the burger was cold. But hungry and in a hurry I ate the burger anyway, but not the cold chips. I had just about finished when Hubby’s finally arrived. Hot chips, hot burger, clearly they had only made one and then realised there was 2 for the order.

So where is my lunchtime story going? Well I’m glad you asked. We didn’t whinge, complain, nothing? But afterwards we thought maybe we should have said we weren’t happy to the man behind the counter when he asked, How was everything today?

It takes something pretty appalling for me to actually complain in a restaurant or cafe, but then Hubby bought up a point yesterday, that if you owned a cafe would you want to know about unhappy customers?

What do you think? Should we have said something? Do you mention your unhappiness if you’re not happy when eating out?