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#blogjune Random thoughts University studies Work

Sheltering in the lee

It is not quite 4pm. Monday. I am at home, sitting on my bed, and the house is quiet. This is extremely unusual, and I love it.

Miss 6 needed to be brought home early today (still sick, poor love, and milking it for all she can get!) so Hubby and I vied for the opportunity. I won (his job is far more important than mine!) so brought her home while he gets to continue working and then pick up the younger two from childcare.

So here I sit, surrounded by papers. Papers from work, reminding me of urgent things to do and far more urgent things to do, drafts from Uni assignments due this week, due the following week, and feedback from assignments submitted two weeks ago… and silence.

Miss 6 is sleeping (?! yeah right! try ‘playing quietly’ in her bedroom,) and I can hear the clock ticking. Very strange sound to hear in daylight hours; normally it is the accompaniment I associate with working into the late hours of the night.

I like it. A pleasant sound. Strange to hear it with a backdrop of birdcalls instead of crickets. But this… this silence… it reminds me to breathe. To relax, if just for a moment, even when surrounded by all the trappings of my responsibilities, and just breathe. Just exist in the moment. It will be over soon enough… hubby will be home with the younger two, and then when they’re all abed, it’ll be time to dive straight back into the Caboolture Show prep (display being created tomorrow) and INN332 Final Report (5000 words due Thursday).

Okay. Just breathe. In… out… in… out…

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#blogjune Random thoughts University studies Work

Starting to resurface

It’s Sunday evening and I feel as though I’ve  been submerged in illness for a LONG time. Sometimes it’s difficult being a full-time mum to three under 7, a full-time worker, and a part-time student when your husband works such long hours too. Looking back, it’s only been a few days, but it feels like so much longer. I think I’ll lift the self-imposed quarantine tomorrow. Yay. Just in time for school, work, childcare, and what generally is the busiest day of my week.

I need a break. Or maybe just the last few days re-wound, so I can maybe meet all those dead lines I missed?!

It looks as though, unfortunately, my #blogjune posts will be shorter than I’d like due to my need to ‘catch up’. Bumma. Sorry, dear readers!

Til tomorrow…

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#blogjune University studies

so weak

So my kids gave me their vomiting bug. yay.

Got my proposal done in between comforting kids and running to the toilet myself. Thank you Lord!

Forget those other deadlines though! I’ll get to them when I’m more human…

See you tomorrow, #blogjune – ers…

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#blogjune Random thoughts

And it’s three from three…

The time on the screen of my Macbook Pro reads 2:09am. It’s Friday morning, 3rd of June and I’ve just finished cleaning up my third bout of vomit in three nights. What is it about my kids that they choose to vomit between the hours of 1am and 3am?

This time it was Miss 6’s turn. Again, a piercing scream woke me to my treasured Motherly duty of night-time vomit-cleaner. And this time, I entered the room with a feeling of dread. I knew I was too late… she’d already started. From her top bunk.

Amazingly, Miss 2 in the bottom bunk remained silent throughout. And Master 2, in the room next door, stayed asleep. Well, he stayed silent at least, and seeing as he seems to have inherited my light-sleeper tendencies, I’d say he slept through all the banshee screams my drama-queen eldest was making.

Impressive really, the volume of noise she was able to emit whilst leaning over the railing of her bunk and depositing her stomach contents onto the woollen carpet, and various other objects, almost two metres below. And I’d also have to give major kudos to Miss 2, awake but quiet, while vomit and screams rained down past her. Pretty darn amazing.

So. Here I am, after yet another clean-up of child, pyjamas, sheets (multiple – she’d managed to get Miss 2’s sheets on the way down), pillow cases, and a random toy and sock. Oh, and the cot-mattress I use to cushion Miss 2’s falls on the rare occasions she falls out of her bed. And I’m beginning to wonder what the rest of the month will hold, after the start I’ve had. I mean – I knew that my kid’s bedsheets were overdue for a change, but seriously?!!! Is that the way God intended to make me change them? I think I’ll be a more diligent housekeeper in future!

So it’s back to bed for me again, I think. Hopefully I shan’t be up again before the morning… it’s going to be a pretty huge day again and I need my zzz’s!

Night all. And happy #blogjune  writing! (Reckon I’d win the prize for earliest #day3 post!)

 

UPDATE: 4.22am

“Let’s see what the rest of the month holds?” Ha! I looks like I didn’t have to wait too long, as Miss 2 decided to take matters into her own hands and show me. Loudly and messily. And smash two of my theories at the same time.

My kids vomit between 1 and 3? Nope. Miss 2 decided to join in with her part of the action at 3.32am. Theory number one down the toilet (which is where I wish all of her vomit had gone, rather than over the poor carpet again! not to mention over her pillow, sheet, her pyjamas, and me!) and as for the theory that it was all about the sheets? Nope. I can go back to being a hopeless housekeeper, because the vomiting wasn’t induced by a Higher Power who was forcing me into keeping my children’s sheets clean. Miss 2’s new sheets, courtesy of her big sister’s 1.37am efforts, stayed clean all of… hmmm… (bad Maths skills in evidence again!) just over an hour and a half?!!

And so now it’s heading towards 4.30am. I’ve got a rinsed load of washing in the machine, full of pyjamas and sheets and doona covers, the skin on my hands is dry from all the washing and disinfectant use, and in the back of my mind my assignment is sitting, waiting, and my tired brain is telling me that there probably isn’t much point in going back to bed because Master 2 will be up in just over an hour.

Oh well. So much for those zzz’s I was after. Proposal, here I come. Prepare to be completed…

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#blogjune University studies Work

Day 2 and I’ve slept!

Well last night was vomit-free. Apparently Master 2 fell out of bed, and Hubby put him back in, but I guess I slept through the whole thing. Unusual, because I’m normally the lightest sleeper in the house, but that extra-long day must have taken it out of me. I actually fell asleep in front of the computer, so eventually gave it up soon after 11pm. Seven hours later and I’m feeling human again.

So today marks assignment day. I have a 45% Proposal and an ePortfolio view release due tomorrow, but tomorrow I’m at work, and I also have a newspaper deadline at midday tomorrow (which article I haven’t started yet!) so I’m going to attempt submitting my Uni pieces today. Somehow.

Hence my post this morning. Day 2 of #blogeverydayofJune and let’s meet again on Day 3. Wonder if I’ll have those assignments in by then? Wish me luck!

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#blogjune Random thoughts

On being a Mum…

I love my blog. I just never get the chance to write in it… well, nowhere near as much as I’d like to.

So I’ve been anticipating this day, as the exciting commencement of #blogeverydayofJune. So when my day began at 1.30 (after crawling into bed at 11pm last night) I was already thinking about my first post. I lumbered back into bed after comforting Miss 2’s nightmare, only to be revived into Mother duties at 1.47am when Master 2 decided to vomit all over himself… and of course the doona, the sheet, his pyjamas and me.

One cleanup of him and room later, I continued the thinking towards today’s post while silently attempting to wash what looked (and smelled!) like about a litre’s worth of Macaroni cheese from his PJ’s and bedsheets. (I had miscalculated, too, when getting his bed ready again. I hadn’t anticipated that he had been able to not only get the plastic mattress-protector soaked, but it had seeped through the conveniently placed and previously unknown hole, and managed to get his mattress too. Bonus points for that one!) And do you know how difficult it is to silently wash bedsheets etc because your bathroom cum laundry shares a wall with your daughters’ bedroom?!

By 2.34 I was back in bad, post mostly composed. And I was just drifting off to sleep, pondering how to dispose the rest of the uncooked macaroni in the packet as some form of craft item, when the piercing choking scream alerted me to the second bout of vomiting cleanup fun.

Did I mention that Master 2 only has 2 pairs of pyjamas? And it’s nights like last night that make me question the wisdom of that decision. And, of course, during the ‘comforting while being vomited next to’ session (I managed to stay out of the way during bout number 2) that Miss 6 decided to wake up screaming with a nightmare. Again, I questioned my wisdom, this time regarding the idea of having three children. But, I love them all to bits, and wouldn’t change my life for the world. Vomit and all. So hubby was called in to action, and he calmed nightmares while I cleaned vomit. About one to two cups worth this time… enough to necessitate a change in clothes (thank you, Lord, that my son is still 2 so doesn’t object to wearing Miss 3’s pink jumper for the rest of the night!) and another quilt washing. Bed by 3.10. Up at 5.30 to make school lunches. Breakfasts, uniforms, pack the car for the day them head off by 7.20am.

Home with all three again by 5.50pm. Dinners, baths, then teach violin.

Collapse at 8.05pm when student walks out the door. Finally get to say ‘Hello’ to hubby. Turn on computer. Think again about my post.

Well, now it’s done. It’s not what I’d wanted to write, but it’s a start. So it’ll do. Yes, I’m a perfectionist at heart, but right now I’m an exhausted one and a hungry one, with a stack of work to complete, and an assignment or two to think about. Maybe even get some work done on! So I’d better get cracking, if I want to hit that pillow before midnight. And hopefully, not have a repeat of last night’s motherly duties!!!

Thanks, all, and here’s to making time for a post again tomorrow!

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Random thoughts

My Mum is the best!

I have a brilliant Mum. Yes, I really do. I love her to bits.

Tonight, at the drop of a hat, (well, not literally! It was more like a phone call, and no hats were involved at all… so I wonder where that saying comes from anyway?!!) Mum agreed to come around and babysit Numbers 2 and 3 for me so I could finish off my Information Retrieval assignment, due Thursday.

How cool is that!

I love my mum. I’m so glad I have her. Thank you, Lord, for giving me to my mum almost 37 years ago! (And while I’m at it… please, Lord, help me to finish this assignment!)

So yeah. I. Love. Mum.

The end.

(LOL Sorry; I’ll write longer when the assignment’s done, okay?!)

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Random thoughts Technology Work

Strengths and weaknesses

I’m not so great at the ‘looking in the mirror’ bit. The self-analysis; self-evaluation. I must admit, I’d prefer to remain in the dark and highly self-unaware of my faults; my weaknesses.

Which is why I always dread the self-evaluation that comes with each assignment I complete in this Masters I’m currently attempting. Admittedly, I’m getting better (I think!) and I can recognise, and even acknowledge, some aspects of my personality that I didn’t really know existed – well, on a conscious level, at least.

Like I think I’d be a hopeless manager. (And yes, I need to qualify that statement, for all of you who remember that I used to be IN management positions, as a Head of English and then as a Head of Middle School!)

In Week 1 of this semester, I completed some reading for ‘Management Issues for Information Professionals’ with Katherine Howard that profoundly changed the way I think. There were just a couple of short articles about the difference between management and leadership. One in particular I found thought-provoking enough to re-analyse my own skills in the ensuing reflection. And I realised… I’m hopeless at managing! The day-to-day, ‘Let’s continue to do this, and do it as well as we possibly can’ pales in comparison for me when compared to ‘leadership’, which is the leading of others in a different direction to the one currently travelled. The planning, the organisation, the ‘management of the change’ is I guess the element of management that I absolutely am passionate about. So yes, I am starting to accept that I’m a leader, not a manager.

Maybe that’s why I’m SOOOO in love with my job. I’m breaking new ground. No-one’s been where I’ve been, no-one’s tried doing what I’m doing. And I absolutely LOVE that. Last week I got permission to tweet and update facebook for St Paul’s as part of my job. How cool!!! (We’re @StPaulsLPS, if you’re interested! And our fb page is here – feel free to follow us!) I also set my own goals, and challenge myself to meet objectives that even the Principal and Business Manager believe are pie-in-the-sky. Maybe I’m overly enthusiastic, but I’m looking forward to seeing the results. I’m after full enrolment by the end of 2011. That’s see if it can be done!!!

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#librarytwittermysteryamonth Random thoughts Technology

Did it!

Yay me! My Telstra bill arrived yesterday – and it was just over $50. Yay yay yay!!! (I guess I managed to keep it under the 3 gig for the month then…)

So maybe I can surreptitiously start blogging again? Get back into the habit? I must say, I’ve missed it! Quite a bit has happened – holidays, tooth extraction, needing assignment extensions for the first time in my life, toilet training child number three, starting Playgroup, now being paid to tweet and update facebook (which is just as cool as it sounds like!!) and getting laryngitis for the fourth time in less than 9 months.

Speaking of, I’ve come up with a new definition of frustration. It’s needing to call a doctor and no-one can hear you when you whisper into the phone, so they hang up on you, thinking it’s a prank call. SOOOOOOO frustrating!!!

— Ceridwyn

PS Stay tuned for my #librarytwittermysteryamonth reviews – and sorry they’re just so darn late!

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Random thoughts Technology

Still reeling…

I received a huge shock last night. Probably the biggest in years. And it came in the form of the bill for my new Telstra “Ultimate” USB Modem.

Some people may have been following the long tale of my rollercoaster relationship with Telstra. Suffice it to say, the USB I bought back on 7 March, to replace the Vodafone USB (which won’t expire til August, but whose casing died months ago, which has made it basically unusable) has only, just last Thursday, started talking to my gorgeous new Macbook Pro. So for the first month of its 24 month life, I’ve been using it with my husband’s Toshiba dinosaur.

 

My Vodafone plan was a 5Gig one, and I never exceeded the limit, so paid just $39.94 per month. For what seems like ages.

 

My Telstra bill was – wait for it! – $305 and change. OMG!!!

 

Yes, I had dropped down to a 3Gig plan. I figured that for the past 18 months, I hadn’t used all 5Gig, so hey – what’s the harm? (Plus, the 3Gig with Telstra was still $44.95 per month, and there’s no way I could afford more Gig!)

So out came the calculator. And lo and behold, I actually managed to use 6Gig last month. On hubby’s Toshiba dinosaur.

And in the week that the USB’s been on my Mac, I’ve used a Gig already.

Whoops.

(And by the way, that’s with NO movies, no TV shows, no music, and negligible YouTube watching. And who has times for games with my life?)

— I guess I’m a power user. And hadn’t realised it. And suddenly I realise I’ve joined another group of people too – that of the “broke power-users”. Hmmm…. sad.