What makes a perfect home?

For those of you who follow me on twitter you will know that we have recently sold our house after 7 weeks on the market and to be honest it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Of course the continuous cleaning totally did my head in as I felt I couldn't leave the house messy at any time and having 2 hairy indoor dogs did not help that situation at all. Not to mention 2 young children who wouldn't know how to pick up an item of their own if they tripped over it 10 times so generally I was the full cleaning nazi for 7 weeks.  But as far as the selling process goes it was pretty stress free.  Our agent was a lovely gent who was very relaxed and easy going and this helped with the general part of selling a home, the open homes, private inspections and at the end the negotiations with the buyers. (he was also very easy on the eye so this was a bonus for me!)

So now we have to find a new home and to me this is going to be the challenging part.  The home we have just sold is only 2 and a half years old, it is our design and all of our heart and soul went into it so it is truly a lovely home and I know I will never have something like this again.  But that is also ok because I love a challenge and to buy an older home and renovate it and put my own touches into it will also be fun.  Its just will we find the home for us that will be perfect in the time frame we have?  I have my doubts.

The reason for my doubts is because what is the definition of a perfect home?  Everyone has their own little things that they love in a home and my ideas may not be the same as my hubbys or my kids.  In fact we built this house with a kids area downstairs and with their bedrooms apart from ours because we believed they would love having their own space but since we have lived here they have hardly slept in their own beds and never go downstairs to watch TV because they don't want to be that far away from us! (god help us) and to think why we have 3 yes 3 Foxtel boxes is just beyond me! (That is not happening in the next house, well maybe but maybe not) So  for our next house we have decided that we will find something smaller with the bedrooms all together so the kids don't feel so far away and so we don't have a child sleeping on our mattress on the floor for the next few years, although in saying that I'm sure when the kids are older they wont want to be so close to our rooms so we really can't win in that situation!

So now we are searching for a 4 bedroom house, 2 bathrooms, double garage, 2 living areas and a big enough yard for the dogs and the kids which shouldn't really be too hard and I'm sure there are plenty of those types of houses out there it's just finding it in the area we want and getting the timing right.  In the meantime our house we have sold seems to be objecting to us moving out, on the day after we signed the contract the smoke alarm decided to lose its mojo and go off every time we closed the garage door, the kitchen light has gone on strike and refuses to work even with a new globe and last night the bathroom window decided it had had enough and shattered mysteriously at 2.30am!  We have spent more money on the house in the past week fixing things than we have in the past 2 and a half years!  Me thinks there is something weird going on there!

Anyway we are now trawling the real estate websites, going to open homes and getting lots of ideas of what we don't want and what we do like and then of course the whole packing thing will need to be addressed so there are lots of fun times ahead all at the busiest time of year! Yay! (insert sarcasm font there)

I will keep you posted on how we go with the perfect house hunt, keep your fingers crossed for us.

Katie
Love ya guts

I'm a crazy person who likes moving! SAY WHAT?

So we have our house on the market.  Yep after 2 years of living in a new house which we built ourselves (well a builder built it, we designed it) we have decided to move, again.  There are a few reasons we want to sell, these include, less travelling for my hubby who drives a lot during the week, closer to my parents, getting into a high school catchment and closer to the beach but the main reason we are moving is that I have a problem, a 'getting bored with where I live' problem.  In my 40 odd years I have moved 25 times and this does not include my 2 years of backpacking throughout Europe where I moved around a lot!

I'm blaming my mum for this problem.  She also the same problem and loves moving.  My childhood was spent moving with my family because my mum got bored and needed a new project. My dad would just go along with the flow and when mum had found our new house he would protest for all of about 1 day and then start packing.  This crazy moving problem has been passed onto me without me even realising.

Selling a house, buying a new place and then packing and moving is probably one of the most stressful exercises you can imagine so why would you want to do it 25 times and then more? Because change is exciting, change is fun and change, as we all know can be as good as a holiday.  Well I very much doubt this part but its still exciting and fun.  From the moment we made the decision we would sell I have had an excited feeling in my stomach, I have also had a sick feeling, an exhausted feeling from all the cleaning, and a scared feeling.  Scared because what if we can't sell this place for what we need? What if we do sell then we can't find something else that meets our requirements?  But then there are the exciting parts, like looking at other peoples houses, finding something perfect that ticks all your boxes, imagining all the changes you can do to make it what you want it to be and then being happy because you have managed to successfully  maneuver the family to a new home that you imagine staying in for the next 10 years.  Of course we wont stay there for 10 years because I will get that stupid itchy feet problem and want to move in about 3 years!

My poor husband had only moved twice when he met me at 25.  Grew up in the same house then moved out at 20 and that was it.  He met me and has now moved 8 times in 11 years.  He knows I have a problem and is actually getting used to it but he keeps saying our next house we will stay in for 10 years.  I just nod and agree but we both know this is not going to happen.

So for now I'm a cleaning freak, yelling at the kids to clean their rooms, pick up their shit and HELP MUMMY cos I can't do this by myself.  My moving addiction needs to be fed so we have to sell this buggar first.

Fingers crossed people! xxx

Love ya guts

Dealing with a broken heart

Tomorrow my gorgeous Gusband (gay husband) is burying his mother.  I wish I could be there with him but unfortunately my real life of being a working mother has prevented it.  He is probably glad I'm not going as I'm absolutely dreadful at funerals.  I don't even have to be close to the deceased to bawl my eyes out.  As soon as the priest welcomes us into the church I start crying, can't control it.  Its kind of embarrassing really.

I am very lucky then, that in my 42 years I have probably only been to 10 funerals. When I think about how my gusband is feeling at the moment, it breaks my heart.  It hurts so badly I can't even imagine how awful he must be feeling.  If it was me in his shoes I would be an absolute plotsky mess. My mum is my best friend so to lose at her such a young age would be incomprehensible.  Attending the funeral of a loved one is probably one of the hardest things in life we have to face.

I have lost both sets of my grandparents but as I wasn't very close to them my sadness was more for my parents than for actually losing my grandparents.  Each of their funerals were difficult but not as much as the funeral I attended of one of my best friends from my early twenties. She had been murdered in America and the situation was extremely delicate as the circumstances of the event had not been solved yet so we were all distraught and confused.  Her family asked me to say the Eulogy which was beyond daunting but I felt I had to do it to honour my friend, turned out to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

I remember the day clearly, I had flown in from Sydney and mum picked me up at the airport and of course wanted me to read to her what I had prepared.  I could hardly read it to mum in the car let alone read it in front of hundreds of people without breaking down.  I was sweating like a pig and felt like vomiting, it was a feeling I had never experienced before.
Once we got to the church all I can remember is saying to myself; 'breath woman, breath'.  When it was my turn to talk I somehow found the inner strength to get to the podium and managed to get through the eulogy with grace and I even managed to get some laughs from the crowd!  As soon as I spoke the last words my body crumbled and I had to be assisted back to my chair but the feeling of relief and elation that I managed to do it was awesome.  I had honoured my beautiful friend and it was an amazing feeling to do that for her.

To think about attending one of my parents funerals and reading a eulogy is possibly the worst thought I could imagine.  How do people do it? 

I hope my gusband is ok tomorrow, I told him it's going to be the worst day of his life but I know he can get through it and if he feels like falling down, to imagine me there with him, holding him up and giving him inner strength.  I love his guts
xx

My theory on the blogging craze

So I'm sure you are all aware of this blogging craze that has taken over our world? Every man and his dog writes a blog (well maybe the dog doesn't) but it seems everywhere you look people are writing blogs, even  me!  There are millions of blogs to follow and just not enough time in our lives to read them all.  I love blogging, I love seeing all the 'Mummy Bloggers' being successful and making an actual living from them.  Its truly inspiring.  I would love to do that myself one day but at this point in my life I don't feel I have enough to say or even the time to write it so I'm happy tapping out a blog that I try to do every few weeks.

I was thinking about all the 'Mummy Bloggers' I know and it made me think about how lucky we are to live in a world that is so connected by social media.  We are able to create friendships through Twitter and Facebook, through joining blogs and communicating with people we never would have had the chance to do without these forums.  We can find real friends and support groups and we have access to endless amounts of advice and knowledge not available to previous generations.

Thinking of this made me think of my 68 year old mum and what her life was like when she was in her 30s and 40s.  I'm truly amazed that she managed to get through it so well without the support of a lot of friends or family.  She had no internet, no mobile phone, not many good friends and my dad was hardly around as he traveled a lot and played golf a hell of a lot too.  My mum worked part time and took me to dancing 4 times a week and my brother to football 3 times a week.  She had dinner on the table every night, ironed like a mad woman, looked after a dog, 2 cats and at one stage a horse and I can never remember her complaining once!  The problem was, my mum was lonely, so lonely in fact that she ended up having an affair with the man who owned the petrol station near our house.  This affair rocked our family to the core once it was found out and I remember my father sobbing in front of me (who was probably 9 at the time) and me having no clue what it all meant.  Looking back now I know that my mother was not the only one to blame, as I said my father was not around much, lived the life style most men in the 70's lived, worked, played golf, stayed at the club till late.  I can't blame my mum for looking for attention elsewhere.

What I'm wondering is, if my mum had social media around back then, would she have had an affair or would she have found attention in a different way like so many of us seem to do these days?  Having the guidance of 300 or so Twitter followers may have stopped her from taking the plunge. Reading other women's experiences in their blogs may have given her the courage to talk to my dad before she strayed. Talking to close friends on Facebook may have given her the support she needed to make some changes in her life that were definitely needed.  I guess we will never know but I do feel that having these forums does help millions of people think twice before making life changing decisions.

Back in the 60s and 70s women's lives were so different especially once they married and had children.  Stay at home mums stayed mostly at home.  Of course some were lucky enough to have friends and were able to go out and do lunch occasionally but in general a lot of women were lonely and bored.

Now we have endless opportunities to be entertained at home, we can blog, we can cruise the web, we can chat online, we can Skype, we can study, we can build our own little empires, the list is endless.  Who would honestly have time to have an affair?  I'm so inspired by women who do any or all of these things and still run a household, bring up children, work in a normal job and still manage to be healthy and happy.

Of course there is the other side of the coin where women who are unhappy at home get caught up in social media forums, get sidetracked by the cyber world, take chances they may not have taken before, neglect the important people in their real lives because they want to escape it.  Sometimes facing our own unhappiness is the hardest thing to do and hiding in our internet world helps us get through the daily grind.

Whatever it is that tickles your fancy as far as social media is concerned, I think it pretty much goes without saying that the women of today are a hell of a lot better off than our mothers and grandmothers because of the affect that it has on our lives and because of all the millions of 'Mummy Bloggers' who take the time to share their knowledge and experiences.

Anyway, the story ends well for my beloved mum, after 2 years of heartache and confusion my parents packed up our lives and moved to Queensland for a fresh start and I'm happy to report they are still together.  Now that is truly amazing!

If you write a blog that you think I should read, let me know, I would love to!

Love ya guts
Katie

The Mummy rules

I have recently had the pleasure of having my high school best friend and her 2 year old little boy stay with us for a few weeks.  It was great to have them here whilst they got their shit together after living overseas for 2 years in Vegas.


Having a 2 year old in the house was very interesting as we have gotten over the stage of having to put things up high, put the breakable stuff away and watch the kids on the stairs and there were a few moments of panic during the time they were here but all in all it was a fun experience for my kids as well as them.  


My friend has mostly been living the life of a single mum since she had her son as her husband is an entertainer and there were many times that he was away working on cruise ships for weeks on end and also when he eventually did get a show in Vegas he was working long and late hours so she struggled through as best she could with not much support from friends and no family.  When she got to our place the lifestyle and routine was completely different to what they were used to but they settled in well and the timezone change seemed to work out well for naps and going to bed at 8 or 9 instead of midnight which is what they did most nights in Vegas.


The difficulty of staying with close friends is knowing when to bite your tongue when they do something differently to how you do it and knowing when it's ok to comment on how they do things.  There were many times I wanted to say something to her about what she was feeding him, or how much juice she was giving him or why he wasn't hungry or how she shouldn't be letting him stay up so late but I just kept biting my tongue and hoping that the little problems I could see happening would sort themselves out once she got settled in her own place.


It got me thinking about when you have your first child, about all the advice you are given, all the comments you endure from people who have done it before, all the remarks from people who think they are doing it right and you are doing it wrong.  It really can be so intimidating and frustrating, you wonder how you ever go out in public again!


It would be so much easier if we stuck to some rules, some Mummy Rules as I call them and I have listed some below: (excuse the language in advance)

The Newborn stage

1. Do not brag about how your little cherub sleeps through the night at 6 weeks old.  For those of us whose little cherubs don't sleep through, this is the worst brag as we are tired and irritated and our lack of sleep is making us want to hurt you badly right now. 
2. Do not tell us how easy your birth was, how you didn't even have an epidural, how it was all over in 3 hours.  All we are thinking right now is that you must have one very loose vagina for that baby to have come out so darn easy.  That is the only way it happened so bloody fast!
3. Do not even bother telling us your baby doesn't have problems with Re flux, Croup, wind or any other stupid baby problem that makes our baby scream for 4 hours on end every night before bed and makes us have to spend hundreds of dollars at the chiropractor because our backs are so fucked up from rocking that little cherub to sleep every few hours!
4. DO tell us that you are super tired, super stressed and struggling with the whole experience but absolutely loving every moment of being a new mum and we will totally agree with you on all of that shit!

The Toddler stage

1. Do not brag about how your toddler is so smart, can say so many words, sing the alphabet and even do simple maths sums already, we do not give a fuck if he is a genius right now because we are still tired from the baby stage.
2. Do not tell us how your toddler sleeps through the night, doesn't have a dummy, bottle or comforter anymore and never has a tantrum at the shops.  That cannot be honestly true? Really?
3. Do not tell us that your toddler has an amazing diet and never eats crap only healthy organic stuff you make yourself and never says no to anything you offer..we are just not believing it.
4. Do not even begin to think we will believe you when you tell us your toddler is toilet training themselves before they have even reached 2!  That shit does not happen in the real world and if does we do not want to know!  Nappies are costing us a fortune right now.
5. Do not tell us that you are loving every single moment of being a mum to a toddler who has a mind of their own and that you wont put them in day care because you can't stand to be apart from them for one minute because if you are a human that cannot possibly be true?
6. DO tell us that you are exhausted, grumpy and stressed but you are loving the challenges and are especially loving the days you have them in child care because you get to get your hair done and actually have some 'me time' which you desperately need right now.  We will believe you and love you for your honesty.

The Pre-school age

1. Do not brag about how your little cherub is so clever and amazing that they are learning school work already in day care and can write their whole name and do maths sums that are not even taught in Prep already!
2. Do not tell us that your child doesn't get separation anxiety when you leave them at day care to go to work and does not cling to your leg like a desperate animal begging their mummy not to leave them in this hell hole called kindy.
3. Do not tell us that your child has never bitten, hit, scratched, pushed, punched or even kicked another child at day care cos we honestly just cannot believe that a child like that actually exists in the real world!
4. Do not tell us that your pre-school child goes to bed so easily without an argument, can read their own books and sleeps through the night without coming up into your bed every night cos we may have to kill you right now, we are still tired from the newborn stage.
5. DO tell us that your pre-school child has been in trouble at day care for pushing little Johnny and wet their pants and wont sleep in their own bed and we will sympathies with you and bring you alcohol to help you through the rough days!

The Primary school days

1. Do not tell us that your child is in the top of the prep class, already reading level 13 and has been asked to help the other prep kids with their reading because we are still struggling with writing our first name in letters we can actually decipher!
2. Do not tell us that your darling cherub is so popular that they are getting invited to every single prep kids party and that other kids are actually fighting over who can hang out with your little cherub cos that little cherub may turn out to be a little smartarse who bullies other kids who are not so popular as they get older.
3. Do not tell us that your cherub never answers you back, never wants anything when you go the shops, never eats Macca's and never has meltdowns whilst waiting for something in a line because now we know you are making that shit up and perhaps you are self medicating every night to ensure that you can make it through this wonderful life with your perfect child!
4. DO tell us that you lose your shit regularly, struggle with your kids on a daily basis, need alcohol to help you through, love spending time away from them but are still enjoying being a mum and looking forward to the challenges ahead.

Now I'm sure there are many more rules that we can all add to these but for now these are the ones that spring to mind that real people have actually told me over the past few years.  I'm sure that as our kids get older and grow into teenagers there will be so many more rules that we should abide by but I just don't even want to go there until I really have to!

If you follow the above rules, we will then know you are living in the real world with us and we will be happy to hang with you and to lend a hand or any advice that you ask from us and we will enjoy this crazy ride together!

Love ya guts

Katielou

A winter getaway

We recently returned from a little Winter getaway to Fiji which was a lovely little spur of the moment decision that was affordable and seemed perfect for what we were looking for to recharge our batteries.

I have now been to Fiji 5 times which seems quite ridiculous but 2 of those times where with my family as a kid and 3 times as a grown up over the past 15 years so the trips have been spread out.  Fiji is the kind of place that you absolutely can't wait to get there when you are in Australia and then you absolutely can't wait to come home at the end of your holiday!  The Fijian's are wonderful people, very friendly and polite but their ability to do stuff at the slowest of paces can drive you insane.  "Fiji time" is the the way everything works over there and if you try to rush them they just tend to go slower.

This holiday started off with a tiny annoyance of being given the wrong room, instead of having 2 double beds in the room, we had 1 double and 1 single.  I explained to the porter we had booked a double room and he shrugged and walked off.  10 minutes later he came back with a fold out bed which I told him we didn't want and that we wanted what we had booked which was a room with 2 double beds. I didn't want to have to put up with constant arguments from my kids of who was sleeping in the foldout.  I went to reception to advise them of the mistake and the receptionist who had been extremely friendly to me an hour ago was now rather rude and unhelpful.  She explained there were none available and that we could move into a double room in 2 days.  I told her I was unhappy in a very polite way and went back to our room.  By this stage we were all exhausted so made ourselves comfortable and tried to get some rest.  Within an hour they had called to say they were moving us to a double room.  I'm not sure where this room came from because an hour ago there was none but we threw all our crap back into our bags and moved upstairs to a double room.

The best thing about Fiji is the kids club, of course it takes a day for your kids to warm up to the idea of playing with a bunch of strangers but after that day when they realise there really isn't much else to do they give in and have the time of their lives. Crab and frog racing, dodge ball, island exploring, the disco and musical statues keeps them happy and when they meet other kids that they click with it's a parents dream.  It also helps if those kids parents are nice too because then you can have another couple to hang with and you haven't even had to make an effort to make friends, the kids have done all the hard work for you!

The only thing that you can't control is the weather and unfortunately when it's miserable the whole place is miserable.  There is a lot of reading going on, a lot of hanging in the hotel room and a lot of eating!  Speaking of eating the novelty of the buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner wears off after about the 3rd day and you are just absolutely dying for a ham and salad roll.  Not to mention the coffee! Oh god I could have killed for a decent cup of coffee.  We really are so spoilt in Australia.

The other thing I missed from my normal life was Twitter, I missed commenting on things that amused me or pissed me off and having 20 comments back from my friends laughing with me and bagging people with me.  I missed it so much I started writing tweets I would have sent it if I had my phone so I have documented these tweets below and feel free to comment back on any of them.

Day 1

• The kids r fascinated 2 know what time it is, at home all the time, why? I do not know.
• Fijian people are super friendly, except when you want something from them that they don't want to give you
• If you get pissed off, they just look at you blankly

Day 2

• Things are so much better when its sunny
• The smell of coconut oil is my favourite
• Getting your hair braided is painful, so miss 8 tells me, suck it up I say, you wanted to look like a freak

Day 3

• Kiwis are overtaking this resort
• Wear shoes whilst walking on coral cos that shit hurts
• free soft drinks to kids is like free alcohol to adults, very addictive

Day 4

• Middle aged women who get their hair braided & think it looks good are delusional
• It is very easy to get sick of an all your can eat smorgasbord 
• Why didn't I bring the 5 books @bokkii sent me instead of 3, stupid stupid bitch I am
• Magazines r fucking expensive in Fiji
• I need another drink

Day 5

• Things are so much better when its sunny, yep I know I've already said it but its so true
• Remember to bring Uno and board games next time, if there is a next time

Day 6

• Kids get holiday depression when their new best friends leave *sigh*
• There are a LOT of tattooed people in this world
• I'm going into tattoo removal when I get home

Day 7

• Ok I have really had enuf of this fucking buffet
• Fijian souvenirs are the biggest rip off known to man
• No I don't want to spend $20 on a Marie Claire magazine from April
• The kids are peeing red lemonade

Day 8

• OMG is this a cyclone?
• Fuck I just wanna come home
• What do you mean I have to get up at 3.30am to go the airport?
• Waaaaaaaaa, call the wambulance

So there you have it, the holiday in a tweetshell.  To be honest, it was very relaxing and worth the trip but I think 5 times to Fiji is this girls limit and we have now decided to save for the ultimate holiday in a few years the big on US of A! 

Love ya guts

Letter to my 16 year old self.

So a lovely blogger I follow on twitter told me I should write a letter to my 16 year old self. She told me it makes you think about what you've learned and what you still need to learn so I thought, yep gonna to do, so here it is.

A much younger you totally airbrushed!

Dear Katrina, yep that's your birth name, yes you hate it but don't worry, as soon as you leave school you call yourself Katie and that will stick pretty well. The only people that call you Katrina are Banks and Drs! Thank god!

So the first thing you need to know is that your boyfriend that you lost your virginity to is screwing your best friend.  Yep sorry for the bad news and yep your heart is going to be broken into tiny little pieces but you will get over it because he is an arsehole anyway so it's time to move on.

The thing is and unfortunately it's too late to stop you, but you don't need to sleep with loads of men to prove that you deserve a faithful man.  I know it's fun and makes you feel good for a night but it will not make a man fall in love with you if he is not the right one.  You will go slightly crazy for a few years and you will meet heaps of wonderful men but you shouldn't rush into things so quickly.  You will eventually learn this in a few years time.

So you travel to Europe and you have an absolute blast, you drink lots of Cider, you eat lots of carbs and you put on 15 kilos in 2 years! Whoopsie.  It's an amazing trip and you meet wonderful people but you really should take more time to see the history of Europe because you will regret this later in life.  At 19 years old it's hard to imagine appreciating history but you hopefully will get the chance to go back and do it all over again without gaining the 15 kilos when your retired. (fingers crossed)

When you return home you are slightly lost and you have a big debt.  Luckily you are daddy's girl and he lets you pay him off at $50 bucks a week for awhile until he gets sick of it and says not to worry anymore.  What an amazing man.

So you are still lost and at this time you start wishing you had of paid more attention at school and maybe tried to go to Uni and be a journalist. Unfortunately you get sidetracked by another charismatic man and this time you get into some crazy shit, Ecstasy, Speed, lots of bad stuff that takes over your life for awhile and makes you make silly decisions like get engaged to this charismatic man at the age of 24!  Now I'm not sure what you were thinking cos he breaks your heart at least 3 times before you get engaged but I guess you think he is the one for some fucked up reason.  Thank god you wake up one day and realise he is not the one and you move on which is a awesome.  Hallelujah

At this stage in your life you need a change and you get offered a great position at the casino opening in Sydney and you jump at the chance for a new opportunity and a new town.  Sydney is crazy and you love it.  You meet some gorgeous gay men and you fall in love many times over with lots of straight men but this time you have better relationships and you are maturing.  You do go slightly crazy with the drug scene here again but you are always in control and you know when to stop and you make better decisions. You decide the Casino life is not for you and you take a redundancy package which you squander in 6 months.  How I wish you had of invested it but you had no clue about finances and you live week to week. 

You get an amazing opportunity for a job at the Australian Stock Exchange and here is where your career really takes off.  You have some weird confidence in this job and you are successful and you buy some fabulous power suits and amazing shoes.  Your crazy brown curly hair is dyed blonde and you feel like you have really hit your stride.  Having this confidence in your life brings great things and it is now you meet your future hubby.  He is not the normal type of guy you go out with but look what that has done for you in the past, nothing but heart ache!  You need to take it slowly and not rush into it but of course you can't.  You are on the fast track to marrige and babies and nothing is going to stop you. 

I wish I could tell you that everything goes smoothly from here but nothing in life ever goes completely bump free. You will have 2 gorgeous kids, eventually, after lots of heartache and you will struggle a little bit financially while the kids are babies but you will get by. You will be shocked after a few years about how unfulfilled you fill and you don't absolutely LOVE motherhood. You become lost and sad at times and it's hard to understand why. Don't worry though because you are a strong women with great friends and you will survive these ups and downs as best you can. I'm not sure how your story continues but I know you will go forward drinking lots of vodka & Margarita's, enjoying your friends & family, stumbling every day with the parenting thing and just doing the best you can because you are a seriously top chick! To finish off I would like to tell you some things that you will be happy about;


1. The hair straightener is invented and you will never be able to live without it again.
2. You will never lose your sense of humour and crazy personality and this will get you through some hard times.
3. Your kids are healthy, happy little buggars who drive you insane but also keep you entertained on a daily basis
4. You discover that alcohol makes everything better after 5pm
5. You get to go on some good holidays and drink exotic cocktails.
6. Your friends are the best thing you could ever ask for!
7. Getting old might be scary but it's only getting you closer to retirement & that Twitter Road trip you keep talking about!

BRING IT ON BITCHES!!

Just a little addiction

I have an addiction. Yes I'm admitting it for all to hear. It's not the type I need to attend AA meetings for or even NA meetings. It's the type that probably doesn't have any kind of meeting to go to but it's definitely an addiction that may be taking over my life. Social Media addiction is a silent addiction that lots of us suffer from quietly in the privacy of our homes and probably lots of offices (very sneakily). I must take you back a few years so you can understand the depth of my addiction and then we can discuss if I need to go to a meeting or not. In 1996 I was working at Star City Casino in Sydney as a VIP Host and this was where my first introduction to emails occured as we were required to email invitations to VIP events to important customers. I loved the email and soon began emailing all the other hosts and staff who worked on different shifts and even flirted with numerous men who worked at the casino but in different departments. I distinctly remember the first time I heard another host mention the Internet and my ears pricked up. What was this World Wide Web so many people talked about? I had to know and would slyly sneak little sessions on the work computer on the midnight shift to try and figure it all out. Eventually I decided to buy my own computer and that's when the social addiction began. After setting up the computer and cruising the web for a few weeks I stumbled across a Chat room site and I was intrigued. I can't remember what the site was called and let me know if you remember it but it was thousands of different rooms with different topics and you created your cyber name and joined a room you were interested in. Now I am telling you honestly that I wasn't interested in any kinky sex rooms or crazy people rooms and of course there was always the odd weirdo who tried to privately message you to hook up but generally it was about meeting different people all over the world and chatting about life and having company when my flat mates were out and I was doing shift work. I would spend hours on it and met some lovely people but I never revealed my addiction to my friends cos they just wouldn't understand it. Eventually I moved on from that addiction when I met my hubby and discovered my real life again but I always loved those chat rooms and the people I met who helped me through some lonely times and lots of breakups! The next addiction I discovered was of course Facebook. I was a stay at home mum with 2 babies under 2 when I first heard about it and I was eager to get on the Facebook train. Problem was none of my other friends were on it! I sat up for hours looking for people I knew from school or old jobs and even ex boyfriends cos I was desperate to get my friends number up! I emailed all my friends and begged them to join and eventually I found more people. It didn't matter that I wasn't actually friends with these people anymore, all that mattered was my numbers! (addict here people). Facebook was my link to the outside world and it made me feel human again after spending the day making baby food, talking baby talk and watching Hi5. I discovered the chat area and started chatting to old friends on that just like the good old days! After a few years everyone was on Facebook and I realized that I didn't actually need to be friends with some girl I went to school with 25 years ago who I actually wasn't even friends with back at school! I didn't want them to see my private pictures and read my crazy status updates about how much my kids were shitting me so I started the culling process and started rejecting friend requests from randoms I had met once and would never see again. So then of course comes the twitter addiction which you have probably read about before in my previous blog cos I have raved about how wonderful that is and I do truly love twitter cos it has changed my life and I have met some amazing people on it but sometimes twitter has a habit of taking over my life and all I can think about is my twitter friends and how they are getting on with difficult times and that makes me forget about my real life and my real children and my real husband! This can become a bit of a problem as some of you might know and it has also caused me to step in dog poop which is very annoying. My next little addiction which twitter created for me was blogging. I remembered that I love to write about my life and after the encouragement of my twitter buddies I started writing a blog which I love doing but just can't find the time to blog so thankfully it's not a full blown addiction yet. (stay tuned) So just when I thought I was cutting back on my social media addiction I started hearing about Pinterest and my ears pricked up again. What was this lovely, pretty website people were talking about? I had to know. I emailed off my request to become a Pinterest member and when I got it I was super excited. The pictures were glorious, the food all looks amazing! The animals are so damn cute and you can follow people and they follow you! So, I'm admitting that I do still love Facebook, I still adore Twitter, I want to blog more if I can find the time and now I LOVE Pinterest! Holy crap. There is just not enough time in the day for me to feed my addictions. So what do you think people? Do I need to go to a social media addiction meeting or am I just like all of you reading this and completely normal? I'm thinking we may all need to start creating our own little meetings so we can finally meet! Xxx

Rushing through life

In my last post I asked the question if this is my life?  I have realised that yes it is my life and for some reason it is going so fast I cannot keep up!  For most of us we have a lot going on in our lives, work, kids, husbands, pets, friends, housework, extra curricular activities and more!  Where do we honestly fit it all in?  I am a working mum because a) I have to help pay the mortgage and b) because I want to.  I was lucky enough to not work for 5 years whilst my kids were young and we cut back our lifestyles to adjust to living off one pay.  When my daughter started school I rushed out and got a job 3 days a week and I loved it.  5 years at home playing with my darling children was enough to send me absolutely batty. I was so happy to be in the workforce and to even work one day of the weekend to give my husband an opportunity to spend the day playing with the kids whilst I spoke with grownups was fabulous.  It was also wonderful to get that extra money in even though we had to pay more for 2 days of childcare. 

When I was a SAHM (stay at home mum) I had the luxury of my mum to help me out and also a great group of friends all in the same situation as me and we spent at least one day of the week together sitting around watching the kids play, drinking coffee and enjoying home baked treats that we all made on a regular basis.  I got to do my housework and washing in my own time and although it is busy with little children you do things when you can and I didn't really have a strict routine that I stuck to so my day panned out how it panned out, directed by the kids and their naps.  I always made sure that I had time to walk my dogs and usually that was when hubby got home from work or if my mum popped over for an hour so I could get that one precious hour to myself.

From the day I went back to work my life started to get busy again.  The 'Rush Hour' started and this rush hour has not stopped for 3 years.  Its just a constant rush to get everything done, be everywhere I need to be and rush to get home so I can rush to sleep so I can get up the next day and start rushing again.   I'm not even working full time and I am constantly rushing.  How do women do it that work 5 days a week? I am at a loss to understand it. 

This is an example of a regular day in my life: get up 6.38 (my body clock is set to that exact time for some reason), eat breakky in peace; start getting lunches then wake up kids.  Rush to leave the house by 8.15 without having a meltdown (me and the kids), rush through hideous school traffic, drop kids off then rush through more hideous school traffic to get to work by 9am.  Then I actually get to relax at work for 6 hours and enjoy some grown up interaction. Leave work at 3pm, rush to pick up kids who walk down the hill and then its rush home to get food into their ravenous bellies before footy training.  Throw the dogs in the car and rush to footy training.  Drop Mr 6, find someone to watch Miss 8 then take the dogs for a walk around the neighbourhood.  Rush back to pick up kids, rush home and that's when all hell breaks loose.  Homework, dinner, showers (why do kids never want to get into the freaking shower but then never want to get out?) feed dogs, clean kitchen, hang washing out that I put in before I left for work at 7.30, get uniforms ready for next day, (did I mention drink a cider for myself somewhere in here?) rush to get kids into bed before 8.30pm which does happen occasionally and then its hopefully Katie time.  Hopefully.  Normally I have one child coming upstairs saying, "I'm scared, hungry, thirsty, have a headache, or something along those lines and then it's back downstairs to get that shit sorted and then by 9pm it just might be Katie time! Of course by 8.30pm hubby has gone to bed too so I am left on the lounge with TV and twitter and its absolute bliss.
This is the time I get to do whatever I want, eat whatever I want, watch whatever I want and I would honestly die without this time.  This time is my lifesaver.

On my days off the rushing doesn't stop because then you have to fit everything in that gets left behind when you work.  I am constantly planning my schedule in my head and I have to admit I normally do make it to where I want to go even if I do have to speed occasionally (just quietly of course).

Today I had the day off and I managed to catch up with one of my dearest friends whom I have known for 30 years.  She is married with 3 children and her husband has a job where he works very long hours, travels constantly through the year and gets paid very well.  She doesn't work as she is busy running her family and pretty much being a single mum from Monday to Friday.  Yes they get to go on wonderful holidays through the year and yes she can buy what she wants when she wants it but she said to me today, 'this is not what I imagined my life would be when I married and had 3 kids.  I never knew I would give up my career, become a full time chaffeur and not really have a life of my own.Plus the rushing around is killing me!' It made me sad as I realised so many of us do that when we get married and have kids, we sacrifice our lives to keep everyone else's lives wonderful and running smoothly.  It's just what we do and we don't complain, well maybe sometimes on our blogs and on twitter!

So this takes me back to the rushing, can anyone please help me with the rushing or is this how my life is now? Oh and if anyone wants to send me baked goods I'm always happy to accept because this busy mum just doesn't have time to bake anymore! 

Part 2, baby number 2 comes along

So being the mother of a first born child brings many emotions.  Of course there are the ones that go without saying, love, joy, pride, relief, they are the good ones.  The bad ones can include fear, insecurity, overwhelmment (is that a word even?) I experienced all of these emotions in the first few weeks of bringing our daughter home. 
The one emotion that I do remember suffering from quite badly is fear, fear of not being able to protect my child from the world and all the bad things that happen in it.  I lay awake at night sobbing quietly to myself because I was so scared of something terrible happening to her or even to me!  What If I died and she grew up not having a mother, especially someone as fabulous as me! How would she survive if my husband married someone else who wasn't as funny as me or as clever as me or as gorgeous as me?  These things sent me slightly crazy.  One particular day comes to mind when my inlaws were visiting from Sydney, my mother in law asked to take the baby for a walk in the pram and I was so reluctant to say yes but I didn't want to look like one of those crazy over protective mothers so I said yes with a little bit of fear in my heart.  At the time we lived near a busy street and all I could think of was a car careening off the road and taking my daughter with it.  There was an ad on TV at the time which showed that very scene and I kept seeing it in my head.   That hour she was gone was the most traumatic I had experienced in years and I really began to think I had a problem.

Fortunately this fear eventually passed and I got along with learning all about newborns.  Luckily the breastfeeding thing came quite easily but the sleeping thing, that was a different story.  Why don't tired babies just go to sleep?  How is it possible to get overtired after only being awake for an hour?  These things baffled hub and I and we struggled every night to get her to sleep.  Countless hours were spent pacing the tiles and both of us kept the chiropractor busy for a few months.  I eventually came to my senses and googled how to get babies to sleep, a book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child arrived in the mail and this was my bible.  I read it from cover to cover in one day and started the process of getting her to sleep.  Within a week we had a different baby, she slept as soon as we put her in the cot and went for a naps without a problem.  I honestly believe that is the reason she has always been such a good sleeper, getting those habits right from the beginning was a life saver.  Unfortunately it was a different story with her brother who was to come a little later.

Being Tahlia's mother was great but it was also a challenge, she hated being in the pram and also hated being in the car which was unfortunate as I loved walking with the dogs and I also drove a lot so life was a bit tough for awhile there.  Things improved in the car when we could eventually turn her seat around so she could see out the front but the pram thing remained an issue for her for those early years.  She just wasn't happy being pushed around which is ironic because now at 8 she would love it!  She also suffers from car sickness now so I'm thinking maybe that's why she hated being in the car, especially when she was backwards!
I tried to maintain a routine which included walking the dogs everyday as I was determined to prove everyone wrong who had said that they would not get a look in when the baby came.  In fact they probably got more spoilt after Tahlia came as I was home a lot more instead of working 8 hours a day. 

I went back to see my Dr when Tahlia was 10 months and he reminded me I wasn't getting any younger and I should think about putting some embryos back in asap. I still had 5 frozen embryos so didn't have to worry about doing the whole IVF process again which was fabulous.  We agreed on the 14th of Dec (what was I thinking? A dry Christmas!) and by Christmas Day I knew I was pregnant again. I stupidly agreed to put 2 embryos in and from the moment I found out I was pregnant I started to panic.  What if I had twins? How would I cope with a very active toddler and twins? There was that emotion of fear again! Surprisingly I didn't have a fear of miscarriage this time around, I felt strong and confident that my body had already carried one child to term so why wouldn't it be able to do it again!  Fortunately at our first scan there was only one heartbeat so that fear vanished in a second!  I had strangely forgotten about that other issue of morning sickness and was rudely awoken one morning at about 6 weeks with that hideous hangover and no vodkas having been consumed!! Oh dear god no!  Here we go again.
The sickness was so debilitating and it was really hard to chase after Tahlia and feel so sick.  My only saving grace was that I wasn't working and could stay at home and wallow in my sickness.  My mum came over and helped me out as much as she could and I still managed to walk the dogs nearly every day, doing my vomit thing in the park whilst I walked! (Sorry to all the other dog walkers in the park!)  Thankfully the sickness didn't last as long as my first and I started to improve at about 6 months.  We found out that we were having and boy and we were ecstatic, the perfect family.  I was booked in for August 22 and I felt so in control and excited this time around.  I knew how hard a caesarean was and I felt fit and healthy and prepared by the time the date came around.

5am and we were up and going to the hospital, the inlaws were at home with Tahlia who was going to day care that day and I felt calm but nervous.  The nurse prepared me for theatre and told me I had to have a catheter inserted before I had the epidural.  I didn't like the sound of this as last time it happened after I had the epidural so felt nothing.  This time around she just stuck it right in there and the unpleasantness was ridiculous.  I then had to wait for an hour before being taken down and to say that hour was the longest in my life is an understatement.  The feeling of burning in my nether regions was making me feel sick and I just wanted to get in there and get this boy out!
Finally I was taken down and hub was suited up.  The anaesthetist explained to me that instead of an epidural that they were going to give me a spinal tap which for some reason was better and I agreed, just happy to stop feeling my burning fanny.  My own Dr was doing the Caesar this time around and I felt happy he was there.  I remember him and my hub talking about golf and I then started to feel a very strange feeling, I started to feel nauseous and things started to get a bit dizzy, I grabbed my hubs hand and said, I don't feel right, I feel sick.  He just tried to calm me down and patted my head, well that wasn't doing much for me as you can imagine so I said to him, NO I don't feel right.  The Dr heard me talking and said, don't worry Katie, we are nearly there, just pulling the little man out now.  The next thing you know out came our baby boy  screaming and my heart skipped a beat.  I then said I'm going to be sick and the nurse quickly put the vomit bucket there just in time.  They brought over our healthy baby boy but I couldn't even hold him. Why isn't anyone listening to me I thought, I do not feel normal.  HELP ME!! The Dr quickly stitched me up and they wheeled me to recovery where the nurse took one look at me and said, you don't look good honey.  HELLO, this is what I have been trying to tell everyone for the past half an hour.
She took my temperature and blood pressure and realised that my temp had dropped dramatically and my blood pressure was going through the roof.  She covered me in a silver thermal blanket and rushed to find the Dr, then the vomiting started and it just didn't stop.  I vomited so much I ruptured my stitches and the next 6 hours just turned into a blur.
Meanwhile my family and hub and baby were waiting back in the hospital room wondering where I was?  Last time I was wheeled back up within an hour, why was it taking so long this time?  No one came to see them to tell them what was going on so my hub started to freak, as you would.  Eventually they let him bring our baby down to see me and he was quite horrified at the sight of me, I did not look good and I couldn't even think about meeting our new baby boy. 

The Drs and nurses were baffled about what was wrong but after many drugs being administered to stop the vomiting, trying to get my temp back up and my blood pressure back down it dawned on them that I may just be allergic to morphine which is the drug administered with the spinal tap.  This seemed to be the consensus as I had been scratching myself stupid and this apparently was something you did with morphine.  Yay I'm allergic to morphine and they finally figured it out!
I was wheeled back into my room at 4pm in the afternoon after having Flyn at 7am.  My parents and hub were there with bubs but the inlaws had gone to pick up Tahlia from daycare and I was still very sick. The look of relief on everyone's faces was priceless.  The evening was a blur and I still hadn't held my son. Hub went home to be with Tahlia and my mum stayed with me to look after her baby.  Funny how you need your mum so much when you have just had your own baby.  By midnight I was feeling better and I started to feel ready to feed Flyn, the poor little thing hadn't had a feed since he was born and I started to panic about bonding with him and the fact he might have been starving.  The nurse wheeled him in and it was the most amazing feeling to see him properly for the first time.  My gorgeous little man.  She said to me, you are one lucky lady, we haven't seen anyone as sick as you here for a long time!
Over the next few days I improved but it was going to take me a lot longer to get over this Caesar considering I had ruptured my stitches and may have caused some permanent damage internally.  My Dr came to visit me the next day and apologised for what had happened.  He felt terrible and it was just unfortunate I was allergic to the morphine, how could they have known that?
I made sure I mentioned to him that I was unhappy about having the catheter inserted before I was numb from the waist down and he was very upset about that too!  Well that makes two of us I said!

I left hospital 6 days later to begin the adventure of raising two kids and although I felt fragile I was so glad we had made it through this rollercoaster and I knew that would be the last time I would be visiting the hospital to have a baby!


Part 3 - Wow this motherhood thing is really hard!

My first born turned 8 this week.  8 years on a roller coaster of emotions which have been both amusing and surprising.  Way back before children I never would have imagined that this journey would have been so fraught with challenges and emotions that I would relate to motherhood. Of course there are all the usual emotions that are natural for any parent and don't even need describing but I will anyway.  Joy, pride, elation, relief and of course love, but there are also so many emotions that are not as easy to admit, fear, jealousy, anger, resentment and sometimes even hatred! Yes that's right, I said it, hatred. To explain my emotions I guess I need to start at the beginning of my parenthood journey which was not a normal journey. 
Unfortunately my path to pregnancy was not an easy one and luckily my desire to have children kept me going when the path seemed too hard and emotional.  Here is where all the emotions start happening.

My hubby and I wanted a baby and we started the journey like most couples, went off the pill and started bonking like crazy. I was 31 at the time. After 6 months with no success I went to an obstetrician and told him I didn't feel my body was normal, I had painful and heavy periods and they were not regular. He didn't really listen to me and told me that most couples fell pregnant after 12 months of trying so go back and keep bonking at the right times of the month.  Within that time I decided to see a fertility specialist on the Gold Coast that I had heard great reports about and she told me to take my temperature every morning and drink a hideous herbal concoction that made me dry wretch every morning. After a few months of this torture she told me I had one ovary which was not working properly and to go back and see my obstetrician.

So 12 months after we had started trying to conceive I found myself waiting to go in for an endoscopy, the Dr told me I would be out in about 45 minutes.  3 hours later I was returned to recovery in extreme pain and was told by this Dr that I had chronic endometriosis and that he had had to scrape my entire insides out and that there was no way I would have been able to fall pregnant in that state!  Also FYI I had a enlarged ovary so my chances of falling pregnant naturally were halved! 
This is where the yukky emotions start, anger, resentment and fear.  Why had I  not insisted he do this 6 months earlier when I told him that I didn't feel my body was right?  This experience made me realise that we do know our bodies better than anybody else and that I needed to be more forceful in the future.

Amazingly 3 months later I was pregnant! The feelings of elation were amazing and we were ecstatic.  This was until week 5 when I woke up feeling hungover with no vodkas having been consumed.  WTF?? This morning sickness thing was not fun at all. I somehow managed to keep it hidden from my work colleagues for 9 weeks by vomiting in different toilets in a highrise office building to make sure the vomit smell was not just on level 11.  It was challenging but I managed, as us women do.

One night I woke up not feeling sick.  Ok this was new, I was only 9 weeks and wasn't the sickness thing supposed to be for 12 weeks?  I went to the toilet and yes there was blood.  Of course I panicked, I knew my body and I didn't feel sick and I knew I had lost the baby even before the nurse told me during the scan the heartbeat was not there.

The devastation emotion kicked in.  I had not even thought of a miscarriage prior to this, I didn't realise that this happened so commonly and I had been so focused on being sick I never thought I would lose the little sucker.  9 weeks of sickness all for nothing.  Anger, guilt, resentment they all reared their ugly heads.

To help with my loss I bought a puppy.  Animals were my great love and this little puppy helped ease the pain.  We also moved states so I could be back home with my family, I realised that I needed my mum through this journey and who knew how long a journey it would be.

I found a new Dr who was so much nicer than the old one and I wrote him a history of what had happened already in my quest to have a baby.  He sat and read my essay quietly for a few minutes then said, lets book you in for another endoscopy next week my girl, you are not getting any younger so we need to get you a baby asap.  I loved this Dr already!

The endoscopy revealed the endometriosis had come back and that the bung ovary was not looking good.  He cleaned me out as best he good and came to see me in recovery.  "Listen Katie, I don't think you will ever fall pregnant naturally due to too much scarring in there so lets talk about IVF."

I started IVF on the 1st of January 2003. I was very lucky to have 12 good embryos which is a magnificent result so says my Dr. My first attempt to get pregnant was not successful, disappointment.  My second attempt was successful but they warned me it didn't look good and 5 days later I was bleeding.  I knew my body and I hadn't felt pregnant so my mind had told me not to get excited when the results came back positive.  Of course I had been right and it didn't stick.  Thankfully my emotions were ok for this one. I was starting to get used to this rollercoaster.  On the 3rd go with the frozen embryos I had a good feeling and sure enough I started to feel pregnant so when the results came back positive I already knew.  Unfortunately this was when the fear started.  The fear of miscarriage.  Every time I went to the toilet I panicked, blood? No, oh thank god.  Then of course the sickness came at week 5, the sickness was worse than any hangover you can imagine and its not morning sickness, its all day sickness. 

At our first scan we were amazed to find out there were 2 foetus,  Twins. Elation would best describe my emotion at this time mixed with fear and horror! Of course we knew twins was a possibility considering we had put 2 embryos in there but to actually imagine having twins, well that was scary.
I was so lucky my employers were a small family owned business and understood my morning sickness, unfortunately there was only 1 level here and 1 set of toilets so I wasn't able to share my spewing around!

The fear of miscarriage was still hanging around and when I discovered blood at 8 weeks of course I thought the worst. Panic mode swept in and we rushed to the clinic.  During the scan we found out we had lost one of the babies. My emotions were so confused during this time, my disappointment was drowned out by relief that we still had one baby. My grief was being smothered by my happiness and I felt guilty that I wasn't sadder about losing one.
Of course my sickness continued, 8 months of pure torture, why wasn't it ending? I felt so useless, I couldn't function properly, I remember walking my dog and vomiting as I walked around the park, just stepping to one side and chucking up.  My husband soldiered on and ran the house.  We both prayed for the day it would end. It didn't.  I finished work on December 24th 2004.  It was the happiest day, my employers had been so understanding and I was so grateful to them for enduring my sickness and lack of motivation. If only every pregnant ladies employers could be the same.

We were booked in to be induced on the 2nd of Feb 2005.  On the 31st of January my waters broke.  Now I had heard about waters breaking but I wasn't sure that a constant fountain of water was supposed to happen?  Nothing would stop it, the towel I had between my legs on the way to the hospital was soaked, I hadn't had any contractions but my body didn't feel right.  A sense of panic set in.  The Dr on duty came to see me and check me out, 2 centre metres dilated but why wouldn't this water stop flowing?  A scan revealed my baby's head was tilted so far backwards that her head wasn't in the birth canal to stop the water. This was a problem and I was so scared.  Please don't let 8 months of sickness be a waste.  My Dr was not available so I had to deal with a stranger, he didn't know my journey, he didn't know my struggles.  It was brought to his attention that this baby was conceived via IVF and for some reason he decided that because of this he would get it out asap via a caesarean.  I wondered if he would have let me try a natural birth if I had fallen pregnant naturally? I was baffled but happy it was going to be coming out sooner rather than later.  Exactly 30 Minutes later I was getting my tummy cut open and my daughter was born.  She came out screaming and I would have been screaming too if my little face had been so scrunched up.  Her poor head had been pushed up against my uterus and her nose was so flat she looked Japanese. She was ok and amazingly my sickness was gone.  I felt normal, absolutely normal, oh except I couldn't feel my legs but who cares! I didn't feel sick.  I was elated, I had a daughter and I didn't feel sick anymore. 
My pregnancy journey was over, my struggles were all but forgotten, my motherhood journey was about to begin and I was feeling every emotion possible. Infact I was a huge ball of emotion and little did I realise this journey was going to be the biggest roller coaster I had ever been on. 

Part 2, baby number 2 comes and the rollercoaster of emotions continues