assorted

I put in a job application on Monday.  Similar but different work to what I do now.  I felt so proud of myself.  I really did a good job on the application, and I even got my lovely manager to check it over for feedback first.  However, I found out today (from my unnamed Deep Throat) that there were ninety applications submitted for the job.  This seems unbelievable for a government job.  Needless to say, I feel like the wind has been sucked out of my sails.

Still, it’s a bit like lotto, you have to be in it to win it….. I’ll find out soon enough if I get through to the interview stage.  Sigh.  I really need to get the hell out of Dodge with respect to my current job – I can’t stand the head of the organisation, who is a psycho hosebeast nutjob.  I understand most CEOs are, but I know the CEO of the agency I applied to is relatively normal.  I could handle relatively normal.  It would be a great change.

Otherwise, things are going well.  SO is behaving himself, work is okay, and life generally is good.  Oh, and we finally found out today that our finance was approved for the apartment we wanted to buy – yay!!  I love me a good project, and a new unit is a great project.   Now I guess I need to start buying more furniture….

We still have a unit on our hands that we’re looking to rent out.  It does bug me, going there regularly for viewings and nobody showing up.  We do always seem to manage to find tenants though, even if it’s at the last dying minute.

Anyhow, I’m not quite sure if there’s anything else to write about at this stage, so I’m off.

sunday

Another weekend has been and gone.  I had unit stuff yesterday (viewing for potential new tenants) and afterwards I visited Mum and her man J.  Sounds like it’s getting serious between them – he’s just about living there, they’re planning all kinds of trips overseas, and he’s even redirected his mail to Mum’s place.  If he wasn’t such a lovely man I’d be worried, but he really is just great.  I also can’t believe my mother’s luck in having not one, but two men in her life who will cook for her and run around after her like she’s a princess.  What are the odds?!

I’ve discovered the entire online collection of Peanuts.  This comic strip was formative in my and my brother’s early years.  I had a Snoopy stuffed doll which my brother adopted.  Snoopy (or ‘Noosy’, as A used to refer to him) came with us everywhere for a good couple of years, including on holidays.  We have photos of A asleep in the car, using Noosy as a pillow.  So yes, please have a look at the Peanuts goodness – current favourite strip is here.

While we didn’t get any food shopping done this weekend, we did manage to clean both bathrooms, do some washing, and vacuum the house.  That’s gotta count for something.  Plus, I did some gardening.  The area out the back that we reticulated a few weeks ago, has started sprouting new little weeds all over the place, like a thin fine layer of dust settles inside your house.  So I’ve spent a couple of hours (so far) getting out there and ripping the little buggers up.  I said to SO that if I can do a bit every night after work, it’ll be good for my stress levels, and it’ll probably sort out the weed issue in a week or so.  (Whether this actually happens or not is another story.)

My stress levels are pretty high at the moment.  I can tell from the signals my body’s sending me – feeling sick in the stomach, nervous, agitated, the usual.  It feels like it used to before I got onto Lexapro.  This is not a good thing.  I’m trying to tell myself that I’m just having a bad day, I’m tired, and I’m stressed.  It’ll pass.  Hopefully.  SO noticed I was feeling like crap, so he took me out for lunch.  He bought a couple of continental rolls from the local deli, then drove me to a beach which has a park at the top of it.  We sat there and ate, while watching the families having barbeques and kicking balls around with their kids.  It was beautiful and restful, and just what I needed.  I came back and had a three hour nap, and I’m feeling like I’m more able to cope with life.  Still not 100%, but a lot better than I was.  I think I have the best husband in the whole world.

is it the weekend yet?

Hooo. So glad it’s Thursday night.  This week has gone so quickly, it seems incredible that it’s nearly the weekend again.

After having all of last week off work, I came back to an absolute avalanche.  And as well, just to keep me away from clearing the paperwork from my desk, I had training to deliver all of yesterday and half of today. This was previously booked in, and it needed to be done, but it doesn’t get paperwork finished off.

I guess the good news out of this is that a) I’ve done some extra time, which I can put towards taking some time off; and b) I’ve slept really well this week, due to being knackered.  I’ve come home every day this week and just crashed.

I’m lucky in that I get a lot of enjoyment from the different parts of my job.  I really do enjoy training, and I connect well with people.  When you’re trying to see equal opportunity to a male-dominated workforce, this is critical.  I feel like I’m slowly building trust with employees, one person at a time.  It’s a slow but effective way of being able to help the people who come to me with issues that need resolution – if they don’t trust you, they don’t come to you for help.

In other news, we’ve got our new tenants for our fully furnished unit sorted out.  We signed the lease today, and got the bond and first two weeks’ rent money.  Yay!  It’s a relief.  Three more months until we need to worry about sourcing new tenants.  They’re a couple of young backpackers, and they seem like nice girls – I can’t imagine we’ll have any issues with them. And the best part is, our current tenants move out Saturday morning, and the girls move in that evening.  We don’t even lose a day’s rent.

So even though we’ll spend the majority of Saturday cleaning up and preparing the unit for the new tenants, we’ll be able to kick back and relax on Sunday, knowing we’ll be able to pay our mortgage for the next three months.  This is great news, obviously. I’m looking forward to being financially stable again.  SO mentioned the other day that the ‘buffer’ in our main account in getting bigger, so I’m not the only one who’s happy about things going well financially. It’s a relief.

hypothetical

Here’s a philosophical question for you: If your brother marries a PITA, but you never hear him complain, does his unhappiness really exist??

My brother has been dating a pain in the arse for the same time that I’ve been with SO.  (This is a coincidence.)  She is shallow and annoying.  I don’t like her, none of the family like her, and his friends have carefully refrained from passing comment – that is, they don’t like her either.  Anyhow, being your typical engineer (introvert, poor socialisation skills with respect to women, etc) she’s his only significant relationship.  He seems to think that if he marries her, that he will be happy.

The thing that made me think of all this was today’s Dilbert comic (for fear of violating copyright, blahblahblah, I’m not going to reproduce it here).  To me, it encapsulates their relationship.  Sad but true.

Onto other matters…. I’ve picked up a headcold.  It gave me a shock, actually – the stuff that’s normally wrong with my head is brain-centred, rather than sinus- and throat-related.  It’s been a while since I’ve been physically sick.  It makes a change, I must say.  At least it’s easily fixed with lots of codeine and pseudoephidrene.  Bring on the druuuuugs!!

We were at M and J’s wedding BBQ today.  I went out this morning and got their present – a large platter, two nibblies bowls and some salad hands.  I got a text from M this evening saying how much they liked them, which is great.  We were only there for a couple of hours, as I was feeling pretty ordinary once the edge wore off the drugs.  SO was arguing with me before we left, saying that I shouldn’t be going as I was sick.  I cracked the poopies with him and told him that hell would freeze over before I missed today.  He got the message.

Anyhow, it was good.  M was in good form, she was actually enjoying herself, which made me happy to see.  L and her husband weren’t looking so good.  I noticed that they stayed away from all the kids, and that when kids were passed around, she didn’t have a hold.  She was also very subdued.  I sat next to her and talked to her for a while.  She seemed to chirp up a bit then, which was good.  She did say that she was spending all her time in bed.  I really hope that she will be okay.  I’d hate for this to trigger depression, in either her or her husband. Poor love, he’s also really struggling.

ugh

I found out this afternoon that my 91-year-old nana, my dad’s mum, is in hospital with renal failure.  As soon as I found out, I called a couple of hospitals, and was put through to her room at the second one (I didn’t know which hospital she was at).  The poor old thing, she cut me off, something medical was going on and she couldn’t talk.  She sounded distressed, too.  My brother and I will go and see her probably tomorrow night after work.

I feel so confused and so many things at the moment.  After I found out, and spoke to nana and my brother, I felt – strange.  I actually couldn’t identify exactly how I felt.  I seemed to feel, well, odd.  It was all so confusing that I just sat at my desk, trying to work out how I felt, and why.  I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t pick how I felt, or the reasons why.

Anyhow, I finally worked it out.  What I was feeling was – relief.

I love my nana.  She and my father are/were so alike, in looks, but also in attitude and personality.  And she’s lovable in her own right.  So why on earth do I have this unsettled feeling of relief?  Well, I think it’s because even though she’s probably on a downhill slope to the grave, and she’s unhappy – I think it’s because I’ve realised that when she dies, I will be upset.  But it’s not going to be like when my dad died.  I’ll be sad, but not completely devastated.

Of course, this explains the relief.  But I feel like a piece of shit that I feel relief around the idea of my nana possibly dying.  Hence, my confusion.

And in other unrelated stuff – I suddenly remembered tonight that about a week and a half ago, I dreamt that my friend M had a miscarriage.  It was a bad dream, and I even mentioned it to SO the next day, it was so unpleasant and unsettling.  Then, of course, she did lose the baby.  I know my dream didn’t cause it to happen – but it’s a horrible coincidence.

UGH.  I just feel like I can’t process all of this at once.

good day

Today, as you may have guessed, was a good day.  My friend M paid a flying visit to Perth, and we got to catch up.

M lives in the eastern states, with her three adorable children under four, her parents down the road, and her raving maniac ex-husband always lurking in the periphery of her life.  She finally split up with him at the end of last year, when she was three months’ pregnant with their third child.  Since then, her ex has done so many really awful things that I can’t list them here.  Suffice it to say that she has been advised by three separate professionals in the Family Court system to go to a women’s shelter, with the kids, so that she was safe.  Despite all this, she is happier and more at peace than I have ever seen her before.  The kids are happy and feel safe at home now, and she’s doing really well as a single mother of three.

We picked her up at 11am, and brought her back here for a deluxe barbeque lunch.  I also invited my little brother over, so it was just the four of us.  My brother was meant to leave at 1:30 but ended up staying an hour longer, he was enjoying himself so much.  I must say, the food was so good - steak and sausages, garlic potato bake, garden salad and bean salad.  Add in a delicious butter cake with chocolate icing, and it was just fantastic.

So basically, between 11am and 4pm, we ate, drank, reminisced, and had a great time.  It was like she’d never left.  I know that she’s better off near her parents, especially with the kids being so little, but I do miss her, and she misses Perth. 

I’m so glad that her life is on a more even keel now.  She’s a lovely person, and so optimistic, despite all she’s been through.  But I miss her so much.

waiting for the weekend

I’m really looking forward to the weekend.  Well, Saturday in particular, as it’s SO’s birthday.

I was shopping for part of his present the other day, when I looked around and saw this watch.  It had a round face of pale gold, with a black leather band.  The more I looked at it, the more I just really, really liked it.  I asked the lady behind the counter how much it was.  When I heard the amount, instead of laughing hysterically – I bought it.

I’m not normally an impulse shopper, but there were a few reasons why I bought that watch.  Firstly, SO needs a watch.  (I have actually bought him one previously, but it’s not as nice as this one, as evidenced by the gold wearing off it.  Grrrrrr.)  Secondly, I was going to buy something else for his birthday, just not necessarily a watch (or anything of the same value as the cost of the watch).  But you know what?  It is a really nice watch.

Thirdly, he’s had a pretty tough couple of years dealing not only with my mental illness, but also the purchase and renovation of three investment properties.  He’s worked his backside off on all his holidays, on weekends and after work, to turn the three units from sow’s ears into silk purses in order to maximise the return on our investment (literally).

And finally, he’s the love of my life, and I hope he loves the watch as much as I do.  He deserves it.

common sense

I was reading my favourite gossip website, Perez Hilton, the other day, when this comment jumped out at me.  Underneath a faaaaabulous pic of Snoop Dogg, dressed all in black, with a long black Matrix-style coat, was this quote:

“A lot of people like to fool you and say that you’re not smart if you never went to college, but common sense rules over everything. That’s what I learned from selling crack”.

Now, I’m certainly not advocating Snoop’s method of learning common sense.  But it did make me laugh out loud.

If you want to see Snoop’s caption, it’s here.

And kisses to the amazing Perez Hilton for brightening up my day!! 

neverending renovations

These renos are taking forever.  I think I’ve officially lost interest.  However, we’ll be able to start painting soon, which I will be able to be involved in, so that should help.

I saw the doctor today (my general practitioner).  Apparently my blood pressure is 104/71, which I was pretty happy with.  It’s always been on the low side, but as I’m on the Pill I keep expecting it to be higher than it is.  On the down side, the doc wants me to lose 5kgs in the next 6 months.  I don’t think this is unreasonable; on the contrary, I agree with both the time frame and the amount.

I remember being at my all-time highest weight of 70kgs when we got married in November 2006, and not being happy about it.  I’m 175cms, so 70kgs isn’t huge on me.  However, here we are in April 2008, and I’m weighing in at 82kgs.  Sigh.  I explained to my doc that there’s a lot happening just at the moment (renovating, buying a new property, etc) and he nodded understandingly.  He said that the antidepressants can also cause weight gain.  Well, no surprises there I guess! 

In other news, my mother-in-law is coming to breakfast tomorrow.  I don’t object to her coming over and seeing us; what I don’t like is how SO is always in a bad mood after he’s seen her.  She has a lot of issues, but she’s his mother, and he doesn’t bother with her much, which upsets her.  I try to be understanding of all of this. 

Speaking of parents, I found this link the other day.  It encapsulates my fear of being a parent and owning every single toy under the sun. SO’s sister and brother-in-law are like this, and it’s incredibly intimidating. Their kids are three and one, and they already have two full bedrooms, plus their own gamesroom, full of toys. I don’t know how to avoid it, but I don’t want to end up like that. Fortunately kids are definitely in the future for us for some time yet – at least until I’m off the Lexapro.