It has been a month since my last confession…

I’m not Catholic. Never was, despite my surname. So, apologies for stealing this confessional statement. But, wow! Hasn’t time flown!

No news is good news, right? Well….kinda. In my life this month, a bunch of stuff has been happening – mostly good, some not so good.

The new car is AWESOME. I love driving it. Tick!

My diet is TERRIBLE. But I’ve not gained any weight that I can tell. And I’m back on the straight and narrow today. Tick!

My exercise regime is LAUGHABLE. But I’m working on it. Little tick for motivational purposes.

My work life is FANTASTIC. I love my job. I have a minor yearning for some performance stuff but otherwise I have the perfect gig. Now to make it a permanent tenured position (never going to happen, but hey, a girl can dream). Tick!

My family life is WONDERFUL. I love my husband. We are easing into a lovely place – teasing yet caring, understanding of each others’ scruples but not averse to raising the eyebrow on occasion. Or the ire. I love my boys and miss them terribly but I saw them just recently and spent guilt money on them because I can. My extended family are all great and doing amazing things. Tick!

My social life is OK – could be better – I have little time to visit friends and have not called anyone lately, even though I’m a constant on FB. Bad Jessie. Must call friends and SEE them. No tick – a cross instead.

My PhD study is AWFUL. I have no time to work on it consistently, I have even less time to care about it at the moment, and I got the most horrible response back regarding the gaping flaws in my Methods Chapter. So I’m taking time off it again. Because I’m sick of it and I want a new supervisor who is pleasant and personable and who is a mentor and whose caring approach makes me want to do better. Right now I feel nothing but RAGE. No tick here. Cross.

The house renovations are SADLY in hiatus while our weekends are busy, but we are in the planning phase of the next job. If my youngest boy comes to live with us I will have to find another place to work because we can’t all fit into the house as is. And we will need to renovate the interior in order to get everyone to fit. This could be fun AND expensive. Half tick for planning, at least.

The dog is getting BETTER, calmer, and her training is going quite well. I’m a bit lazy about it and we rarely have time to do much, but she’s getting there. She’s a bit neurotic around the kids, who tend to psych her up a bit and make her jumpy. She growls at us when she is on her bed at night sleeping (with her eyes open), and we walk past. We are training her out of that, too. Half tick for perseverance and her ability to sit, drop, leave it, and sit on her mat.

Finally, our spending is a tad OUT OF CONTROL. This is what we bought yesterday. Because hubby was complaining about the poor result we were getting from our coffee machine (5 years old and is starting to fail a bit), and he wanted a new one. And I wanted a red one. We got a new, red, expensive, beautiful machine: a Breville 900CB. It’s awesome. Truly.Our coffee now tastes amazing and the machine was laughably easy to set up. But no tick for thrift. Big cross for being a spendthrift.

So, there you go. Ticks: 5 full, 2 half. Crosses: 3. Hail Marys required: none. I’m an atheist. Looking forward to when those crosses on my PhD become ticks, and when our spending is pulled back – this will NEVER happen because we want to renovate the house and that’s exxie. I can, at least, do something about my friends. See y’all soon. xxx

 

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Stormy weather

Today we see the end of a serious cyclonic weather cell that’s been causing havoc over the last few days. It gave us a rather interrupted night’s sleep last night as the wind howled about our house, the louvres rattling and shaking, bangs and crashes heard near and far. The cat was trapped under the house (luckily the house is high set, so when I say that, it’s not as bad as it seems – it’s head height under there!), the puppy was subdued all day and we spent a very quiet day at home, not really doing very much. I made scones and tea. We had delicious steak and salad for dinner.

Well, it’s not really true that we didn’t do much. Yesterday, in the pouring rain, we put in a temporary (albeit expensive) pathway for my singing students, who are due to commence lessons today. I seem to remember this weather difficulty in years past, when my first week of teaching was invariably upset by wild weather. And when I say wild weather, I mean Brisbane floods of 2011, cyclonic tropical wet season storms and crazy rain. Our house is completely flooded in the concreted breezeway under the house – this is normal, and we discovered the leak in the west wing which was supposed to be fixed by the new guttering, has not been fixed by the new guttering. Oh well. The worst has passed, at least, and now our large garden, which is now thoroughly soggy, can be sown with grass seed and we should have a solid carpet of lawn in a few weeks. The summer sun has scorched the lawn in parts and the garden, which was a dust bowl, is now a healthy mud bath.

I suppose putting in a pathway in the pouring rain has its advantages. For instance, one can easily see the uneven sections, and rain has a habit of smoothing out these bits and tamping down the sand, so that the path is now quite smooth. The charcoal 40×40 pavers look good and we’ve put iceberg pebbles around them, which makes the entryway look reasonably professional. Given that this is temporary, I’m happy with the result, even if it is just a tad uneven. Not enough to trip people up, though!  The fence has not been finished – it’s a soggy mess of unpainted wood, and the gate was torn off its new hinges. Time to get us some better hinges, I think.

Poppy is learning how to fetch and chase things. She has not yet learned to pee or poo outside, but given the weather, I’m not surprised. We’re struggling to get her house trained, although other aspects of her training are going very well. She will be a very energetic dog. I spent 30 minutes teaching her to chase and return a toy, and she still had more energy in her! She’s a dear little thing and I am crazy about her. She’s growing fast and has rather large paws.

As for me and my diet, well. My diet has been bonkers lately, but I’m getting back on the straight and narrow this week. The house maintenance work has kept me fit and healthy, and I’m managing a circuit class per week plus PT. I think I’ve continued to lose weight slightly, despite my crappy diet and I’m resigned to checking my weight next week. I hope I’m at or under 65 kgs. If clothes are any indication, 5 years ago I bought size 11 boot cut Levis which I have rarely worn, because they were too small – even at time of purchase. Now not only do they fit, but the waist is really comfortable – loose, even. This is massive. Of course, NONE of my other, newer clothes fit any more. They swim on me. But I can’t afford to go buying new clothes when I have bills to pay, so I’ll have to wait until April, as I promised myself. Well, all right, I did buy ONE little skirt which I love! And shoes. What this DOES mean, however, is all the old size 10 clothes I’d kept because they were too lovely to discard, can now be worn again. Old linen jackets, shirts and even the occasional dress now fit again. It’s just the casual uniform of navy pants and stripy tops I prefer to wear during the summer swelter here are now a little large. But I’m getting there! And feeling great.