Its time to break the cycle

I think most people in their lives join a gym at least twice.  We've all done it, started off with high hopes and huge motivation for the first 2 weeks then any excuse becomes a good one.  Its cold outside.  I just ate.  I've got a headache.  My shoes give me blisters.  I've got no-one to go with.  and before you know it a month has gone by and your 'new' gym shoes are gathering dust in your wardrobe underneath your jandles and 2 rolls of wrapping paper.   I remember when I joined up for the local gym the first time. 17 yrs ago. just after I had my first baby.  I went in to get my program from a trainer and was expecting to be out of there within about half n hour.  Two hours later I'm a sweating, dry-retching mess.  When I went to leave, the perky, pony-tailed, Lycra-clad lady at the reception desk stopped me and asked me for my shoes. My brand spanking expensive new trainers.  I took them off and passed them over thinking maybe she wanted to check them out to go get herself a pair or something.  She whips out a Blue vivid and proceeds to write in large font my gym membership number all over them and then pops them in a cubby hole behind the desk.  Apparently these were my new Gym shoes just. for. at. the. gym! I didn't remember them telling me this piece of vital information when I signed my life and shoes away for the next two bloody years.  I had to walk home in my socks.  I never went back.  I kept paying and they got to keep my shoes.  I got to keep the baby weight.
So when our Teenager came and told us she had joined the Gym, we looked at each other and had a wee giggle behind her back.  A giggle that only old smug people with wise Gym life experience can utter.  Pretty sure we rolled our eyes as well.  Its been 2 weeks and her Gym shoes are still sitting outside her bedroom door in the exact position I threw them.  I asked her recently when she was going to the Gym again she replied in her best whiny voice "I've got no-one to go with?!"  *sigh its a slippery slope. 

I can eat Chocolate again

For the past week or so I have noticed a tender spot in one of my top back teeth, not a full on toothache or anything but sore enough to be a real downer when eating chocolate or those sour worm lollies late at night when the kids are in bed. 
Rung the dentist to make an appointment, before I permanently have to give up the late night sugar rush.  My dreams would be pretty boring without a hit last thing at night.  Resorting to licking Pineapple Lumps just doesn't do it for me.
Amazingly I managed to get an appointment that same day at 2:10.  Miracle.  Figured it would've been a week away at least.

Got off the phone and did a happy dance past the husband in the kitchen.
Him: What are you so happy about?
Me: I'm going to the dentist today
Him: Are you mental? Who does a happy dance for that?
Me: Me cause hes going to give me a filling so I can eat Chocolate again.  I might even get to eat it tonight once the injection wears off!!
Him: Maybe you shouldn't eat chocolate so much if it means you have to have a filling?
Me: *Sigh But that's what fillings are for? So I can eat Chocolate and they protect my teeth.  eye roll

I totally get that people are completely freaked out by having to go the Dentist.  It stems from our childhoods and "The Murder House" right?! But these days its way way better.  They don't let you feel any pain, one flinch by me and my dentist stops straight away and pumps another needle full of numbing goodness into my gum.  Then its just all noise.  Psychologically if you can get past the noise your all good.  I regularly go and see the good people at 'North Avon Dental Surgery' in Christchurch and they rule.  Don't keep me sitting or worrying in the waiting room.  Tell me exactly what they are going to do before and during.  No pissing around.  30 minutes later I walk out and have a nice wee chat with the receptionist, all with no feeling or muscle control on the Right side of my face.
Why do I always end up with an appointment and a double dose of anaesthetic right before I have to pick up the kids from school?
The 8 yr decides that his circus freak of a mother should be shown off to all his mates as I try to rush him out the school gate "Hey Guys watch my mum try to smile" "Hey Amelia talk to my Mum, she looks weird" "Hey Ms Fido my mums mouth is freaky"
I know the other major reason people put off going to their dentist is the cost.  Yip its up there.  $262 for an X-Ray and filling that day.  Could've been worse, if I left it longer it would've been a root canal! Root Canal are two words I never want to experience or pay for.  Two years ago the best thing I ever did was start seeing Lisa the hygienist every 6 months. I think the $100 she charges for an industrial 20 minutes of buffing and scraping and shining is completely worth it.   I totally reckon i have saved myself hundreds if not thousands of dollars by having a regular heavy duty clean.  She motivates me to floss everyday knowing that I'm going to have to see, either her smiley happy face or her disappointed frowny face.  Part of me wishes they still gave out those cool little buzzy bee cotton wool things.  I totally deserve one.
This actual dentist appointment was the first time I have had anything actually wrong with my teeth in the past 2 years.  Before all this I hadn't been to a Dentist in 10 years. 
What I'm trying to say in this Nerdy public service announcement is go get a WOF on your teeth my friends, even if there's nothing wrong at the moment.  Better to do it now, than wait til its going to cost you shit loads. Nothing worse in this life than Tooth Ache and Back Pain.  Except for Child Birth...don't get me started on Child Birth!

Hows your Dental situation these days? Have you paid for your Dentists Holiday Home in Fiji with all the work you've had done or are you insanely overdue for a tune up?

F You Period Hormones

 So had a bit of a fight with the Husband over the weekend.  You know the usual.  Hes wrong and I'm right but he doesn't agree.  Dick.  This, plus a busy weekend working together resulted in us not really talking.  Come Monday morning the air is still pretty frosty but the Husband gets to jump in a truck and drive off for a whole week away.  Yip SEEYA!  
10 minutes after the cloud of dust settles from his departure, I get the girly guilt's and figure I better send the inevitable 'make up' text and put the world all ok again.  So I send a nice text along the lines of "Sorry lets be friends, blah blah"...*crickets... Nothing, no reply.  OK I figure he's still mad.  Leave it.  An hour later I send another one.  Still Nothing.  God he's really mad, weird?  Sweetas, I can play that game too.  I've tried, now I'll leave it up to him.  2 hours later I start to get all stalker on it and send another one.  With each passing hour, I'm getting more manic and desperate.  Thoughts of "He hates me" "Hes bringing Divorce papers home with him" start to play out in my mental brain. Monday comes and goes with no communication.  I have the worst day.  I can't believe he's this mad.  The fight wasn't even that big? WTF? 
Tuesday I wake up with a headache from my crappy worry sleep.  I send another text and then resign myself to a life alone with 14 cats.  
Tuesday night the land line rings and its the Husband all chirpy "Hiii" he says.  "Ummmm Hi" I say back suspiciously.  He has rung to let me know he lost his phone getting in the car on Monday morning and a neighbour found it and could I go pick it up from them....ummmm OMFG the neighbour has probably seen the top two lines of each fucken text I have sent over the last 2 days!!! 
 I am mortified that a) I turned into such a mental teenager and that b) my neighbour has witnessed my manic break down!!  The husband didn't even realise we were still fighting?! I have just basically spent 2 days having a fight with myself?! 
I can't even bring myself to open my curtains in case I make eye contact with her.  I'm sending the kids over and digging myself a big hole in the back garden.  F@#k You Period Hormones!

I know I'm getting old....

I know I'm getting old for many reasons but a major one is because I have started to use those sucky-in-ey items of underwear.  I'm not quite at the big undie up to my boobs stage but my new staple secret item I came across at Farmers recently was a sucky-in-ey singlet and Praise the lord its amazing!  Just smooths out any bumps, lumps and frumps which I would usually blame on just having had a baby but considering the last one is 8, the reality of that statement is wearing thin.
Its genius because its long and stays down, no rolling up, even when having to bend over 2000 times a day to pick up my families crap.  It also squeezes the girls up for some much needed extra cleavage.  This shit is a miracle.
except.....
when I need to get dressed straight after a shower.  How many times have you tried to pull on a sports bra, knickers or anything sucky-in-ey when your skin is still warm and moist eww sorry I tried to think of another word. You get two arms in and your head sports bra not knickers for this example and then start desperately trying to roll the material down so you look like your giving yourself a double mammogram.  One boob in and still the back of your sports bra is rolled up around your neck.  You try desperately to bend your elbow high enough behind your back to reach the mother fucking material but not dislocate your shoulder, all the while you are getting hotter and sweatier in the process.  Its at about this point I start yelling out desperately for the nearest family member "COME IN HERE AND HELP ME BUT FOR GOD SAKE DO IT WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED!!!" its amazing how any other time I want 5 bloody minutes to myself in the bathroom to pee,  I've got kids coming out my ears talking to me through the door but when I really need them suddenly they're all sooooooo busy.
But when I finally get to the really unattractive, manic panic stage,  you know the stage like when your at a jewellery store and you try on a really expensive ring and it goes on sweet as but when you try to slide it off, your finger has suddenly turned into a sausage and it won't budge?! this is the stage when I start to consider walking out of the bathroom as is, to hell with the neighbours and causing retina damage to my family, to get the scissors from the kitchen and cutting this straight jacket off. Then just like that the back rolls down, god what a relief!  I end up having to lie down with my face on the cold floor just to get my breath back from the un-co zumba workout I just did.
That was the bra now the knickers....

YouTube is totes Cray Cray

We don't spend a huge amount of time watching TV at my house.  We don't have Sky or anything so the limited channels means there's lots of crap on, which makes it easier for me to just turn it off.
We do however spend a lot of time on gadgets or devices.  So laptops are always open, the ipad or our iPhones are usually in someones hands.
We do have Apple TV, which is a little black box that plugs into your TV, its a way of accessing the Internet using your TV as the main screen, you can order movies online, look at your photos or videos, music channels and I often find the kids watching YouTube on there.  Lets just begin by saying YouTube is totes cray cray.  You can start off watching someone like 'Ellen' on there and 3 hours later you are learning how to build your kid a bunk shaped like a giraffe???
I thought I would give you a couple of things I have found which make me laugh out loud and another couple which I found inspiring and moving.  To show you there's still good people out in the world.
They first 3 are a little strange.  Not in a bad way.  Just a little bit WT? like maybe someone needs to remove the magic mushys from their gardens.  My kids think they are hilarious.  That's all the warning your going to get about those.
But the last 2 are amazing!

My Girls

So I haven't really blogged since May and I was thinking about all the things that have happened since then.  Dam my future Altziemers (?) I can't think back that far.  But I do remember we got new Kune Kune Piglets in June.  This was after a long grieving period for our last wee ginger piglet, Ruby, who we lost at 4 months to a pretty shit house bacteria which gave her blood poisoning and died quite suddenly on our doorstep.
I was really missing the grunts and squeals of my little shadow and my Staffy was missing her mate too.  So I started trawling through Trade me to find our newest additions.  I decided to get 2 sisters this time so they would have company to cuddle up to in the cold winter nights.
These girls came from the West coast and were quite different straight away.  They lived inside for the first 2 months as the winter weather was pretty crap and it was a good excuse to have 2 very cute wee piglets sleeping inside in front of the fire, stealing the dogs beds.  I think my Staffy was a bit put out because they definitely stuck together and evicted her from any cosy spot she got to first.  These girls we have named 'Daisy Boo' (the black and white one) and 'Polly Wog' (the ginger one) but during the first few weeks I had moments of wanting to change their names to 'Kim' and 'Khloe' due to their very demanding and high maintenance behaviour.  It was like having puppies again.  I was up twice in the night letting them out to toilet train them, they would get into everything and were very loud when hungry or just wanted attention.  You would find me every morning round 5:30am in my dressing gown and gumboots with 2 tantruming, squealing piglets following me down to the back of the property to feed them their breakfast.  Then an hour later they would be back banging on the door and straight back asleep in front of the fire.  It was intense but very cool.
In the last couple of weeks the husband has made a fenced in area with an awesome cosy, straw bale castle inside their pig house, in which they now sleep every night.  Complete with single mattress.  They are able to wander and graze around our acre at their leisure and are still welcome inside during the day but at dinner time their gate is shut until its time for breakfast.  The husband has had to fence off his vege garden to keep them out and we are in the process of teaching them not to root up the soft ground.
They are growing really quickly, in two months they have easily doubled in size,  and always come running when they see us.  They can sit for treats and a scratch behind their ears makes them flop to the ground for a belly rub.  They are really good little lawn mowers and eat all our household scrapes and weeds.
I love seeing them asleep in the sunshine on my doorstep or in amongst the garden.
Kune Kunes are such characters, they have awesome personalities, soo smart and social but feisty and stubborn too. 
If your thinking about adding a piglet..or two...I say "Do it!"

Stuff you just need

I moved out of home when I was 18. Straight from 7th form in Paraparaumu to do the student thing in Christchurch. When you first leave home, your olds get you lots of stuff to start you out. A new duvet and Cover. Sheets. Toaster. Cutlery set. Towels. Grocery vouchers. A Cook book.  Common Sense.  Morals.  Birth Control.  Pretty much as many necessity items you can fit in a suitcase.  But there are 2 things that my mother has continued to buy for me 20 yrs later. These 2 things I have never had to go out and buy for myself EVER. The first thing is an Iron. She bought it and I never use it. It always ends up put away in a box, inside another box at the back of a cupboard in the laundry behind torches, plastic bags and a weird electric duster. If when she comes to visit she can find it, it gets used.  By her.  Otherwise it just stays in the back of the cupboard. Sitting patiently waiting for Lyn to come back. I figure at least it will be in mint condition when Te Papa call wanting to add it to their olden days collection.

The other domestic item which my Mum buys every time she comes to Christchurch to visit us is Pegs. I always need them but never actually go out and buy them. There's nothing more frustrating than not having enough bloody pegs to hang out the millions of socks and undies my family seem to wear every day.  This last visit my Mum and Dad made down to look after my little farm for a week, while I was drinking booze and sunning myself in Raro, was a chance to outdo herself.  Not only do I now have a new collection of coloured plastic pegs ready with strength and determination to combat the wind and stop my bloomers from flying into the neighbours yard, but I also now have 3 extra 'Glad containers' full of yellow polyethelene goodness as back up for when the environment inevitably starts swallowing and destroying the current active members. Those containers make me smile everyday.

I love you Mum. Thanks for still looking after me.