Where Am I??

I have lost my blogging mo-jo. Can’t you tell? I don’t know when it will return, and I hope it is a when and not an if. I seem too paralyzed to log in and therefore I am so out of the loop on all the blogs that I do read as well. I think it is down to two things. The first being lack of time. I clearly took all the free time I had for granted, but now I just don’t seem to have much. I know this will change, hopefully sooner than later but at the moment, there are just so many other things that need to be done and when I finally come home at the end of the day I am just parking myself on the couch and falling asleep before dinner.

The second factor is stress. I was stressed, but now I am even more stressed, in a very unhealthy way. I have gone from one extreme (of not doing very much) to the other (of doing too much) and nothing seems to be able to give right now and I just feel lost in the middle of it all. It is exhausting and I feel like I am sinking and I am dangerously playing around the edge of getting into a really bad place, a place I have been several times and was determined after the last time and after all the changes I made never to go there again. Yes the A word is back, but if I am not careful it will be accompanied by the D word and that is where I do not want to be.

So in this current state of mind I am just retreating, retreating from everyone, which is probably not the best thing, but it is how I deal with it. Why I do this, I don’t know. But I am allowing myself to talk to the right people about it, and they are giving me the help I need to sort all this crap out and pull myself out of this hole. I know I will return with everything sorted out and back to my old positive self. I know it will happen, I am just not sure when. XOXO

Banging My Head Against A Brick Wall

This is what is causing me so much joy and so much pain at the same time.

I logged onto blogger this morning, and I did this whole post about my nightmare weekend. But I thought, maybe I shouldn't post it. It was very angry and bitter and I really should keep things happy and positive. But I can't. I just received an email from someone and I could honestly bang my head against the wall right now. I've had to call The Boy to get him to deal with it cos I am too emotional right now and if I call her up it would end in verbal abuse.

What can I say, the shit has hit the fan. Here I was in la la land, thinking we found the perfect house, on the close to perfect block (the perfect block would be someone in tropical Queensland with ocean views and palm trees). And I was just swanning about with everything falling into place. We wanted air con, it was added to the tender, no drama. We found a conveyancer. So easy. Our house lady is so helpful. Why would anything bad happen? Because it has too, because life is not about holding hands and skipping down the street singing songs in perfect harmony, life is about everything falling into place and then blowing up in your face!

It started with the weekend. No it started with The Bank. We picked one that best suited our needs and what do you know, The Boy's parents know the NSW manager! So we thought, sweet, even though he was 2 hours away we took all our paperwork to go and have a nice little chat. He told us what we wanted to hear. He photocopied the relevant documents and we walked out smiling. He told us once we made our choice it would all be so easy. That he would draw up the contract and we would come in to sign.

Bulls**t!!!!! We were supposed to see him on Saturday. But he decided not to work, so we were seeing, let's call her B*t*h-Face. We called to advise we were late while on the freeway and she told us she didn't need us to come in! We could have spent the day in bed listening to the rain and watching DVD's instead of getting up early to get onto the freeway along with every other person in Sydney. LOVELY! She just needed me to scan and send one piece of information to her. So we turned around and did that.

Today she emails me a list of 9 separate bullet points of what she needs. I have no idea why we are now dealing with her, and what annoys me most of all, is that half this stuff we already gave to the first guy, and the other half he told us he didn't need! We had it all with us when we made the 2 hour trip to see him. What the crap is going on now? So now my stress levels have gone right up.

Which takes me back to the weekend. As we assumed we would be going to the bank, we thought we would drive down to the coast from the bank to watch the Mariners game (Soccer) which at 5pm as were in the car heading towards Gosford, they decided TO CANCEL! It was FMIL b'day the next day so that night we went up there, as there was no point going home. The Brother now has his girlfriend and her daughter (from another relationship) living there, and she has taken over, and the two spare rooms are now used as the daughter's bedroom and their own private TV room. Which meant The Boy and I were forced to sleep on a sofa bed in the shed, with a fan which did nothing to give us fresh air. I am still tired from the only hour of sleep I managed to obtain on Saturday night.

Then on Sunday The Boy decided to tell his mum exactly what he thought about some stuff which caused a giant fight in front of me and two other people (this woman does not understand the word private) which made for a lovely day. I have had to spend the last three weekends with FMIL and I have had enough. She has a very strong personality that I can only handle in small doses, as much as I love the woman.

So that is where I am at now. Displaying severe stress symptoms and now facing the true reality of what it means to buy a house and all the crap that goes along with it. Not to mention trying to set boundaries with FMIL who has never had anyone set boundaries with her before. Trying to prepare myself for the interview with the dream job I mentioned ages ago (they finally called on Friday) and getting ready to start my university studies in one week! I need a freakin holiday before I officially snap. Happy Monday everyone!

It's Almost Official

Yes I am back, and back for good this time, no more vanishing into thin air. At least not for about 8 months anyway. Firstly I just want to thank everyone that left a comment on my last blog post. It made my day and I certainly have a few emails to send off.

Ok, this is just to give a quick update. We found land. It wasn't even on our list to look at, but after spending a very hot day (where I experienced my first episode of sunstroke) we went to speak to the house lady to cheer us up after walking around dirt for several hours not happy with what we were seeing and she showed us a block of land and it was perfect. Naturally someone else wanted it, and had already had a contact written up, however they hadn't paid the $500 deposit, so I sent The Boy off to the pub (cos they only take cash or cheque, does anyone still have a cheque book anymore?) and he returned with the money and it was ours. So I guess the other couple have learnt in the future to just hand over the cash, the deposit was after all fully refundable.

So now all the paperwork and contracts are getting done up and we are off to the bank on Saturday to sign away our financial life for the next 30 years. Life is very hectic at the moment, but now that there is logic and structure and a process I can handle it. Being an analytical thinker I can operate now, follow the steps, before I was just lost, running around totally clueless to empty blocks of land and calling agents asking random questions. I am so glad that is over with. It is all happening very quickly and I think The Boy and I are still in shock, but that is life, you never know what is around the corner.

I am glad we have it all sorted though. On Monday I received a package from UNE with all my lecture notes on CD for me to print. I had forgotten about the whole uni thing. Under two weeks to go now. All the notes are printed and I am ready, all 400 pages of notes! Which would explain why there is no text book, the notes are the text book.

On the job side of things, I have applied for 3 jobs up on the coast, with another two to send off today. I have heard nothing yet. I have to remind myself it is not Sydney and people are relaxed and take their time. Which is one of the reasons for moving up there in the first place.

On Monday I did receive a call about a job I applied for back in November. It was in Sydney, but in Hornsby, so I could do the Wyong-Tuggerah-Gosford-Woy Woy-Hornsby express. Anyway, the girl they picked back then decided to go travelling, so I interviewed on Tuesday. I am yet to hear back, he told me he will make his decision next week but he hopes I am successful. Not sure what than means but in all honestly I don't actually want the job because I don't want to work for him. The interview started well until he started asking me all the questions you are not allowed to ask. How old am I, am I renting and if so how much am I paying, and then he asked, "WHEN ARE YOU PLANNING ON HAVING CHILDREN?????" I just stared at him in shock for about 10 seconds before giving a fake laugh and responding with "I really haven't thought about it." Which is a total lie of course, but that wasn't a question I had prepared myself for, because you are not supposed to be asked it. Of course in retrospect I can now think of a thousand responses, which I guess I can use the next time it happens!?

On the health side of things I have lost 3.2kg so far, which I am pleased about, especially since the last two weeks it has gone from priority #1 to about #5. As long as I loose each week I am happy. So that is it for me now. I have so much reading to catch up on as well some more web surfing. Mum suggested that we may want to rent up the coast for 6 months to save some money, so my head is buzzing with this possibility and I have spent a good two hours shortlisting rentals. It makes sense but The Penthouse is not just a place to live, it was my grandmothers and I have spent my entire life seeing her there with very fond memories and only in the last 12 months living in it. I am not prepared to pack up and leave it in the next few weeks. Nor am I ready to say goodbye to everyone and everything I have ever known. That was always sometime in the future, not now. But then buying a house was always sometime in the future, and now look where I am. I am learning to love the unpredictability of life.

Image:Flickr

It Doesn't Rain It Pours

Yes I am still alive. I am very well, stressed and mildly anxious but overall I am fantastic. With my dreams for the year I wanted to get right into it. I didn't want to stuff around and hit June and think, I really should get started on that. So I set off, maybe a little too quickly. Actually, no that is not true. I set off on the weight loss goal. I wanted to start on that, get the whole healthy eating and exercise thing a habit so that when uni started (4 weeks now....) the healthy weight goal was manageable and I could focus on the uni and from there gradually move onto the others.

The buying a house goal was probably that last thing that was going to get started. Maybe around June even. But all of a sudden it has just gone full speed ahead. I don't even know how it happened or what caused it. We decided to explore the house and land option. If we moved 20 minutes away from our desired suburb we could get a good block of land and build a brand new house for the same price. After researching the area we are now in love with it. It is very family friend (and no, I am not) and we simply traded the beach for a lake (although we plan to move to the beach down the track but I can think about that in 5-10 years time).

So then on the weekend we found ourselves at Homeworld in Kellyville, fell in love with a house and this weekend we are up to the coast to scour land. Up until the weekend all my free time was in looking at floorplans, and dreaming about them. This week it has been searching for land that is flat (if an agent sends me details to a block they have had for a year because it is virtually horizontal I will scream) and dreaming about vacant blocks of land. Now I am stressing because there is so much to do and I want to find something before uni starts so I can put my focus into that. I don't care how long it takes to build the house. It can take 2 years for all I care, as long as we find the land we are looking for in the next four weeks.

Anyway, on top of that is work. Miss T has told me she is leaving. I am very happy for her, but have no idea who will keep me sane here. So after lunch I quickly looked on seek and there it was. The job I have been searching for, for the last 6 months. Right there, right in front of me, located in the very suburb we are looking for the land.

I am sure this post is coming across rushed and rambled and scattered, which, unfortunately, is my head space right now. Time for me to go, I have to polish the CV and focus my attention on an outstanding cover letter. Hopefully then I can clear my head and get back to being just me, doing what I want, when I want, and using the internet for fun, and if I never see the dimensions for a block of land again I will be very happy.

My Dreams For 2010

Weigh 30kg less than my January start weight

Finish the first draft of my manuscript

Receive Distinctions from my two uni subjects

Be personal debt free

Attend both a creative writing course and an acting course

Buy my first house with The Boy

Go away at least 4 times

Have a 'date' with The Boy once a week

Do something out of the ordinary twice a month

Live more in the moment and appreciate each day

Honesty

I really need to get my act together and post my 2010 goals up here because I am already referring to them. Monday night at the latest!

One such goals is to weigh lighter and maintain that. This is actually a joint goal with The Boy and I. We both have around 30kg to loose, half of which was gained the second we moved in together and we traded dinner dates to eating takeaway on the couch and watching movies all weekend (I am still trying to get some of those stains out). Anyway, as most people at this time of the year do, we started to change our "lifestyle". Considering we have both attempted this and failed many times before we have a plan of attack now and have enlisted some help from outside (more on that another day). But at the moment we are just eating a lot of salad and veggies and walking again.

The other day during our second walk of the year we were slowly walking up The Hill. We live in a very hilly area and had just been cruising along nicely on flats and downhill and at the end of the walk we have about a 1km journey all uphill with a very nasty incline. For motivation he decided to talk about how we are going to be weighing less at the end of the year, being our ideal size and how wonderful that will feel blah blah blah and then he said;

"You are going to look so much sexier when you have lost all that weight."

What? For the past 12 months The Boy and I have played the game of "Do you find me attractive?" "Of course I do." "Even though I am carrying around extra weight?" "Yes baby, you are very sexy." All year we have clearly been lying to each other!

I mean, you want honesty in your relationship. You really do, but you can be honest without telling the truth. I mean I do find him sexy as he is now, of course, but would I find him even more sexier when he is looking all buff? Of course I would! Would I tell him that? NO! I'm not lying, I am telling him he is sexy but I am simply not adding that perhaps a slight shift in weight could add to the sexiness factor. And I assumed he was the same. I know he finds me attractive but I know what I see in the mirror and I know what he is thinking. But why tell me.

I actually stopped walking and looked at him.

"What!?"

"You will look sexier when you loose weight."

"Am I not sexy now?"

"Of course you are, I am just saying you will look sexier. I want to see you in tight jeans with a little tight top that shows just your belly button, just a little bit of skin and when you lift up your arms you see a lot more skin. Oh yeah."

And then, HE LICKED HIS LIPS!

He is standing there fantasizing about a -30kg version of me and clearly enjoying it! I don't know if that is a compliment or an insult.

"So what am I now?" I asked for validation.

"You are sexy, very sexy, I'm just saying that you will be sexier, but you are already sexy, and won't you feel better about yourself? And won't you find me sexier too when I loose all this weight?"

Cleverly throwing it back to me, I respond with "Yes" and we continue walking. No more lies, the truth and the reality is all out in the open now. I think at the end of the day it is a compliment. I mean I would rather that then him writing me off altogether and just buying men's mags. I also think it means we are very comfortable in our relationship if we are being that honest with each other. Which is a great thing I am sure, but perhaps we are a little too comfortable? Or perhaps I was a little too comfortable living in denial. Hmmmm.....

Image: Flickr

Reflections

I wrote my post yesterday while I was still at work and hence still bothered by the whole incident. Much to my total astonishment (and delight) I came home and had left all that negative energy at work. Once again I had left it at the door. This is a huge thing for me because the ability to let things go, especially work stuff is something I have struggled with for years. Last year was probably the worst of it too. I would come home feeling deflated and unwilling to do anything and would snap at The Boy. Being able to let it all go and just be me at home was something I was aspiring to and all of a sudden I am there, and I have no idea how that happened.

I feel so liberated, so content and energised with this new found knowledge that today really is a new day and I don't need to carry around crap for days on end. I have known this for ages but the actual application eluded me. So how did I reach this point? I believe it is because I am more focused on what I want now. The Boy and I sat down in December to really write out our five year plan and to stop talking about an abstract vision but to detail every single thing we wanted and to write it down. We spent the whole month discussing and editing this vision and at the end of our holidays broke down that vision into yearly steps, thus forming our 2010 goals.

I didn't have that last year, I felt very lost last year, just floating around, knowing what I wanted and working on it, but working without a plan. I had the goal and I had the starting point but I never bothered with the actual plan of action. I have that now, and I think that is why I am able to let everything go now. Because at the end of the day I have too much to focus my time and energy on if I want to achieve those dreams that I simply cannot waste any of it on the meaningless of obsessing over people that want to bring me down.

At this point in time I cannot control my work environment, but I can control how I react to it. I am not going to let any of these family members bring me down, if that is how they get their kicks, fine, I just pity them. But I will no longer allow them to take me backwards on my journey and to consume my headspace, they are not worth it and my dreams are worth so much more. At the end of the day the only person who can make me feel back about myself is me.

When I was a teenager I had low self esteem and that manifested itself in that I let everyone walk all over me. But as I approached adulthood that started to change, the more I believed in myself and my abilities the more I stood up for myself and would no longer tolerate that behaviour from others. I managed to get that right but what people said to me still bothered me. I slowly gave up caring what other people thought about me, although for me this has been an up and down journey, with times when I fall back into old patterns like I have recently with work. The only people I listen to now are those I love and respect and are close to me and who I know will approach me from a place of love, not bitterness, nastiness, selfishness or jealousy. And while those at work will continue to say what they say, I am not going to let it break me. I might have my initial reaction, but it stops there. It is not coming home with me because what they say and think I actually do not care about, they are not people worthy of listening too.

I reflected last night that this is simply temporary. I have gone through so much worse and ended up so much better for it, so I am confident I will achieve the same result here. While I may not like it I am starting to see the good in it. It is giving me strength in who I am and what I can do. It is teaching me the skill of letting go, something I have longed for, for many years. Finally, it is giving me motivation. Because the more this happens the more motivated I am when I come home to do what I have to do. I have a 5 year plan that includes working for myself doing what I want to do and answering only to me, and I know how to get there, and while I have already begun taking those steps, each verbal abuse leads to taking those steps just a little quicker. Bring it on!