Carry On Luggage

I have just come back my long awaited annual girls weekend with my sister.
Last year we went to Melbourne, where I spent many hours on Trip Advisor finding accomodation and our weekend was awesome with heaps of walking, sightseeing, eating and drinking. This year we changed pace and went for a beachey relaxed approach. It was a perfect formula. The Sister had even found an awesome apartment a sniff away from the beach for half the price of our Melbourne stay.
I had booked my flights early and in the interests of saving money in the face of impending recessionary doom, I had booked the carry-on luggage option. Both ways.
The trip didn't get off to a great start. I breezed through the airport, briefly losing my little nail scissors at the security gates, and boarded. Grumpy Head Air Steward Person scowled at me "there is no way that is going on, that's not 8kg!!!!" Slightly mortified, I was inclined to agree, it was bloody heavy and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to lift it above my head to fit in the overhead lockers anyhow. I decided to act all mollified and apologetic which worked only a little bit. She took my bag, put it outside the plane and thrust a baggage pickup slip and $20 extra charge note in my hand. I buried my head in my book and pretended not to care. Dammit, I could have kept those scissors after all. And it took about 20 mins extra to pick it up the other end.
The Sister and I relaxed, swam, shopped, chatted, solved life's problems, drank, did an awesome cooking school and had a lovely time.
Time to head home, a different airline this time. I decided on my approach with my bag. First of all I tried squeezing it in to their bag measure thing. It didn't fit. Then I approached the check-in staff and asked them to weigh it. Bad move. This airline accepted 10kg of weight but in smaller sized bags. Mine weighed 11kg. And didn't fit the bag measure. The check in staff person informed me there was an additional $80 fee to check in a bag. $80???? That was the cost of the fare almost. Drastic, urgent action was required. I rolled my eyes and said, "I'll just throw those old books out", conjuring an image of what I hoped was many old dog-earred copies of War and Peace, soon to be discarded in the airport rubbish bins.
"It will fit then" I said "No problems".
She looked dubious but gave me a precious boarding pass. And my bag. Stage 2. I needed to lose 1kg. So into the ladies loos I went, and even though I'd packed so carefully for stylish adults travel, I came out of the loos in 28C wearing two pairs of tight trousers, 2 shirts, 2 cardies tied around my waist, a pair of trainers with my hair straightening tongs and a second pair of shoes packed into my small adults handbag. It wasn't the look I'd been planning. And for the next 2 hours I sat very uncomfortably with my 10kg bag safely in the locker up top.
I will not be flying this way again. Ever.

A Quick One

I need to own up to this. I have lived in Sydney coming up 2 years and I'm not sure about a particular road rule. Involving other cars. And intersections.
This may sound unusual but I was once involved with a group ex-pat discussion about round-about rules. So it's not just me. But it is when I'm at an intersection. Trying to work out who to give way to.
Time to sort this one I think.

Old Friends

When I had Will, I didn't get involved in a mothers group but a couple of us from our antenatal class hooked up and for the first few years of our children's lives, became very firm buddies, so much so that when we left Wellington to shift to Auckland, they came to the airport unexpectedly to say goodbye and there were lots of tears from us watching the kids hug. Time went on, more babies and the occasional trip down south meant we still kept in touch, and in fact when I was in hospital cramping with chronic diarreaha from the laxative the midwife gave me to prevent the chronic constipation I normally get with babies, Jo made a huge effort to leave wedding celebrations and pop in to the hospital and see me in my warts and all state.

Some friends are just stayers, and Jo is one of these people. She perseveres with me, tolerates the gaps in our friendship, then makes contact again. She is such a good person in every sense of the word. And also she represents such a nice period of my life, I just had Will, life was a smidge easier, motherhood was a revelation and I had two new friends Jo and Chrissie to help find our way and work things out together.

So Jo called me after maybe a 9 month "break" the other day, I called her back and we just picked up where we left off.

I'm lucky to have friends like Jo.

And she asked for photos of my boys, as as normal I said, I don't quite know how to make them small enough to send but said I'd post some on my blog.

So hi Jo, here's the boys!

Work Stuff

So what's been going on with the business? I am now rolling towards my almost 1 year anniversary and as of last friday have been passed onto my 3rd project manager. My last one has unfortunately just left to go overseas and knowing this, both her and I went on a mammoth burst of work and productivity to get as far as long as possible. She was good, we made great in roads together and were on the same page. So now, I have to build up an understanding and confidence again with someone new. It's ok. We're over the hump and almost there. But I've been sulking this week and feeling a bit flat and disappointed. Also the New Similar Business that I mentioned a while ago, has got legs, looks fabulous and achingly similiar to my website. Disappointed! They are launching very soon so I'm going to regroup for a moment, see what it looks like when it launches and where our differences and similiarities are, then move forward from there. I've even started to think about an Australian launch as well or instead of. And as both our sites are about giving and doing good, it's not a "competitive" environment - the more options people have to give, the better.

And of course, with the whole objective of my site being about encouraging people to give, the market is just not playing ball. Who has surplus at the moment? Although ironically, the number of those who need will be increasing. Tough times for this fledgling philanthropic business on many fronts!

Tuesday

My wee Spiderman, Batman with his specs on and our lovely Pirate Flora on a rainy Tuesday while Mum tries to work. Spiderman in the first photo has his own method of pest control....he has just squished a real spider with the door stop. I guess it's kinder on the environment than the traditional forms of pest control.

Bugs #4

Summer in Sydney brings on a whole new challenge. Bugs coming out of hibernation and on the hunt for food. This year I have tried to anticipate the arrival by getting my house sprayed early, earlier that is than the first "viewing" of large black and beige cockrtoaches scampering across my floor in the middle of the night when I've gone for a drink or to sort one of the boys. I know that they are about as you see the occasional cockroach poo in the cupboard and you KID yourself that it is simple a stray spec of black pepper although why you'd have black pepper in the cupboards under your sink with all the dishclothes and cleaners beats me.

So yesterday the Pest Removal man came. I remember in Auckland when you saw a Pest Removal van outside a house you always though ...hmmm, they must have vermin, how totally gross, and if ever god forbid you needed a pest guy yourself, you were always tempted to get him to park a few doors away. Actually, small diversion, but would that have to be the second worse job ever????? Finding and killing rats? The first worse job of course, based on recent experiences HAS to be the poor sod who analyses poo, wee, "scrapings" and sputum samples at those labs - imagine looking forward to going to work on a Monday!

So Pest guy had 2 gigs for us, the first at the cockroach infested new house, second at our home. Now being particularly thorough, I emptied our pantry. Completely.

I have the worlds smallest pantry, yet I still shop like I'm at a Pack n Save and buy 5 boxes of weetbix, a 64 pack of toilet rolls etc etc which proves extremely challenging when it comes to putting it all away. My last shop was with the 3 boys and Will kind of went crazy asking to try different chips and biscuits. And because I was in Survival Mode with The Husband still overseas, my tried and trusted tactic was to say "yes" to almost all requests. So for a good hour on Sunday night, I emptied my cupboard for his 30 second spray. Then came the long, slow process of re-stuffing my shelves. But in my quest for a semi-organised life, I re-stuffed loose stuff into new plastic containers. Impressed?

Now the challenge is to keep it this way. Less incentive to eat though. I don't want to make a mess finding anything!

Detox

I'm on Day 5 of a 5 day detox. It's only now I feel I can mention it without wanting to plunge myself into the depths of a can of diet coke. Fruit and veg for 2 days, meat, fruit and vege for the next 3. No snacks, butter, leftover chicken nuggets, nutragrain that dropped on the bench when pouring them out for the boys or ...diet coke. For those that know me, you'll know my relationship with diet coke has been long, loyal and committed. It's been tough. Yup the headaches rolled in quickly and sharply. Mornings and the prospect of fruit and a glass of warm water and lemon juice have been tough, snacking on celery and snow peas has been as tough. But revelation....my dinners have been amazing - it's incredible what you can do without cooking with normal stuff. I'm so proud of myself I have to share a couple - baked kumara stuffed with courgettes, basil, peppers and mushrooms under the grill with coleslaw and orange juice dressing, steak with chargrilled vegetable ratatoulle in orange juice....I'm actually quite inspired! Hard parts - no wine, no carbs, no DIET COKE, "Colon Cleanse" stuff - and that I will spare you more details, put it this way, I was glad when that part was done. Hardest part - No Husband. (away on a work trip for a couple of weeks)
The verdict - I feel ok, not necessarily fabulous, just kind of normal (although hungry), I've probably lost a smidge of weight, although am already planning the glorious ways of putting it back on, which absolutely involves my big bag of Grain Waves. And would I do it again? Hmm, maybe, but I'll definitely keen on the healthy line on the cooking front. A total revelation! My first detox, almost officially over :)

Home

I think next time when I decide I need to "get out of town" I will ensure full health checks are conducted on my whole family before approval is given for such folly. Where do I start? A small trip up the coast turned into a lovely family holiday in between visits to doctors, poo samples, trips to pathology clinics, cleaning poo off floor, talk of trips to hospital and drips, watching a 5 year old shrink, cleaning puke off carpet and cleaning puke off beds. Giardia, food poisoning, asthma, 3 children, 1 adult (with impending international trip). So much fun in such a small time.
Our quote board saying as provided by Will "Happy to be home, time to get healthy".
Sure is.