Warm and comfortable

At any given time, there are things I especially favour. Here's my current list, circa winter 2009, with the emphasis on keeping warm and comfortable.

I suffered from an unexpected bought of insomnia a week or two back. Unexpected in that it was unlike the usual insomnia I suffer from time to time, the sort that has me suddenly wide awake with a busy mind at 3am. That is a classic side affect of stress for me, and I don't seem to be suffering much from stress this year. This insomnia is different ... it meant that I couldn't get to sleep in the first place. After four nights of this I decided to try a homeopathic remedy (not that I'm necessarily against the use of medical intervention for this problem under other circumstances, but this wasn't such a circumstance for me). So I purchased a nifty little homeopathic spray at my local chemist, and promptly managed to get over my overactive imagination and get to sleep. Ahhh. Even if it's only a placebo, that's why my magic spray currently at the top of my favourite things list. If only I could find a similar solution to block out The Hubster's snoring ...

On the subject of comfort and things alternative, I've taken to padding around the house in woolly socks - and meditation ones at that. Not that there's much meditation going on in this noisy house. Every one of us have a pair, and the kids have discovered that the combination of woolly feet and wooden floors is excellent for sliding. And squealing.

As I've blogged recently, I have embraced fashion a bit this winter, despite donning my hippy meditation socks whenever I get the chance. While I've been enjoying TL Wood, Witchery, Cue and rediscovering Country Road after a decade of shunning it as overpriced and boring, my most favourite label at present is Metalicus. Made of magic stretchy fabric, the entire collection is 'one size fits all' (although that can hardly be true, if you happen to be very small or very large), and is just so damn comfortable. I particularly like their skirts and coats, and look forward to wearing the 'pieces' I've purchased this winter for years to come. I've also taken to wearing my Metalicus with the blackest of black opaque tights, something that I was very 'meh' about a couple of years ago. Contrary, I know.

Another advantage of Metalicus clothing is that it doesn't need ironing. Much to the puzzlement of some friends, I seem to spend an awful lot of time with my iron, one of my least favourite tasks. I'm much more attached to my spanking new washing machine, which has recently replaced my faithful 16 year old number, which finally died. The new one has been with me for about a month, and I still get a ridiculous sense of excitement whenever I push on the little soap drawer and it opens out magically. I was at the stage of prising open the soap drawer of the old one with a screwdriver.

The new Asko isn't my only electrical love. In the midst of our horrible summer heatwave in Melbourne, back in January, I finally got around to buying a slowcooker. Now I've mastered the adaptation of conventional recipes to the slowcooker, it's become my favourite kitchen contraption, which is handy as I spend every Sunday with it. Especially good for casseroles and curries, and all working families should have one (and now I'm channelling KRudd!). 

Things I know now

My blogging speed has decreased significantly these past few months, but that doesn't mean that I've been unaware of what's been happening around me. I've just been too tired/emotional/busy to comment on them.

So here's a quick list of things I didn't know much about until recently.

• It's hard to explain to a 13-year-old what you're supposed to do in an analytical essay.
  
  
  

• Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in mid-October. (We celebrated it last weekend at a Canadian friend's house.) Oh, and pumpkin pie is yummy.

• Watching episodes of overseas television series on YouTube is not that satisfying because they get broken up into little bits. 

• Sarah Palin is one scary woman.
  

• So is Colleen McCullough, but for different reasons. (Please stop calling Mr Darcy Fitz!)

• Trains are much more pleasant to travel on when every second one isn't being cancelled. I've been getting a seat most mornings, which is a much nicer way to start to my day because I can read.

• Happily, scarves continue to be a fashionable item for summer, which is great when you have a neck that has been around for 40 plus years. Unfortunately though,  leggings-worn-as-outer-wear continue to be a blight on society.

• Having reflux is not fun.

• I held an utterly beautiful newborn baby yesterday and for the first time in my adult life, I didn't feel clucky for one of my own.

• Getting kids to get themselves ready in the morning can be hell. (That may explain the previous observation!)

Reasons to be cheerful, part two

Here are my next three reasons, and, naturally, food features again.

1. I'm baking biscuits and slices, which really makes me sound like a Stay At Home Mom (eeek!).

In truth, it has more to do with my recent purchase of the book pictured here - Belinda Jeffery's Mix & Bake. I gave it to my sister for her birthday a month ago, and liked it so much I bought one for myself too, with the idea of me getting to make cakes and other yummy things now I have more time.

It's a beautiful book, with foolproof recipes, great photography, and is well written. The Little Guy and I am about to make another batch of ANZAC biscuits from it, once I finish blogging and he completes his puzzle.

2. The music of the 1970s. I'm currently playing a lot of early David Bowie and Elton John music - all prior to 1980. There's a good reason for this; it's the fantastic British series Life on Mars, which is set in 1973 and is full of the music of the time. Life on Mars is due to start on the ABC next Sunday night. I have already seen the entire series on DVD, and it is must-see TV.

It's so much fun rediscovering music from your early teenage years. Bowie in particular is amazing, and listening to his lyrics again confirms that the 1970s must have been a wild and crazy time in which to be a young adult (I was too young, still in primary school in 1973). I did get to see Bowie in concert, although he had left Ziggy behind him by then: it was in Perth in the 1980s around the time of Let's Dance. Still, it was a fantastic concert.
Bowie photo from www.bowiewonderland.com

3. My good health. Recently, I've been through a lot of medical tests due to a worrying bought of ill-health earlier in the year. Everything has come up trumps. Good health is a blessing, but sometimes we only realise that when things start going wrong.

Where did 1 May go?

Every so often, you lose a day. I'm not talking about the day after the night before, when all you want is a bacon sandwich with a Berocca chaser. (Otherwise known as 1 January.)

I'm talking about losing a day because you have to give yourself over to circumstance, like a stinking hot February day when it just too hot to do anything other than sit in the coolest room of the house, sucking on ice chips, sweating. Give me a rain soaked day any time, as at least I have bags of energy to get things done inside, like cook up vats of soup or fold giant piles of washing (or snuggle up under the doona with the kids and watch She's The Man).

I had a lost day today, thanks to a medical 'procedure'. That term can only really sound sinister, so I'll just come out and tell you that I had a gastroscopy. It wasn't at all painful or uncomfortable, and all I'm left with is an incredible sense of drowsiness and a slightly sore throat. I'm also under strict instructions not to operate any machinery or sign any important documents. I think it's still OK to blog though.

Other than spending an hour and a half in the waiting room, my day has been spent in a strange half awake state. I can't even remember going under the sedation at the day hospital, nor falling asleep back in my own bed once The Hubster had taken me home. I do remember waking up about an hour ago find my Mum had cooked the kids tea before going home, and that I had managed to have a three hour sleep on a Tuesday afternoon. Ah, bliss.

Out out damn cough

I am a very lucky person. I have three beautiful, healthy noisy children; a kind and supportive husband; lots of great friends; a loving family; I live in a comfortable if messy house in a great city; and I like what I do for a living (yes, I know I'm about to be unemployed, but that won't be forever). Sure, I'd like to be a size 10, be married to Captain Fredrick Wentworth, have luxurious long chestnut hair, and no mortgage, but really, I've got nothing to complain about. I fully recognise that I'm part of the one per cent of people in this world who are very fortunate indeed.

Except, there's something that I would dearly love to change about my life.

I have an awful hacking cough. It attacks me every day - several times every day. It grabs me as a tickle in my throat, has me gasping for air, stops me speaking, makes my eyes water. When people first hear it they think that I'm one of the following:
a. riddled with disease and therefore to be avoided on the tram at all costs
b. a chronic smoker who needs to give up for pete's sake
c. about to drop dead.
Some people who've know me longer are convinced that it's psychosomatic, but it's not.

I've never been a smoker (it makes me cough too much), and really I am perfectly healthy. I know I am because I've had every test under the sun to work out what it is causing the cough. I've been poked and prodded, had a camera down my throat, been on elimination diets, blown into lung capacity machines, and there wasn't a really definitive answer, until I found myself at a speech therapist a few years ago. She was able to diagnose it for me, at long last.

Apparently, it's called Irritable Larynx Syndrome, and it was caused by some cold-related damage to my larynx years and years ago. The solution is relatively easy too - drink water, or cough the fit out. If I can manage it there are even some breathing exercises that I can do to try and prevent it, although they are hard get right.

But I am tired of having this damn cough. It's been over 20 years now, and enough's enough. Really.

So, if a good fairy does grant me three wishes, it would be that my children remain happy and healthy; that my mortgage disappears; and good riddance to this cough.

Into the great unknown

I took a major step forward this week - I quit my job, without another one to go to.

It was not a decision taken lightly. Getting to this point has meant sleepless nights, endless discussion with people I know care about me, and an inordinate amount of crying. It was a health scare that really tipped me over the edge (and thankfully it was only a scare).

I'm leaving a job I wanted, and very much enjoyed for over two years (and felt pretty miserable in for a third year). In the end, it just got too big and demanding for someone in my position. I want - need - more time to be with my young family.

I will have to find work again soon, but I won't be going into a job as full on (or as well paid). We need my salary, but we don't need me to be climbing the corporate ladder.

The sense of liberation is immense. I don't know what the future holds for me work wise (other than working out my four week notice period), and I'm feeling excited about finding out. And very blessed that I have such choices, because not everyone does.

Ode to my dentist

I have always been terrified of the dentist. To the point where I put off going for years. To the point where I need to have gas to have my teeth cleaned.

It's not due to a fear of the injections - while I don't like needles, I'm not bothered by them. And it's not because I'm frightened of pain. That's what the needles are for, after all, and I have endured worse pain. (Pushed my first two babies out with virtually no pain relief, thank you very much.)

It's the noise I can't stand. I find it excruciating. I want to run away from it, and will do anything to avoid it. The only way I can bear it is to have a nice dose of nitrous oxide to let me float away, not really caring about that unpleasant high pitched drilling going on in my head. Weeeeee!

The only problem is that fewer and fewer dentists are using it. So I've been getting quite desperate in my need to find an understanding dentist who is excellent at his craft, and understands that my fear isn't all in my head (tee hee). So anytime anyone comments that they go to a great dentist, I pounce on them to ask whether they use the magic gas. The answer is usually no (I think because some people have awful reactions to it).

Thankfully, I found such a dentist, and the answer was right under my nose, so to speak. My siblings are both even more terrified of the dentist than me, and they have discovered the dentist of our collective dreams. Excellent at his profession, kind, a great communicator, and he uses nitrous oxide, if that is what's needed. Oh my. Over the past six weeks, I've visited him four times, had four massive fillings and my teeth cleaned, and have not felt scared once.

Thank you Dr E. And I don't have to go back for a year. Weeeeeeee!

Smoke gets in my throat

I hate summer.

Well, not all of summer; a 25 degree day is very pleasant indeed, and I don't even mind a 28 degree day, as long as I can find something suitable to wear that keeps me cool, and that I don't look dorky in (I am someone who rejoices when it's time for nifty knee high boots and a snazzy jacket, offset by a fetchingly tied scarf).

But when it's like today - 37 degrees - it's just horrible. As well as being hot, making me sweaty, limp, cross and constantly thirsty, the air is hazy with smoke from the bushfires elsewhere in Victoria. I had a serious coughing fit while I was out this morning; I have an irritable cough at the best of times, but the smokey air had me gasping for air.
Not at all pleasant, but as least I'm safe, as are my family and my home. In other areas of our poor parched state, people are facing the nightmare of bushfires close to their homes.

And tomorrow is meant to be even worse ...

Five things I'm obsessed with right now...

I haven't posted for a while. It's been a busy time; lots on at work, little time to write. Time then for a quick of five things I'm obsessed about right now (that have nothing to do with work).

1. My iPod. I'm rediscovering music. Keane. Madeleine Peyroux. Simple Minds! Nouvelle Vague. Now I want to have one of those nifty stereo thingies that you pop your iPod into, and have my favourite tunes blasting out on for all to enjoy. On shuffle.

2. Walking. A few weeks ago I started walking regularly with a friend. It makes me feel great, particularly when I'm stressed. Unfortunately, I am so busy at present that I don't have the time to go on a 45 minute walk. Well, I do, but it would be at the risk of divorce, as my husband is having to take on the bulk of the child wrangling duties at present, and isn't getting to do the things he needs to get done for himself either.

3. Commando Christmas shopping. This year if I see anything remotely suitable for someone, within the right price range, I buy it there and then. None of this wandering around, pondering the possibilities. I've already got quite a cupboard of goodies at the ready, and not all of them are toys. I intend spending the last few days before Christmas serenely wrapping presents, photographing happy children, and cooking nice food. Ha!

4. Maggie O'Farrell. I've read great reviews of her first novel After You'd Gone. I'm really enjoying reading it, a chapter at a time, before I go to sleep. Very happy that her other novels are out there for me to read as well: her latest is getting great reviews. Nothing like discovering a new writer that you like.

5. Food. Cooking dinner is a bit of an escape from the madness of life at present: I find following the steps of a recipe rather relaxing. A few weeks ago, I discovered Melbourne chef Karen Martini's first cookbook. I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm about to cook her Chicken & Broken Pasta soup for tonight. It is truly the best soup I've ever made. Even the children love it - just don't tell them that there's cabbage in it!