little white truths

It was a toss up between writing my monthly favourites or monthly positives today, and I've gone for the positives because my daughter is in childcare this morning and these posts take a little longer than the favourites ones so I have the time. 

Mind you, I'm still dealing with a pile of work at the moment so I won't be able to dwell on things too long, but perhaps that's a good thing and will help rein-in any rambling.

So without further ado...

It's my birthday on Friday!

I know I talked about my upcoming birthday in last month's positives, but come on, we're two days away now so it'd be rude if I didn't mention it again ; ).

Is it a particularly exciting birthday? Not at all, I'm 37. Does that mean I'm no longer in my mid thirties and am now officially in my late thirties? Or is the 'late' part when you hit 38?!

Funnily enough, I don't care. Nor do I care about getting older - not yet, anyway. Maybe I will as the years pass on and I can't lift things, run or lift weights as well as I used to, but we'll see.

Worth noting is that my thirties have been much better than my twenties. My late twenties were blown apart when my chronic insomnia presented at 25, and the next few years were spent dealing with all the issues that created: so it wasn't until I hit 30 that things started to settle. 

Then I met my husband, he moved into my house, we got married, moved to Berlin and back, got a dog, had a baby, bought and sold a house, then had another baby and here we are. 

So yes, I'm good with my thirties - although I'd quite like a quieter year or two!

Work means less financial stress

I haven't been back at work properly since having my daughter, so that's over two years now and it's been great to have started back slowly over the last six weeks. 

Sure, it's pretty stressful trying to work from home and manage two kids (my daughter is only in childcare three half-days a week) but it's also nice to not have to worry so much about whether we'll be able to make our credit card payment each month.

On top of that, I feel like I'm adding something back to broader society now that I'm working again, as well as using a part of my brain that I've missed. 

Sure, I love looking after my kids (well, mostly ; )), but I feel I've got more to give than that so I'm pleased to be using my brain more widely again. Makes me feel more balanced.

Our garden is full of winter flowers

When we first moved into our new house, we loved the garden - we have lemons, limes, mandarins, oranges, olives, apples, peaches and various herbs, not to mention a couple of beautiful palms - but there were a few plants that we previously didn't love because they're plain for most of the year and just seem to take up precious earth-space,  of which we don't have much.

However. Last winter something amazing happened. Once the roses (did I mention those?) stopped flowering and the garden looked a little drab, these brilliant purple and orange flowers started springing from the plants that we thought were just wasted space. We'd previously thought of pulling them up, but not anymore - I spend a lot of time at home with the kids so it's nice to look out the window and see them now that it's cold and the rest of the plants are bare. To everything a season, indeed.

We're off to Lorne next month

My husband and I were recently looking into travelling to Queensland at the end of August/beginning of September. He wanted a holiday and I reminded him that the three holidays we've taken so far after having kids have been nothing short of disastrous - a complete waste of time and money, so stressful and exhausting, and so much effort that every time we've come back he's been the first to say 'we're never going away again', only to be booking the next trip within six months.

I reminded him of all that so I've offered a compromise that we're both happy with: in July, August and maybe even September, he'll use a few days' leave so we can go to my parents' holiday house in Lorne. 

It won't cost us anything other than petrol to get there and the house is big enough that if one of the kids is playing up overnight, we can 'quarantine' that child along with one of us so that at least we can alternate who's sleeping and who's not. 

We can't quarantine in holiday apartments because they're too small, so there's more chance of us feeling rested when we get back - plus we can take more holidays, more often, since there's no spending involved and he doesn't need to take a chunk of leave per trip because we can eg leave on a Thursday and come back Sunday arvo.

Looking forward!

I'm going to Tokyo Tina for the first time

If you're a Melbourne person like I am, you may well have heard of Hanoi Hannah, Saigon Sally and the newest addition, Tokyo Tina. 

I've already been to the first two quite a lot and I particularly like Saigon Sally, but I wasn't able to get to Tokyo Tina when it first opened for a few reasons: first, I was pregnant and couldn't eat raw fish; second, we were too tired to enjoy a decent evening meal so why waste the money; and third, it's not worth throwing money at a babysitter to look after the kids (on top of the meal cost) and my son is a huge feeder so it wasn't worth the stress of leaving him with a family member when he didn't have my 'equipment' nearby.

Anyhoo, long story short, we're finally getting there for my birthday dinner on Friday night. It's only a stone's throw from our place so it won't be a problem in terms of feeds these days (my son's on solids anyway) because we can make it a short dinner if we need to. 

Can't wait! I love Japanese. My favourite three foods are Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese (in no particular order), although I do love 'real' Italian too (as in, not the internationalised stuff).

In sum

I hope you enjoyed this little post and that you have plenty of positives of your own this month.

Now, on to my work...

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x