I'm still me

Recently, I've been reading that if you're a mum and you do certain things like baking or cooking, there's a good chance you lost a piece of yourself when your child came along. 

You know what? I think that's a load of bull. 

Prior to Miss 4's arrival, I always used to cook and bake anyway. DH and I used to enjoy a range of my cooking experiments. One night, I made a Japanese feast from scratch. Another time, we had curry chicken parcels. Then there was the vegetable quiche.

Baking wasn't so high on my list of things to do. We're not huge sweet eaters normally. Since Miss 4 came along, I find we are getting into the kitchen together a whole lot more. 

She loves to make sweet things, but we always limit it to one sweet thing a week. And there's normally 4 days a week she doesn't eat things like that. 

I feel like the time we spend choosing what the weekly treat is, then making it (and taste testing it!) is important to OUR relationship. It is important to our values and the way WE want to raise her. 

But you know what? It's not for everyone. I'll admit there are times where I will be thinking, "Why did I get myself into this?" when the flour and sugar is spread over the bench. But the smiles and giggles from Miss 4 make it worthwhile for me.

Today, I moved even further outside of my traditional comfort zone. Whilst trying to *ahem* relieve myself, Miss 4 marched in with a Cooking with Peppa (or something like that) magazine and declared it had yummy stuff in it. And "May please can you make me this?"

A cheese and chive soufflé. Great. Eeeeek. Slight modification came about as she doesn't like chives, but I made it. And it was pretty nice. A bit rich, needed a salad to cut through the cheese and egg, but I felt accomplished. Successful even.

Had Miss 4 not used her manners and looked so cute, I never would have made it. Sure I'd have said how awesome it looked in the magazine or I may never have even seen it.

And I'm super proud of how it turned out. My picture was taken just as it was starting to settle, but geez it puffed up amazingly!

So to all my readers. Whether you bake or not, it doesn't matter. Do what you want. Chase your dreams. Don't let anyone tell you that you've lost part of yourself, or that you're not "rad". Be yourself. Love yourself (as much as you can - I understand some of us can't always do that). Enjoy your friends and family. 

Today, I've linked up with the ever wonderful Jess at Essentially Jess for IBOT. Happy Tuesday peeps.

Right There On My TV

So, how happy was I last night? Mulder and Scully have started gracing my screen with NEW episodes. NEW ones!! So totally excited right now. I can't believe I have to wait for Sunday now. Every. Single. Sunday. For the next 5 or so weeks. The first episode back really grabbed my attention.

This week, when I saw the prompt for I Must Confess over at My Home Truths, I knew I had to take part. You see, I probably watch way too much TV. I have a number of guilty TV pleasures. But, having a four year old, I don't really get to indulge them as much as I used to.

Here's my Top 5 - and believe me, it's hard to narrow down, plus I've used TV shows that I've stumbled across on Netflix.

In no particular order:

The Almighty Johnsons - A great New Zealand series about four brothers and their relative (I won't give it away), who are re-incarnated versions of Norse Gods. 

Sense8 - An awesome Netflix original series where one person can have 7 other connections to people, normally in different parts of the world.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Another Netflix original. Has a damn catchy theme song (watch it here). Laughs abound. 

Jane The Virgin - Catchy, but stupid. Sometimes I wanted to just stop watching, but I couldn't!

Stargate SG-1 - The ONLY series (apart from Firefly) that I own in its entirety. Enough said.

I'm a pretty open, straightforward person, so most people know that I watch these shows, but they give me so much stick about it, that I just give up listening to them these days, haha. 

Ok - enough of the distraction. It's killing me to sit here (in pain after physio) so I'd best sign off.

Keep an eye out for more confessions from me this year.

Linking up with Kirsty at My Home Truths for 

Just our luck

Hello again, JoMC readers. I know it's been a long, long time since I've engaged with you all this way. 

Quite simply and honestly - I am slack. I start things and I never quite finish them. At least right now, I'm still plugging away with my blog, albeit very slowly. There was a trip to New Zealand last year, which I promise to get around to blogging about!

Normally, Thursdays find me at work, plugging away on a project team there at the moment, away from my normal role. This finishes pretty soon though.

Instead, today, I am at home, feeling under the weather (maybe anxiety, maybe not) with a little girl (Now Miss 4), who was most unwell at the ungodly hour of 1am and 5 more times after that.

Since 1, I've had about 45min sleep. I'm running on empty. I am honestly that tired, that I am dizzy. The room spins. Thankfully, I don't have to drive anywhere today.

I've put Miss 4 in front of the telly with Despicable Me 2 on, I'm set up on my laptop and I'll be damned if I don't get my TAFE Assignment finished. 

It is my second last assignment of my last ever unit to obtain my Diploma. It's getting real now!! 

And as some of you may have seen on my Facebook page, DH has managed to break his hand by falling off his mountain bike. It only took him 4 years of mountain biking to get his first cast! And it's his first ever cast in nearly 31 years of life. 

I'm off to the physio next week for my knee, but that's just because I'm getting old. My goal is to run a half marathon at some stage, but I can't begin training until I get this knee sorted out.

Anyway, I hope that you are all well, and that you'll see me around more.

Hi, you've reached Sarah......

"Hi, you've reached Sarah. Sorry I can't take your call at the moment, but if you leave your name, number and a brief message, I will get back to you as soon as I can."

God, you don't know how many times I've wanted to say that today. Life would be a breeze with a message bank option on day to day stuff. 

You see, it's a hard day for some reason today. I'm trying to avoid battles with Miss 3, without making her a spoiled brat. I have picked my battles based on social situations, and even though they were long, and hard fought, I won. In the end that is. Even after a heart stopping moment where I couldn't find her in PillowTalk because she ran off. Again. Despite mummy telling her that it was scary for her when she ran off. So she giggled and ran off for the umpteenth time.

I've washed, run down to rescue it from the impending shower of rain. I've made the pikelets for daycare (pink this week), I've made DH and Miss3 their banana choc chip muffins for work and daycare. 

I'm tired, I'm grumpy, I'm not feeling 100%, and I am struggling. 

I find it hard to admit that sometimes, because when I do, people don't always understand. They don't understand what I mean, they don't understand why, they don't understand I don't want to be engaged in conversation. 

Sometimes, it makes me feel like I've failed. But I know in myself that I haven't. I am successful in my job, I'm doing a project that is extremely rewarding and challenging that I LOVE being a part of, I have an awesome husband, and a stubborn, strong-willed, independent, intelligent young daughter. When she sings the North Melbourne Club Song to me, I KNOW I've done something right. So when she wakes up from her nap, I'm going to give her a great, big cuddle and ask her to sing "Norse Melbourne" for me. 

This will be after I have had my me time, checked the other IBOT posts and I've eaten that cheesy pizza baking in my oven that has my name written all over it.

Obviously, I'm linking up with Essentially Jess for the wonderful IBOT. Happy Tuesday.

FYBF - Where did my money tree go?

I'm kicking myself.

I'm also kicking my husband. Metaphorically, of course.

You see, four years ago, in our newly pregnant wisdom, we upgraded my car. My old car was a beautiful, little red Hyundai Accent, affectionately named Red. She was my baby. I'd bought her new 7 years earlier and I hadn't even cracked 40,000km. 

But we decided that a 3 door wasn't practical with gumby old me, so we sold Red privately and upgraded to a Hyundai i30. Which 4 years on hasn't even cracked 25,000km. We did this at the end of June, and the car was registered to us from 28/06/2011.

Not once did we consider that in 4 years time, my licence would also be due. 

As would the insurances on our two cars. 

So this week, I'm skint. $830 for the licence and rego. Luckily, I've successfully remarketed our insurances to a better policy, for a much lower price and bundled all with one insurer now. We dodged a bullet there, as we now have until 20 July to pay them. 

But TAFE have been sending me numerous messages and emails to enrol in my next subject. So I rang them today, fairly confident that I'd be able to afford the $195 I've been paying for my past 6 out of 8 required units. 

But now, the Government has decided that online students aren't important and have taken away all funding. My last two units are going to cost me as much as the last 6 have. They want $590 for the next unit. We can't afford that. I'm not HELP'ing it, either, as it is just something that goes against my beliefs and I cannot bring myself to do it. Plus they charge an extra 30% if you do that. 

So, whoever cut the money tree down out of our backyard, you suck. That money tree would be so handy right now!

I'm linking up with With Some Grace for Flog Yo Blog Friday for the very first time. 

Older and wiser?

What is it about a "milestone" birthday that makes us think we are more mature than we used to be? 

I recently turned 30 and for some reason, I thought I'd all of a sudden stop making stupid decisions, and turn into this wise, calm creature. Neither wise, nor calm have occurred. 

To celebrate the year of three of us turning 30 and one turning 35, my three best friends and I recently went to a local restaurant. I thought that 30 was special enough to break out the fancy pants peep toe heels, that I have had for about 6 years now, thinking that seeing as we are all "old", we wouldn't be seeking a night on the town. How wrong was I....

After dinner, we decided to seek alternative entertainment and hit up the new, hip, trendy place in town. This was a mere 1km away - I've since Googled it! I protested, as I knew my poor, soft feet would. But, these girls are a convincing bunch, so we decided to walk the 1km on the rugged terrain (flat footpath with a few stones and Telstra pits). By the time we got to the new bar, I was all but crying in agony. I could feel my toes disintegrating in my heels. The girls needed a comfort stop (they needed to pee) and we found a bench to sit down on. I carefully slid my heels off and was confronted by big toes so mangled, that almost 4 weeks on, they are still healing.

My sister-friend (the sister you always wanted if you could pick sisters) and I decided to call it a night, especially after another friend (aged 30) quite loudly dissed "The bloody youth of today!". A quick call to hubby and he was on his way to pick us up. Thankfully, we were able to give SF a lift home, as her hubby had their two little ones tucked in bed, and my own DD was off on a sleepover with the grandparents. 

Whilst awaiting our chariot, we were treated to the sights and sounds of the next generation (and possibly past generations, but not me...). There, in the middle of the road, where the centre parking is, leaning over a garden bed, was a figure with their hair being held back while performing oral fertilisation. To my left was a lonely young woman watching the two figures across the road. When the chestnut maned figure stood up, he walked back over towards his female companion, while being congratulatory slapped on the back by his best mate who'd held his hair back while he spewed. The charming young fellow then chased the young lass around whilst making horrible dry retching sounds. 

The night ended with hubby making me walk another 500m in those stupid bloody shoes. But I was tucked up in bed by 10pm. 

I guess turning 30 has made me wiser  -  I know the body and mind can't function on the few hours sleep it used to!

I know this isn't the best return to blogging, but baby steps, people. Baby steps.

What a slacker

I must confess.... I have been VERY slack on the blogging front.

The JOMC household does things big in December, and I'm not talking about Christmas. 2 years ago, DD blessed us with her early arrival. And this year, we decide to sell and buy a house! Yep. In our infinite wisdom, we do it in December. And the new place settled on Friday the 13th.

I've missed blogging and the opportunities it presents to get things off my chest. It's also been hard because our laptop gave up the ghost and stopped working. Granted, we've had the new one about a month now, but I never knew DH's password to unlock it. Story of my life hahaha.

Since I last blogged in October so much has happened, not just the house stuff. My depression and anxiety has flared up. I have had a few bad attacks. It got to the point where I have had to start seeing a psychologist. Through my employer, I have access to 5 sessions paid for by them. And that has come in extremely handy. My attacks have reduced but I have been suffering other health problems where I have to have the dreaded cameras up and down next month. I've continued losing weight, and am now nearly 20kg lighter than when I started the year, and that is not through diet or exercise.

And November saw JOMC turn one. I missed my first year blog-iversary. It was something I really wanted to celebrate but life had other ideas.

I've also been mulling over the fact we're not having an actual birthday party for DD this year. We're going to celebrate as a family, but just don't see why she has to have a party every year. Is that ok? Does that make us bad parents? We are having a little Christmas celebration with my friends the night of her birthday and we will have my best friends little girl who is only a year older than DD. So it's not like she won't have someone to play with. I AM making cupcakes for daycare on Friday and supplying fruit for the child who isn't allowed sweets. That way she can celebrate with her daycare friends. We don't even know 90% of the other families.

Also, DH has been arguing about how much money we've spent on DD. I honestly don't think it's that much. She's getting two main presents for Christmas and one for her birthday. All up, probably just over $100 for ALL 3 items. He won't believe me that there are people who spend that on just one present and then buy more. I think he got a bit frightened by the stuff I put on layby during the toy sale which was farmed out to his sister. It was so I knew what DD was getting and also helps my sister-in-law as she has her own little guy to worry about this year.

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. I need to go and vacuum the floors and couch, and put a bra on, just in case someone decides they want to look through our current place.

Oh, and today, I'm linking up with Kirsty over at My Home Truths for I Must Confess