I have just learned that the place where I work was called the Asylum for the Poor and the Destitute back in 1810.  So appropriate.

I haven’t updated this because I’m had nothing to say until now.  On Monday someone I work with made a complaint against me.  She said I was bullying her.  She said I told her she was useless and that I was always unhappy with her.  She said that I am causing her such a high degree of anxiety and upset that she is now seeing doctors and has had brain scans.

This is the same woman that called, emailed and texted me during my leave.  She also brought flowers to the house and came to the funeral.  And just two weekends ago she brought her husband, daughters and daughters’ friends to a sporting event with my sister, myself and my sister’s friends.  If you were being bullied, would you willingly go out and buy six tickets to a sporting event and arrange to tag along with the “bully” and her friends/family?  She did this without being invited but I welcomed her along and offered to save seats for her.  And would that same “bully” organise vocational courses within 24 hours of your request, or openly offer help, support, encouragement and praise on a daily basis?

I feel so betrayed.  I defended myself and denied the allegations and within a few minutes this woman admitted that I did not tell her she was useless.  Regardless, my manager sent me home at 9.30am on Tuesday and suggested I take a month off.  I was scheduled to see the EAP psychologist on Thursday to discuss the situation.  I felt like I was being punished and that they were using my losses as an excuse.  I felt resentment and anger, disappointed and disillusioned.

So I met with the psychologist yesterday.  My first impression of this slightly rough looking little bloke was “he’s not going to get it at all” but to my total surprise he did get it.  After two hours, I left with confirmation that what I have requested of this staff member is very difficult to construe as bullying.  He said my actions are not the actions of a bully and her actions are not the actions of someone being bullied.  He suggested what I suspected – that the person making the complaint probably has some sort of self-esteem problems and when I ask her to fix her mistakes, she hears “You are useless and can’t do anything right”.  She has the problem, not me. I just need to be aware of it and tread very very lightly around her.

On the other hand, I need to acknowledge that she has many years of administrative experience and she needs to be responsible for her actions.  I am not responsible for the quality of her work.  I do not need to helicopter over her and the other staff or mother-hen them.  We were in ready agreement that I have unusually high standards/expectations probably relating to certain events during my formative years (alcoholic and abusive mother that would scream and hit if things weren’t done properly, a tyrant manager in my first admin job at 17 that would boost production with statements such as “what’s wrong with you that you can’t answer the phone in two rings”, etc).  I explained that I don’t feel comfortable with the thought of lowering the standards by which I work and he said I should continue as I do but no longer shield others from the criticisms.  If someone comes to me about a mistake, I should refer that person to the person responsible rather than me passing the criticism on myself.  I really love that idea!

He identified some typical issues relating to team dynamics and said that most of the problems directly stem from the fact that they had no one supervising their work while I was away.  They quickly lowered the point of equilibrium between the volume of work and the acceptable standards, but now I am back and asking them to perform to the previous standard, they are resisting because it wasn’t an issue when I was on leave.  And because they see it as an issue only now I’m back, in their eyes, it’s my emotional state driving it and therefore shouldn’t be taken seriously.  The criticism needs to come from other sources for it to be taken seriously.

We also talked about my grief and some things that seem to be worrying the people around me.  He was very quick to point out that everything I described is normal grief and that I am overwhelmingly sad but he does not think I am depressed.  He pointed out that I am missing most of the depression symptoms but have all of the grief symptoms.  I found this single statement very empowering.  It’s nice to know that I’m ok, in the context of the things that have happened.  There are even fancy names for it all, none of which I can remember now.  For example, my inability to plan ahead.  My personal calendar has today and tomorrow but there are no days after that.  If you want to know what I am doing next Wednesday, ask me next Tuesday.  Normal.  I have a shortened attention span and don’t care for the things I use to like doing.  Normal.  I don’t sleep well, I have been sick on and off for months, I’m losing weight now that I’m no longer trying to lose weight.  All normal.  About the sleep thing, he helped me with some tricks to stop the bad dreams.  It’s good that I have the same ones over and over, they’re easier to rewrite.  As I’m going to sleep I just need to visualise the dreams with some nice changes and that should take care of that.  We hope.  We did some relaxation exercises too, something involving breathing.   I agreed to try it out.

The important thing that showed him and my manager that the issues with the staff member and the issues with my losses are separate is the fact that I don’t bring my problems to work.  Yes I have bad days when I’m very sad and even cry at my desk but those days have always been when someone else initiates the conversation with me or says something horrible.  If these people didn’t talk about it then it wouldn’t upset me and I’d be able to get through the day without needing waterproof mascara.  I’m very good at putting things in bottles.

So I spoke to my manager and explained that I am not happy about having to take a month of my annual leave and told her that it feels like a punishment.  She said it definitely is not a punishment but was intended to give me and the accuser time and breathing space (I felt like asking if the accuser is on forced leave too but thought better of it!!).  My manager said she has been in contact with human resources who said that regardless of whatever is going on,  I have too much leave and need to take it asap.  I have 3 weeks of sick leave and 8 weeks of annual leave owing.  I explained that I had intended to use that leave as part of my maternity leave and she said she understood.  I further said that me being away from the work place creates further disruptions and will be viewed by everyone else as a sign of guilt or fault.  And keeping me busy is paramount to my mental health so sitting at home and staring at the walls doesn’t really help me at all.  We renegotiated the leave terms and I agreed to take one week off in addition to the week I’ve just had while everything was sorted out.

I was scheduled to have surgery on 3 August which requires 1-2 weeks of recuperation.  I spoke to the surgeon’s secretary and he is away next week so I have elected to cancel my surgery for the time being.

I don’t like to blog about work but I need to vent…

Every single damn day someone says something completely heartless to me. On Tuesday I was cornered by TWO nosy co-workers from another department (I was over there to drop off some documents) and being unable to escape, I burst into tears instead. Then I returned to my department to hide in my office and cry. My manager took me aside and after a brief chat, she sent me home and gave me Wednesday off too. I was glad for that because I did not want to pretend to be happy while choking down birthday cake at morning tea. Yeah, Wednesday was my birthday. I’m now 35 and officially of ‘advanced maternal age’.

Happy birthday to me… I woke up at 6am, saw the husband off, did the ironing, played a pc game with a few online friends (gaming has kept me out of harm’s way these last few months), ate just a piece of cheese and a cup of tea, listened to my brother tell me his plans now that he and his wife have split, then went to collect my organic fruit/veg order. I was home by 7pm-ish, my sister dropped in for a quick dinner (Pizza Hut, which I don’t like but the husband does and that’s what matters) and then I went back to gaming before crawling into bed at 11.30pm. Some time during the day, my grandmother called to wish me a happy birthday. She had lots of ideas to help me “get over it” (it??) including take up tennis, do some volunteer work, take up painting, do some gardening, take a florist course, etc. I had to tell her over and over that my problem has nothing to do with needing activities to fill my days and everything to do wanting a baby but not being able to keep one alive. So adopt, she says. We don’t qualify for adoption; we have no religious affiliation, my husband is too old, we do not have ‘proven infertility’ and we don’t have the money.

I went back to work today and was largely ignored by everyone. At lunch time, four of my co-workers stood in the corridor outside my office and had an animated conversation about their pregnancies One of them is currently pregnant and was leading the conversation. I pushed my office door closed and tried not to cry. Again.

I love my job but I think I’m going to have to resign.

Just now, while I was quietly working in my office, a colleague came in to kindly informed me that-

1. It’s ok that my babies are dead because, had they lived, they would have grown up to be bad people, and
2. That if I do decide to try again, that I should eat a teaspoon of pure honey every day because it is a natural antibiotic and that will “help”.

Asshole.

Dear People of Earth,
If you ever happen to cross paths with someone that has sadly lost a baby (or several), please keep your fucking comments to yourself.

Love,
T.xx

I’m just on 9wks now and am guilty of peeing on a stick about twice per week. I bought a pack of 50 cheapo tests on ebay for $20 a while back so the expense of testing thankfully isn’t an issue. The stupid thing is that as the positive line comes up, my inner commentary gloomily reports to me that it would be positive for a while yet, even if the baby had died. I am truly my own worst enemy; why do I keep doing this to myself? I haven’t knitted a stitch since my BFP mostly due to not wanting to knit for a baby that possibly won’t make it, as well as some nausea and tiredness. It’s taking everything I have to rise above the doubt and force myself to be positive about this pregnancy.

Being positive now: This week saw a big milestone; I am past the point of my first miscarriage. I’m booked in to see the professor again on Monday and he said he will do an u/s to check on things (it’s really just to confirm the pregnancy and to do a head count). His u/s machine looks pretty compact and I don’t think it prints images (somehow having an image of the baby will make it more tangible to me) so I have sneakily booked myself in for a proper diagnostic dating scan in the afternoon. I butted heads with my GP this week; she refused to write a referral to my first choice hospital (where I lost my son) on the basis that it’s not a major teaching hospital. I tried to explain to her that based on my history, the ob there said I should be high surveillance this time and she kept talking over me by saying “No, this is a perfectly normal STANDARD pregnancy”. She also didn’t want to do any blood work (the results are required by the hospital when booking in) and furthermore, she told me to STOP TAKING MY PREGGO SUPPLEMENTS! I came home, argued with the husband, had a big cry and a bad night’s sleep. At least I got the u/s referral. In short, I won’t be going back to see her. My SIL keeps recommending her doctor to me so I’m going to book in to see him next time.

I mentioned tiredness and nausea. I’ve been consistently tired since about the fifth week. I wake up around 5.30am, go to work, get home around 6pm, flop on the couch while the husband makes dinner, eat, nod off until around 8 or 9pm, then the husband gets me up and off to bed. Rinse and repeat. At the weekend, I’m generally just too tired to do anything except lay on the couch and watch telly or nap. Remember that quilt I was sewing? It’s still on the dining table, waiting for me to sew on the backing and the binding. Hopeless. I’ve also had a lot of nausea which is a shock since I had no morning sickness at all with Max. Occasionally I’d get waves of ick but that was always associated with odd smells like coffee and cold fridge air. This time I’m feeling sick about an hour after waking or when I move around too much. Normally I like to tackle all of the filing at work in one hit so that everything is up-to-date, neat and tidy. I get a lot of satisfaction in that, rather than just doing a bit here and there which is what the others seem to prefer. Anyway, in recent weeks if I tackle all of the filing in one hit, it means three hours of moving briskly back and forth between the A-Z file sorter on the bench to the various shelves in each of the sections within the compactus. All of that up and down, left and right, back and forth motion makes me so ill that I can barely manage a sip of water without wanting to hurl everywhere.

The FIL asked me a completely random question last week: do I get cravings for strawberries? HUH? I don’t really have any cravings although I’ve been thinking about a big bowl of vanilla icecream for the last few days. And my favourite lunch at the moment is cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado on multigrain bread. There are plenty of foods that I really don’t want: one is my normally favourite salmon pasta dinner. I love that stuff but at the moment I really really don’t want it. And buttery toast. Blergh. And I’ve really not wanted our favourite dessert treat: icecream sandwiches. It’s not the icecream, but the chocolate biscuit part that I don’t want. The husband is using all these differences in my pregnancies to back up his hypothesis that we’re having a girl this time. My money is still on a boy, because there ain’t nuttin’ but boys in his family. And that’s not a bad thing; I really would love to have another little boy :)

One more thing: depending on how well the next few weeks go, we’re thinking about booking a short holiday somewhere. The husband and I have been stockpiling our ADOs; he’s got about 12 and I have 8 owing. We’re intending to take a week off in September and are trying to decide where to go. Maybe Broome? We’ve even talked about Hawaii and New Zealand since those options are going to cost the same. I think we’ll wait and see if the next few weeks go ok with the pregnancy.

* ADOs = Accrued days off: essentially we work 40hr weeks but are paid for 38; the extra hours accrue to a day off/month.

Another bullet point post, because that’s how I roll.

• Having a new car to drive is wonderful. It is so comfortable and easy to drive that sometimes I feel kinda guilty for not missing the old car. We went past the dealer last week and saw they had the Golf in their used car lot for $8999! That’s more than double the trade in price they gave us. Ouch!
• Speaking of the new car; I’ve had my heart in my throat several times when random and unexpected objects have come dangerously close to hitting the car. The first item was a full beer keg. I had just dropped the husband off at the train station one morning when a beer keg that was being rolled along the footpath from the delivery truck to a pub’s cellar door got away from the toothless gimp delivery guy and bounced off the kerb then rolled merrily within half a foot of the driver’s door before the delivery guy stopped it. Gah! Then the next morning I was most of the way to work when a delivery truck fully laden with empty blue wheelie bins rounded the corner some three or four cars ahead of me. Foolishly some idiot had elected to ride in the back of the uncovered truck so as to attempt to hold the tall stacks of bins steady. Inevitably as the truck rounded the corner two stacks of bins fell off and bounced along the road. Myself and the other drivers had to take evasive action to avoid hitting them. The last item to nearly hit the car was a moron attached to a leaf blower. Again I was on my way to work and there had been a car accident earlier on that had just been cleared. For whatever reason, the Road and Traffic Authority Guy was walking along the median strip with a leaf blower in his hand. I was just a few car lengths from him when he changed the angle of his grip and the length of the leaf blower stuck out well into my lane. I braked and just as I was about to pass him (and go *clunk*), he suddenly changed the angle of his grip again so the leaf blower was pointed in front of him. Emergency diverted!
• I’ve been really stressed these last few weeks with work and uni but the final exams were this week and now that it’s all over (at least the study part is, the work part hasn’t changed) I feel like a new person. The biggest weight has been lifted from my shoulders. The exam itself wasn’t particularly hard, there was just one question that I wasn’t sure about but when I went back to it after answering the rest of the paper, I had an answer for it.
• Speaking of work, we’re gearing up to do another round of interviews. There were 41 applicants that I’ve culled down to seven. Two look really worthwhile, one looks interesting and four aren’t suitable but met the criteria so therefore we’re obliged to interview them. I really can’t wait until we’re fully staffed again. I’ve got mountains of paperwork piling up and while my assistant does try very hard, she just doesn’t have an eye for detail. The sooner we can get someone else on, the sooner I can get my assistant onto tasks that better match her skill set and the happier I will be! The husband and I are even toying with the idea of taking a holiday. It’s not far off first wedding anniversary and with losing the baby shortly there after, it really feels as though it’s been many years since our last break. I guess ultimately it will depend on how long it takes to appoint and train up the new recruit as well as any developments with the swine flu hamdemic. Good times.
• Babies. The (in)fertility treatment doesn’t appear to be doing much. Meh.
• My sister inlaw is pregnant and due to give birth in August so to help prepare my little niece for the arrival of her little brother, the husband and I gave her a newborn Cabbage Patch Doll. She instantly fell in love with it and delighted everyone by giving it cuddles, drinks from its little plastic bottle and naps in its little plastic capsule. Adorable! She even had a mini-tantrum when my girlfriend’s ten month old daughter picked up the CPK’s bottle to play with. Hilarious! I was so happy that I could give my niece her first CPK. I have found memories of my own and while she’s far too little to remember receiving it, it’s still kinda special. :)
• I celebrated another birthday a few weeks ago and can honestly say it was one of the best. The husband asked me what I would like for my birthday dinner and I decided to have my favourite meal — Christmas dinner. Turkey, baked vegetables, cranberry sauce. Lovely! The girls at work had a morning tea for me and gave me a variey of birthday cards (and a gift voucher for the local department store). The husband, bless him, turned the event into an extended celebration by giving me a little gift each day for a few days either side of my birthday. One of the gifts he gave me was House of the Dead 2&3 for the Wii — it was my favourite game on the Dreamcast (remember that thing??) and I loved reliving the zombie blasting fun so much that I couldn’t grip a pen properly for a day or so afterwards. Stupid trigger finger. Heh. He also gave me Call of Duty 4 which I’ve been loving. For a day or so I tried to convince the husband that I really was Soap MacTavish, SAS and awesome. He wasn’t buying it.  I finished the single player campaign very quickly; in what seemed to be just five or six hours.  It ended just as I was really getting into it which was very disappointing.  I guess I’m just use to massive roleplaying games like Oblivion that take 200+ hours to complete.  Speaking of Oblivion, I still have the Shivering Isles expansion to finish.  I love this time between uni semesters!  Game on!
• What with it being Winter and all, I’ve made a scientific discovery. It would appear that the degree of sluttiness of the skirt plus knee length boots combo can be directly correlated to the percentage  of body fat of the wearer. It appears that the sluttier the skirt/boot combo; the greater the volume of body fat, particularly in the thigh/arse regions. I wonder if this is a local phenomenon or if it’s global? Clearly I should apply for a research grant.
• The first prize in Ozlotto is $90M this week. Lemme just spell that out for you: A$90,000,000.00 Jesus wept!

The husband and I saw our favourite medical professional on Wednesday and she has set up a hot date with the plastic cup for him, and a no-refined-sugar plus stop-start-running regime for me.  The cup is to check his swimmers in case that’s the reason it’s taking for-ever to conceive again, and the food/exercise thing for me is suppose to kick my endocrine system in the groin. Though I’m always moaning about wanting to lose 5kg, I’m not overweight but my cycles have been a bit off since having Max.  Apparently sugar is thy enemy, especially late at night and while I walk a lot anyway (up to 9,000 steps on a normal weekday before any exercise), she seems to think there’s something in the walk-a-minute-then-run-a-minute thing.

I enjoy walking, especially with the ipod but it’s too bulky to run with.  I’d decided to look for a cheapo compact mp3 player on ebay this weekend but the husband surprised me with an ipod shuffle instead.  Meet Kermit:

I’ve loaded him up with some suitable music, including my two new favourites Kaiser Chiefs and the Fratellis. Most excellent music for walking fast!  I even woke up early this morning with the intension of going for a run but it seems I’ve sat down to blog instead.  Oops!

In other news, work has been an effing nightmare.  A couple of months ago I interviewed and subsequently hired a permanent part time assistant.  She is great, except that she had a death in the family and needed a couple of weeks off.  She’ll be back Monday, I hope.  I’ve had a full time temp in too and while she started out brilliantly, my good opinion of her has since faded.  Besides a complete inability to work under pressure without snapping at everyone, she doesn’t like being told what to do and when to do it.  Big problem.  Then a couple of weeks ago, she announced that she was “burned out” from working a gruelling 6hr day, 4 times per week and that she required a week of stress leave.  No way was that shit coming out of our budget and since she is a temp, we just unhired her for the week she wanted off. I don’t think she liked that very much so she called in sick twice and got all mopey and sullen. I thought teen emo was ugly but jebus it’s ugly on a middle-aged fish wife!  Meow!  By Thursday, I’d had enough of her personality disorder so we declared her no longer required and sent her back from whence she came.  On Friday I interviewed for her permanent replacement.  Gawd.  I’m pretty sure the first rule of What Not to Say at a Job Interview is “do not bitch about your current managers and colleagues”.  The second rule should be “do not apply for full time positions if you only want part time work”.  I’ll be putting in an order to readvertise the position next week.  Why is good help so hard to find?

Recently my knitting time has been reallocated to study time but as I seem to be on top of my study load at the moment I think I’ll try to get some wips finished this weekend.  The weather has been total crap (another reason I’m blogging instead of running right now); grey, cold and wet but perfect for sitting on the couch while knitting, drinking tea and watching DVDs.  There’s a couple of inches left to make on the fingerless mittens (mittenless mittens?) and I should whip up something for my neighbour’s baby that is due pretty much now. I’m favouring the baby pumpkin hat for her baby as these hats are pretty successful gifts, they’re quick to knit and since I can’t remember if she said she knew the baby’s gender; orange is fairly non-gender specific.

OK, walk/run time. Now where did I leave Kermit?

It’s been another emotional rollercoaster week. I’m going to cut parts out and skim over others but essentially, this is how it played out…

My husband drove down the coast on Monday night to bring his mother back to Sydney for her scheduled surgery on Tuesday. While he was there, she had a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke). At one point she stopped breathing and had no pulse. It was only his quick action and medical training that saved her life. Given the all-clear by a swag of doctors, she had her surgery and is due home again today.

We visited her in hospital on Thursday night and due to the girlie-nature of her surgery, her room was in the middle of the maternity section. I don’t do too well when confronted by that sort of thing so I specifically asked if anyone else would be there, and was told no, but when we arrived the brother-in-law was there as well. Anyway, my relationship with the brother-in-law has been strained over the last few years (ever since the day he stood in my kitchen and had the audacity to tell ME to “get a life”; this coming from the man who wasn’t working and has few friends and no interests beyond drinking wine and watching tv) and more so since the birth of our sons. Anyway, the mother-in-law went on a tangent about not being able to pick up her grandson post-surgery healing stage. I didn’t need to hear this. Why not just say “I’ve been told not to lift stuff” rather than “I’ve been told that I can’t lift my grand children, they’ll just have to climb up onto my lap, I could get a little rope and they could pull themselves up like this etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc”.

The husband seems to think that the reason his parents don’t really acknowledge Max or our feelings about him is because they didn’t see him and therefore don’t register the reality of our son. Today when he collects his mother from the hospital and takes her home, he is taking Max with him. Or at least, he’s taking Max’s ashes, his photos and the book containing his feet and hand prints.

I’m not expecting much to come from this but it would be nice if they could understand that while we lost our son five months ago, it feels like it happened yesterday. I just want a little empathy from them. I want them to understand that it hurts me a lot when they prattle on about babies and that they don’t ask me how I’m coping since losing Max (they ask my husband, but never me).

Ok, enough – it’s time to change the record.  Besides, I need a tissue.

Work… I work a major teaching hospital in Sydney. The powers above are blocking our recruitment efforts to save money. We advertised one part-time position in December and interviewed in January.  We found two fantastic applicants. Although our request to recruit was approved, those jerks have stalled the criminal record check stage of the recruitment process so they can “save money”.  We have explained that our need is great, that they approved this position back when we had 2 FTE staff on board.  Now we are down 1 FTE, both of our 0.8 FTE nurses are on leave (guess who is giving patients their blood results; got demarcation issues??) and have two new specialists on staff, and five additional clinics to run. Do the math. They did assign a temp to me and while she is GREAT, she is still very new to the role and everything she does must be checked. She also has a couple of medical issues and often needs to leave early, start late, etc. It’s going to take a couple of weeks to get her up to speed. So those government jerks don’t recognise that while they are “saving money” by delaying recruitment, they are forcing one person to do the work of 2.5 FTE staff without taking into account the increase of clinical staff and activity. To get through the workload, I’m starting early, working through lunch, leaving late (I did 9hrs of unpaid overtime this week alone), getting run down, am unable to take sick leave, and subsequently providing a half-arsed service to our patients.  I’d just like to take this moment to say “Fuck you Labor government”.

I’ve got a lot to do this weekend: a few hours of coding a shop cart modification for a web client, a couple of chapters to read for uni on contract law re franchising and licensing, and four songs to practice before my next piano lesson on Tuesday night. Not bad for someone who doesn’t have a life.

• Piano lessons are going very well so I bought myself a little treat:
• I have had a very productive week as far as knitting goes. I’ve finished the lacy pink and black scarf and a pair of uber cute black Converse Chuck Taylor booties. I’m keen to cast on again but I have no idea what to make next. I’m seriously considering knitting baby items to sell since learning that one of the knitted soakers I made for a friend’s baby fetched over $30 on ebay. And that was as a second-hand item! Not bad for $4 worth of wool and a couple of hours in front of the tv. My thought is that I’m going to knit anyway, I might as well make a little money doing it. And it could provide a nice little income when (if) I’m (ever) at home with a baby.
• Uni starts up again on Monday and I’m quite excited about it. I’ll be taking Commercial Law first up, which looks pretty interesting. Best of all, unlike previous law texts, the textbook isn’t massive; it will actually fit into my regular handbag so I won’t have to carry a separate bag around with me.
• Work was better this week. I have another assistant and she is awesome. The first assistant they gave me came from the temporary staffing pool was relieved from her position after being one hour late on five consecutive days, calling in sick on her sixth day, late again on day seven, then failing to show up or call in on the day eight. Assistant V2.0 is enthusiastic, intelligent, proactive and professional. She’s also wickedly funny and makes an excellent cup of tea.
• Gossip from the ‘hood: A couple of days ago my Korean neighbour side-swiped my other neighbour’s late model green car with their little white shitbox. They exchanged a good amount of paint and did a substantial amount of damage then DROVE OFF! Today they parked their shitbox on the street again but didn’t even attempt to hide the green paint on their own car. She confronted the neighbours but they pulled the “sorry no english” thing, just as they did when I confronted them about flicking cigarette butts onto our lawn. Needless to say, she has taken plenty of photos and involved the police. Ahh, it’s all good in the hood.
• Today my sister and I bought a fabulous variety of birthday presents for our very spoilt and completely gorgeous niece. She turns one tomorrow. Where does the time go?
• While exerting an incredible amount of self-control, I was able to walk straight past the huge Easter egg display at Big W today without pushing my thumb through any of the eggs. I did, however, attempt to hurt a Terry’s Chocolate Orange as part of my personal protest against the combining of hated fake ORANGE flavouring with much loved CHOCOLATE, only to be informed by my sister that said Terry’s Chocolate Orange is actually solid not hollow, and therefore impervious to my thumb. The force is strong with this one.
• I really don’t like my new Remington electric razor. My old one was great but this one is so rough on my skin. Damn you Remington *shakes fist*
• Max’s due date was last Friday. I had really hoped to be pregnant again by now but it obviously wasn’t meant to be. I’m getting really tired of all the deliberate glances towards my belly. Fortunately I’ve managed to lose all the baby weight plus one kilo so there’s nothing to see.

I’ve been so busy this last week therefore neglecting my blog. The woman I’d been driven fucking insane by working with finished up before Christmas (good riddance) and the temp couldn’t start until early February which means I’ll be flying solo until then. We interviewed for my new assistant on Thursday and culled sixty applicants down to two potentials. If the first doesn’t work out then the second will automatically get the job. Either way, I’m happy. Now to replace the colleague that left…

I’ve also been feeling very emotional mostly because another woman I work with that was two weeks further along than me had her baby this week. Big downer. I’m only grateful that she had a girl. So… I’m working alone for the time being, which is actually a good thing because the insane busy keeps me adequately distracted so I don’t fall into a teary heap.

We’re in the middle of a heatwave so today my sister and her husband (aka the Darcy’s of Pemberly) have taken refuge from the heat in the air-conditioned comfort of our house (aka Netherfield, therefore making us Mr and Mrs Bingley). My brother and his wife (aka the Bennetts of Longbourn) are away for the weekend. The mercury hit 30C (86F) shortly after 7am and has now peaked at 40C (104F). Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not complaining about the weather. I actually really truly prefer these hot days over the cold but after most of a week of constant heat, it’s starting to wear a little thin.

And incase you hadn’t noticed, I’m currently enjoying a little Austen renaissance by rewatching Pride and Prejudice again.