Well, we're in! We finally got our keys on Friday morning, just before the movers arrived at the front door with boxes galore. We were away for the weekend, but we got back in time to order a few sticks of furniture that I've had my eye on for ages. We've also had time to make a dent in some of the unpacking and thankfully found some of my wine glasses...phew. I took a walk up the road earlier to the lovely little wine shop, and I think I made a new friend behind the counter as we discussed the relative merits of dry reisling from the south or sauvignon blanc from the north of New Zealand. My new frugal self may be challenged by a wine shop loyalty card! Anyway, the Mammies are coming tomorrow to help me scrub, and the Dads to put up shelves. Mid-box, I discovered a lovely Jamie Oliver pot which we got as a wedding present, so dinner, which I promised them in payment, will be something from that.
Our internet connection is still a while away, but the usb thing is holding up, so I'm not completely out of touch with the world. I never forsaw the day though, when The General was sticking a wire coathanger in the back of a 12inch portable telly - not quite the 50inch, HD, flat-screen he was promised!
More tales of packing box finds to come...
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Moving day?
So, we had the movers all set to go this morning, but after a phone call early yesterday morning, we had to postpone. Apparently there's something about the mortgage funds clearing between banks. Anyway, hopefully that will be sorted today, we'll get the keys this evening and we can start hauling boxes tomorrow instead.
And I'll be one step closer to being back in the land of the internet connection!
And I'll be one step closer to being back in the land of the internet connection!
Ear worms
I almost constantly have snippets of songs in my head, this morning's being Paula Abdul and a cartoon cat singing "One step forward (two steps back)". I found out yesteday that these eternal and infernal repetitions are called ear worms. Great name.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The apartment has vomited
And it is everywhere. The place looks like it has been visited by a three year old, hopped up on every E number he can find. There's a definite air of getting worse before it gets better, although now The General has begun to help with the packing. His MO for this operation is to take whatever he can see and put it in a box. I'm hanging on for dear life to 2 cups, 2 plates and 2 bowls, and enough cutlery to allow us to eat dinner. I discovered earlier this evening when I turned off the baby monitor that he has put the charging station somewhere in a now sealed box. I hope for the next few weeks Beautiful Girl doesn't need anything when we think she's sleeping.
We have some form of glassware in most of the boxes. I have a peculiar penchant for beautiful wine glasses (and the ambrosia to fill them) and I like to have a matching set...or, I think we counted, 7. And then we have the vases, bought in the vain hope that if I had them he would fill them. (Hmmm, that's a whole nother post.) And the crystal we got as engagement and wedding presents. All of this glass is very carefully wrapped and protected in the dozens of towels we own (a genetic predisposition from my mother's side) and our somewhat less bountiful but equally excessive Egyptian cotton bed linen (that'll be the genes again).
We have a tower of boxes in the sitting room and another in the bathroom. I fear a particularly full bladder in case there's an undiscovered fault line and I am buried under an avalanche of shoes. And we haven't even started on the wardrobes. I'm trying not to think about all the boxes I have in storage from when I sold my house and moved in with The General 3 years ago. If I haven't thought about it and can't remember what is in a box I packed that long ago, do I either need or want it? I'm terrible at these decisions...thank God the new house has an attic.
I have promised myself that the next time I move will be to the nursing home, and Beautiful Girl can deal with the tape gun.
We have some form of glassware in most of the boxes. I have a peculiar penchant for beautiful wine glasses (and the ambrosia to fill them) and I like to have a matching set...or, I think we counted, 7. And then we have the vases, bought in the vain hope that if I had them he would fill them. (Hmmm, that's a whole nother post.) And the crystal we got as engagement and wedding presents. All of this glass is very carefully wrapped and protected in the dozens of towels we own (a genetic predisposition from my mother's side) and our somewhat less bountiful but equally excessive Egyptian cotton bed linen (that'll be the genes again).
We have a tower of boxes in the sitting room and another in the bathroom. I fear a particularly full bladder in case there's an undiscovered fault line and I am buried under an avalanche of shoes. And we haven't even started on the wardrobes. I'm trying not to think about all the boxes I have in storage from when I sold my house and moved in with The General 3 years ago. If I haven't thought about it and can't remember what is in a box I packed that long ago, do I either need or want it? I'm terrible at these decisions...thank God the new house has an attic.
I have promised myself that the next time I move will be to the nursing home, and Beautiful Girl can deal with the tape gun.
Service interruptus continues...
We are still in the apartment without the joy of tv or internet; thank God I have a mobile so don't miss the phone too much. We have been promised the keys of our new house before the end of the week, although The General has just dropped the bombshell that it may take a while for the connection to our media supplier to be up and running. I will try not to be too sad, and will post again when I can!
Monday, September 13, 2010
Get me to the church on time
Well, the church or anywhere else for that matter. Since I had Beautiful Girl, it is impossible for me to be anywhere on time. I used to be chronically early and being on time was almost as bad as being late. Not for anyone else, mind you, I was always the one waiting for them. It was a character flaw instilled by my father who is never late. I was even on time for my wedding. Yes, about a third of our guests (the ones who don't know me so well) arrived after I did. The car pulled up in front of the church at bang on 2pm, and I was walking up the aisle at 2.02pm. The General wasn't surprised.
So, now that I have Beautiful Girl to manage too, I find it impossible to be on time any more. She always needs a feed, a nappy change or a costume change just as we're walking out the door. Last night she decided to mix things up a bit, and I got the costume change, right after she projectile vomitted all over the only nice outfit I can fit into. So the General and I went out for dinner (our first proper date since she was born) and I was in a, thankfully new, cardi and jeans.
I find Sunday mornings the hardest. I go to church most Sundays. The congregation I attend is pretty small so the number of services per week is limited to one – 11am Sunday morning. It's a pretty reasonable time and day for religious worship, but because it's the only option, it's important for me to try to leave the house on time. Since three months ago, it doesn't happen. Beautiful Girl always manages to wake up just as I'm about to leave and wants to be fed, watered and changed. It doesn't matter what time she goes to be the night before, or how many times she wakes during the night, on Sunday mornings, she wakes at 10.30, just as I need to walk out the door. We then have a lovely 20 minutes of smiles and giggles while we're changing her nappy and getting her into her Sunday best. She always seems to want a chat while she's feeding too, which makes a usually quick and easy process entertaining but drawn out.
I may have to get over my fear of waking a sleeping baby one of these days. Either that or go back to being a Catholic and a choice of services over two whole days...
So, now that I have Beautiful Girl to manage too, I find it impossible to be on time any more. She always needs a feed, a nappy change or a costume change just as we're walking out the door. Last night she decided to mix things up a bit, and I got the costume change, right after she projectile vomitted all over the only nice outfit I can fit into. So the General and I went out for dinner (our first proper date since she was born) and I was in a, thankfully new, cardi and jeans.
I find Sunday mornings the hardest. I go to church most Sundays. The congregation I attend is pretty small so the number of services per week is limited to one – 11am Sunday morning. It's a pretty reasonable time and day for religious worship, but because it's the only option, it's important for me to try to leave the house on time. Since three months ago, it doesn't happen. Beautiful Girl always manages to wake up just as I'm about to leave and wants to be fed, watered and changed. It doesn't matter what time she goes to be the night before, or how many times she wakes during the night, on Sunday mornings, she wakes at 10.30, just as I need to walk out the door. We then have a lovely 20 minutes of smiles and giggles while we're changing her nappy and getting her into her Sunday best. She always seems to want a chat while she's feeding too, which makes a usually quick and easy process entertaining but drawn out.
I may have to get over my fear of waking a sleeping baby one of these days. Either that or go back to being a Catholic and a choice of services over two whole days...
Friday, September 10, 2010
Why brain, why?
I have my best ideas in bed, when I'm just about to fall asleep, and I can never remember them in the morning. It is most irritating.
Going grey-cefully?
I've been hearing and reading people discussing this recently, and I have to say, I'm tempted. I've dark brown hair, and in the last 4 years it has gone very grey. I've been highlighting or colouring it for about the better part of 10 years now, since my early 20s, so if I keep this up, I'll be dying my hair for the better part of about 50 years (please God). Since I'm not very good at doing what the hairdresser (or packet) tells me, I dye it about 4 times a year, which is 200 hair dyes, and even if it's only a home job, I think the last one I used was about €15, and a whole lot more in a salon so it adds up pretty quickly. Then there are so many stories I hear about chemicals in other parts of my life that are less of a choice, food, water, etc, that I wonder do I need to expose myself to this too?
And then I think of how my roots already glow in the dark in certain lights (the lift in our apartment for one!) that I wonder am I actually brave enough, and will I look like a 70 year old with a 3month old baby?!?
And then I think of how my roots already glow in the dark in certain lights (the lift in our apartment for one!) that I wonder am I actually brave enough, and will I look like a 70 year old with a 3month old baby?!?
Multi function baby
I might be a bad Mammy...Beautiful Girl loves playing airplane, and I love doing it for her, because it's great for my bingo wings!
Things I didn't know about having a baby until I had a baby
I saw a post on a Mum and Kids forum about this recently, and it got me thinking about the things I never thought about before Beautiful Girl came along. I know these aren't all of them, so I'll probably update this when the brain farts allow.
- you can get stretch marks because of giving birth, even if you had none beforehand
- you can still love your child absolutely, even if that fierce rush everyone talks about only kicks in a while later
- some midwives should not be as downright mean as they are
- it takes months for your, um, digestive system to get back to normal
- there should be an advanced course in how to pick the right kind of nappies
- a baby can still be cranky after a 4 hour snooze, a big feed and a clean nappy
- if you don't have a pre-pregnancy “figure” no-one will know how long it takes you to get it back
- having your waters broken by a friend of a friend is a bit too close for comfort
- if you hate housework, and in particular washing up, breastfeeding is great
- it can be acceptable to talk about poo to another adult
- doctors, midwives, public health nurses and your own mother do not always have the right answers
- sitting under a small child for hours on end is a great excuse to get through box sets of tv shows
- perfect strangers are really nice to you when you have a baby out in public
- it sucks more than I could ever have know when I realised I really will have to send Beautiful Girl to someone else every day so I can go back to work and we can afford to eat as well as pay the mortgage...
Mind the gap
We have been in the process of moving house for nearly a month now, and had things gone to plan, we would be happily ensconced in our new home by now. But because these things are never as easy as they shoud be, we are still in our old place, but without the joy of tv, phone or internet connections. So now I can only blog when I can kidnap The General's internet usb thingy. I have been saving up my posts for the last few days, so here they are...
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Saturday shopping vs online shopping...
When Beautiful Girl came along, I made The General do the grocery shopping, so his solution was to make best use of the world wide wonder and do our grocery shopping online. It is amazing. For €4, I can have someone else push a trolly, fill crates and have a nice man bring it to my door. I don't have to deal with wonky trollies, other people stopping suddenly in the middle of an aisle or label feed errors on weighing machines.
So, what was different about this afternoon? Well, since the General is off doing General-ly inspiring things today, and Beautiful Girl is sick of the sight of me, needs must, and off we went to Dunnes for a wander and some spuds. Won't I ever learn? I really hate shopping centres on Saturday afternoons, particularly when they are miserable, grey, liable to bucket down on you without a moment's notice, Saturday afternoons. *Sigh*.
The centre we went to is the nearest one with an underground car park (essential given the aforementioned weather) but it's pretty old, so there are no baby accoutrement friendly spaces that I could find. I ended up getting lucky and finding a space beside a pillar so we had an extra bit of space on that side, and no one had yet parked on the other. Small mercies. After unloading the wheels and manhandling the car seat out of the back and onto the wheels (a major victory in itself), off we went.
Those flat escalators are not the wonder I alway thought they were. Beautiful Girl tried to run me over more than once when I didn't have my full weight pushing her against the forces of gravity and wheels on a slope. In addition to dealing with a runaway buggy, some aul fella decided to tell me I was completely wrong to have a mini mobile in front of her to play with - apparently it was getting in her way! I wouldn't mind, but I had only put the bloody thing on the seat this afternoon to try to distract her in the car. So, helpful advice ignored, off I went in search of a basket, which were all for some reason at the far end of the store. I eventually found one with two functioning handles and traipsed off to find the potatoes. Thankfully I didn't have much to get because the arm was about to fall off me by the time I headed towards the checkout. A word of warning - if you ever see me in a shop, check which till I headed for, then go the one beside it. You can be sure that if I've only one person ahead of me buying only bread and milk, and there's a queue of 14 people with two trollies each, they will be finished before I will. The people in front of me always seem to pick up the only item in the store's history that doesn't have a working bar code and the price has to be made up by a committee of EU Commissioners. Seriously. But, at least I could put the arm-breaking basket on the conveyor belt, and Beautiful Girl seemed to forgive me for my horrible behaviour in putting her new toy on her seat, so we made faces at each other to pass the time.
When the world of the bar code and the till-operating-key-keeper was finally reset spinning on its axis, my 4 items sailed through the zapper and we were away again. I briefly attempted to have a look in a clothes shop, but the rails were so close together that even people without a buggy were finding it hard going so I abandoned my quest for clothes that don't have vomit on them. Again with the travelator but this time I was stopping the princess chariot running over perfect strangers as we gave gravity a hand by travelling in the same direction as she was going. People were very clever and gave my car a nice wide berth in the car park, so I was able to get her ladyship and all her trappings back in with relative ease, and I escaped the subterranian assault course without nobbling any pedestrians.
And as my parking ticket was spat out at me for the third time and I pressed the help button and listened to the disembodied monotone, I was very happy to remind myself that I will be doing my full shop tomorrow from the safety of my couch and a nice man will come to my door on Monday afternoon with a smile and enough food for the week.
Now the kettle's on and thank God one of my four items was a sticky bun...
So, what was different about this afternoon? Well, since the General is off doing General-ly inspiring things today, and Beautiful Girl is sick of the sight of me, needs must, and off we went to Dunnes for a wander and some spuds. Won't I ever learn? I really hate shopping centres on Saturday afternoons, particularly when they are miserable, grey, liable to bucket down on you without a moment's notice, Saturday afternoons. *Sigh*.
The centre we went to is the nearest one with an underground car park (essential given the aforementioned weather) but it's pretty old, so there are no baby accoutrement friendly spaces that I could find. I ended up getting lucky and finding a space beside a pillar so we had an extra bit of space on that side, and no one had yet parked on the other. Small mercies. After unloading the wheels and manhandling the car seat out of the back and onto the wheels (a major victory in itself), off we went.
Those flat escalators are not the wonder I alway thought they were. Beautiful Girl tried to run me over more than once when I didn't have my full weight pushing her against the forces of gravity and wheels on a slope. In addition to dealing with a runaway buggy, some aul fella decided to tell me I was completely wrong to have a mini mobile in front of her to play with - apparently it was getting in her way! I wouldn't mind, but I had only put the bloody thing on the seat this afternoon to try to distract her in the car. So, helpful advice ignored, off I went in search of a basket, which were all for some reason at the far end of the store. I eventually found one with two functioning handles and traipsed off to find the potatoes. Thankfully I didn't have much to get because the arm was about to fall off me by the time I headed towards the checkout. A word of warning - if you ever see me in a shop, check which till I headed for, then go the one beside it. You can be sure that if I've only one person ahead of me buying only bread and milk, and there's a queue of 14 people with two trollies each, they will be finished before I will. The people in front of me always seem to pick up the only item in the store's history that doesn't have a working bar code and the price has to be made up by a committee of EU Commissioners. Seriously. But, at least I could put the arm-breaking basket on the conveyor belt, and Beautiful Girl seemed to forgive me for my horrible behaviour in putting her new toy on her seat, so we made faces at each other to pass the time.
When the world of the bar code and the till-operating-key-keeper was finally reset spinning on its axis, my 4 items sailed through the zapper and we were away again. I briefly attempted to have a look in a clothes shop, but the rails were so close together that even people without a buggy were finding it hard going so I abandoned my quest for clothes that don't have vomit on them. Again with the travelator but this time I was stopping the princess chariot running over perfect strangers as we gave gravity a hand by travelling in the same direction as she was going. People were very clever and gave my car a nice wide berth in the car park, so I was able to get her ladyship and all her trappings back in with relative ease, and I escaped the subterranian assault course without nobbling any pedestrians.
And as my parking ticket was spat out at me for the third time and I pressed the help button and listened to the disembodied monotone, I was very happy to remind myself that I will be doing my full shop tomorrow from the safety of my couch and a nice man will come to my door on Monday afternoon with a smile and enough food for the week.
Now the kettle's on and thank God one of my four items was a sticky bun...
Friday, September 3, 2010
So I've been thinking...
These are the words that scare The General. The topic of the thinking is usually less worrisome, but the fact that I've been doing it always throws him for a loop! So some of the most recent thinking has been
- I don't want to go back to work
- I think Beautiful Girl should go to a childminder rather than a creche
- I need (is that the same as want?) a new car
- we should do more "family time" activities
- I need to find some sort of pen that's also a torch so I can write down my blog ideas in the middle of the night without having to turn on my phone light or scribble in the pitch black on God knows what, possibly a bib or something...
- I might try a mad colour to dye my hair
Thursday, September 2, 2010
How to smell like a chipper
I have discovered the wonder that is vinegar. It's like magic...from what I can make out, it does everything your common or garden bleach does, but it's eco-friendly. I'm using it for removing the stains from Beautiful Girl's vests after exploding nappies, and for wiping down her changing table. Sure the place smells like you're having your favourite 1 and 1 for dinner, but if it saves harsh chemicals on everything BG touches, I'm willing to put up with 10 minutes of pong. I'm going to start branching out and using it mixed with things like bread soda for cleaning. There are some great ideas on http://www.vinegartips.com/Scripts/
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Breastfeeding in Ireland
I'm a breastfeeding Mum and loving it. Thankfully it's going well, so I feel confident when I'm out and about with BG to feed her in public. For those who may not be so comfortable and fear the reactions of idiots, thecontentedlittlemummy has a great post (which I forgot to put up here the other day).
http://thecontentedlittlemummy.com/?p=56
http://thecontentedlittlemummy.com/?p=56
I love lists
Right now I am sitting at my kitchen table and if my post ends abruptly, send help because I'm buried under an avalanche of paper. I love lists. They mean I get things done. They mean I can sleep at night. They give me a sense that I can keep on top of things. The General doesn't understand lists. He just does things. He throws out my lists (along with my receipts, but that's another post).
Right now I can see lists in front of me for:
Right now I can see lists in front of me for:
- online shopping
- corner shop shopping
- house moving
- house packing
- baby shopping (that's things Beautiful Girl needs, we're not looking for a second child just yet)
- pros and cons for going back to work
- pros and cons of setting up my own business
- things I need to set up my own business
- thoughts which might make interesting posts
- "inspiration" for my business idea
- books I want to down load for my Kindle
- tv shows I want on box sets
- questions to ask on the mum and kids forum I read
- questions to ask my mum about BG
- dates I have to remember
Bedtime
When I lived alone, I could very happily sleep all night on exactly one half of my double bed, and not so much as ruffle the sheets on the other side. The General can somehow unmake an entire bed, all by himself, in the half hour between him going to bed and me trying to get in beside him. Frustrating.
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