Blame the washing machine

Well, that was interesting.

Like the cheese on my toasted sandwich, I've had a meltdown in front of the sandwich press.

The events culminating in this cheesy mess began on Wednesday evening, when our washing machine, which has been on it's last legs for weeks actually decided that, no, it didn't want to wash, and no, it didn't particularly want to drain.

The Hubbster tried to fix it and after washing the same clothes 7 times, we came to the conclusion that, yes, it was stuffed.

It needs a new part so we've sent away for one, in the hopes that it will get us through until we move into The Money Pit and buy a new machine.

On Friday it started to rain, and as I was working and with no time to get to the laundromat, I was forced to once again, wear a pair of The Hubbsters jocks to work.

Besides the fact that they were not my colour, as well as the sad realisation that they fit quite well, I had the persistant urge to put my hand down my trousers and rearrange my private parts at regular intervals in the day.

The Hubbster, of course, thought this was hilarious. It was only funny until I had to wear another pair again today.

I've now been to Kmart and bought a new 10 pack of Rio cottons so I never have to publicly admit to wearing his.

That's okay, we're all friends here.

So I wanted to get an early start yesterday morning as I had a busy day at work planned. After our usual morning bathroom argument, Miss D (aged 10) and I decided to refer to each other lovingly as frenemies.

We got to school just before the bell rang, subsequently arriving at work late.

With still no clean clothes, and wearing my husbands undies, I got through the day, knowing that I had two episodes of Sex and the City to watch once the kids were in bed.

We woke early this morning to get Miss D to her 7.30am dance lesson. I took the other kids to the cafe for breakfast and they were behaving so well a man bought them chocolates.

We were all shocked.

Once in Bunnings, they did the usual thing and embarassed me, and the Mother of the Year judged me from her sanctimonious courtesy bench while her two angelic children played sweetly and watched mine climb where they shouldn't climb.

Along with a healthy dose of PMT (see yesterday's post) which fueled an argument in the car ride home (why can't you just BEHAVE), I found myself in front of the sandwich press, watching the melted cheese dripping on the floor.

After a good cry, and a toasted ham and cheese, I know that 1) the kids are not really out to get me 2) I really need some drugs to get me through my period and 3) it's the washine machine's fault.

Raving Lunatic. That's Me.

Hmmmm...my post of yesterday. Regarding the muffin and the plate. I think that was written by some crazy, mental, possessed banshee in the middle of a tantrum. Oh yeah, that was me. Yesterday. Today I'm fine.

You see, I had pmt. Or Pre Menstrual Tension for you men who may not know what it means. Of course if you are married, you probably are already familiar with it.

Last night I wouldn't have at all been surprised if my head started to spin and I spewed blood on the walls (reference The Exorcist) .

For just two days per month I turn into a raving madwoman, cranky with the world and all it represents. The Hubbster likes to point this out to me by saying "ahhhh, so it's that time of the month..that explains everything". I could punch him in the nose there and then.

So the issue with the muffin and the plate is so unimportant that it's embarrassing, but last night I had steam coming from my ears when I arrived home to find that The Hubbster had eaten my chocolate muffin that I had been saving because I have been to the gym, eating right and savouring this little treat for my hard work. He didn't even ask. He just stuffed it down, crumbs and all.

I was furious. I can't believe how pissed off I was (remember PMT people). He offered no explanation. Although he did buy me flowers today, under the guise of Mothers Day so maybe he feels guilty!

So while I washed up roughly, splashing water from the sink, I wiped his favourite breakfast plate (the crappy one with the chips and crack in it from our old dinner set) and accidently dropped it on the floor. Opps. I can't believe I did that. Who the hell am I?

I hate feeling like this. It's very emotional. It's the hormones of course. I can't believe the crap that comes out of my mouth, I don't even make sense to myself.

And as quick as it comes, it's over. But I can't take back being a bitch for those two days to the ones I love the most. I really think I need some medication. Or some herbs at least. Or a shopping holiday. That would do.

That'll teach ya.

You eat my chocolate muffin -

I break your favourite plate.


Tune in tommorrow to get the full story.

My little big girl

I wanted to write about my youngest little devil - Miss T (or destructo as we like to call her). She has recently turned 5 and is in that in between stage of not knowing if she is a big girl or a baby. And being the youngest in the family pushes her in the direction of being the latter.

I'm trying to ignore the whingy bad behaviour...the fall in a heap on the floor tantrums and the breaking of furniture (so far we have one broken bed as discussed here and one broken wardrobe door which she slammed shut in a moment of frustration, which I can't even remember happening.

She wakes up, bosses everyone around, then kicks some toys across the floor on the way to the kitchen. She's really tough. I've been known to step over her as she writhes on the ground in faux agony. She just gets up, walks to where I am and falls at my feet to continue the performance.

I think this year in Prep will see her grow, both mentally and emotionally. The funny thing is, she doesn't (usually) act like this for anyone else - only for me. I'm the Mother (sucker) who has to cope with obnoxious behaviour, and that's okay because it's my job.

I love her to bits. She is funny, cheeky, energetic, very smart and can outbuild anyone with lego. I think she will be an architect when she grows up. She can design a house for me in some exotic location to repay me for putting up with years of stress and visits to the hairdresser to tend to my increasing amount of grey hairs.


Miss T crying:- "I thought I would be stuck up there for ever!"

5 days of chaos/bliss

We have been awake since 4.45am this morning. On a Saturday. There wasn't even any football to go to. Are we insane you ponder? Just slightly.

In fact we had to meet the plane and say goodbye to The Hubbster and his mum, who are visiting family for a few days and then seeing the doctor to have his foot checked after his surgery.

So I am home alone for 5 days with only the kids to drain the life out of me with their constant whinging, nagging, fighting and their general disagreeing. Is disagreeing even a word? Through my 4pm glass of stress wine I don't know and don't care even less.

So we had lots of things happen today so I will progress in point form.

1. We met the plane at a ridiculous hour of the morning and waved bye bye knowing that The Hubbster would have a nice time visiting relatives and lunching whilst I held down the fort at home.

2. We went to Mcdonalds for breakfast where I witnessed a pathetic display of bad parenting by a mother who thinks it is acceptable to scream abuse and hit her three kids helplessly strapped into their carseats. At 7.30 in the morning. Could life be so bad for her that she has to bash her kids so early before having a coffee? Thanks to her, I am now striving to be the best mother I can be.

3. Dropped Miss D at dancing and put the fear of God into the other two that if they misbehaved whilst shopping in Lincraft I would bleed them dry. Or take their toys away. (forget point 2 about being the best mother I can be). They were only okay. I still had to chase them around the craft isle. And in the dvd shop. And in the supermarket. Get my point?

4. Went home to do some chores, and to wait patiently for 4pm so I could have a glass of stress wine, while the kids teased, annoyed and had little fights over every little thing. Remembering that I am striving to be the best mother I can be, thanks to the scary mother at Mcdonalds, I stay calm, don't yell and I refuse to make the kids lunch or let them watch their dvd until their room was tidy and the clothes packed away. Didn't that bug them.

5. Let the dvd be a babysitter for the afternoon (yes me bad but whatever works for the moment) then we showered, made yummy pizzas and I am just about to get them into bed for an early night.

6. Then I will watch my dvd and eat my pizzas and drink my wine and wish I had hired the really scary movie I had wanted to instead of feeling like a sissy girl and getting the comedy.

Writers Workshop

It's time for Writers Workshop courtesy of Mama Kat who may I say has a rockin' blog. Go check it out! I have chosen prompt number 5.) Why is your kid in time out?

Ahhh what a perfect opportunity to dish some dirt on my offspring so I can embarrass them on their 21st birthdays! So my disclaimer for this post is that I love my children more than anything in the world, they are basically good children with a bit of crazy thrown in! And I wouldn't have it any other way!

I am writing about Miss D (aged 8) Mr C (aged 6) and Miss T (aged 4)

My kid(s) is(are) in time out because:-

1 Mr C and Miss T drank 4 bottles of coke zero at once and hid the bottles under their beds. Then they had the hide not to go to sleep until 11.30pm that night as they were crazy on caffeine.

2 Same two kids ate a full packet of Tim Tam chocolate biscuits at one sitting, whilst I was on the telephone.

3 Mr T stripped naked and covered himself head to toe in grease from the bullbar of the car. Even his "you know what I'm talking abouts" got the grease treatment!

4 Someone hits or slaps or screams or swears or pushes the other one so they get time out. To cool down. Do they stay there? Hell no.

5 Miss T who when really pissed off uses words like stupid and sucking hell (because she can't pronounce the "F" sound). I know, I know this is really bad...

When I think about it, I don't use time out alot. In fact, hardly ever. It has to be fairly substantial for one of the kids to have to be put there, so maybe we are not as crazy or dysfunctional as I sometimes think we are!

Bad cinema experience

My friends will tell you how particular, pedantic and slightly obsessive compulsive I am about my cinema experience. You see, one of my favourite things to do is go and watch a movie on the big screen. I love it.

And I love our blockbuster season when all the big gun movies come out.

So I was slightly annoyed and mildly irritated that this evenings cinema experience has been a bit of a let down. I will explain.

I have been waiting to see the new Transformers movie and planned to see it tonight at 6.30pm. I rang the cinema around 4pm to confirm the time, only to be told it had been sold out. Big letdown number 1. The only other movie that interested me was The Proposal, so I decided to see that.

The cinema had about 10 other people in, so I took my usual seat, which is in the middle, two seats in from the right. I like that seat. I spread all my gear out, like I always do, my softdrink on one side and my water on the other. My bag on the seat next to me and my coat on the other. See, I am OCD about this, and my friends know it, but damnit, that's the way I like it.

So bugger me if a couple doesn't come in and sit DIRECTLY behind me. And start opening their crinkly, crackly bags of food right in my ear. When there are 50 other seats vacant. Big letdown number 2. I thought about moving across the isle, but I like this seat. So I put up with it.

Big letdown number 3 was when this big loud grinding sound started coming from the screen, it seemed, so much so that I could hardly hear what the actors were saying. This went on for about 1 hour, and as the movie wasn't really my cup of tea, I just let it go. Then the lights came on, the movie stopped and we sat there like stunned birds in the light.

The movie came back on, sans noise and it was uneventful til the finish. I felt really ripped off, paying $14.00 for a crap movie, one that I couldn't hear and with interuptions, so I marched up to the counter to ask for a refund or a free ticket because for $14.00 I expect a bit better service. And I can be a bitch about things like this.

At this time the next viewing of Transformers was just about to start, so every teenager from a 20 km radius was here, so the assistant asked me to wait by the other counter til he was free. One assistant for the busiest time of the night. Where's the rest of the friggin staff?

I waited for 10 minutes then left as it would be another half an hour before he would be free. And who knows if I would even get a refund. So I drove home, feeling ripped off, unsatisfied and annoyed that my cinema experience was crap.

Tough Farmers Wife

So I sit here @ 3.00pm having a wine because I have been to the Boyne Tannum Hookup and spent over $60.00 on the kids for lunch and rides. And they screamed and complained all the way home. That's gratitude considering how much I detest paying for jumping castles.

So two things have happened today to prove that 1) I am a cranky old woman and 2) I stick up for myself.

1) We were driving to said hookup and out of nowhere a guy drove out in front of us without giving way. I slammed on the brakes, tooted the horn, flashed my lights and tailgated this guy to the supermarket. And he was scared. Because I am in a big Defender and I have a bullbar. He parked right out of the way and didn't get out of his car until I did. Then he scampered into the supermarket before I had time to say "buddy, go back to driving school so you can learn some friggin road rules. I have kids in the car, you loser."

2) Miss T (aged 4) had one ticket left for the rides. After careful consideration, she decided on the red and yellow jumping castle, which only had one little boy on it. Without a lie, she had less than 2 minutes jumping when the woman said "okay time's up, everyone off". WTF there wasn't even any kids waiting to go on. So I said "my daughter just started her jump, she didn't have very long". The woman then let her back on for a jump more worthy of $5.00.

I have always been on the meek side when it comes to confrontations. I always think of something smart to say when the moment is over. But now when it comes to my children, or myself for that matter, I'm a bit harder and stick up for what I believe in. The Hubbster just thinks I'm a bitch. He's possibly right...

Pic of the Day

I'm over my little dummy spit of yesterday. Got it all out, I can breathe a little easier now. Went to the school sports carnival this morning, and watched my kids do their sprints. I love my children and I am so proud of them. Which perfect bush did I pluck these kids from?

Here is a recent sunset, which makes me appreciate where we live and what we will have in the future. If only I can learn to live with my impatience, all will be good.

Frustrated.

I thought it was about time for some house, housekeeping as I haven't really written alot about what is going on here with the faceless house. This could be monotonous and boring, so if I lose some of you on this post, grab a coffee or a wine or some pringles, settle in and suffer with me.

So at present we still look like this:-

When the light at the end of the tunnel should look something along the lines of this:-

As each day passes I get all the more frustrated, pissed off and skeptical that we will ever finish, no I stand corrected, start this friggin house. Nearly 8 months and nothing is done. The plans are currently with the engineer, being "engineered" or whatever the hell they do. I rang him today and he has our plans on his desk, and will hopefully get to them next week. Once he decides that is it actually do-able, that the changes we have made to the floor plan will connect with the build that has already been done, he will let our draftsman know, who will hopefully draw up the finalised plans.

The builder is waiting to get these plans, to quote us. We are still weeks away from even getting to this point, let alone seeing anything physically being done. We were really hoping to have something started by winter, and hello it's winter and jack shit has been done. Everything seems to be taking forever, I feel like we are at a standstill, and time is ticking away because we need to build to lockup during winter, because I am NOT living in this fucking shed for another 12 months. If we don't build to lockup this winter, that is what will happen.

By Christmas we are hoping to have one or two rooms, possibly completed, but even that seems a long way off. I don't expect it all to be done, but a start would be good. Something fucking happen! I can only take so much of living like a neverending bad camping trip before I gouge my eyes out with a stick through utter despair (it's really not that bad but I would like to live in a house again before the kids grow up and move out).

I want to unpack my things and decorate my house and watch dvds in my theatre room. I want patience, someone grant me some before I scream in frustration! I want to plant a garden and not worry about having to move it when we finish the house. I need to stop swearing. I need a punching bag to vent my frustrations out on. I need a stress ball. I just need my house...

Crisis averted

I went to the dvd shop today to face the manager after my faux pas. I shouldn't have worried over the weekend because she was so understanding and wiped the outstanding balance. The way she was talking, if I hadn't already paid half of the money owing, she would have wiped that too. But I am happy with the outcome. She is a nice girl.

Now I can save my mini tantrum for some other time when I completely fuck up.

Happy Birthday to Me...

Hi. I'm Michelle. It's my birthday. Besides a cold sore, a throat infection and coughing up a lung, life's just peachy.

Yes I have another notch on my belt, another year down, or another feather in my cap. Or whatever. What's the deal with birthdays anyway? What do people ACTUALLY do on their birthday?

Does the 20 something young thing put on her glitziest dress and her best heels and go on up to the rooftop party in a building in a great big city, where all her friends have gathered in her honour? Her hair is, of course, fabulous, she sips ladylike from a long fluted champagne glass and all attention is on her? whilst the citylights twinkle in the background? Is this what people really do?

I have had some great birthdays. Last year we had dinner at home with all our family, the kids had a cake for me and I met my guitar for the first time. The year before was the big 4 0, so my fabulous friends took me out for dinner and it was special and wonderful, after spending the day with my family. This year it's a bit different. I am sick, my son and mother in law are sick, the hubbster is working, so we are officially putting off dinner and cake til next week, and as he said "just pretend your birthday is next week so we can celebrate then".

But it's today. The good things about today are spending it with my kids and hubby, and receiving good wishes from my important friends in the real world and in cyberspace, who mean alot to me. But besides that, today has been a little less ordinary. And this is why:-

My son is sick too but desperately wanted to still play football so we drove in to town, only to have him run on once then sit out for the rest of the game. We just should have stayed at home. We were expecting some people to arrive at 11am to look at our car for sale, so instead of doing all the little jobs I wanted to do in town, we flew home with nothing done, arriving by 11am. The people came after lunch. And the best part of the day in a bad kinda way is as follows:-

me: takes 2 overdue dvds back to shop

smarmy girl: these are a week late

me: yes I know, I have been sick in bed since the weekend and totally forgot about them. There should be some overdue fees I owe.

smarmy girl: Yep, you owe $64.00 in overdue fees.

me: looks at her and says goddammotherfucking fuck fuck fucking what

me: (no, I really say) are you kidding me?

smarmy girl: nope. $64.00

me: thinks, stop smiling or I'll jump the counter and give you sixty four dollars worth....

me: pays $30.00 and walks out in disgust

The part of my brain that registers overdue library books and overnight only on dvds sometimes OBVIOUSLY doesn't work. It's my fault, I know but this nearly made me cry. What a waste of money. I have decided to go in on Monday and sweet talk the manager and explain what has happened and see if she will waive the outstanding money. I will also ask if they have procedures in place to ring stupid people like me who don't return library books or dvds on time. I rang 3 shops in town and they all give a courtesy phonecall or text if new releases are late. That will be my trump card. Wouldn't you think that someone in the shop would have noticed that not one but two new release dvds were outstanding for a number of days, oh hang on, they are kids movies. Maybe that doesn't count.

If she makes me pay the outstanding money, I am going to cut up my membership card there and then, throw it on the floor, jump around on it and have a mini tantrum, because sometimes people just have to give a little....

Ha Ha Silly Women

I was watching the news on tv the other day and there was a story about some protestors at Parliament House, or some other important building.

I don't even remember what they were protesting about because the whole thing was riotously funny. There were these women, dressed in their work shirts, skirts and heels sitting on the floor, surrounded by security guards, chanting some mantra about climate change or whatever the F they were going on about that day.

And this is the funny part. Every time a security guard went to remove them from the building, these chicks did the floppy toddler, which is not unlike all my children at aged 2 when they had a tantrum in Kmart. I would go to pick them up and they would go all floppy and impossible to move, and blow me down, these women were doing the EXACT same thing.

They would go all floppy like rag dolls, when the guards were trying to pick them up, and I don't know how security stay so calm in these situations. It was a cringe worthy and embarassing sight to behold, grown women acting like this. I mean if they were drunk I could totally understand, but in this case they were making idiots of themselves. Totally for our amusement!

Night from Hell, so what's new.

I had a night from hell last night. Mothers will know these nights by how wrecked they feel in the morning. It all started off fine but soon disolved into crap. Utter crap. It went a bit like this:-

We put Miss T (aged 4) to bed at her usual time of 7.30pm, and my son and I layed on the lounge and watched some uninteresting show on tv. Soon we were both asleep by 8pm. It's time for an early night, farmerswife thinks. (as I am a nightowl, 8.45pm is an extremely early night).

Everyone else was asleep as I slid deliciously into my cosy king sized bed, which cost us $2500 (crazy price at the time) but is worth every cent and more. I drifted off into a calm deep sleep until I woke at 11.30pm with the mother of all migraine headaches, enough to glue my head to the pillow (where TF did that come from?).

On my left was the hubbster, sound asleep and snoring like a freight train (he finds this hilariously funny when I say this, I just want to punch him out) right in my ear. And on my left, in the kids section of the bedroom, as we are all sharing because we don't have a house (yet) was Miss T crying, twitching, kicking her blankets off, snorting and sniffling.

Every time the hubbster has to work early, it's either a kid wakes up and plays up or the dog moans, barks and kicks her dish around, waking him in the process which is not good. I tried to calm down Miss T, but she wouldn't have it. No, to mummy lay down with you. No, to mummy fix your blankets up.

I finally settled her, and resumed my horizontal position and waited for the codeine to kick in. An hour later we repeated the process, with mummy trying to stay calm, which got harder as the night progressed. Finally after about 8 rounds of this, I felt like saying to her "Go to sleep or I'll put you in the friggin tennis court" but instead I said "Go to sleep and I'll buy you a chocolate tommorrow".

This worked and 10 minutes later, the hubbster woke to go to work, and Miss T went into a deep sleep. Guess who wouldn't get out of bed later on because she was tired. Hmm.

We were both so tired today, that we climbed into bed at 11am, I scratched her back and she was out to it. As was I.

While she was sleeping, I decided to make my lunch. I made this.

Then I whipped up some of these little beauties for the kids afternoon tea.

More choc bits Farmerswife!!

Cuppa tea anyone???

We love Visitors

We had so much excitement in the shed today. We were expecting visitors. Just some people to look at the Hubbsters bike for sale, but you would have thought we were expecting the Queen, or Antonio Banderas (mummy dribbles) or even the yellow Wiggle, the way the kids were carrying on.

I wonder is it because we have been living out of town for (6 months tommorrow - yay I made it this far!) and the kids are maybe having withdrawl symptoms from society. Wait a minute, they go to school and kindy, so crap that idea. I think it's just that my poppets are very excitable, friendly and outgoing kids, and actually I love that about them. But try having a conversation with the visitors and this happens:-

Miss T takes Mr C's expensive train station to the tennis court and starts throwing it around, up and down, smash and smash.

Mr C shows the visitors all of his football shorts, his kicking style and his numerous missing teeth.

Miss D makes the visitors lots of pretty notes and fans to take home with them.

All kids attack the fridge and pour themselves, milk, orange juice and custard, because they know I am busy and I won't stop them. Little Devils.

They get so excited when we have guests, even if it is the builder, who by the way came out Friday, and man, do I like him! I love that he sits and has a cuppa tea, and that he reminds me of our old friend from way back (we haven't got his quote yet, so we'll see how I feel then!).

He really knows his stuff, and the more people we talk to, the more little snippets we find out about him, and they are all good. This week, we have to contact our man doing the plans and put a hurry up on him as the builder is waiting for the finalised plans so he can do our quote. So get the plans done, get the quote done, have a stiff drink when we see how much it will cost us to build to lock up. Take the Hubbster to the doctor to be stress evaluated and away we go!

Hopefully by Sept/Oct we will have a house built to look like a house but be unfinished inside. Then we can oh potter around and finish it in our own time. I may have hmmm, a bedroom and a verandah by Christmas and oh a kitchen would be nice but I'm not pushing my luck.

BTW a bit over two weeks ago, I stopped feeding Miss T (aged 4 but having tantrums the size of a 2 year old) biscuits, pretzels, in fact any thing with preservatives in them, to see if that calmed her down a bit. I have been making and baking (call me Martha Stewart, god I love her hair) muffins and cakes for the kids lunchboxes and I can honestly say, Miss T's behaviour has dramatically improved. We haven't had any midnight tantrums, except for the hair band incident at 11.30pm last week, and she has been almost a pleasure to have around. In fact, she is a pleasure because she is a great packer uppa, she is always is the first to help and is generally easier to get along with.

So our visitors have gone and now the kids are in their trashed room, packing away the toys and chaos that happened at 8am this morning. They are under duress of course, because really THEY DIDN'T DO IT. Sorry kids, that defence was used up years ago. Get to it.

One last thing before I go, and crap this is a long post, I have given up wine and am on day 7. Whatever.

She didn't get this attitude from me .......

I just had a fight with Miss D. 8 years old going on 15 I think. What an attitude, I have NO idea where she got that from (michelle rolls her eyes).

We actually get on really well, but when we fight, it's usually because she is being cheeky with the demanding, toss the hair thing going on, and I put up with it til I can put up no longer. Then I usually yell at her and she storms off in a huff, until I calm the waves by hugging or tickling her and all is well again.

She is a born organiser, and a leader which are great attributes to have, and I am so proud of her for being strong. But she likes to rule the other kids too and this I don't like. It's all dramatic and loud, and somedays it drives me crazy. But as a mother, it's my job to stay calm, to address her attitude with a motherly demeanor and not yell. I am working on this, some days I do it well, other days I completely fuck it up.

I am to blame somewhat because as the eldest child, I expect alot from her, and I sometimes forget that she is only 8. She is so helpful, smart and wonderful, and I rely on her to help me with the two younger kids occasionally and I think this crosses over to her wanting to be the boss. And this makes me sad, that the fine line between the two is easily confused.

I had waited to have a child for so long, and I had dreamed about the baby I would have. When I first saw her, after 25 hours of labour, I remember staring at her lips, the cupids bow so beautiful and her eyes which were exactly like her daddy's. I was in shock that she was so gorgeous and that I had made her and that she was mine. Forget the next 3 months of hell!! with reflux and not sleeping, that moment I will never forget.

So to my darling big girl, I love you, and I am sorry that we fight sometimes, but you will always be my first special baby. You made me a mother.

Mummy has a headache.

Yes I have a headache. A tension headache. I am kinda thinking what the hell have we done? Have we bought ourselves a big problem by buying a partially built house, and not just starting from scratch?

To explain, we saw our consultant today. I immediately liked him. He was an older gentlemen with loads of experience in building, drafting, surveying and the like We knew he would advise us correctly because he has been around for years and you can't beat experience and knowledge. And passion for what you do, and he has that in spades.

He also lived in an old country house that he built himself, and I really loved that. We explained our current situation, and the things that are worrying us. Besides giving us good practical advice, he explained that building our home is a journey, we need time out, we need to chill (not his words!) and we have to go step by step and enjoy the process.

Now I thought building was just drawing a floor plan, submitting it to council, organising a someone to build the thing and move in. I have so much to learn...

Things I didn't know and wished I did before starting this "lets build our dream home and be owner builders for part of it" blah blah blah

1 If a measurement on a plan reads at 300 but the wood on the house is built to 450, that could be a problem.

2 Hard wood is graded and if left to sit for a certain amount of time, the grading changes, which in turn may stuff up the plan already done.

3 Nothing ever gets done quickly and everything costs more.

So today we are getting measurements on what's been done, to give to our man who will draw up the floor plan. Then the three of us will meet the original engineer who drew up the plans, to voice our concerns and issues and really get the ball rolling. We have only today found out he is still around, I wish we knew this at the beginning.

So it's baby steps. But that's fine because we are that little bit closer to the end result. I think we are nervous because we are so new to this, having never built a house before and there is so much detail involved. Life is a challenge and this is ours.

And another thing, if Miss T (aged 4) doesn't stop having middle of the night, throw herself on the floor, scream like a banshee tantrums, I am going to poke myself in the eye with a stick.

Just Another Day

Miss T (aged 4 years) had a tantrum today. She looked me square in the eye, wiped the floor with her toothbrush and threw it down the paddock.

I think she will be really good at sports someday ...