Worrying won’t stop bad stuff happening

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The homework battle

I am so sick and tired of the homework battle!!!! Why is it so hard to get the message through to teenagers that school work is important, in fact at this point of their lives it is the most important thing.

Every day when my teenage son comes out of school I ask him the very same question, “do you have any homework?” And everyday I get the same reply “no” sometimes I will also get “I did it at school”

Today after basketball training I hear from friends that there are in fact three pieces of homework due tomorrow and to make matters worse his iPad is not working and needs to be reset to factory settings.

So here I am having confiscated all the gaming controllers in the house, his laptop and any other electrical gadget that could cause distraction, trying to bite my tongue while I wrestle with the dilemma of whether or not I should write a note to get him out of trouble tomorrow, and If I do, is that just enabling him to continue disregarding his homework?

Bring back the sunshine

I have had this feeling of impending doom for quite a while now.  No matter what I do I just can’t shake it.  The weather here in Melbourne is cold and wet and miserable and it pretty much sums up everyones mood of late.

 I have one friend grieving the sudden loss of her husband. One friend coming to terms with a terminally ill nephew and now the possiblity of fighting cancer herself.

My mother-in-law is unwell, my father-in-law is showing early signs of memory loss. Dexter is still not better, I took him out on a test walk yesterday and  even though we only went around the block by the end of the walk he was limping.  

Then today the icing on the cake was when one of our most difficult clients ever called this morning and created chaos in his usual arrogant and loathful manner.

This client is a pathological lier, he starts off all nice and friendly and the minute things dont go his way, he turns into this horrible bully who tries to intimidate and abuse with his vulgarity.  The mere mention of his name is enough ruin our day. In the span of half an hour he called 7 times this morning.

I am hoping that the weather is what is causing this  bad feeling  and that once the sun is back warming us with its happy rays, this feeling of doom will dissolve.

Dexter is unwell

Dexter is unwell. The call came just on 3pm today from my eldest who had just come home after spending the day with his cousin. Dexter was squealing in pain which as far as my son could tell seemed to be coming from his back legs.

When I got home around 3:40pm I found Dexter shivering on the floor beside my son. He did run up to greet me and the twins (who I’d just picked up from school), but was unable to jump up and down as he always does whenever we come home. He couldn’t even sit down properly and from my first observation I could see that his hip joint seemed rather swollen at either side. Running my hand down his back and across his hips resulted in more screams of pain.

We called the Vet and Madelyn and I drove him down to the clinic, which fortunately is only up the road. Dexter couldn’t jump into the car by himself and so I had to lift him up which of course caused him more pain which resulted in more yelping.

Without an X-ray it is hard to determine what the problem is. The Vet was able to rule out knees and feet, the problem seems to be more lower back /spine and hip. It could be a pinched nerve, it could be arthritis, it could even be nerve damage.

The Vet gave Dexter an anti inflammatory injection and a pain killer injection and has sent him home with a bag full of tablets that he will need to take for the next 10 days. At the moment he seems to be comfortable although he was not able to get up on the couch or the bed, and has chosen a warm spot on the carpet in Madelyn’s room, where she has lovingly wrapped him up in her blanket.

To some people a dog is merely a pet, an animal they have taken in for one reason or another, but for us Dexter is a member of our family, he is the happy face that greets us every day, he is a best friend, a companion, fur kid and fur brother. The boys didn’t want to come to the vet today because they couldn’t stand seeing Dexter in so much pain. Hopefully Dexter has just pulled a muscle and will be back to his crazy bouncy happy ways in no time at all.

Working Through Change

Change is good. At least that’s what they tell us. Maybe if we were more open to the idea of change, and not be so resistant, we may be able to embrace whatever new and exciting thing was coming our way.

Today we sat through a three hour Professional Development session about “working through change” it was interesting, and really a lot of the principles apply to every aspect of life not just necessarily work.

The company I work for has recently gone through a merger, and although we are now over 6 months into the process the impact of the merger is only now starting to be felt in the organisation.

The recent budget has really hit hard and funding in many key areas has been cut, this no doubt will mean some restructure, possible contract renegotiation and even retrenchment.

I think we all realised this PD was a way of preparing us for the unsettling times ahead.

What I took away from this PD, something I have been telling my husband a lot lately, as he too struggles to adjust to a new position at work, is that work is only one part of our life, it is not our whole life. As long as we can focus on the fact that work is merely a means to an end we should be able to get through this merger relatively unscathed, well that’s my plan anyway.

Why?

Life is so precious, every moment in our lives is a gift that needs to be cherished. I am reminded of this yet again as a dear friend of mine struggles to come to terms with her life being turned upside down.

My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family during these tough times. I sometimes wonder why we are given the challenges that we are. Why it always seems to be the best of us that are given the largest crosses to bear.

I don’t have any of the answers I am afraid, I can only guess that these challenges are meant to test us, to make us more resilient, there must be some greater plan out there that I seem to be missing.

And I guess it all comes down to one thing, and that is the present. We must each and everyone of us live our lives to the fullest. We must be thankful for all that we have. For all the wonderful people in our lives, for our beautiful pets, and even for our jobs, after all they are what put food on the table and help us pay the bills. There is no point worrying about tomorrow for all we know tomorrow may never arrive.

Not looking forward to this coming week

One of the community newspapers that I write for has been going through some hard times lately, and the decision to pull the pin and give up looks like the only alternative at this stage.

We have gone from a production team of 7 down to 3, and if I was to be totally honest, it really is only 2 people doing most of the work.

It’s not enough that we can’t find help with the content and formatting, but we are really having a big issue in getting any sponsorship.

Most months we are lucky if we can cover our printing costs. It is only due to a small grant that we received last year that we have been able to hang in there as long as we have.

When asked how important a community newspaper is to the local area, most people agree that it is invaluable, but when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is I guess that’s a whole different story.

It’s sad to see something you have loved and worked so hard on fold, but at this point I really can’t see any alternative.

This week is going to be full of meetings and emotions will be running high, I may need to stock up on chocolate to help me get through, of course if chocolate fails to help there is always wine right?

Chaos

I was so disappointed today! My son has finally joined a soccer team something he has been wanting to do for a while now, and the soccer season is about to kick off on Sunday. Today only 3 days before the opening game we were advised that we would finally be collecting the uniforms and kits, for which we have paid quite handsomely for I might add, back in November last year when we first registered for soccer.

I received a text message this morning asking if I would be able to help out with the distributing of the kits, to which I said ofcourse I would. So as promised I turned up early ready to help out, only to discover the most chaotic, the most unorganised event I could have ever imagined.

All the sizes they ordered were all wrong, apparently they have a large amount of XXS and Mediums but no Small sizes. Even the few children that did mange to get their kits today did not necessarily receive the correct size.

I mean come on people, what a disgrace!! The children are so excited so looking forward to finally receiving their gear and then this. You only had 6 months to arrange this. How could you mess up so badly? What happens to the kids that won’t have a uniform in which to play in on Sunday?

The people who were so called in charge today had no idea, they were totally clueless. Our boys don’t even have their player jerseys yet. How bad is that!

I was really looking forward to soccer, I know how much this means to my son, and I was so pleased that he was finally going to get a chance to play the sport he loves so much, however if today was any indication of what we can expect from the club, then I am really worried.