Me Again

I'm just checking in here again. It's been a while. However, after reading my last post I definitely sounded a tad unhinged, so it was probably a good thing that I stepped away from the internet/keyboard for a while. Awkward. 

Besides, I have absolutely nothing at all to say. Not a thing. Much like in real life. At least I'm consistent with some things.

Um, what can I say? Oh yeah. Comfort zones. I've actually been busy doing stuff away from the internet lately. Plus, I don't really have a laptop anymore and it's impossible for me to blog with a phone. That's why I've been missing in action from here. Anyway, nobody really noticed. Sniff.

Yes, I've been well and truly out of my comfort zone of late. First of all, I started going to a writing group. In this group I have to read what I write out loud. That is well and truly out of my comfort zone. Fortunately, everybody is very supportive in the group.

Second of all, I'm also doing a Tafe course two days a week. This means actually leaving the house and being around those scary things called people. I don't know what it is going to eventuate from this. I think about the possibly of getting a job and feel physically ill. Not because I'm not keen to work. I am. It's just because of the dreaded old job interview thing.

I've probably mentioned this before (about three paragraphs ago and in every other post), but I'm not really very good at talking. It seems that they actually expect you to say something during interviews. So weird. Also, I can't make eye contact. I expect this is in part because of shyness, but also because I have Asparagus Syndrome.  If you don't make eye contact during interviews people think you're hiding something or are a serial killer waiting to happen. Or something. So, we'll see. Watch this space.

Meanwhile, Mickey Blue Eyes has taken the boys to the movies so I'm enjoying some quiet time and lap top time. The school holidays whizzed by despite having nothing planned. We did visit with relatives and caught up with friends, which is good enough for me. I'm one of those bizarre individuals who likes to stay home. The feeling of waking up in the morning and having NOTHING planned is pure bliss for me. Yep, I'm boring.

It occurred to me yesterday that being such a homebody while simultaneously being a such spectacularly shite housekeeper is another one of those strange but fascinating contradictions about me.

The weather around here has been batshit crazy lately.  Is it batshit or bat shit? One word or two? Not sure. I must admit I do love a rainy day occasionally but this is ridiculous. Yesterday Mickey Blue Eyes left with the boys to go to a Wanderers game. Not long after he left it started pelting down. I dashed outside to bring the washing in. As soon as I opened the back door Cookie (our dog) bolted inside, beside herself. I only just made it back inside with the washing before it began hailing.

I sat in my rocking chair near the front window with Cookie in my lap watching the hail. This is not very interesting, but I can't make stuff up. I'm not Belle Gibson. Thankfully. Silly woman.

After the hail storm abated, I booted Cookie back outside (yep, I'm mean) and decided to do aerobics. By this stage I'd chugged down a rather large scotch and coke. To my surprise I discovered that tipsy aerobics is fun! And yes, I can get tipsy on only one drink.

I'm as fit and agile as Denise freaking Austin when I'm tipsy! Bring on those grapevines!

I had just gotten to the cool down when Mick and the boys burst back in the front door sodden and sullen. They'd abandoned the game after it was delayed in the wet weather. Mercifully, they had managed to miss the worst of the hail, so there was no damage on our car.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a headache and sore throat. The boys have been rather thoughtfully sharing their Man Colds. In other riveting news, I was supposed to go to the dentist this morning but I still have a sore throat and a Little Man who deserves an Oscar. He's home from school after complaining of a stomach ache, but seems perfectly fine now. You'd think that almost 14 years into this parenting thing I wouldn't fall for these shenanigans. Sigh.

On a final note, this turned up in my Facebook and I thought I would leave you with it because we could all do with some motivation on a Monday. Especially those of us who are massive introverts and would rather stay in bed under the covers.

Have a great week!

Linking up for I Must Confess.

When was the last time you were out of your comfort zone?

Batshit or bat shit?

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Hot Topic

I don't need to tell you it's hot. You're most likely aware of it from the small detail of your face melting off your skull. Unless you are not in Australia. We are, of course, in our summer months presently.

The heat is often a hot topic (pun intended) for these bogans.  Micky Blue Eyes loves summer. In fact, if he had his way we would probably be heading up to Darwin next Tuesday instead of Queensland. He frequently makes remarks like:

"Wouldn't it be great to be somewhere up in the top end now, in one of the water holes, having a dip!"

I usually look at him as if he is deranged. Clearly he is. He grew up in a family who were not familiar with air conditioning. In fact my out-laws still do not have air conditioning in their home. Therefore, another frequent comment I hear, is "We never had air conditioning, when I was a kid!"

My parents, on the other hand, live in a perpetual state of 'heat horror'. In fact they had to go away to the country for the weekend for my Uncle's 80th birthday celebration. My mother was not impressed at the weather predictions. It was as if my Uncle had an unmitigated gall to have been born in summer, so I'm surprised I was born in January.

We were lucky enough to have had air conditioning from the time I was about five or six. I was constantly reminded how of how lucky I was, by my heat fearing parents.Whenever anybody we knew was foolhardy enough to go away for a family vacation, during the summer holidays, they were immediately dismissed as being completely and totally INSANE. We rarely had summer holidays. As I have always been an indoorsy, bookish person, this never bothered me greatly.

However, since meeting Micky Blue Eyes all that has changed. Now, we will usually go away somewhere during the summer holidays. And that somewhere will always be HOT.  There is not really any escaping it in Summer time, in Australia.  I don't mind going away. In fact, I usually end up enjoying it.

My only aversion to the heat, revolves around the reality of being a 'ranga'. This, of course, means that I have the pallid, almost translucent, freckled skin that goes with it.  Five minutes in the sun and I am decidedly pinkish. Ten minutes equals serious sunburn. After fifteen minutes, I may as well say hellooo Melanoma.   All the 30 plus sunscreen will not prevent me from being burnt somewhat.

Therefore, I really prefer to remain indoors as much as possible. Meanwhile, Micky Blue Eyes will want to hit the beach and go for as many walks as possible. He never likes to actually admit that it's hot. Instead he'll attempt to think of as many inventive excuses as to why he feels hot.

"Maybe it's because I'm not playing soccer/doing enough exercise and sweating it out so that's why I'm sweating now." That is a familiar one.

Or, it's the chair he's sitting on is leather so that is making him sweat not the fact that it's 40 degrees in the shade.  Similar to how most males won't ever ask for directions when lost, Micky Blue Eyes will never admit that is, indeed hot, and the heat is effecting him.

He laments the fact that air conditioning is contributing to global warming and that people have become far too dependent on it. Which I have. Thanks Mum and Dad.

Just to be thoroughly inconsistent though, as much as I abhor the heat, I definitely do not think the cold is any better. No matter how many times people tell me that it is 'easy' to warm up, just chuck on some extra clothes, I have personally never found that theory to be true. My feet remain blocks of ice all through winter despite three pairs of socks and Ugg Boots.  I've even been known to have cold feet as late in the year as November. Now that is just plain wrong.  I must have been a frog in past life or some other cold blooded animal.

So here I will be complaining about the weather for at least half of the year. I whinge when it's hot. I whinge when it's cold.  Right, excuse me while I go back to melting.

How do you survive the heat? Do you love the heat? Prefer the cold? Don't care? Let's discuss the weather! It's fascinating. Isn't it? Oh okay, I'll shut up about it.

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