Changes

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Over the past few weeks I have had four dreams where I have discovered strange rooms in our house. Like, rooms I didn’t know anything about, and suddenly there was this whole new section to our home that I’d never seen before. The first one was just weird, and I put it down to pregnancy, but when it started to reoccur I grew curious. So I turned to Google (what would we do without it?), and amongst a whole lot of borderline creepy new age-y stuff, and the above picture, I found that the thought is that these kind of dreams happen when your subconscious is getting you ready for surprises in your life - new interests, goals, potential ventures, and/or unexpected possibilities, and whole unexplored parts of yourself that you never knew existed.

Weird. But then I thought about it more and began to realise how much our life is about to change.

The obvious one is a new baby. Having three children is definitely going to be a big change in our life. I remember reading an article once by this mother who was totally overwhelmed by the idea of having more kids than hands, and I can tell you now that I completely relate. I feel somehow like this jump between two to three is going to take a bigger stride than the one between one and two. It’s going to mean changes in our home too; we’ll have to shuffle bedrooms and the ‘Making Room’ so that we can all fit. Lots of change, in lots of ways.

Reuben is finally having his endoscopy procedure next week. We will hopefully have his diagnosis confirmed, and, God willing, can hopefully get the answers we need to start to close the door on that yucky chapter of his life. This will definitely be a good change.

We are also entering a new phase in our life that is going to last for many years. School. We will for the first time be ruled by a strict routine. Little Tadpole is going to have to fit naps wherever they fit, because there will be a school run to consider! It’s going to mean earlier nights and earlier mornings, lunchboxes, homework, uniforms, commitments.

And then there’s Mayana. My beautiful girl who is, as I write this, at her very last day of Kindergarten. Who in about 52 days begins her schooling journey. I’ve written before about how confronting I’m finding this season. It’s one of those things that has always been looming.. you know it’s coming and you try to prepare yourself for it, but all of a sudden, it’s here! Those seemingly endless days of full-time Mayana, where I’m her number one and we get to play and learn and do everything together, they’re almost over. I know some of those things will stay the same but I also know it will be different. Almost like I’m handing over the reins to another person to help bring her up. Mayana is so excited, and I know that she will thrive at school. She cannot wait to learn how to read (I think she believes it will magically occur after her first day), and told me last night that she plans to read to our whole family every single night. She is going to make lots of friends and learn so many new things and love every minute of it, I have no doubt about that. But I am going to miss her.

I keep thinking about the year that I worked, and Pete was at home with her. I remember on my first day, it was so overwhelming… meeting all these new people, learning about my new responsibilities and systems and how things work, and all the time with this huge dull ache in my chest, thinking to myself what am I doing! I should be with my baby! My baby is not my baby anymore. She’s a confident and self-assured, outgoing and bubbly, beautiful, kind and friendly nearly-five-year-old. How on Earth did that even happen! I could never keep her from this just because I don’t feel ready, and the thought hasn’t even cross my mind. But I am finding it a lot to process. I’m an over-thinker, I always have been. My brain literally never stops. Ever.

We took her to her Prep orientation the other week and she was so excited to meet her teacher, whom she greeted like royalty, and happy to recognise some familiar faces of kids who will be in her class. She spotted dress-ups and was adorned in a flowing princess gown before we knew it. She coloured in and played with playdough, did a painting, decorated a biscuit, and played with her Papa in the playground. She looked right at home. We bought her school uniforms, which will probably not need replacing until about grade three by the looks of how big they are, and she just about was bursting out of her skin! She’s so ready for this. And I am nearly ready to let her fly. I love watching her grow, I always have. She’s a seriously cool chick, and I’m so genuinely proud to be her Mama. Of course, I’m going to be pretty much eight months pregnant and surging with hormones on her first day of school and can pretty much guarantee that there will be tears.. but also that they will not be from her.

So maybe my weird room-dreams do make sense. I think I have a lot to learn about me, in this new stage of parenting – the one with three kids and the one with a school-aged-kid. Hopefully those new parts of me will be as cool as the random rooms I discovered in my dream house.

a peek inside my head right now

I love being a mum. And I love staying at home with my kids. And I wouldn’t change the way our life is now for the world. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder ‘what if’.

Seeing all my friends finish up another year with their classes, getting excited to see who is going to be in their class next year… I must admit I feel a tad jealous. I taught for a year, but I didn’t get any of that. I loved DE, I loved stretching myself in writing curriculum (I still can’t believe that I achieved writing an entire distance education curriculum for a year level!) and learning about and delivering education in an e-learning context. It was exciting and hard work, but I missed kids. Distance Education is like a whole other job from teaching in a regular classroom, and you miss the part where you actually get to see kids have their ah-huh moments, and for me that’s where a whole lot of the job satisfaction comes from. Seeing a bunch of kids learn and develop soooo many new skills over a period of year, and being able to look back and see how far you’ve brought them. That is something I’m yet to experience, and I yearn for it.

I’m in a weird place in my head, because I love being at home with my kids and don’t want to miss out on this time with them. I’m not begrudging my current life choices, but I just want to know what that feels like. I don’t want to get to the point when all my kids are finally in school and I can go back only to find that my skill set is wrong…. I guess I’m scared that maybe they won’t have me. I have concerns that my only experience since graduating is in distance education and e-learning, and that potential future employers will look at the big gaping hole of classroom and behaviour management experience. I don’t won’t to be pegged into that one field, because as much as I enjoyed my work there, it didn’t give me that vocational satisfaction that I went into this career for.

I’m so proud of my husband. He’s working in a job that, let’s face it, pays far less and has longer hours and shorter holidays than he really could be entitled to as a qualified teacher. And to top that off, he has to do further TAFE study to be qualified properly for the early childhood field (go figure). But he loves his job, and has great job satisfaction and can see himself being a kindergarten educator long term. I think he’s awesome. And as the kindergarten program gains momentum and parents begin to see it’s importance in preparing their children for the Australian Curriculum Prep Year (which is much more akin to what year one used to be than what we remember as ‘preschool’), I know that more and more schools will implement their own kindergarten programs, and it’s not unreasonable to foresee that he could end up teaching in his preferred field in an actual school and getting the award that he really does deserve.

What a ramble. I guess I’m just feeling a bit sad today, and the pessimistic side of me is wondering why I bothered with five years of studying when no one wants me. Which is ridiculous I know. I have chosen the position that I am in right now, and there’s no saying that someone wouldn’t employ me if I started applying for jobs tomorrow. Maybe I’m too scared to in case I do get rejected. Mostly I’m happy to stay at home, but I do want to put my feelers out and keep my skills up to make sure that in a few more years, when I’m ready to get back out there, someone will have me. I am a good teacher. I know that I am. I just need to have a chance to prove it.. to myself mostly.

Until then, I’ll be here window shopping online at postgraduate certificates and diplomas that might help to expand my skillset a little, and next year I’ll get the ball rolling with my Education Queensland registration so that I can try and pick up a bit of supply work and classroom experience, and money to fund said further education (yikes is it expensive!). I’ll be back out there. One day I will. In the meantime I’ll just concentrate on the most important teaching job I’ll ever have: being a Mama.

Mother’s Guilt

Today I started supplementing Reuben’s feeds with formula, and this has opened a can of worms in my mind.

Despite the fact that Reuben is substantially bigger than his sister was at this same age, over the past few weeks his weight gains have been somewhat dismal. My child health nurse is wonderful, and has not once made me feel any kind of guilty, and has supported me to the hilt with my desire to exclusively breastfeed. For about the past month, Reuben has wanted to feed about every 1.5 hours through the day. Occasionally I can stretch him through to 2 hours but it can be a battle. While he was sleeping well at night, I could deal with this, telling myself that this was the price I paid to sleep well at night. However, for the past two weeks or so, Reuben has decided that feeding 2 hourly at night was also necessary. My wonderful husband has tried so hard to settle Reuben back to sleep without being fed to let me sleep, but the poor baby is actually hungry, and won’t be placated with anything but a feed.

Feeding Reuben anywhere between 10 to 12 times a day is utterly exhausting. Although he is a quick feeder, it takes up a lot of my time and means that I get less time to look after Mayana, the house, and myself. It also means that Reuben’s day sleeps have become terrible, since he is always waking up looking for food. When he feeds he is never still; he kicks and wriggles, pulls off and whinges. He has become less and less happy in general, and there have been days when I feel that all he does is cry.  Today when I took Reuben to be weighed, he had lost ten grams. Lost ten grams in spite of constant feeding. I couldn’t believe it. This is the second time in three weeks that he has pulled a negative number (he gained 200g+ last week and I thought we were well back on track). Alison asked me gently how I thought my supply was going. I honestly hadn’t thought about it. In my mind (and I’m sure I’ve blogged about it), Reuben was feeding more frequently because he was going through a growth spurt and was trying to up my supply. For a few days there I was getting that ‘full’ feeling again, and experiencing letdown when Rueben drank. When Alison asked me that today, I realised that I really wasn’t sure how it was going. I know that for the past few days I have not been able to tell which side I am up to when I’m feeding – which I really should since he only feeds on one side per feed. This I assumed was because he was full, but maybe it’s because he had exhausted himself trying to drink from the first side? I realised that Reuben falls asleep at the breast almost every time I feed him. Maybe because he is relaxed… but again, maybe because he’s exhausted himself?

All I know is that I’m giving him all I’ve got, and often at the expense of the rest of my family… and it’s not seeming that it’s enough.

I don’t want to paint Alison in a ‘typical health-worker who points to formula the second something looks “wrong”’ kind of light, because she is so far from that it’s not funny. Alison asked me today what I thought I should do. No prompting, no ideas or opinions. She told me to trust my instinct. And my instinct told me that Reuben is just not getting enough from me. I hesitantly, and with tears in my eyes, said to her, “I think I need to give him some formula.”

Mother guilt is a strange beast. In that moment I felt wildly guilty, and yet at the same time as though a huge weight had lifted off my shoulders. Guilty that I was letting him down by introducing some formula to him, but also guilty that I hadn’t maybe done it sooner and made my baby happier. Relieved that I don’t have to keep putting myself through the stress of this, and then guilty for feeling relieved. Terrified that once he gets a taste of the bottle he’ll reject me completely and just like that our breastfeeding relationship will be over.

The truth is, I haven’t been enjoying breastfeeding lately (ooh and there’s that guilt again). I love the idea that I am nourishing him, I love the special snuggles… but it’s been hard and frustrating and all. the. time. And it’s no fun when it’s like that.

I am at peace with the fact that my children will never be big kids. I know that when I started Mayana on supplement feeds she still didn’t start making massive weight gains, and at 3 years old she’s still only scraping in on the 3rd percentile on the weight graph. I don’t mind if my baby is not chubby or rolly. I am the first one to tell you that there has to be babies at both ends of the spectrum for those graphs to exist in the first place. I don’t want a big baby, and that’s not what it’s about. Even the weight gain thing doesn’t bother me (well, it does when he loses weight, if it’s slow I’m okay with that). What I do want though is a baby who is happy and healthy, and not hungry.

Today when I fed Reuben his first bottle of formula, he laid on my lap and drank. He didn’t fidget or kick or pull off or cry. He laid still and drank and drank, and within about 20 minutes, that 250mL of formula was almost completely gone. I fed him with tears running down my cheeks, telling him I was sorry, but I realise now that it’s okay with him. His tummy is full, it wasn’t a stressful experience for him. Maybe he was even a little bit relieved too. After I fed him, he burped but didn’t throw up. He always throws up, and after watching him guts so much milk, I’m somewhat baffled as to why? It will be interesting to see what difference this formula makes to his vomiting. I wrapped him up, put his dummy in his mouth, and laid him in his bed, with no protest. For the first time in weeks. He’s been in there for nearly an hour now, and I haven’t heard a peep. For the last two weeks, he’s been awake within 40 minutes, looking for another feed.

So yes. I’m relieved. And I’m feeling guilty. But right now, having processed my morning by writing about it here, the scales are starting to tip more towards relieved. I’m still planning on breastfeeding Reuben as well. At this point I will give him two bottles of formula, and 3-5 breastfeeds a day – mainly because this was the pattern that my very wonderful GP in Toowoomba suggested for Mayana when I started her on supplement feeds.

You know what? I’m a little bit proud of myself. Today I made a decision for Reuben, and God knows it was a hard one. I could have fought it and kept going with my two hourly breastfeeds because that’s what I think is the ideal thing. But instead, I swallowed my pride, and my Dutch stubbornness, listened to my Mama instincts and made a decision that I think will be the best one for Reuben… and for Peter and Mayana. Mother’s guilt can go jump.

When being a mum is tough

We have had some struggles this week.

The day after I wrote my post about Mayana’s kindy lunches and how happy I was that they seemed to be working well, it all went downhill. For a few days in a row, more and more food came home in her lunchbox, then we started having fights every breakfast and dinner time. We basically had to force-feed her dinner for about three nights in a row, and then we had one day where she ate no breakfast, no Kindy food and no dinner, aside from the one mouthful she held in her mouth for almost half an hour before finally swallowing. That night ended in many many tears… from both of us.

I know in my head that she won’t starve herself… I know all of those arguments. But, I also know that for her entire three years of life, pretty much every person I have ever met has commented about how small she is. I know how crap it was to be told she had ‘Failure to Thrive’ when she was a baby, and that if she contracted any kind of significant illness, her size would mean that she possibly wouldn’t survive it. I remember weighing nappies, and weekly disappointing weigh-ins and fortnightly urine tests. And those memories kind of come flooding back when we go through phases like this, and make me a bit crazy and paranoid.

Of course, the day after I lost the plot about her lack of eating, she ate an entire bowl of bircher muesli for breakfast, came home with an empty lunchbox and had seconds at dinner… leaving me feeling like a complete idiot.

She has also been a little trying in other ways these past few weeks… just frustrating little things and bad behaviours that are made more frustrating by the fact that she knows better. ‘Listening Ears’ and ‘Good Choices’ are the buzz words in our house at the moment. I have no doubt that it is not coincidence that her behaviour has changed so drastically at the same time as she’s started going to Kindy practically full-time. It’s definitely not an ideal situation, and I’m really glad that we only have to do it for a few more weeks.

The Kindy days are huge, and added to that is the fact that she is in her Papa’s Kindy room, and has to share him with 20+ other kids, when he’s been all hers for the past 12 months. A friend of mine suggested that the food thing might be more of a control issue – in that it is one thing that at the moment she can control amidst all this change in her life. I’m inclined to think this might be the case.

It’s been an interesting week trying to sort through all of this in my head. This process for me I think has been made much harder with my pregnancy-hormone-charged emotions, and I also think that is making my fuse that much shorter and wearing my patience with her thin far more quickly than it should.  Mayana is an absolute delight, and even at her worst she’s really never a naughty kid. It’s tricky finding a balance between where to give her a bit of leeway, understanding that she is just trying to process how much her life has changed in the past few weeks, and not wanting to let her get away with too much and create bad habits. I just adore her so much, and on our bad days, when I know that I’ve snapped at her too much, my heart hurts so bad when I go in at night to kiss her while she’s sleeping. She’s so gorgeous and smart and brave and I am so blessed to be her Mama and I want to be the Mama that she deserves.

I love being a Mum, and most days I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job. But this week has definitely been tough.

Consider my thoughts provoked.

I was catching up on the blogs I love to read and came across this post from my friend Talia’s blog. You should pop over and read it.

It’s left me pondering Big Things ever since.

A lot to do with the election. This will be the second federal election I have had the opportunity to vote in. I choose to consider my right and responsibility to vote as a privilege, and I don’t take it lightly. I do a lot of reading, a lot of watching (though admittedly I don’t take much notice of the pathetic propaganda-like mud-slinging TV ads – they make me seethe, and I think it’s pretty embarrassing how pathetic our pollies can be), and a lot of talk to people. I want to make an informed choice when I vote, and I want my vote to count. And Talia made some points which I totally identify with.

And like Talia, I’ve been thinking about lots of other Big Things too. Like, next year. Getting a job. Well, for that matter – this year and finishing uni would be a good start! The fact that the thought of working full time and therefore having Mayana in daycare full time makes me want to cry. Whether I’d be happy doing relief work or something part time. Whether that’s even a choice anyway – it might end up being my only option for all I know.

Uni is so scary at the moment – everyone’s always talking about the Big Scary Unknown, and using all these education-related acronyms, talking about Ten Standards and Roadmaps and Action Research Projects and Literature Reviews. It makes me feel like I don’t know enough ‘stuff’ to be a good teacher, and I can’t wait to go out on prac where I know I’m doing the thing I was made to do.

Prac is only three weeks away now, which is pretty darn exciting, but also makes me  feel the need to ask for a paper bag (you know, so I don’t hyperventilate). And it’s only 15 weeks until we pack up and leave this place!

So yeah, lots of things to think about. And I promise you, this brain never stops ticking. It’s somewhat exhausting actually. So thanks for letting me ‘blah’ here :-)

Off to find a paper bag…

Just breathe and....

Fourth year of uni is scary man! Last week we had a ‘transitions to teaching’ session with a regional representative from the Department of Education and Training – telling us all about the processes we have to go through to become employed by Education Queensland.

I don’t think there was a one of us who wasn’t feeling a slight element of panic by the time the session finished.

It’s scary stuff! In the next few months we have to start applying for teacher registrations, and looking at submitting our portfolios to Ed Qld. Already!! We’ll have interviews with EQ in September/October, and be given a suitability rating, and then in the next month or so after that we’ll be getting job offers. Well, hopefully anyway! At the transitions session they made it sound like no one is getting jobs. I think the statistics they showed us were a bit skewed though because they were only referring to people who were offered permanent positions, and most graduates seem to get contracts - so a lot more people are actually teaching now than what their charts let on.

I’m really ticked off because my hubby asked the representative what would be the processes considering we’re a married couple both looking for teaching positions. She basically told him that whichever of us gets offered a job first, to take that one and both move ‘out there’ and the other can do supply work. Um. Okay. So only one of us is allowed to actually teach??? What if we get placed in a town which has a one-teacher school? One of us has to take a day off so the other can do supply work? Stupid system.

Speaking of which, it doesn’t sit right with me at all that you can’t choose where you want to work. They can just pick you up and plonk you wherever they see fit, and then you’re stuck there for at least two years! Sucks to be us, born on the coast, all our families are there and we have buckleys chance of getting a job there unless we commit to a few years in the middle of whoop whoop first.

Of course, this is all assuming we’ll work for EQ. Which I don’t want to, and have never wanted to. Independent schools all the way baby. Heck, I’d even be happy to do a few units of theology at the Australian Catholic University and teach for CathEd.

I’m holding onto my dream of getting a job at the school I did highschool at. That’s the goal.. the ideal. We’ll see I suppose.

I’m still not 100% sold on even going through the EQ interview process. You can do supply work in state schools without having done an EQ interview, and if you work somewhere other than for EQ, your interview only lasts for two years… so if for example I managed to pick up some contracts at a private school, and then wanted to look at working in a state school, I’d have to do another interview anyway!!!

At this point we’re thinking that if I don’t manage to land a job in a private school (and Pete does get a job) then I’ll look at having another baby sooner rather than later, and do supply work or short-term contracts in the meantime. And if I do get a job in a private school, I’ll teach for a couple of years (or whatever it takes to get maternity leave) first. *sigh*. Who knows!?

I have a friend who graduated last year, and she hasn’t been able to get anything and has gone back to teacher-aiding part time. The thought of going through four years of university with nothing at the end of it makes me feel a bit ill.

I’m also not coping well with the fact that we have NO IDEA what we’ll be doing next year. We can’t plan anything beyond our final prac, and that big question mark that’s left hanging scares the bejeezes out of me.

I’m trying my very hardest to hand it all over to God and remember that he has ALWAYS pulled through for us, time and time again. But I’m having trouble letting go, and my brain doesn’t stop nagging me, and at times I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of an anxiety attack all day.

Gah. Must stop thinking.

Not a good week for me and cameras…

Earlier in the week Mayana was doing something super cute, which needed a photo. So I grabbed our beautiful new camera and… nothing! Oh dear. How to tell my husband that our beautiful, new, expensive dream-camera will not turn on!

He took it from me and pressed buttons and fiddles – still nothing! Oh dear indeed. Until I wondered… could it be the batteries? Mad rush trying to find toys of Mayana’s with AA batteries to test. And yes. That’s all it was. A case of flattened batteries. Some very clever person (me) had left the camera on, rendering the batteries, and therefore the camera, dead.

So sad. Of course by then Mayana’s cute moment was gone and I can’t even remember now what it was! So, so sad.

But it wasn’t over.. oh no, I’m telling you it really, truly hasn’t been a good week for me and cameras.

Next cute moment of Mayana’s, I ran for my trusty old point-and-shoot. It turned on… it focussed… and then… it FROZE!

Not good. It wouldn’t even turn off – I had to take the batteries out. This happened quite a few times in a row before I realised that it was freezing every time it tried to charge the flash. So I turned the flash setting off and finally got some photos happening.  Then suddenly it started wanting to use the flash of its own accord. Then a massive flash and crack…. and bye-bye flash.

So my trusty old point-and-shoot is not so trusty at the moment. Oh it still works in perfect lighting, but with a twirling, never-stop-moving Mayana Berry sometimes a flash is just the ticket.

And we only today had time to get batteries for our new and very expensive camera.

So sadly, we are lacking in photos of Mayana this week.

We’re going to go for a picnic tomorrow, just the three of us, so I’ll see what we can come up with.

Good new is, Pete is thinking about buying me a new point-and-shoot for my birthday!

picture courtesy oneeyeopen at Etsy

lonely is so lonely alone

We’ve lived her for four years come January, and I still somehow feel like an outsider.

I’m not homesick like I used to be in the first year, when we’d come back from our numerous trips ‘home’ and I’d curl up on our bed and cry because I didn’t want to be here. I’m relaxed here now. I’m happy in my space, my house. And not unhappy in this town, just not totally happy. Lonely.

Sundays are hardest. Because growing up, Sundays, after church, we would almost always either have people over or go to someone’s house or do something. Here not so much. Maybe 3 times this year. If that.

And it just makes me a wee bit sad. I miss having PEOPLE! This is not a small town, but it totally has that small town vibe. It’s hard to get ‘in’. People have either lived here forever or are married to someone who has, and they have family and lives here.

Don’t get me wrong, we do have friends, there are people here that I will miss when we leave, I’m just not so sure that this town will miss me, or notice when we leave.

My gorgeous hubby is the best, and things would be crap without him. Most days he’s (and Mayana of course) all I have. We only see each other, speak to each other. And it’s great, I love him beyond anything, but sometimes I just wish I had a girlfriend.. someone who I could ring anytime- no wait, someone who would actually think to ring ME and want to spend time with me.

One more year. One more year.

Things that bug me…

* My neighbour’s smoking that continuously wafts through my house all day. She goes out for a smoke almost every half hour. Our front doors are adjacent and less than 3 metres apart. I can even smell her cigarettes down the hallway in Mayana’s room when the wind is right. It SUCKS! I refuse to sit with all my windows shut all summer.

* The way my neighbour shrieks at her children all day. I would go and ask her if she could smoke around the corner in her garden or something, but I’m too scared of her yelling at me that way. I haven’t heard her speak to her children in anything but a harsh tone once. And I hear a lot of what she says because she’s always yelling it.

* People in those stands at the shops – the ones that want to try some handcream on you or sell you austar or something, and they nag at you to come and try stuff out/buy stuff. Don’t accost me when I’m trying to just do my shopping in peace. If I wanted to try your stupid product I would go over to you and ASK!

* The bill that I just got for the pathology for my recent pap smear. It’s for almost twice the amount my doctor told me it would be. Hopefully I’ll get some back from medicare.

* That my reindeer wall decal Christmas decoration isn’t sticking properly.

* The creatures that have taken residence in the roof in our bedroom. They keep me awake and drive me batty. I hope they inhale fibreglass fibres from our new insulation and die a painful death. Or at least eat the ratbait Pete put up there. And die a painful death.

* The fact that all the good shows are ending and crappy summer ratings TV is beginning.

And I think that’s about it for today.

technology is being mean to me

On Tuesday, my beloved phone went stupid, and it wasn’t making any noise – so I couldn’t hear it ring etc. And the microphone wasn’t working either. So if I tried to ring someone, they couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t hear them. Luckily, I just turned it off and back on and it came back to life.

Yesterday, my computer went stupid. It totally froze while I was checking my emails, and wouldn’t come back to life. So I turned it off, and when I tried to turn it back on, it informed me that it couldn’t launch Windows. I went into a panic. My photos! All my photos and videos of Mayana that I haven’t backed up on the external hard-drive for at least two months! I can’t have my computer die just before my final year of uni. I can’t afford a new computer- I’m not even sure if I can afford to pay someone to fix this computer! You know, the whirl of panic when your head thinks up every worse case scenario all at once and your heart starts to race and your legs feel a little shaky.

It came up with an option to have it search for fixes for the problem. Um. Yes please! I decided to go have a shower while it did its thing. Better for the nerves than watching the little worm slowly progress across the screen.

It was still going after my shower. Then it asked me if I’d like to make it revert back to a time when my computer was working properly. Yes please. About half an hour later, it finally turned on. It’s been working fine since. Thank the Lord!

Today, I was deleting old photos of my camera. It has an option where you can select the photos you want to delete and then press a button and it deletes them all. So I’m trying to do this, and the stupid thing deletes all the things I DIDN’T select. Including some new videos of the Mayana Berry that I hadn’t put onto my computer yet. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Just now, I was doing some stuff on my puter while watching TV, and everything turns off. Except the lights. Something was flicking the safety switch. Peter runs around unplugging things and trying it again… and eventually works out that it’s the extension lead that the phone is plugged into. Why? Because water has dripped on it from our dish-rack and it is pretty much full of water. Hooley Dooley. Hands up those who are grateful for inventions like safety switches right now!?!?!? *ME!!!!*.

They say these things run in threes. Well I’ve had four, and I’m over it.

Puh-lease technology, let’s be friends again!?!?