Moving Day

I’ve moved – please join me at http://amandahenley.com/

21 weeks

Golly has it been so long!

The Baby is 21 weeks now and that is well over the half way mark. Last night as I sat in my once tidy lounge room, at risk any moment of being crushed by falling piles of baby stuff, I realised I only had a couple of months to finish getting things ready for him. (Yes, for him! It’s a blue flavoured baby!)

This is a problem since upstairs is not yet complete, in fact I suspect my builder skipped town a few weeks ago after he put both legs through the loungeroom ceiling from the room above. It’s great for air flow but I wish he’d answer his damn phone and come and fix it already!

In the greater scheme of things however, this is nothing to worry about. I’m healthy, happy, and getting rounder by the day. 2011 is going to be an interesting year!

Weighing the Options

Yesterday, on a crowded train to the city, a lady gave up her seat for me, while eyeing my belly, and murmuring to me “You sit down, dear”. Not before giving the stinkeye to the man next to her, and muttering something to him that sounded a little like “you disgusting pig of a man with no respect”.

I took the seat, and said thanks. However I’m not ‘showing’ yet, so am now confused between my two obvious options. I either never wear THAT outfit again, or I make sure I wear that outfit any day I am feeling a bit lazy and feel like sitting down all the way to work.

I made an error in judgement earlier today. Pre-natal vitamins  generally have lots of iron in them. That can be rather… er… clogging to one’s system. So I bought a large bag of dried fruit and a small one of prunes, mixed them up in a jar, and thought I could have a small handful of dried fruit each day to see if that helped. Dried fruit tastes pretty good, and I am greedy. Bad move. Let’s just agree that I should spend the next few hours being very careful not to go near any exposed flames or I think I might explode.

Too Much Caffeine is Bad For You

Yesterday I splurged and got myself a weak flat white. Apparently the universe was trying to tell me to cut out the caffeine, because it did not end well.

I sat at my desk, and put the take away coffee up to my mouth. The lid was not on the cup properly. I poured the entire cup of coffee all down my once crisp white shirt.

I raced to the bathroom, took the shirt off and rinsed it under the tap to get as much coffee out as I could. Then I realised we don’t have hand dryers in the bathrooms, they are stocked with paper towels. Fantastic, now I was in a wet, see through white shirt.

I ended up running down to the gym change rooms (yes, work has a gym. no, I have never used it.) and drying my shirt with a hair-dryer. I wandered around for the rest of the day being followed by the faint aroma of coffee.

Keeping Clean

My new cleaner charges bugger all per hour, but has a minimum of 4 hours she charges. My house is a renovation nightmare upstairs (as in, floor boards are up and it’s a no-go zone) so all she needs do is downstairs. There’s not 4 hours worth of work there, which I’ve been sort of ok with as long as she doesn’t charge any extra when the upstairs is in a state of completeness and needing a clean as well. Which might actually happen soon, finally, given the sudden need for a nursery around here within the next 6 or 7 months. The basic tasks seem to be taking less and less time though, and she doesn’t ever seem to think to do extra things, like the cobwebs near the ceiling, or dusting the fans, or wiping down the blinds.

I’ve written that off to thinking she was a few kangaroos short in the top paddock. Today I discovered why.

Yesterday I left her a note letting her know that I’d be leaving suggestions for extra jobs to be done each week, since the current workload was taking less than 2 hours and she is still being paid for 4 hours. So if she wouldn’t mind cleaning my (filthy, filthy) oven as well as the normal cleaning, the gloves and cleaner were waiting for her in the kitchen.

I got home last night to find a sparkly oven. I felt pretty proud. Like I’d won a battle or something. Even though the cleaner’s been doing less than 2 hours work for months and being paid for 4 every week. Who’s the silly one again?

This morning I awoke to a missed call from the cleaner, from late – after 10:30pm. I was well and truly asleep by then, having well and truly lost my ability to keep my eyes open past 8 lately. The message left sounded a little urgent – please ring as soon as possible.

I called her, quite convinced that she was about to sack me. Another cleaner bites the dust. I envisaged her having stewed over the indignity of cleaning burnt on sweet potato and cauliflower cheese for a good hour or two yesterday and deciding she’d had enough. Not so – she had lost some medication and wondered if it had fallen out of her bag at my house.

She rambled on for a while as I searched around for a paper pharmacy bag. She’d gotten quite frantic last night it seems, even calling the police and telling them someone must have climbed over her balcony and stolen her medicine. Woah, that must be some flu or whatever going on over there!

I did find the paper bag and reassured her I would drop it off on the way to work since I was driving past. If only I wasn’t such a busybody. If only I had not looked at what was in the bag before I sailed off to drop it over to her. Then? I wouldn’t know that my cleaner is on the methadone program.

Pillow Talk

The other night the boyfriend shook me awake to tell me something important.Th conversation must have gone on for about 10 minutes. Here’s a summary of how it went.

BF: We do slapperdicktomies now!

Me: Wha?? what?

BF: Slapperdicktomies!

Me: What’s a slapperdicktomy?

BF: A penis transplant, silly! We can put one wherever guys want an extra one. Or if girls want to try it!

Me: *uncontrollable laughter*

BF: What?

Me: So how did this come about?

BF: Someone left one behind! How cool is that!

Cool’s not exactly the word I would have picked. He clearly belongs with me.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!

This little vegemite also wasn’t expecting to be given a referral to the obstetrics outpatients clinic this morning.

(If I was expecting it I at least would have covered that type of thing on my bloody expensive – and useless – private health care, under which I deliberately cut out services related to my current “condition” as a covered item because I’ll never need that!)

Unexpected does not necessarily mean unwelcome – just very, very unplanned!

Now excuse me while I go and stare, shocked look on my face, out the window for a good while longer.

Meat Mayhem

The new local is clearly on a drive for new punters. Case in point: $2 steaks.

Well, $2 for the steak, $2 extra for the chips, actually, but a $4 steak and chips still sounds pretty good to me. The Boyfriend had a real splurge and went another $2 for salad. Wednesday nights may never be the same…

One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor

According to Ted’s Mum, nothing good ever happens after 2am. I beg to differ. Late last night I found myself drinking my friend’s invention of tequila and Red Bull. It sounds disgusting but tastes delicious! However, based on how chipper my household was this morning (not at all), I should really remember the next time I fnd myself drinking spirits that it is probably time to go home. Anyway, we were trying out a new local pub that’s just been renovated nearby – a few of us are tiring of The Local and some of the politics that go on there, so we’re thinking we might move en masse to this other pub. Good plan for me – it’s only a 2 block walk from my house as opposed to a 15 minute walk to the other one!

Just on 2:30 I found myself deep in conversation with one of my friends who is a total player. (He actually got chased by a guy with a golf club on our way to the pub last night after he stopped to lean in  girl’s car window, said “Nice car” and tried to chat her up. Her boyfriend wasn’t such a fan of this approach. I laughed my head off to see him running towards our taxi being chased by a lunatic wielding a golf club.) This friend not only tries to be a ladies man, but also is one of those typical Aussie sterotypes – a tough tradie (he’s the one helping me renovate my house) who shows no emotion, he’s far too tough.

I find it pretty funny that after several too many lemonades my tough friend can be very affectionate. In fact he once cracked 2 of my ribs giving an over enthusiastic hug. So it was not a complete surprise when he looked at me suddenly with a look of comple surprise and said “You know, I really love you. And I don’t even want to sleep with you! I’ve never had a platonic female friend, ever! It’s pretty cool.”

It is pretty cool.

Keep your Eyes on the Pies

Big news has been on the horizon here for a while, and it’s finally come to pass. Yes, I have hot water again! 5 weeks after it blew up! 5 weeks of winter weather after it blew up, to be more specific. I had the longest most satisfying hot shower ever after the plumber left my place on Friday. Now that spring is just around the corner, I have the hot water again. No wonder I had a cough that sounded like a seal barking for so long. This old abused body is used to the creature comforts, thankyouverymuch

The best winter food I have found to beat the winter chills has been my new party pie maker. I have had a pie maker for years. Until The Boyfriend cleaned it for me the other week, snapping the clip that holds it shut and rendering it useless forever. The new ones that make standard size pies have a much shallower mould than my old one, so I didn’t really fancy replacing it with something I wasn’t a fan of. Then I spied the party pie maker.

Yum yum, these are a snap to make, and now every day feels like a party! OK, that might be a little over the top but who doesn’t love a pie! Plus it makes quiches and other bits and pieces as well. (No, I’m not being paid by Breville to say this.)

There were 2 flavours on offer in this selection – chicken, leek and mushroom or beef and tomato. Delicious. Hot. Which apparently steams up the lens on the phone-camera.I might try this method next time someone takes a photo of me – a sort of tasty soft focus trick.